The gate opens, but not fully.
Yuna says,
"Come on, this is our chance!!"
She turns her head to the others, only to see Rex shaking the sleeping Eva and pulling her closer.
"Seriously, just wake up, we don't have time!!"
Eva gets up in a daze after Yuna screams at her.
Sunny sighs and thinks to himself that this mission is already a failure.
Everyone hurries and slips through the gap that opened when the gate lifted.
As soon as they enter, they run toward a group of crates, where the team splits into two pairs.
Sunny and Eva go to the right, while Rex and Yuna go to the left.
Sunny looks back and sees the gate closing behind him—there's no turning back now.
He turns his head forward and sees guards inspecting the crates.
Sunny asks in a low voice,
"What do we do now?"
The girl beneath him replies in an annoyed tone,
"Idiot!! Did you really forget what we're supposed to do??"
Sunny is surprised to hear her voice for the first time. He didn't expect it to be this sharp—he thought it would be soft or calm or something like that.
Eva lifts her head toward him, stares at his face with an annoyed look, then says,
"Idiot!! Just get into one of those big crates and follow my lead."
Sunny thinks to himself: Seems like he misunderstood her… she's more competent than him.
Sunny is annoyed by that thought like a selfish child but stays quiet and follows her orders.
He sneaks toward the crates and hides inside one of them.
On the other side, both Rex and Yuna hide inside large crates that fit their size.
Eva stays near the crate but, for some reason, refuses to hide inside. She looks left and right, takes out a red apple from her pocket, and starts eating it.
Through the cracks, Sunny sees Eva eating the apple with irritation. At that moment, he feels nothing but annoyance and anger toward her. He jumps out of the crate, forgetting that he's supposed to stay hidden.
"What the hell are you doing, idiot??"
"Huh? What's that sound?"
Because of Sunny's foolish exit, a loud opening sound is made.
Sunny realizes his mistake and quickly gets back inside.
A guard runs toward the sound, and as he reaches a sharp right turn, Eva pushes her hand toward his face and whispers,
"You saw nothing... just go back to where you were."
And indeed, the guard turns around and goes back.
Sunny sees this unfold before him, his eyes wide.
How did she make him return so calmly??
Eva sighs deeply; they were nearly exposed because of Sunny's foolishness.
Eva scolds Sunny for his stupidity using the earphones.
"Idiot! We almost got caught because of your recklessness!!"
Sunny had nothing to say. He thought Eva would be a burden, and that he would be able to cover for her—but she ended up covering for him. Even though he didn't understand how, she did.
Calmly, Eva continued,
"Okay, now come toward me quietly."
The three crawl inside their boxes toward Eva, who had finished eating the apple.
As soon as the three are close enough to her, Eva begins secreting a sticky substance from her hand and starts smearing it on the boxes.
After finishing with the three boxes, she coats her own box and gets inside. Sunny refuses to ask or say anything about what she's doing and just follows orders, as do the other two.
Eva whispers through her earpiece,
"Listen, if anyone touches your cardboard boxes, just whisper to them in a way only they can hear and say, 'You don't see this box,' understood?"
Everyone quietly and in sync says, "Yes!"
Even though Sunny didn't understand how the material worked and was disgusted by it, he silently complied.
Eva crawls inside her cardboard box ahead of the group. Whenever she senses someone looking, she stops, and so does everyone else.
They pass by a group opening and checking boxes. One of the soldiers senses movement in the boxes, which makes him suspicious.
"Hey, didn't that box just move?"
His comrade looks at the boxes, then at him, and says sarcastically,
"So what? Are you going to find Big Boss or Solid Snake underneath it?"
With a frown, the man replies,
"No, I'm serious. It moved for a second."
The man walks quietly toward Sunny's box.
"Come on, you're just making excuses not to work, right?"
Ignoring his friend's words, the man gets closer to the box. Sunny's tension rises.
The man touches the box, and in the same second, Sunny whispers to him,
"Just get back to work, you're just slacking off, there's nothing in this box."
The man stays there, touching the box for almost a minute. Sunny's tension builds—has he been exposed or not? His silence is unnerving, and his comrade starts getting nervous too.
"Yo man, are you okay?"
The man suddenly stands, turns to his friend,
"I was just slacking off, haha. Did I scare you?"
His friend relaxes when he realizes he was joking.
"Haha, why would I be scared for you? I'm not your girlfriend or something."
The two laugh, and the team continues crawling forward until they reach the other side.
Once they arrive, Eva peeks her head out and checks the surroundings near them.
"!!Come on, this is our chance."
Everyone exits their boxes—they've passed the first obstacle.
Rex starts stretching,
"Oh, that was really tiring."
Eva stretches and yawns.
"Right, it made me feel sleepy..."
As soon as she says that, Eva collapses to the ground, asleep.
Surprised and annoyed, Sunny says,
"Seriously, what's wrong with her? This isn't the time to sleep, girl!"
Sunny starts poking Eva's stomach with his foot, trying to wake her up.
Rex stops him and says,
"Let her sleep. That's the effect of her ability—once she eats apples and secretes them from her hand, she gets really sleepy."
Sunny looks at the sleeping girl, her blonde hair spread messily on the floor, and says,
"Wait, ability?"
Rex looks at Sunny, realizing he didn't know.
"Oh right, I forgot to tell you. Eva actually has something like a superpower. After eating apples, she can secrete a sticky substance from her hands. If anyone touches it with their skin, they'll follow any command she gives—as long as she says it while they're in contact."
Sunny stays quiet, looking at Eva calmly, thinking she would be a great addition to the Star Thieves crew. At the same time, he feels a nice emotion—a sense that he's more useful than her while she's like that.
Rex carries Eva on his back, and they continue walking.
