For the Uncrying

* Login screen
* Title screen
* Original title card

**For the Uncrying** is a side story event and a direct follow-up to *Bottom of the Shade*.

## Synopsis

> *Horizon, the CEO of Horizon Finance, can recall everything. As usual, she pursues a disappeared debtor once more.*
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## Appearances

* Rachel Dodds
* Kang Minwoo
* Lee Yuri (mentioned)
* Horizon
* Dash (flashback)
* Rita Arsenico (flashback)
* Elcano
* Wilbur Whateley
* Anna (flashback)
* Professor James (flashback)
* Shena
* Lee Sooyeon
* Director Ember
* Jessica Green
* Orca
* Lee Yumi
* Kang Soyoung
* Replacer Captain
* Eins and Zwei
* Lucid
* Elizabeth Pendragon
* Ryan Ferrier
* Regina MacCready
* Zena Bird
* Irie Alford
* Cathy Wade
* Liv Allen
* Fione Lowell
* Esterosa de Chevalier
* Regina MacCready
* Rivet
* Lyudmila
* Yegor
* Olivie Park
* Lee Yoonjung
* Nina Anderson
* Lee Dafoe
* Scout
* Stronghold
* Sweeper
* Terminator
* Rifleman (as placeholder for security guards)
* Sniper (as placeholder for security sniper support)

## Plot

### Act 1

At the 6th Refuge District in Charade, artist Rachel Dodds visits a convenience store and asks Kang Minwoo if he's seen Horizon. Minwoo says that Horizon stopped by to purchase a can of lubricant and then went to 4th Avenue and also informs her a girl from named Emma the orphanage went missing. Rachel thanks him and buys a can of spray paint before leaving the store.

At Horizon Finance, Horizon replays over and over a recording of the fateful Dive that took the lives of her former employees, in particular the moment when she said should have brought in her combat frame. Rachel enters her office and coaxes her to come back to the orphanage. Horizon refuses and says that the office is her place of business, but Rachel, who is unaware of Horizon's true nature due to the latter's childlike appearance, dismisses that claims. Rachel additionally asks her for help in finding Emma, to which Horizon agrees to do so.

Horizon and Rachel go into an abandoned underground railway and find Emma bleeding out from a gunshot wound in her forearm. Soon after, they encounter cultists from the Magellan's Prediction Society, and Horizon has Rachel escort Emma out of the area while she fights them off. Kang Minwoo and the neighbor watch arrive and repel additional cultists who were guarding the entrance to the subway.

Eventually Emma is taken to Mendelssohn's Pyramid Power Clinic. The headmaster of the orphanage also arrives, and Horizon immediately leaves upon seeing him. Rachel takes the opportunity to ask the headmaster to let Horizon back into the orphanage, but he refuses because Horizon does not have a birth record and therefore the orphanage, which is already lacking in money, cannot get government funding for her.

As she makes her way back to the office, Horizon reminisces about the time she and Rita discussed about the orphanage. Rita suggested that they should support the orphanage and relieve the debt they own to the company in order to gain the community's favor, but Horizon was reluctant at the time because its headmaster was responsibly paying his monthly debt off. Horizon silently admits Rita made the right decision and calls her a good judge of character but then wonders why she didn't have the same intuition with Wilbur.

Rachel catches up and continues to plead Horizon to come back to the orphanage. Horizon again declines and says she does not want Rachel to get involved in her loan shark business, which upsets Rachel.

The next day, Rachel and Minwoo talk about Horizon as they escort Emma to another hospital. Minwoo suggests that Horizon is telling the truth about being a loan shark and tells Rachel to ask her more serious questions about Horizon Finance the next time they meet. Suddenly, the vehicle ambushed by a group of MPS cultists led by Bishop Elcano, forcing everyone out. Horizon, having been annoyed by all the commotion (despite being an hour away from the squad), comes to Minwoo's aid and help once repel the cultists once again. Afterwards, Emma is moved to another vehicle, and Rachel apologizes to Horizon for lashing out at her the other day.

Meanwhile in the past, after being apprehended by ESPR, Wilbur begs for mercy as he is being sacrificed to the Lake of Knowledge. Anna is about to consume him but the Professor interrupts the ritual as he does not want her to "adulterate" herself with "excrement" like Wilbur. The Professor promises Anna to find a better sacrifice and tells her of his plan to put his former pupil to use for the Society.

