Page 98 of Knot Their Fated M.U.S.E

The words taste like poison in the autumn air, suggesting abdication of everything institutional experience taught me about survival and self-determination.

As if six years of external existence wearing someone else's identity could somehow erase what Ravenscroft carved into my bones through systematic conditioning and enhancement protocols.

"Normal?" I repeat, the question emerging with dangerous quiet that makes him pause in reloading his weapon. "Define normal. How does one become normal after what sinister madness I was put through?"

His response comes without hesitation, delivered with the same clinical detachment institutional researchers employ when discussing experimental outcomes rather than human consequences.

"Figure it out," he states with dismissive finality. "Or use the talents you acquired in there to be useful rather than dwelling on circumstances you cannot change."

Use the talents. Be useful.

The casual suggestion that I weaponize my institutional conditioning for productive purposes proves to be the final straw in a conversation already stretched beyond rational limits.

Years of suppressed rage crystallize into perfect clarity as understanding dawns with devastating force.

He doesn't see me as a daughter who survived trauma and deserves consideration for what that survival cost. He sees me as an asset whose enhanced capabilities should be leveraged for practical benefit rather than a source of ongoing complications or emotional difficulty.

Before he can raise the pistol to resume his target practice, my hand moves with fluid speed that institutional training has burned into muscle memory. His weapon disappears from his grip so quickly he doesn't register the theft until cold metal presses against his temple with enough force to create a visible indentation in his skin.

The first shot takes out the leftmost target—perfect center mass despite my inverted grip and unconventional stance.

The second follows immediately, finding its mark with identical precision.

Third, fourth, fifth—each bullet striking dead center of successive targets with accuracy that exceeds his best performance despite years of practice and military training.

Five shots.

Five perfect hits.

Five demonstrations of exactly what those "talents" institutional conditioning provided look like when properly applied.

The smoking barrel finds its way to his temple as the echoes of gunfire fade into autumn silence. His body has gone rigid with terror—fight-or-flight response activating too late to prevent the lightning-fast disarmament that left him helpless in the hands of the weapon he helped create.

"If I wanted to use the talents they taught me in the depths of Parazodiac," I whisper against his ear, voice carrying deadly calm that contrasts sharply with the violence of the precedingdemonstration, "you'd be dead before you could think to say such bullshit."

His breathing comes in shallow gasps that speak to genuine fear rather than mere surprise.

For the first time in this conversation—perhaps for the first time since my extraction—he's seeing me not as a grateful recipient of purchased freedom but as a product of institutional conditioning that turned children into weapons through systematic application of trauma and enhancement.

The gun feels natural in my hand despite years spent avoiding such implements.

Muscle memory guides finger placement and weight distribution with unconscious precision that speaks to the extensive training he was never meant to witness or acknowledge.

This is what his money purchased—not just my freedom but my transformation into something that transcends normal omega designation through methods too brutal for civilian comprehension.

I unload the remaining ammunition with practiced efficiency, cartridges falling to manicured grass with metallic chimes that mark a tempo of controlled violence.

The empty weapon hits the ground beside his feet with deliberate finality—demonstration concluded, lesson delivered with educational precision that leaves no room for misinterpretation.

"Maybe when those checks stop rolling in," I state with quiet certainty as I step back from his frozen form, "when Nyx is fucking dead and your financial incentive for continued silence ends, maybe then you'll feel an ounce of regret for what you've done."

His face remains pale as the autumn sky, eyes wide with shock that suggests genuine surprise at my capabilities despite knowing exactly where those skills were acquired.

The cognitive dissonance proves almost amusing—acknowledging institutional conditioning while somehow failing to anticipate its practical applications.

"Only time will tell," I add, turning away from him with dismissive casualness that mirrors his own treatment of my concerns throughout this entire confrontation.

My footsteps carry me across the perfectly manicured lawn toward the house that never felt like home, leaving him standing alone among scattered cartridges and shattered targets.

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