The Unknown Tako

I’ll start with this, officer: I’m not sick, and I’m certainly not slacking. Do you know how long I’ve worked with this association? Sixteen-and-a-half years, nearly to the day. In that time, I have been awarded 96 days for sick leave, and all 96 have gone unused. I do not drop important work for a petty illness. Even if I got sick, I would not be so brazen as to let it affect my performance as drastically as you’re claiming. And furthermore, my rank supersedes yours, officer. That would not happen in a world where I was not giving it my all, every hour of every day. The issue here is not with me, but with the task at hand. You clearly see how she’s gotten more…troublesome as of late, yes?

No, no—look here. You said this started in April, yes? Well, around that time, we started getting more reports of her than ever before. That’s not her getting sloppy: its deliberate. See here in the logs how she switched from “Millie” to “Sakura” to “Amethyst”, all in the span of a week. She’s looking for trouble. She wants us to find her, so she can cause us a hassle. It looks like a higher number of failed missions, on paper, but that’s only from the higher sample size: see for yourself how the percentage is similar both before and after.

No, nothing happened in April.

She’s—listen—she’s not going to get captured that easily. If a rat survives the mouse trap, it’s not going to be tricked by the cheese again. And this is a rat that adapts: a rat that grows immune to the poison we use to exterminate it, and then bites us with the same poison still laced on its teeth. She’s a tough nut, and I need the time to properly crack her. If it takes a thousand failed missions to do so, then so be it.

Is it really that much of a concern? Well then, tell your supervisor about all the reports I’ve written on the woman. Would we have still them if I’d simply snagged her immediately? I have mapped nearly every intricacy of her person, from the minutia of her strategies to the range of her abilities, all of which I’d consider an aid in not only her eventual capture, but also the capture of many other anomalies the same class as her.

How about you let me be the judge of how much of a toll this is taking on me? Again, I’m not sick—my eyes just look like that. You only notice because I don’t bother with smearing 5 tons of makeup over the lids. I’m not fake; I'm not out here spending hours doing my hair everyday because there are more important matters at hand. Is it a tad thin and strangled? Sure, but a haircut won’t get her captured any quicker. The physical “symptoms” you describe are of no concern to you.

Odd behavior? I’ll tell you what’s odd—what’s odd is that none of you are taking this as seriously as I do. You all have your assignments, and this is mine. I don’t think its appropriate to stick our noses in each other’s business when we all have jobs to do. Why don’t you spend more of your time monitoring your targets instead of focusing on how I’m “muttering to myself”, or “spacing out at random”. What matters in my presence on the battlefield, not menial performance here, and you’ve seen how I perform on the battlefield.

I assure you, the lack of a specialist’s aid is not the issue here. What kind of people don’t go to the doctor? Healthy people, that’s what. The fact that there is a therapist on board here does not necessitate the use of one. My mind is perfectly sound, I see no reason to waste his time or mine. I’ve had enough people interrogating me as is.

You’re convinced, aren’t you? Convinced there’s something wrong with me? Fine then. I’ll tell you what’s happened to me as of late. She’s hexed me. She’s used that ritualistic sparkle-swirling on me, and she means to use it to bring me down.

Why didn’t I inform you? You’d think me mad, or worse, unfit to work. In truth, it’s quite the opposite. Clearly you see how well I’ve performed in spite of it, yes? How well I’ve resisted it? I understand the need to clear this facility of any psychokinetic influence, but as of yet, the curse has not escaped the walls of my skull. Therefore, I am not a puppet to her, and her influence has not yet infiltrated our headquarters.

Prescribe to me all you want; I don’t need a dream-catcher or a crucifix to get me through this. Once she’s dead, the spell will stop; that is the only cure-all I need.

Here, I can prove it—you see the decline in April, but the seed was actually planted in February—surely you see how well I’ve managed to repress it, then, if you only caught the change months later, correct? If a doll is haunted and you never see it move, there’d be no cause of concern: it would be the same as any other doll. It would just be another tree falling silently in the woods. The doll locks the spirit in place, so the haunting cannot spread. Even though her half-spirit haunts me, I’ve got it locked up tight: as such, I’ve put a stop to whatever astral projecting or voodoo-dolling she uses to achieve this. I've defeated her in this endeavor, not the other way around. And ever since the beginning, I’ve managed to nullify her efforts.

That day in February, I had her pinned down and well prepared for arrest, when she whispered something into my ear. It didn’t sound like an incantation, per se, but it most certainly was one. She’d managed to slip out from my grasp after, making the sure win look like a failure on the record. I shook off the initial freezing enchantment, but it came back later in waves: almost feverish and nauseating the second time around. It felt too distinctly like an illness: but the pounding in my heart, my head, and the tips of my fingers matched no diagnosis I could think of. And yet, I still cured it. A cold shower was all I needed to shock it out of my system and wash the remnants away. Ever since, the physical symptoms have lessened, weakening every time I beat them down. I hardly even feel a shiver at the thought of her now.

The mental effects, on the other hand? Tiresome, but not a bother either. It’s mainly hallucinations, auditory or visual flickers of her whenever I close my eyes. Other symptoms are more subtle: a steering of thoughts or a haunting of dreams, for instance. It’s nothing to worry about; I can identify it instantly.

She’s implanted something in my mind, yes, but I know the difference between my mind and hers. That has been my strategy: whenever something that isn’t me appears, I shoot it down, point blank. If all you’ve seen are momentary lapses, that means the strategy is working, right? That I’m still myself, despite it all?

It’s honestly insulting you’re even worried, officer. I am not a helpless damsel, I know what I’m doing. I am a woman of high regard, and I am perfectly, demonstratively sane. A man in my position would lose himself to her charms and seductions within seconds. I do not have such a weakness, so that alone is a quality in my favor. And furthermore, she doesn’t hold back against the lower officers, but she does hold back against me. I don’t come back nearly as scathed as the others post-mission, and I think that’s to her design. She thinks she can wear me down, because of this incantation over me, most likely. But we can flip that back onto her. If she only displays weakness near me, keeping me in the front lines may be our only way to stop her.

Yes, there is an issue with the target. I do not see how your conclusion is to switch me to a different one. None of the idiots in this building would last a minute with her. I’ve sought her long enough to know her patterns, her behaviors, her exploits. What you don’t understand here is that she’s not the organization’s white whale, officer, she’s mine. I didn’t hunt her down for nearly twenty years, only for you to tell me now that I should stop. She’s a danger to all of us, yes, but I’m the only one who can stop her. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re hardly even qualified to hold this intervention!