Back in the present, Wilbur, now the CEO of Jehuty Biotech and going under the alias Dean Connor, wakes up from a nightmare while vacationing at a hotel with his new girlfriend. He gets a call from Shena, a Shadow who serves as Jehuty Biotech's head of security, who informs him that Horizon has been making contact with Coffin Company. Angered that Horizon was still alive and now apparently working with the TASKFORCE company that shut down his lab, Wilbur orders Shena to send a strike squad to Horizon's location and bring the loan shark to him alive so he can take personal revenge on her.

### Act 2

Horizon replays another recording of her time with her former employees. Rita and Dash return from collecting payments from a debtor, and Horizon welcomes them back. Rita, to her chagrin, realizes the robot had gone through her wardrobe and is now wearing one of her outfits and a new jacket that was seized from a previous debtor. Horizon explains she is going to wear this new attire from now on because its "threateningly vulgar" appearance will make her stand out and look intimidating, though Dash comments that Horizon still looks adorable no matter what she wears. Dash gives her a gold-plated hair tie, telling her it will make her even scarier if she puts it on, and then pesters Rita into pretending to be intimidated to prove her point. Horizon finds Rita's faux reaction amusing and decides that to commemorate the moment with a group photo.

The recording abruptly stops due to a playback error just as Rachel comes in and examines the photo. Kang Minwoo also enters and asks Horizon if she'd like to help out the neighborhood watch. Horizon initially declines as she doesn't want to waste her energy on menial tasks but changes her mind after Minwoo explains what the job is—which is helping restore a communication relay station in a Corrupted Area—and how much she'll be paid for it.

At the relay station, Minwoo, Horizon and a watchman observe the inside of the building to be in ruins, which the former finds suspicious as the damage appears not to have been caused by C.O.s. As Minwoo and Horizon begin repairs, Horizon asks why he accepted Rachel's request to bring Horizon along on the trip. Minwoo responds that he's noticed Horizon has been feeling vengeful and advises that she be ready to forfeit everything if she plans on taking revenge on whomever's troubling her. Horizon denies this, claiming that she simply wants the money she is owed. The two are interrupted when the watchman asks to Minwoo to examine a strange item that a member from Charlie Squad picked up next door. Minwoo takes a look and realizes it's a transponder used to lure C.O.s. Everyone in the building evacuates, fighting through C.O.s that have come to them. They are soon pursuedby Elcano and the MPS cultists, who were the ones that planted the transponder provided by Jehuty Biotech.

Meanwhile, two other cultists stay behind so they can steal all the Elixir the MPS had produced but are intercepted and killed by the Strike Squadsent by Wilbur. Shena examines the Elixir and realizes that it is nothing but a placebo drug.

The battle between the watch and the cultists continue. Minwoo prepares to throw an IED at Elcano and remaining cultists until a truck, thrown by Horizon, falls form the sky and crushes the bishop. Minwoo wants to confirm if Elcano was killed, but Horizon persuades him that they should escape while they still can. Shena later arrives at the scene, kills the remaining cultists and leaves Elcano for dead.

Back at the Refuge District, Jehuty Biotech stations a medical relief team at the plaza and announces they're providing free medical supplies and examinations for anyone in the area. The headmaster wants Rachel to help him the get the orphans ready for physical examinations there, but Rachel runs off to Horizon Finance office so she can give Horizon a surprise gift when she and the others return from their mission. When she arrives at the office, however, she is met with armed JB agents.

The neighbor watch return to the district. Before he pays her, Minwoo asks Horizon if she is a counter and becomes astonished when she answers that she is actually a machine and a prototype AI developed by Future-at-War. Afterwards, Horizon heads back to her office, and Minwoo is informed by another squad member about the free medicals exams being offered. Minwoo finds the sudden appearance of the medical team suspicious and says he'll check them out later.

Horizon thinks back to when she was being developed and how the other most of the technicians considered her to be a defect for being too human despite showing exceptional promise. She gets a call from Lee Sooyeon who informs her that the Coffin Company has finally discovered Wilbur's whereabouts and new occupation. Horizon hears the the medical announcements from a helicopter above and hangs up. She returns to her office and discovers that the Strike Squad waiting for her as Rachel lies on the floor seriously injured, having been tortured and interrogated by the agents. Without visible emotion, she begins brutally attacking the squad and asks them if Wilbur had ordered them to attack Rachel. The agents are shocked by Horizon's monstrous strength and calls in air support, which destroys the office but leaves Horizon undamaged. Once she is done with her questioning and assault, Horizon steps out and takes out the other JB agents outside the building just as easily. She then meets Shena and gets ready to attack her next, but Shena tauntingly reminds the robot about Rachel and says she can still save her before leaving.

