"Mmhmhmhm…"
Kia hummed cheerfully as she skipped down the street. After losing the support of the lower hive's populace, and with an entire Genestealer cult now hunting them with full force, it was only natural that the heretical ideology of the xenos had been thoroughly purged from the underhive.
Though she felt a twinge of regret that her hunt and sacrifices had to be cut short, deep down she was genuinely delighted to have defended the Emperor's domain.
One day, the Emperor would accept them. She believed that.
With such a pleasant delusion in her heart, Kia passed through the dense crowd. Her kin were currently distributing food rations. Along the way, she noticed more than once someone collecting food, then casually rejoining the queue for another portion. This sight stirred a flicker of irritation—and the impulse to kill—within her.
...Better not kill people randomly.
Kia pouted, forcefully suppressing her desire to carve someone up, and ignored the scene as she stepped into the council chamber. Inside, Roy was deep in discussion with other inner-circle members about their next move.
Saying nothing, Kia took a seat. Matters like this weren't her strength—or rather, as a genetically engineered assassin breed, there was nothing she was good at apart from killing.
If one day killing was no longer necessary, then so too would her existence lose its meaning.
That was a future she genuinely feared.
"We don't need to convert too many. Just weakening the power base of my rivals for High Priest is enough," Roy said, standing over a crude table, discussing the plan with several others. "If necessary, we'll slowly reshape the image of the Emperor."
"Yeah, I didn't think it was a big deal before, but this whole Four-Arms business… it's getting out of hand."
"And the underhive's industrial output too. The goods from those factories, originally meant for the Imperium, have been piling up ever since the routes were sealed. The warehouses are almost full. We need to move them soon or it'll disrupt our future plans."
"Exactly. Some factories have shut down or cut hours. Many of our people are complaining there's no work. They're wasting their lives doing nothing."
"Have them hold out a little longer. The passage shouldn't be closed for too long, but... explaining the origin of all this food might become an issue."
"By the way, where's Doraemon?"
The moment Doraemon was mentioned, Kia—who had been sitting there quietly like a well-behaved student—perked up. Her eyes gleamed, and she eagerly raised her hand. "He should still be in that wallpaper! Last I saw, he seemed to be investigating something seriously."
"Good. Kia, I need you to watch over our friend. Make sure no one harms him."
Perhaps noticing her boredom, Roy paused his planning to give her this assignment.
"At once!" Kia replied with joy. She liked being given orders—any kind of order. It made her feel like her existence had meaning, like she was needed.
Besides, "protecting" someone basically meant eliminating any potential threats to Doraemon, right?
That was right up her alley.
Kia cheerfully rushed to the Wallpaper House, but the moment she reached the door, a panicked shout came from within:
"Oh no, this is bad!"
"What happened?" Kia quickly drew two bone blades from her waist, then charged forward with strength far beyond a normal human, kicking the door clean off its hinges.
Inside, Doraemon sat before a gadget that looked something like a 3K-era home television—though Kia didn't actually know what a television was—exclaiming in shock.
"You are…?" Doraemon turned around, his face still pale with lingering fear.
"I'm Kia, the one you healed earlier," she said with excitement, mimicking his posture as she knelt beside him. "What's wrong? Who needs chopping?"
"It's not that kind of problem!" Doraemon shook his head vigorously, then tugged on Kia's arm as if seeking help, pointing at the screen. "One of the girls who helped me distribute medicine… I hadn't seen her in a while, so I used the Spy Satellite to look for her. And—look!"
Doraemon's round paw pointed at the screen. On it, a young girl was curled up in a room, cradling a corpse.
Kia instantly realized that wasn't the underhive. The room was far too luxurious—plush red carpet, golden patterns on the walls, an ornate bed with fluffy bedding that screamed wealth.
How the hell did she end up somewhere that fancy?
And more importantly—was there a secret passage they didn't know about?
"I don't know what's going on exactly, but there seems to be a war breaking out in the upper levels of the hive," Doraemon said frantically, clutching his head with his small round hands. "Israelle was captured by one of the factions… and her mother just recently died."
"Ugh, why do people have to fight? Can't they talk things out for once?!"
"If there's no external threat, it's not technically a war," Kia analyzed calmly. "More like a rebellion. The patriarch used to tell us tales from other worlds—about Iron Men and Xenos—and mentioned how uprisings start… but I've never heard of one beginning in the spire hive."
Downhive revolts happen because people can't survive.
But the nobles in the spire rebelling? What the hell are they after?
Kia couldn't wrap her head around it.
"No—she needs rescuing. Now." Doraemon stood up decisively, stuffed the Spy Satellite back into his pocket, then pulled out another gadget: "Anywhere Door!"
With a swift motion, he opened the pink door. Kia followed him without hesitation, moving like a silent phantom.
Israelle still sat numbly in the corner, clutching her mother's corpse. She looked like a lifeless porcelain doll, eyes vacant.
Suddenly, a pink door appeared before her out of thin air.
Israelle's eyes twitched faintly, just in time to see two non-human figures step out from behind the door.
"Don't be scared, it's me," Doraemon said gently, tucking the Anywhere Door away and raising his round paws in a gesture of peace. "We're here to help."
"Help…?" Israelle bit her lip, then forced out a pained reply through gritted teeth. "You… want to take over this world too, don't you?"
"Watch your tongue! The past, present, and future all belong to the Emperor alone!"
Israelle: ?
She looked up in a daze at the strangely beautiful yet clearly non-human girl, with deep purple skin and a pronounced carapace plate on her forehead.
Wait… aren't you a xenos?
A xenos worshipping the Emperor?
"Anyway, what exactly happened here?" Doraemon pulled out the Time Cloth and gently covered the corpse. "Why did fighting suddenly erupt here too?"
"It was the youngest son of the Harkonnen family who started the rebellion," Israelle said with a bitter smile. "They said my grandfather was the Planetary Governor… so they want to keep me alive to unlock some kind of gene-verification mechanism."
She had never imagined that the father she'd never even met would turn out to be the son of a Planetary Governor.
But what did it matter?
Her mother was dead. The person she loved most was gone.
"…Mom…"
She clutched the corpse tightly, as though trying to release all her grief and longing.
And then, the body in her arms suddenly twitched.
"S-Softly…"
"Eh?"
Israelle looked down in shock, just as the corpse began to tremble. A delicate, porcelain-like arm lifted shakily and pulled the Time Cloth from her face, revealing a devastatingly beautiful expression that no planetary governor's son could possibly resist.
"...Can't… breathe…"
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH———"