Chapter Text
Silence fell. Heavy and suffocating.
"....Doctor…."
Mobius stood beneath the white light, scalpel in hand, emptily staring at the scene on the operating table. No one could have guessed what she was thinking in that moment, met with a bitter failure that would only join the others before it.
"....Doctor…. maybe -" the assistant mumbled, peeling off the gloves she wore.
Without missing a beat, Mobius whipped her head around. Wavy, green hair bundled into a ponytail swaying behind her. Her eyes glinted in the strong light, contrasting with the shadow that surrounded the rest of the room. She betrayed no emotion in the state she was, features covered by a surgical mask, figure hidden beneath a stiff lab coat
Faintly, the monotonous dripping of blood rang throughout the stale air, pooling at the doctor's feet.
"Maybe what, Klein?" Mobius quipped coldly.
Klein was found speechless, limbs aching against the cold and joints sore from remaining still for too long. And the doctor's words didn't make for much encouragement either, cutting through her mercilessly while her stomach sank.
By now, she was used to Mobius's antics. She was aware of, and understood the nature of this enigma when the majority of others couldn't.
Yet understanding was limited, even to her. And that was made apparent when the gruesome display of something vaguely human lay splayed out on the operating table.
"...Doctor…at this rate…." Klein spoke, louder than before, yet still careful with the words she chose.
Mobius tilted her head to the side, shining the gold earring under the light.
"It's unlike you to object me, Klein,"
she signed, peeling the mask off her face.
"It's for this same reason you should just stick to paperwork. Look at you, you're white as a sheet," Mobius teased.
Klein shook her head disapprovingly, brows creased into a slight frown.
"At this rate, the chances of success won't be worth the sacrifices we've paid for, doctor," the previously meek assistant spoke firmly. She was long prepared to be met with displeasure from the doctor, given by the usual eye roll and click of the tongue. And yet, this time, it seemed Mobius was a little more willing to listen. Just a little.
The doctor turned back to the operating table, casting a final glance at sight before her. The still cold, the crimson that slowly began to dry against the edges….it filled her with a sense of bitterness. Tiresome frustration that made the possibility of success more distant than before. But at the same time, there was a strange fondness to be found.
Failure, after all, was proof of pursuit.
With a sigh, Mobius untied her hair, like green waves falling to her waist like silk.
"Tsk…as much as it annoys me, you're actually right," she said bluntly, dragging her feet across the floor.
"And I doubt the rest of the MOTHs would appreciate my efforts either….they might cut me off entirely," she said with a bitter chuckle.
Klein gave a quiet, relieved sigh, content with the doctor's willingness. She looked up at the doctor with a simple nod, seeing as there was nothing left to be said for the night.
"With that in mind…I'll simply perform the surgery on myself."
Klein's thoughts screeched to a halt.
The words rang on repeat, such a ludicrous and absurd idea nearly shattering the assistant. In addition, the proposal could in no way be treated as lighthearted banter.
The doctor always followed as she spoke, completely serious even when giving the most enigmatic ideas, more than ready to follow through with it
Klein felt her hands quiver, and her eyes growing wide as she stared at the doctor in disbelief.
"Doctor Mobius….if you continue this way-" she paused, keeping her voice low despite her initial anger
"You'll spiral into insanity, Doctor….!"
Silence followed again, lingering ominously, foreboding whatever ill omen yet to follow.
Mobius responded with silence, eyes wide with something that was neither human nor animal.
"Insanity….?" She repeated the words sharply, sending a chill down every inch of the assistant's spine.
And so she let out a harrowed laugh, filling the silent void with something terrifying. Something …manic. The laughter came to a halt when Mobius moved towards Klein, their faces inches away from each other. And now there was something far more sinister behind that coldness, an evil that man could not comprehend.
The doctor stared at Klein with wide eyes, her pupils nothing but slits.
And the very sight was enough to shake Klein. She saw herself reflected in the doctor's glassy eyes, seeing firsthand the fear plastered on her face, just as Mobius had seen her blood smeared features in Klein's.
"Insanity…." She repeated again, more chilling than before. Without warning, she grabbed Klein by the shoulders, bloodstained gloves clashing against the white of her turtleneck.
"...are you suggesting that I've gone mad, Klein?"
The assistant was silent, the tip of her nose barely pressing against the doctor’s. Her breathing hitched, and her limbs froze. A fragile speck compared to the woman who towered before her.
“No, no…you never went mad,” Klein whispered shakily, staring at her own reflection through Mobius’s eyes. Putting her fear aside, the meek assistant found her footing once more, tilting her head upwards ever so slightly.
“But there is a limit to everything, Doctor. If anything goes wrong-” Her words were cut off by Mobius raising a finger, lips curled into an ominous smile.
“You’ve got it wrong from the start, Klein~” she spoke sweetly, the initial coldness now subsided.
“Infinity has no limits. It is perfect, and endless, and beautiful,” she hushed. Mobius stepped back, standing beneath the light again.
