Inside of the blue van, Sin and Hoshi wait calmly for their assault to begin. Quib is quickly checking her gear while they are on the way, but continues her re-briefing of the mission “I'm taking an advantageous position during the siege at a parking garage half a mile away. I'll be providing archery support while you and the soldiers make your way up the antenna station. The soldiers have the E2, so they'll take care of the amplifier. Just focus on fighting your way up and staying alive, understood?”

Hoshi and Sin nod their head in understanding. “Personally, I'm ready to end this. Let's finish this as thoroughly and quickly as possible.” Sin states.

“Good, we're in agreement then.” Quib states, plucking her bow while she speaks “Just remember, I have your back.”

“I know, and I'm thankful for that.” Hoshi says while putting his Dusk Avenger cloak above his head and lifting his mask over his mouth. “We'll be counting on you!”

“At least someone appreciates my help....” Quib mutters to herself. Before either of the two can respond, the van comes to a stop. Quib gets to the back door, saying “And this is my stop. I'll see you when the driver makes the rebound.” before exiting the vehicle.

The van restarts it's travel to the antenna station moments later. Sin scoffs loudly “Seems that some alien's don't have any damn manners....”

Hoshi turns to Sin, stating “Well, most people keep their manners if they are shown some back.”

“They're aliens. Our rules don't apply to them.” Sin says.

“How would you know? There could be plenty of well-mannered aliens outside our world. Ya know, for the president of the student council, you don't act very polite.” Hoshi says, his eyes showing signs of anger.

“Keep your opinion to yourself, freshman. Once all of this is over, I'm washing my hands of your group and going back to my obligations.” Sin states, his voice hitting a tone of vitriol.

Hoshi decides to bite his tongue, and returns to preparing himself for the attack. There is a time and place to address those concerns, and he knows that it will have to wait for another time.

A few moments later, the van reaches it's destination. The four soldiers in the vehicle burst out, opening fire as they go. Sin and Hoshi follow behind them. They quickly find that Quib is doing as she said, as arrows begin to fly through the air, striking the two Sigil heads outside of the complex's gate.

The soldiers take cover by nearby cars, firing round after round into the Sigil heads that are defending the station. Sin follows suite, firing his Shuki SMG into the enemy defenses, hitting two foes before dropping back down behind the car he is at. Hoshi sprints forward, using car's as a blockade from the enemy firearms as he moves closer to the complex.

As the battle rages, arrows fly along with bullets, striking Sigil heads and leaving bodies in their wake. After half the perimeter defenses have been defeated, another arrow pierces the complex gate's electronic lock, causing it to malfunction and disengage it's hold. Quib calls over her comm glasses for all fighters to move up, confirming to them what has just occurred.

Hoshi, while Sin and the other soldier's sprint for the complex gate, uses his staff as a pole vault as he leaps over the perimeter fence, landing on a Sigil head with a wound in it's arm from one of Quib's arrows. They were attempting to fire their pistol at Sin, but Hoshi's landing is faster than they are able to aim their firearm at him and pull the trigger. In one quick motion after he lands, Hoshi slams his quarterstaff into their head, cracking the skull and snapping their neck in two.

One of the few remaining Sigil heads in the courtyard attempts to stab Sin with a combat knife, as it had run dry on ammunition for their firearm moments ago. They go in with a thrust to the chest, but Sin catches their striking arm with his katar and dismembers it. The Sigil head falls to the ground, holding it's arm as it bleeds out. Sin, with the remaining enemies in the area having been slain by either Quib or the soldiers, looks down at the Sigil head as it dies from blood loss. With a sigh, he mutters “It's... It's to keep my city safe. Do I have any other choice...?”

Seeing Sin staring at the Sigil head body, Hoshi walks over to him, and calmly says “It's a terrible thing, but we really don't have any other option. Until we find the one controlling them, the bloodshed will continue, unfortunately.”

“Then why the hell haven't we found anything yet!? We've been searching for three goddamn months, and we've gotten nothing other than more fucking bodies! What are we supposed to do, kill everybody in the city until the last person left alive is the mastermind? I won't let that fucking happen!” Sin screams in rage, immense anger fueling his every word.

