The party was nice, Archius thought. Uneventful, but nice. Surely having more than just him accompany Kazuki would have made him change his face, literally. Glancing down, Archius couldn’t see a single muscle change. Ugh… must be the duality of the day, then, Archius thought.

A voice broke the monotony. ‘Generally, just stay away from a guy like him.’ It was Sato’s, she was on the uplink, a floating interface showing her face in front of the duo.

“Sadly… we have no choice in this matter,” said Archius, rolling his eyes before nudging Kazuki with his leg. “You must have something on him.”

Sato glanced to the side, then nodded. “Krystalink caught a few whispers of his name back during the Nasseri Proscriptions and First Shadow War… Connections to one of the Mischief Board Triarchs, you probably know who.’ Her eyes glided down to Kazuki.

“And?” said Kazuki, ignoring her glance.

“Not much else,” she continued. “It becomes logarithmically easier to find things if they show up more on the radar, Obadiah’s not making the same mistakes as Matt.”

“Good for him,” sneered Archius, giving Sato a snide look. “Krystalink is robust, but you’ve just given us the basic brief, you must have something that can actually help us, right?”

“That’s enough,” Kazuki said. “Just keep us updated.” He gave Archius a small glare. What!? He’s just pushing the idea of improving Krystalink to Sato… Of course, Sato would never listen to his advice, so this was the only way; plus everyone benefits, he thought.

Either way, he rolled his eyes, as Sato nodded, disappearing after giving Archius a side glance.

Archius was reminded just how stubbornly boring Sato can be, he remembered back to the rebellion, drinking was a massive problem back then - and she was always the sad drunk, not the funny or stupid drunk like Amyé or Quinn.

“Still not happy?” Archius asked, leaning against the wall of Kaz’s bedroom. Kazuki was sitting down beside him, a can of soda in his hand. He had party glitter in his hair, but the party was over - and they were alone.

Kazuki said nothing, merely drinking out of the can. After finishing it, he threw it over into the bin across the room. Its trajectory curved slightly.

“Don’t be such an ass, Kaz. This birthday was much better than last year’s!” Archius, for once, tried to cheer Kazuki up. But his brother-in-arms merely gave a small nod.

Kazuki straightened his back against the wall. “Anything would have been better than my birthday last year. I felt like I was eating my last meal,” he said.

“We won that battle over Old Terra, Kaz, there was a war to fight. This time’s different. You have Chloé, Eliza and whoever that Nathan guy is. Improvement, right?” Archius smiled, crouching down to Kazuki’s level, quite hard given he was taller than Kaz.

Silence filled the room. Kazuki took a deep breath, and then a sigh. “I’d prefer not to celebrate my birthday. I would have thought you’d told Yuki.” Kazuki’s voice was filled with a suppressed level of measured frustration.

Archius shrugged. “Yuki wouldn’t take no for an answer, Kaz, better to just play into what she wants, right?”

Kazuki took out something from within his waistcoat, a small knife, barely longer than a finger. He played with it for a moment. “Whatever she wants,” he scoffed. “We got this far…”

“Yeah,” Archius replied, noting a withering husk of regret in Kazuki’s tone, even if it was faint. It was obvious to him, he’d heard it a few times before after all. Time to diagnose the problem! Was it guilt? “You got far.”

“I?” Kazuki snapped back, stopping with his knife play and glancing up. “We filled graveyards even before the rebellion. I can still see some of their faces, right before the life left their eyes. Friend and foe…”

Oh. Archius was spot on, but that fact didn’t satisfy Archius. Not at all. “But we won, those graves would have been bigger if we lost. Take satisfaction in that, hmm?”

Kazuki grunted, somewhat in agreement. “I never liked counting the dead. But something always implored me to do so.”

“Guilt?” suggested Archius. Kazuki’s lips sealed shut at that word. Seems like a lot of things to unpack right now. Archius quickly noticed a level of discomfort in Kazuki’s posture, slanted slightly away from Archius. “You shouldn’t play with knives…” Archius diverted the topic somewhat further from that.

“What? Scared that I’ll hurt someone?” Kazuki sneered back. “Please, I’m a member of the seven mercs, I think I can handle a fucking toothpick.”

Archius replied, “Yourself. Don’t think I haven’t seen you during the rebellion.”