“Nothing will go wrong. Don’t worry yourself over the impossible, Klein,” she grinned, eyes narrow and cold.
“What could go wrong between me and myself?”
Klein said nothing, biting back the argument in her mind with a simple nod. There was no reasoning with Mobius, even when pit against uncertainty. An unrelenting greed, an insatiable hunger; these were all traits that shaped the doctor. And were the reason why she had accomplished what she did, just as they had been the source of her past blunders.
A pure desire
A goal grander than any single human could amount to.
Something as vague as infinity that could only be grasped by her.
Mobius peeled her gloves off, switching them out with a pair of clean ones.
“Come on then, help me get on with the cleanup, would you?” Mobius called, throwing her bloodied tools into a container. Klein stepped forward, watching as the doctor worked swiftly.
“We’ll try again tomorrow.”
-
It was rare for Mobius to leave the laboratory, let alone insist someone come with her. It wasn't as if she needed a guard. If she did, she definitely wouldn't have brought the scrawny helper running on 3 milk teas to do the job.
Klein followed behind her quietly, keeping her head low as oncomers exchanged hushed words of malice. As far as reputation went, they were famous for all the wrong reasons. A monster, a devil, something that couldn't be described as human- this was the image Mobius had created for herself.
'That's not all true,'
Klein thought, balling her fists at her side. Yet no matter what the world thought, no matter the opposition she faced, Mobius was unrelenting. The only proof she needed was born of her own will.
Before long, they'd found themselves out in open air, the stench of ash and burn flooding their senses.
"Doctor…is there a reason you've asked me to tag along…." Klein asked, a sense of relief flooding in now that they were away from people.
Mobius was quiet, thinking over her answer. Whether it was something to satisfy herself, or the question of the assistant was a whole other matter. Her time could have been spent much more valuably, after all. At least that's what Klein thought. For a moment, her thoughts drifted back to the mountains of paperwork that sat gathering dust on her desk, and the very thought made her dizzy. Still, she saw Mobius continue to walk along without saying a word, white lab coat trailing behind. The assistant fumbled along the ground trying to catch up with the doctor, calling out in-between ragged wheezes.
At last, after what seemed like endless walking and stifling silence, the doctor stopped, right at the edge of a clearing. A gaping chasm in the earth that spawned endlessly, until light would no longer reach it. Klein stood beside Mobius, averting her eyes from the chasm. Seeing the steep drop, and seemingly endless abyss was enough to make her queasy and lightheaded. Yet when her eyes wandered upwards, she only saw the doctor smiling to herself. Naturally, the assistant was curious, seeing a land ravaged by bloodshed and bitter battles, a solemn breeze whispering over the sight.
"Is there something you're looking for here, Doctor?" Klein asked quietly, seeing as there was no one else in sight. Mobius took a glance at Klein, before turning back to the scenery.
"No, not exactly. I simply wanted you to see this with me." Her tone was sincere, and matter-of-fact. Klein had initially wondered if there were honkai beast remains somewhere, or whether it was another battleground test between the MOTHs. But in the end, nothing happened.
No tricks
Nothing.
She wondered what exactly Mobius saw in the destruction. It was but another product of a trivial attempt at victory, and plagued the land like an ugly scar, as well as a painful reminder. Even the sun, right in the middle of noon, seemed to grow dim. A dying world, a slow, painful decay.
"Do you see it, Klein?" The doctor asked, turning to her assistant with a smile.
"Do you see the world we are risking our lives to protect?"
Klein was puzzled, to say the least. She knew there were cities over the horizon. She knew there were mountains and seas, homes and civilization still left in the world. And so she asked herself, why exactly the Doctor chose *here* of all places. In the end she couldn't say anything, only quietly nod in response.
"Lonely and desolate and so, so beautiful," Mobius continued, a bitterness in her words.
"A world we've grown to love, in all its ugliness."
Klein could only stare out into the vastness, letting the doctor's words echo endlessly. The ashes of a civilization, all culminated here. And yet, she was still living, she was still breathing. There was not a day where Klein couldn't help but worry. Whether or not her current life could be snatched away in an instant, being worked to the bone and dealing with the doctor's antics; that was her life.
Mobius's words repeated again, this time, a newfound clarity in them.
'A world we've grown to love'
'A world she had grown to love'
Klein turned to Mobius, seeing the dying world reflected in the doctor's eyes.
"I see it, doctor." The assistant spoke flatly.
"And I think… you do too."
A lonely breeze carried their silence. Along with the simple, unspoken desires kept to themselves.
Mobius sighed, turning her back to the world as she'd always done
"This is why I wanted to bring you, Klein~" she cooed sweetly
"It's a shame, there's too much work to catch up with. I'm sure you can manage though, right?" The doctor said without turning back. Klein let out a huff, following the figure in front of her.
Doctor Mobius was hardly someone to make sense of. Impulsive, yet calculated. Cruel yet merciful. And Klein thought to herself in silence, that this was what made Mobius so fascinating, yet so simple.