OP Sister Chapter 425: Raven

Listen While Reading: 曖昧ナ希望/氷雨
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Zero One and her sisters started running through the large hall, aiming for the hole to get to the fourth layer. 

“Hey! Who are you? Where did you come from?” 

However, one of the guards quickly noticed their presence, and three more came after them. 

“They’re not professors or doctors from here!”

“They infiltrated the facility?!”

“Catch them!” 

Zero One panicked as she looked at her sisters. 

“RUN!” 

The trio ran as fast as they could across the immense area, jumping over desks, tubes filled with cables, and several other pieces of unknown technology.

Three, and then two more guards joined the group chasing them, beginning to run around the area and trying to surround them. 

“Dammit, are we going to get surrounded now?!” Zero Two asked. “We don’t have time for this!” 

“Hm, seems like we’ll have to use violence…”

“It’s necessary.” 

The Zero Three twins, who were a bit colder than their big sisters, already began to consider the possibility of using violence to solve their problems. 

“W-Wait! Don’t attack them! They’re humans! We cannot harm them!” 

Zero One stopped them, and the girls… were unable to argue against that. As if an old protocol had activated, they indeed found themselves unable to harm them, even if they thought about it. 

“We’ve got you surrounded!”

“Please raise your hands!”

“Don’t make this harder for us, girls.”

“Who are you, though? Where did you come from?”

“Are you spies from Neo Nex Company?” 

Zero One panicked as she looked at everyone, completely terrified. 

“W-We aren’t! We’re androids! We came here looking for a hole, and we’ll leave through it. Please, can you let us go?” 

“A-Androids?!”

“No such thing exists yet, right?”

“Yeah, even the first one ever made is still a work in progress…”

“No, wait, didn’t the professor use some sort of technology like that with his daughter to help her survive?”

“But that would be more like cyborg technology, right?” 

As the guards discussed, they slowly walked toward the girls, taking out handcuffs to detain them. 

“WAAAAAIT!” 

However, out of nowhere, the voice of a little girl echoed through the hall, and many of the professors, engineers, and doctors in the vicinity glanced in surprise.

The guards looked at the origin of that voice, noticing an adorable little girl, no older than five years of age, walking barefoot toward them.

She wore only a white dress and had long, silky, silvery-white hair and golden eyes.

However, she looked very weak, using a cane to walk properly, with several white-colored cloths wrapped around her body.

She looked sickly, with a tired expression, but her eyes still carried the innocence and brightness of a child. 

“T-That’s…? The chief professor’s daughter?”

“Lady Raven…?”

“W-What’s wrong?”

“Shouldn’t you be in your bed, Raven?” 

The girl stepped onto the scene, standing in front of the girls and smiling at them.

Zero One was left flabbergasted as she looked at her. It was…

It was so shocking to her; she looked utterly stunned. 

“They’re my friends! Please don’t be rude to them! I invited them here. They’re… my online friends!” said Raven. “And this is… uh, my cousin! See? We look a lot alike!” 

“C-Cousin?” Zero One wondered, glancing at little Raven in surprise. “I…!” 

“So that’s your cousin? She said she was an android, though…” 

“A-Ahahah, she was joking! We like to play!” 

“Uh…”

“Okay, then…”

“We’ll report this to the guard station, though.” 

The guards relaxed and stepped back as Raven looked at the android girls with a gentle smile. 

“Phew, that was close! It’s been a while since I’ve seen a new face! Where did you girls come from?” 

Raven quickly guided them farther away from the guards and looked at them with curiosity. 

“We come from…” Zero One muttered, unsure what to even say. “We…” 

“We come from the future,” Zero Two said. 

“T-The future? Wow!” Raven said. “So you’re really androids?” 

“Yes…”

“We are.” 

The Zero Three twins nodded, looking at Raven with tender eyes.

She was nothing but a clump of data, a fleeting memory of who she once was.

And yet…

Why did they feel so moved by her presence?

This was…

The last human, after all.

The endling of a species that prospered and created a great legacy on their planet.

And also, their creators. 

“That’s so cool! I’m a robot too!” she said. “Look!” 

The girl took off the white bandage around her left arm, showing the girls it was a mechanical arm similar to theirs, with synthetic skin on top but with clear lines here and there that showed it was synthetic. 

“A-Ah…” 

Zero One’s hand was touched by hers, and she felt a spark.