Kazuki’s dead golden eyes locked in place, staring soullessly into the knife. He placed it back into his pocket, sighing again. “At the end of the day, Yuki will get what she wants…”

For a moment, Archius felt a measure of envy for Kazuki. He can experience what it’s like to have an actual family, and Archius can’t. Either way, he’ll need to play his cards carefully, especially considering that it IS the tenth anniversary of the P-1 incident…

“I don’t know much about your sister, but she cares about you, you can see that, right?” asked Archius.

Kazuki didn’t respond.

Archius placed a hand into his pocket, taking a small packet out and chucking it onto Kazuki’s head. It bounced off his head. “Hmm?” Kazuki picked it up, a decorated card pack. “I already have Dullie First, Gold and Timeless Editions.”

“It’s not Dullie Cards,” said Archius.

That caught Kazuki’s attention! He opened it up, revealing half a dozen cards in the pack box. “Oh… So that’s why it was light.”

Kazuki pulled one out partially, revealing a card with his own face on it. He glanced up at Archius.

“What? You haven’t even pulled it fully out,” said Archius. Kazuki pulled the rest of the card out. There was a designator beneath his face, ‘Hanged Man’.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“How flattering.” Kazuki made sure his venom was on full display. Archius played into it, chuckling.

Archius continued, “You're welcome. I know a guy who knows this cardmaker. Had some made without his knowledge. Tarot Cards…”

“Tarot?” Kazuki raised an eyebrow. “Are we hunting ghost hazards or something?”

“Here’s the kicker!” Archius leaned down and pulled out another card, revealing another person. Emiya Taka-Calibana, the head of the BCA. It had the designator of the ‘Star’ on it. “Cards for potential players we might have to deal with.”

Kazuki flicked through a few of them… Hartius, Hermit; Iana Nimitz-Delia, Temperance; Archius himself, the Devil; the Commissioner, Emperor; and the Duo Mercs, the Lovers.

“They’re still in prototype, we still have many card places left… Gives us more targets,” said Archius.

Kazuki was silent for a moment. “How… does this help?”

Archius rolled his eyes. “We distribute these to the men hunting them down, or searching for them, why do you think we have the Commissioner and the Gunrunner on there?”

Kazuki flicked up another card, revealing Leon Antigonid. “He’s dead.”

“Really?” Archius remarked with an overly enthusiastic tone. “That was the first prototype, made it during the Gunrunner incident, but uh… Yeah, wasn’t able to roll it out. Happy birthday, I guess!”

Kazuki didn’t respond, not at first. He placed all the cards back into the pack. Archius pulled something out of his pocket, showing it to Kazuki. It was Obadiah’s own card. The Tower.

“Thanks…” Kazuki said, taking the card and placing it back into the pack. It was the perfect opportunity for Archius to slink a ‘Thanks’ out of Kazuki whilst he was still being… well… him.

Archius was no fool, he knew that Kaz wasn’t the type to divulge in such pleasantries, but all the same, he gave Kaz an opportunity. Now… time to press onto actual pressing matters. “Noah Slyra-Montageu, he was a friend of yours, I assume?” asked Archius.

Kazuki replied instantly, “No.”

“Ooh, rather quick response.” Archius metaphorically prodded Kazuki, pushing himself off the wall, and walking towards the door. “But seriously… I need more information from you, especially if you want me to get a better grasp of him.”

Once again, Kazuki didn’t respond. Archius grumbled to himself.

“You’re a social engineer. This should be your speciality,” Kazuki commented.

Archius replied, “Noah’s parents are media moguls—”

He placed his hand out in front of him, flicking his holophone on. It showed an image of Noah with his family. It was from an interview, ‘behind the scenes of the Galatimes’ Montague Moguls’.

“—and they’ll probably have the same indoctrination training you got. If you can detect me, they’re probably close to that, closer than I’d like.”

“Well, tell me what you’ve found out.”

Archius rolled his eyes. “You can’t trust Noah, let me tell you that much.”

“Tell me something I didn’t know.”

“He’s close to Chloé and Eliza… University friends. Eliza and he seems to go somewhat back, do you know anything about that?”

Kazuki paused.

“No.”

It was such an obvious lie, Archius thought. “Alright…” Archius need to apply some pressure on Kazuki. “I’ll try and see if there’s anything else related between these two, that’ll give me a better idea if he’s a threat or not. And why do you want me to monitor him? I’m here to help with the investigation!”

