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Carmen slices easily through the enemies in front of her, her blade light but sharp. She's stronger than she used to be, just a bit, but it's not too noticeable. She was a researcher, so it's not like anyone expected her to be strong in the first place.
“Your technique is sloppy, but getting better,” Meursault tells her. He has more experience in fighting than most of the other Sinners, and he's a much better teacher than those who do.
He's very blunt, to the point, with no needless secondary comments.
It's downtime between missions, they had just extracted their first Golden Bough from J-Corps Casino, the Limbus Company Bus Department had earned a reprieve.
Sinner №01: Carmen.
Meursault doesn't mind her, she is straightforward in her words, despite how, to others, they may sound facetious. Her emotions, on the other hand, are hard to parse, much like any other persons.
That, he supposes, is a lie. Carmen is much harder to understand the emotions of than anyone else, despite how outwardly she shows them.
She talks to him the most of any sinner. Even to him, it is an odd concept, but she doesn't ask for his thoughts on that, so he doesn't share.
Faust is… unsure, but not enough to question it. In most Mirror Worlds where the Limbus Company and the Distortion Phenomena happen, the Voice of Distortion is Carmen.
Most, she has to emphasize, because in this world, her world, Carmen is Sinner №01. The usually suspects for Sinner №01, Yi Sang, Moses, and Dumas are mixed around. Dumas has taken Moses’ place as the Distortion Detective, and vice versa with Moses as the affluent prison keeper.
Thus, by process of elimination, Carmen can only presume that Yi Sang, or some variant of his, is the Distortion Phenomena.
Still, it doesn't make sense, the timelines don't add up, because Carmen was still one of the original L-Corp researchers…
Faust decides to forget about this for now, she can think more about the history of her coworker at a later date, when she has more pieces to this puzzle.
Dante has noticed that, for as much as she talks, Carmen never talks about herself. Nothing about her past slips through, about her likes or dislikes, what she did before joining Limbus Company, or even how she's feeling at a specific moment.
Dante wouldn't call themselves an expert on emotions, far from it, but they assume, due to the connection shared by the Chain, that they're better at picking up on the Sinners’ emotions than others are.
And Carmen… She's not exactly lying, she's not faking her emotions, just how strongly she's feeling them. To Dante, her emotions are dulled, in a way.
Not as much as Meursault's, nor in a way like Outis or Hong Lu, but definitely not as strong as any of the other Sinners’.
Hong Lu and Outis's emotions are intentionally numbed, they aren't allowing themselves to feel strongly in fear of something, whereas Meursault and Carmen just don't feel as strongly at a base level.
It's… interesting. They don't know what to make of it.
Carmen stabs her knife again and again and again but no blood comes out, there's nothing left to bleed dry.
She feels like she's met a kindred spirit, filled with nothing, not even blood.
Carmen… The Voice of Distortion calls to her, but she ignores it. They have a job in the morning, she can't waste their time with her own problems.
The Mirror Dungeon, she finds, is great for releasing stress.
Ángel remembers, for the first time in a long time, of their creation. The corpse of a man, Yi Sang, was the blueprint for their mind, the body of a living woman inspired their flesh.
Carmen… Ángel never really got to know her, not like she did Benjamin or Ayin, or any of the Sephiroth. Ángel knows more about Yi Sang than about Carmen, funny as it is.
“Now that I have time to ask, tell me, Hokmah, about Carmen,” they request of their creator-turned-machine.
It takes a moment, the memories of her happened a very long time ago, but he remembers them well. Ángel could have just read his book, back when the library had formed, but they had decided against it.