Hoshi stares at the ground during this, his mind unsure of what to say, but Sin continues “And how the hell do we know that the JB is telling the truth about these assaults!? How do we know that they don't have some underlying agenda? They've given us nothing about the Sigil heads for the past two months other than more corpses in the street! I've been to so many goddamn faculty meetings about the bodies! About how afraid everyone is that one of the people killed by the JB is going to turn up as a Unimori student, or god forbid there's a fight at the school. I have to bite my tongue every single fucking time I'm there! Keeping all of this a secret in some scared attempt that this might lead somewhere, and guess what happened yesterday!? Corpses in the school building! Everyone was terrified! This has to goddamn end, now!”

Sin's mind slips back to the faces of everyone at the faculty meeting. All of them, fear evident on their face. Fear of what will happen to the school, the students, them. Every face.

Except for one.

The man at the end of the table. He has a different emotion on his face. The feeling, once thought by Sin to be anxiety, he now sees for what it was. A facade. There was something else behind that mask.

Annoyance. An emotion that on this man's face was steeped from many lost battles to one single foe. It was so heavily infested in him that even year's of putting on a public face for both the students and outside investors could not hide it. It was now obvious. Through this moment of desperation, Sin has had an epiphany. It is clear now, through all of the struggles, all of the constant fighting, that the mastermind has let his shadow lift in that very moment. The leader of the Sigil heads, the one putting so many mind's to eternal damnation, is...

The principal of Unimori, Gintaro Kori.

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Sin, having gone silent during all of this, stutters out “Wait... it can't be... can it?”

Hoshi, who has been protecting Sin during his stunned moment, looks back towards him “What? Did you just figure something out?”

“I... I think I just figured out who's behind this! We need to inform everyone immediately!” Sin screams, having pulled himself from his trance.

“Really!? Couldn't have happened at a worse time! Keep it in the back of your mind. We still have a station to clear out.” Hoshi says before going to the door to the building and motioning for Sin to follow.

Sin shakes his head before moving up to where the soldiers and Hoshi are at, ready to finish this mission and then tell everyone what he has realized.

The door is kicked open a moment after Sin reaches the door, and the soldiers charge into the room with Sin and Hoshi following behind. There was a Sigil head waiting behind the wall next to the entrance, but an arrow is shot through the window of the room, striking them in the arm and stunning them before the first soldier through the door fires two rounds through their chest.

The four remaining Sigil heads in the room begin to shot their firearms from behind cover at the intruders, and the second soldier entering the room takes two bullets to the chest. The wounds are not life-threatening, thanks to their body armor and nanobot treatment, but it does knock them to the ground.

The other members of the assault force are able to get to cover a few moments later, and return fire. The two forces clash, but in the end the four Sigil heads in the room fall.

Hoshi moves forward after the last opponent drops, running to the stairs as a Sigil head with a sub-machine gun opens the door from the second floor. He leaps into the air before his enemy can fire, and strikes them in the head with his quarterstaff, sending their body into and over the railing of the stair's banister.

Sin is at the stair's a moment later, along with the other soldiers. They rush upward to the second story in the next second.

A Sigil head is waiting for them, holding a shotgun towards the stairs from their position at the end of the room. As Sin enters the room, they are about to fire before an arrow flies through the window beside them, striking the barrel of the firearm and sending the blast off to the side, making a shot aimed directly at Sin strike the wall far away from him.

They attempt to gauge their firearm again, but another arrow comes through the window, this time striking them in the head. The other members of the assault force move into the room immediately after.

Hoshi runs forward past all of the other soldiers and drop kicks the door that leads to the next necessary room. Upon the way being cleared, Sin fires his sub-machine gun into the room, along with the other soldiers that are there. Their sustained gunfire kill all four Sigil heads that were in the room before they can open fire.

The stairwell to the roof is within this room. The soldiers move up the stairs, telling Sin and Hoshi to stay back while they make sure the top of the station is secure.

Hoshi, still on guard from the assault, decides to call Quib on his comm glasses “Quib, how does the roof look? Any snipers, sentries?”

The line is silent.

“Quib? Respond, please!” Hoshi yells into his glasses, but he gets the same utter quiet.

Sin, standing at the other end of the room and waiting for the soldiers to finish clearing the roof, glances back over to Hoshi and says “What's wrong? The alien girl not responding?”

“Yeah, and I've got a very bad feeling about it....” Hoshi mutters, looking out of a broken window that looks out towards the parking garage. He stares for a few moments before beginning to make his way towards the room's exit “I'm gonna check on her, keep the siege going while I'm gone!”