Quietly, the team enters a room—this room turns out to be the prisoner's clothing storage. Everyone grabs an outfit that fits them. They each grab a name tag and slip it into their pockets.
After some struggle from Yuna to wake Eva up, Eva finally wakes up with effort from Yuna, while the other two just watch.
Finally, Eva puts on her outfit over her clothes and yawns.
"Okay, I... put on the uniform. Can I sleep again now?"
No one answered her, so she took that as approval and tried to sleep again.
Rex sighs again, thinking he'll have to carry her on his back again, while Sunny pats him.
Rex carries Eva on his back and exits through one of the doors.
Yuna leads the way, having memorized the map.
Along the way, Rex starts complaining about the clothes.
"You know what? This prison is committing a crime. How can they bear to make criminals wear such uncomfortable outfits? Okay, maybe it's a punishment for the criminals, but it's still torture."
Sunny politely agrees with his words even though he doesn't care at all.
Rex keeps rambling about fashion and fine taste for about four minutes until Eva, annoyed by his constant talking, slaps him hard.
"Just... shut your damn mouth... and let me sleep."
Sunny smiles after Eva silences Rex—he wasn't interested in Rex's talk either.
---
After about five minutes of quietly walking through corridors and avoiding the guards, they finally reach their goal: the entrance to the first floor, guarded by a group of soldiers.
Yuna turns to the team and says,
"Now this is the most important part of the plan. If we don't do it right, everything we've done is pointless. Got it?"
The team nods, and Rex says with a serious look,
"Right, now it's time to kill them."
Yuna shakes her head quickly, not agreeing with him.
"No!! What do you mean kill them!?"
Sunny tilts his head to the left and says,
"So we just knock them out?"
Yuna shakes her head even faster.
"No, no! Are you crazy? We're not hitting anyone."
Both guys tilt their heads.
"Then what do we do?"
Yuna sighs and says,
"We'll just grab someone and use Eva's substance to make him let us in."
Rex crosses his arms in disappointment, since there won't be any violence.
Rex walks toward a corner, still carrying Eva.
The guards in this area are different from the previous ones. The earlier guards didn't wear armor that covered their skin, but these do—so their only exposed areas are their eyes or jaw.
As one of the guards gets close, Eva starts secreting her substance, half-asleep.
"Seriously, after today's amount, I might sleep forever..."
Rex holds her, helping her not fall.
"Just hang in there for a moment and then sleep forever."
A huge guard approaches. As soon as he comes into their line of sight, Rex grabs Eva and throws her at the guard. Her small body helped.
As soon as she hits his head, the guard falls to the ground, holding his head.
"Ouch... What the..."
Before he can say anything, Eva jumps toward him while he's still on the ground, holding her head with one hand and touching his jaw with the other.
"You will now arrest us and take us to the prison."
The guard stands, turns to the team, and says,
"You, in front of me now. Follow me to your cells."
Everyone stands up—including Eva. Because Rex threw her at such armored force, her head hurt and took away her sleepiness.
She turns to Rex and starts scolding him for throwing her like that.
"Believe me, you don't have any enemy, I swear to God I'll be the number one for you ."
That kind of threat is enough to discipline Rex.
The guard takes the team to the first floor and leads them to their cells. Each one is placed in a separate cell, but they promise to meet the next day.
While the guard was assigning them using the name tags, he noticed something strange. Charles—Sunny—was assigned to the women's section. The guard didn't ask much, but Sunny was completely against the idea.
"Yooo, are you insane? There's no way I'm staying in the women's section, man. I have dignity, you know."
The huge guard ignores Sunny's nonsense and complaints and pulls him by the arm. Comparing Sunny's size to that monster was like comparing a mouse to a bear.
The guard drags Sunny and throws him into the room. Since Sunny was last, no one else in the team saw this embarrassing scene.
Sunny sits on the ground, feeling kind of sad. His manly pride had been wounded.
He stands after a few seconds and decides to sleep a little since he's tired.
As soon as he turns around, he sees a woman with blue hair, wearing a black scarf wrapped around her mouth.
"Oh… hello… I guess you saw what happened earlier… that was kind of embarrassing, to be honest…"
The girl remains silent while Sunny looks at her in silence.
They exchange glances for about three minutes. This is the second type Sunny hates most—after chatterboxes: the silent type.
"Alright… I'll go to sleep. Good night..."
Before Sunny could move, the blue-haired girl says,
"…Sunny…"
Sunny turns to her in shock—how does she know his name?
The strange woman continues,
"Sunny, child number 2007."
"Child number 2007?"
The girl nods silently.
Sunny says all at once,
"Look, I don't know you, but it seems you know me, so… I don't want trouble, please."
As soon as Sunny says this, the woman starts walking toward him calmly.
"Wait, what are you doing?"
Calmly, she says,
"I'm bringing back our missing member."
Sunny didn't understand what she meant.
"Stop speaking in riddles. What do you want from me??"
Calmly, she repeats,
"Like I said, I'm bringing back our missing member."
She gets close to Sunny, but for some reason, his body refuses to move—as if it wanted her to get closer. Is his subconscious perverted or what?
She places her thumb on his forehead and her other thumb on the side of his head above the ear.
As soon as she does that, Sunny's head starts to hurt—a pain he can't bear—but he can't scream. He collapses on the ground, panting.
"What… did you do?..."
In the same calm tone, she says,
"Do you remember now?"
He doesn't understand what she's talking about.
"Remember what?"
The blue-haired girl is surprised by his answer.
"If you still don't remember… okay, we'll leave it for another day."
Sunny collapses on the ground from exhaustion. His vision starts to fade, and the last thing he sees is the blue-haired girl standing before him.