Horizon returns to Rachel and is about to carry her to a hospital, but Kang Minwoo hastily arrives at the scene and warns that Rachel could die if Horizon moves her so brazenly. Rachel is carried onto a stretcher and transported in an APC, with Horizon and Minwoo accompanying her. To get t the hospital on time, the vehicle is forced to take a shortcut through the Corrupted Area and the squad have to fight off C.O.s as they move.

Meanwhile, Shena reports back to Wilbur that she and the Strike Squad failed their mission to capture Horizon. She also notes that all the squad members died in the process, but Wilbur is able to deduce immediately that Shena herself had murdered them after they were incapacitated because of her distaste for human life. Wilbur is frustrated by the news but decides to make the best out of the situation by framing Horizon as a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for the massacre.

### Act 3

Inside the International Coalition Forces Bootcamp some hours before Future-at-War was shut down, Director Ember reactivates the prototype Horizon AI and tells her that the Grand Purification War is over and humanity has won, but Horizon is not enthusiastic about conversing with her creator after being abandoned by her. Dr. Ember tells Horizon she's here to say goodbye because she is going to be arrested by the military police and her directorship of Future-at-War terminated the next day for forging some documents during the war. Before that happens, however, Dr. Ember requests Horizon to take control of the Cold Case unit.

Back in the present, Horizon is given the ER bill for Rachel's surgery and told by the hospital clerk that the payment is due today. Horizon is bewildered as to why patients are billed even before the operation is complete, and Minwoo explains that it's because patients here frequently bail out without paying their bills. Neither of them unfortunately have enough money, but Jessica and Orca appear and pay the bill for them. Jessica then privately gives Horizon a memory drive containing Wilbur's location and warns that she is now wanted by the Administration for reportedly massacring the medical aid workers back at the Refuge District. Horizon thanks her and leaves the hospital to find Wilbur.

Outside, Horizon is immediately engaged by the City Guard, Black Tide operatives and various other TASKFORCE units. Despite the large number of hostiles, she easily battles her way through them without causing any fatalities but notes to herself that her power is draining at a concerning rate. During a clash with SWAT 4 at the city's industrial area, her reasoning system starts to overload so she throws herself into a blast furnace to temporarily prevent forced reinitialization. She eventually escapes the authorities, hijacks a plane and crashes it into the hotel Wilbur is staying.

### Act 4

Horizon confronts Wilbur and says he owes her 700 million credits, but Wilbur escapes with his girlfriend using a specialized mask that disguises his whole body and biometrics. Hotel security and Jehuty Biotech troops arrive at the scene but are swiftly taken down by Horizon.

Wilbur and his girlfriend take refuge in a underground bunker at the Jehuty Biotech Defensive Measures Zone, managed and run by former members of the Replacer Syndicate, and wait for the Shena to come get them. Although the bunker is fortified by more than a thousand Eternium-alloy walls, Horizon breaches through them at great speed even while fighting off guards and genetically-modified C.O.s (including an Abomination). Shena finally arrives with the Chorus, and Wilbur makes his way to the landing dock but not before having all the researchers executed for their failure to stop Horizon. Once Horizon makes it the control room, she snags a storage device containing data about the Mental Printing technology from a mass-market automaton. She jumps onto the Chorus while it is mid-air and attempts to disable it, but Shena repels her off the ship and drops her into the ocean.

As she sinks further down the sea, Horizon recalls the time just before her escape from the bootcamp laboratory: soon after a wounded Dr. Ember fits Horizon into the Cold Case unit, Horizon again demands to know what her creator's intentions are. Ember explains that Horizon does not actually hate humans themselves but instead the cruelty they inflicted towards her and her "siblings"; and because Horizon has the ability to feel empathy and hatred, Ember wishes for her live a better life in the outside world to see that not all humans are as bad as she thinks they are.

### Act 5

Horizon wakes up on a educational cruise ship run by the Counter Academy. Onboard she meets Elizabeth Pendragon, who is chaperoning the cruise, along with Jehuty Biotech escapees Lucid, Eins and Zwei. Elizabeth tells Horizon she is aware of the loan shark's current conflict with Wilbur and Jehuty Biotech. She informs her that Wilbur is currently at his corporate HQ in Charade as of 17 hours ago and cautions that he is in possession of a dangerous artifact—the one he picked up during the dive with Horizon Finance—capable of imitating specific objects from extinct worlds. Horizon later requests for information on the location of all research facilities owned by JB.