“This is helping.”

“By doing what? Tracking some irrelevant university students? If anything, you should have told me to use him to infiltrate the upper media elite circles… he has the connections, and I can use him.” Archius crossed his arms, walking to the closets lining the wall, phasing each open one by one.

He was searching for something…

Kazuki didn’t respond to his ransacking of the place. “Just follow orders.”

“You told Eliza that trust goes two ways,” Archius said. Kazuki’s eyes skimmed up towards him, as he turned back, holding a jar of pills. Archius threw them onto the bed. “What? Surprised that I already planted listening devices over Liz’s condo?”

“Remove them,” Kazuki demanded.

Archius shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’m not into any of the creepy shit you’re thinking of. They’re just there to make sure infiltrators don’t plant anything.”

“Good.” Kazuki’s tongue spat acid. “But tone your scale down.”

Rolling his eyes, Archius stopped skirting around the edges. “Come on, spill the tea, or the beans, or… whatever the fuck you Lautrasians say.”

“Fuck you.”

“Well fuck you too!” Archius snapped back. “I do all this unpaid work, helping you investigate, and you’re not even telling me the necessary information! If anything… I could rat you out.”

Kazuki’s head and body snapped upwards. Archius could hear the priming of an exospine, ready to crush his body. He laughed and placed his hands up.

“I’M KIDDING!” Archius shouted.

The Contract-Breaker stopped, walking to his bed and falling onto it, heavily with the weight of his cybernetics. “Look. It’s complicated.”

“Hmm, yeah, seems like everything is complicated when it comes to you.” Archius shrugged. “Well, want me to keep an eye on him for longer?”

“No. Shove a knife down his throat,” Kazuki snapped.

“Alright!” Archius remarked, bouncing back the sarcasm.

”I can trust you with this. Don’t actually kill him.””

“You know trust tripping me won’t work.” Archius smiled, pointing at Kazuki for a second. “If you tell me who he was to you… maybe?” Kazuki, for his part, simply slumped upwards. He sat on his bed, taking his time as he swallowed a dozen or so pills. The edges of Archius's lips curled ever so slightly. There’s a long war coming, he thought…

“Noah’s an old associate of mine from the past. Friend of friend.” Kazuki stared at Archius with dead eyes.

Linked to one of Kazuki’s past friends? That shortens potential quintillions down to… less than half a dozen? The only people Kazuki must have known before he met him would have been Yuki… no, that doesn’t make sense. Noah’s outburst in front of Yuki wouldn’t have happened if that was true. So, who else?

Eliza’s twin sister? Probably… Victoria… that was her name, wasn’t it? Archius mumbled in his head, not wanting to ask Kazuki directly - even though he wasn’t that insensitive. But Victoria IS the most likely option. How ironic, the dead girl severing the friendship of these two…

That can’t just be it, right? Was time really all that mattered to severe these two?

He can find that out later, he mused, for now: this was enough juice to keep his imagination running for a little bit. He chuckled to himself. “Alright then, anything you want specifically?”

“I want you to monitor his relation to Eliza.”

Oh… So ARCHIUS was correct! He celebrated in his mind, finding this single order to be damning evidence enough for his hypothesis… Only more digging and time can tell, he concluded.

Archius nodded. “It will be done… though the Eclipses falls or some stupid shit I had to remember in the academy,” he said. Turning, he walked up to the door. “Sleep well, Kaz, it’s been a good year.”

Archius turned back to Kazuki… He was out cold. Slowly, Archius wandered over to him, taking the jar of pills. He had hidden the label, but one flick of the wrist shows the holographic label of: SLEEPING PILLS, directly on it.

“Get some rest,” Archius said. “There’s a lot of wars to come, Kaz, best we are prepared, ey?”

With everything that’s been happening, Archius thinks that Kazuki should use this time to sleep. Martinez is handling the AGENCY, Hosea, Lilly and Claire are managing operations, and Zym is… well, probably bass-boosting music through his head by now - to the delight of the troops and the restlessness of Claire.

Everything was going perfectly, Archius thought. The investigation was going smoothly, or at least Archius inferred it to be so - and he had hopes that things wouldn’t hit the fan like at the last Dassant… Maybe if he was there, he could have eliminated Matt Oria-Tessie without arousing suspicion. Approaching the door once again, Archius opened it and left.