Track of the Apocalypse Ch13 Ficbit – Nue Problems

And now Dogen was listening, Daniel realized. There’s something Ayame didn’t tell him? Oh boy.

“The Hunters believe Fused Colonies form when one rare Kabane, a Nue, is created among a horde,” Kurusu went on. “From what witnesses have seen, the Kabane steel reaches out of them, and bodies begin to fly toward them. Then the mass moves as one being, to hunt and stalk; or to come over station walls, as one did at Yashiro.”

“And Kongokaku,” Minister Yamazaki stated.

Kurusu shook his head minutely, blue eyes cold. “Biba created that Nue inside Kongokaku.”

Dogen sat bolt upright, eyes flashing. But the Elder held himself silent, lips pressed into a thin, pale line.

Daniel kept his own gulp quiet, even as Jack twitched in a way that said the colonel was swearing under his breath. Ayame had kept this under her hat? How?

Why, he could guess already. Bad enough to think stations were safe, then suddenly find out they weren’t. If Hi-no-Moto’s enemies went from Kabane hordes to multiple Fused Colonies-

They’d all be dead. The only question would be how fast.

“The researcher was… sparse in details, and I was pressed for time,” Kurusu noted. “He said they had created a serum, the Black Blood, from something of the Kabane Biba had captured.” He breathed out, a pattern of calm. “We are fortunate. It proved difficult for them to manufacture, and any remaining doses went up with the Kokujou.”

Blew up with the Kokujou was being used to sweep a lot of mess under the rug, Daniel thought, bemused. Then again, it looked like Ikoma had had very good reasons to blow it up. Even if he’d done it by accident.

Note to self: Stand way back if Ikoma gets any C-4.

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