Horizon is about to leave the cruise when Lucid approaches her and asks if she could come along as she too wants to take revenge on Jehuty Biotech for the atrocities the company committed against her and the children. Horizon refuses and tells Lucid to spend her time with the children instead because what Lucid wants, she analyzes, is to keep them happy rather than avenge them. She sets off to continue her journey.

Upon reaching land, she starts rampaging through multiple Jehuty Biotech facilities, causing mass destruction and causalities but, again, no deaths. JB stock prices fall dramatically as result, and Wilbur blames Shena because she didn't finish Horizon off when she had the chance. Desperate to keep his position, Wilbur decides he'll capture the loan shark and offer her as a tribute to the Society, unaware that the Society, under Regina MacCready's decision, had already dropped its sponsorship of the company for its illegal clinical experiments.

Horizon arrives in Charade. As she battles her way through various armed forces, word of Jehuty Biotech's true nature and illegal activities gradually spread, and people begin questioning the company's legitimacy and Horizon's alleged role in the Refuge District massacre.

### Act 6

By the time Horizon reaches the HQ building, she has only 2.3% of her power remaining and her reasoning system is overloading. Nevertheless, she presses on and fights through armies of soldiers, mechs, C.O.s and doppelgangers summoned by Wilbur's camera artifact with little difficulty. Meanwhile, Wilbur gets even more exasperated as Horizon closes in on him while Shena mocks him for underestimating the loan shark. Wilbur ignores her and tells his engineers to amplify the camera power output. Later, he and his girlfriend flee to the rooftop while Shena goes down to deal with Horizon once and for all.

On the top floor of building, Horizon encounters Shena and demands her to simply turn Wilbur in to her. Shena answers that the she would have killed Wilbur herself if Horizon hadn't gone out her way to destroy all of Jehuty Biotech's research centers; here, it is revealed that the Society's ultimate goal is to turn ordinary people into Counters through human cloning and the Mental Printing technology, an idea Shena is obsessing over for unspecified reasons. The two of them fight, and Horizon comes out victorious with only 0.3% of her power remaining. Before disintegrating into the air, Shena asks her why she isn't using her frame, which she calls the "treasure of kings". Horizon replies that it is for a personal reason stemming from family history but refuses to elaborate.

Horizon proceeds to the rooftop, disables the helicopter meant to escort Wilbur to safety, and demands the CEO to finally pay up. Wilbur, now unhinged and out of options, uses his camera to summon multiple Britras from above, not caring if they end up destroying the city and kill all the people below. Horizon merely expresses disappointment in Wilbur's lack of concern for his fellow human beings; while admitting she still despises humans herself, Horizon acknowledges the good side of humanity, seeing that humans' inherent weaknesses allow them to develop virtue and altruism. Reflecting back on Dr. Ember's last words to her, Horizon activates the Simurgh Silhouette of her combat frame and eliminates all the Britras in two seconds.

With no more threats in her way, Horizon approaches a dumbfounded and frightened Wilbur and kicks him off the roof. The news media also arrived filming Wilbur hanging on the rooftop while several of Jehuty Biotech's crimes were being exposed thanks to the efforts of the Administrator and the Coffin Company. Wilbur latches onto the edge of the building and begs Horizon to spare him. Horizon gives him a chance by making him confess his crimes and faults only to then replay the same exact words he last said to Dash before shooting him to his death. Afterwards, shortly thereafter, Horizon is arrested by the authorities and taken into custody.

Elsewhere, Shena observes Horizon's capture from afar and is confronted by Lyudmila, whom Shena fought during the fall of the Old Administration. Shena offers the Maze Division commander to join her group, the Elysium Philharmonic, claiming that the current Administration will eventually get rid of her once she's no longer of use to them. Lyudmila refuses and vows to stop her and her allies someday, and Shena leaves. Yegor arrives and asks his commander if she's worried about the Simurgh, which they thought was destroyed long ago. Lyudmila says she is but not that much as it is being used by a different AI, and wonders if it was something Commander Alice left behind for them.

An indeterminate time later, Horizon is tried for and acquitted of all charges pertaining to the Refuge District massacre and related incidents. Rachel is released from the hospital fully recovered and comes back to the orphanage, where the kids and the headmaster celebrate her return. She then goes off to see Horizon at her reconstructed office and congratulates the loan shark on her release. Horizon offers her a job opportunity to work for her, and Rachel happily accepts. With a new employee in the building, Horizon tapes Rachel's picture onto the Horizon Finance group photo alongside Rita and Dash.