Both girls suddenly looked into each other’s eyes for a moment.

And peeked through each other’s eyes as well. 

“Huh?!”

“Wha…?” 

For a moment, it felt like both were inhabiting each other’s bodies…

But then, as their hands separated, they went back to normal. 

“W-What was that? What… did I see? Huh? It was like I was looking at myself!” Raven said. 

“I-I…” Zero One fell silent. “I don’t know… Ah, there it is… T-The hole!” 

The girl pointed into the distance. There was a huge hole right behind the Supercomputer that was being created.

That was her Mother, who had yet to be born into the Mother she knew. 

“It’s right behind Mother, guarded by nobody… I wonder why it isn’t guarded?” Zero Two wondered. 

“It’s better for us, anyway. Let’s go!” said Zero Three A. 

“Yeah, let’s hurry… Zero One, we’re still in just a data world. She’s not… the real Raven,” Zero Three B whispered to Zero One. 

“I know…” Zero One nodded, although she moved very slowly as Raven walked by their side. 

“Where are you going? Oh! There’s a hole there?! I had no idea! Since when?” 

Raven was surprised once she saw that hole, which she had never seen before! 

“Are you going through there? Will I go to the future with it too?” Raven wondered. 

“It would be better if you didn’t come with us…” Zero One sighed. “Wouldn’t your parents get sad, Raven?” 

“Oooh…” Raven was surprised. “Hmm, yeah! You’re right… But will you come back one day? I want to talk more with my friends from the future!” 

The girl was very talkative, using every second to speak with them.

It was very clear she was actually very lonely.

She just wanted to have friends. 

“I…” Zero One looked at Raven one last time as she entered the hole where her sisters had gone through. “Yes… We’ll come back.” 

“Pinky promise?” she asked as the little girl walked toward Zero One, showing her prosthetic arm’s pinky finger. 

“Pinky… promise…” Zero One nodded as their little fingers touched. 

And then, she went through the hole, using her blade of light and purifying it as she descended. 

FLAAASH!

The hole rapidly healed as the infectious data within it dissipated.

Once she fell through the hole and landed somewhere, she and her sisters looked around.

The fourth layer out of five. The next one would be the final layer.

But what was this place?

There wasn’t a ruined city or an underground laboratory here, but a weird nest of black and red crystals, made of crystallized, corrupted data everywhere.

The crystals created a strange cave with several corridors, and they constantly glowed, releasing corrupted data that spread everywhere. 

“W-Where are we?” Zero Two asked. “Is this the fourth layer?” 

“Yes…”

“It is.” 

The Zero Three twins looked around, nodding as they looked at Zero One, who was still thinking about what she had gone through at that moment. 

“Big sister…” Zero Three A called her. “Where is this place?” 

“Huh? Ah!” Zero One gasped as she looked around. “T-This… is this entire layer infected?!” 

Indeed, to their surprise, the entire Fourth Layer was infected with corrupted data.

This immediately made sense to Zero One. 

“This is why Mother must be so corrupted…” she muttered. “I cannot even begin to imagine how the fifth layer could be…” 

“What do we do? Can we even clean this entire place?” Zero Two wondered. 

“It’s possible, with our power… yeah,” Zero One nodded. “Let’s combine our Auras and then release a powerful shockwave. I’ll use the surrounding Data to expand it and clean the entire place.” 

“That easy?!” Zero Three A asked. 

“Seems like we’re stronger than we thought,” Zero Three B said. 

“I mean, it’s a digital world in the end. Its level of difficulty still cannot compare to the real world,” Zero One said. “And those Elementals and the giant bug we defeated before did make our Data stronger and more robust… It should be possible to at least do something of this caliber now.” 

Zero One extended her hands as her sisters grabbed them, forming a circle.

And as this happened, something within the infected layer noticed their auras, their light. 

“Now, let’s connect our Digital Auras!” 

FLAAASH!

Zero One fused her sisters’ Auras into her own, and they suddenly began glowing incredibly bright.

For a moment, they resembled a beautiful sun or a golden star.

And yet… 

RUMBLE!

Something began rushing toward them, something gigantic. 

“GRUOOOHHHH!” 

A massive bug-like monstrosity made of crystallized corrupted data.

It was the guardian of the fourth layer himself, the sole inhabitant of this corrupt landscape. 

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