Sin is about to speak in resistance to Hoshi's words, but he is out of the room before he can say anything.

Sprinting down the streets thirty seconds later, Hoshi makes his way towards the parking garage, mild fear guiding his steps. The streets are quiet, with not a Sigil head or citizen in sight.

Before long, he is at the entrance of the parking garage. The complex is silent, just like the streets. A cold chill comes over Hoshi as he begins to walk inside, his staff gripped tightly in his hands.

The first floor is empty and barren, not even a vehicle being parked inside. “Why isn't there anyone around? What's with this silence... it's unsettling....”

Despite the odd feeling he has in the pit of his stomach that something is wrong, Hoshi makes his way up the garage ramp nearby to the second floor. Upon his eyesight peeking over the barrier, he sees a body laying chest down on the cement, surrounded in a pool of blood. Through concern, Hoshi rushes over to them.

Once he is to the body, he pulls them to their back. Their pale skin and full-red eyes makes a clear indication of the corpse being Demu in origin.

“Wha? I thought they said the Demu were too far away from here for them to get involved.... Why is this body here?” Hoshi mutters to himself before he makes a stark realization “Wait, if this Demu is here, then.... I need to find Quib right now!” he says with resolve before running for the third floor, where Quib said her sniper nest would be, and where a trail of black blood leads.

Sprinting onto the third floor through the next ramp up, Hoshi sees the blood trail leads to a small battle that had taken place near one edge of the parking garage. There are five Demu, all dead from various stabbing and slashing wounds, and another with a single arrow shot through their eye, scattered around the area that Quib was using as her nest.

Looking more thoroughly around the area, Hoshi sees, past the large amount of pooling black blood, splashes and streaks of red “This has to be Quib's blood... now where did she go?”

Examining the battle scene further, Hoshi realizes that there is a trail of red blood going towards the maintenance stairs. With further concern in his steps, he grips his quarterstaff tighter and follows the trail.

The door is speckled with drops of red blood, with the handle smeared over with a hand print of it. “She came through here... I better not be too late!” Hoshi says, placing his hand on the door, only to realize that it is already ajar.

Opening the door and entering the stairwell, he looks down the left stairway and sees Quib, laying against a wall at the platform one flight down. Also there is two UMA soldiers, one standing over a deceased Demu and the other looking over Quib.

Hoshi yells out Quib's name and begins to make his way down the stairs. The UMA soldier holds out his hand “Stand back, we don't know what she was hit with yet.”

“What happened!? Is she still alive!?” Hoshi exclaims as he stops his movement at the second stair down.

“She was ambushed. She fought them off the best she could, but she was overwhelmed. Me and my partner heard the fighting and came to investigate. We got here just in time to kill the last one before it finished her off.” The soldier says, holding his firearm towards the Demu's corpse.

The soldier examining Quib, who has just finished his examination of her wounds, then addresses Hoshi “She's currently alive, but hanging on by a thread. The Demu that she faced beat her pretty thoroughly, but given that she has the nanobot treatment, she should be able to heal from this, but she isn't. I just tried to give her nanobots a charge, but the wounds aren't healing. The hostiles she faced must have used anti-nanobot equipment on her.”

“Anti-nanobot...? Oh no....” Hoshi mutters from the top of the stairs. “ Can you do anything for her?”

The soldier that was examining Quib looks over to Hoshi as he lifts himself from his crouched position “Honestly, with her current condition it could go either way. She's going to need surgery, and I'm not talking about the nanobot enhanced kind. We're going to have to call a portal evac to a hospital stat.”

As the soldier turns to call in the portal, Hoshi mutters to himself “She could die....” before walking back out the stairwell and leaving the confines of the parking garage.

The van holding the UMA soldiers and Sin arrives a minute later, with Hoshi sitting outside of the building. Sin opens the door, and says to Hoshi “What happened to the alien girl?”

Hoshi, with a vacant look in his eyes, looks up at Sin and says “She... she's really hurt.... I dont' know yet, but she could....”

Sin, looking down for a moment, turns his gaze up to Hoshi and says “Damn. Well, get in, we don't want to be around here when the police show up.”

Shaking his head, Hoshi lifts himself to his feet and walks into the back of the van. They drive back to the staging point, with Hoshi dreading the fact that he will have to tell Jian what happened....