October 13th, 2088
Terra’s POV
It has been a week since the bank robbery incident. Thankfully, Hikari seems to be fine psychologically. I guess that my timely intervention along with her naturally upbeat personality has made it possible to bounce back easily. We were even able to successfully choose a puppy the next day for her. Much to my dismay, she fell in love with a basset hound puppy that looked eerily similar to a certain bounty hunter nemesis of mine. She even named him Snoozer because of how he would often nap in an adorable fashion. Snoozer also seemed to have a grudge against me, every time I saw him he would stop and stare at me. It was really creepy and it disturbed me enough to check the dog with magic to make sure he hadn’t been possessed.
At the pet store, I had planned to take a firm stance against that breed but Hikari looked at me with pleading, upturned eyes and I caved instantly. I blame my guilt from letting Hikari get exposed to danger during the robbery for my weak resolve at the pet store. I had initially hoped to just wait out the robbery and then proceed with life, but I had to risk standing out in order to protect Hikari after things went south. When facing the robber, I had secretly used simple telekinesis to turn his gun’s safety on before I incapacitated him.
It was an unnecessary precaution, but what irritates me was that I had a slight moment’s hesitation before using magic at the time. For a half-second I was concerned about it being exposed to Fujioka. Although nothing happened, hesitation like that could cost me dearly. I already well know the consequences of being late, yet I still hesitated. I don’t have the luxury of taking my time with my investigation of Fujioka-san. As long as he’s an unknown I’m putting at risk everything I care about.
During today’s rehearsal on Japan’s Rising Idol, I secretly examined the magic wards on Fujioka’s office. And I noticed an opening. All of the enchantments on this floor as well as his office are designed to deal with magical infiltration or espionage. There is absolutely nothing to deal with the non-magical counterparts. He must have assumed that Top Talent’s security was adequate to deal with those threats. I also found out that Fujioka was absent from today’s rehearsal due to “business”. Although that is plenty suspicious, it has given me a priceless opening today to break into his office by picking the lock.
I had just finished my part in the rehearsal and left for the restroom, which was conveniently nearby Fujioka’s office. The bulb in one of the powerful stage lights burst thanks to sabotage I had conducted earlier, causing a commotion on the opposite side of the auditorium and attracting the entire crew. I believe I have about 10 minutes before they replace the light and notice my absence. The tumblers on the office lock were extremely simple and took me less than 20 seconds to do. I quickly closed the door behind me as I started rifling everywhere. Bingo.
There was a safe behind an antique looking portrait of a pretty young girl with black hair and blue eyes. She had a pair of bunny ears on top and a serious expression on her small face. I was a bit surprised at how similar she looked to me. To most this would look like a kemonomimi enthusiast’s portrait, but I clearly recognized the style as being from the other world. The safe behind the portrait also had a simple tumbler combination, taking me only 1 minute 40 seconds to solve. 6 minutes left and I come across a plethora of documents that appeared to be written in a series of strange runes. It was the script of the other world’s universal language.
Fortunately, I have learned both how to speak and write the language without having to rely on magic translation. I learned because I didn’t want to risk not being able to communicate with Kira if for some reason I couldn’t use magic. The few excerpts I read were painting a very bleak picture as to the situation involving Fujioka. There were a lot of papers left, so I simply looked at each of them as fast as I could. As long as I have a memory of them, I can look at the details later with magic. 2 minutes left, it’s time to leave. I carefully placed everything as I found it and left the office without anyone being the wiser. As soon as I get back home, I’ll start to analyze what I’ve found. I hope very much that my initial impression was wrong.
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It is now 5’o clock in the morning, and I have a very haggard appearance. For once my lack of sleep is not due to my old nightmares, but this new problem that’s dropped onto my lap from fucking nowhere. I had arrived back from the rehearsals at 6 in the evening and it only had taken me about 2 hours to successfully gather all the information from the documents and compile them onto my laptop. I then read the documents thoroughly and realized the gravity of the situation. I desperately wanted to disprove it, so I gathered all the relevant information I could from my world via the internet.
I then quickly headed over to the other world and started gathering information via rumors, government announcements and local news across the major cities in the queendom. That wasn’t too difficult, it mainly required me to head to the local tavern and buy everyone a drink and ask for news. I also got in touch with all black-market fences, information dealers and other unsavory contacts I have made over the years to verify and follow up on details in those documents. Eventually I reorganized all the gathered data and have since then been frantically connecting the nearly non-existent dots with my own information. I completely lost track of time as I consumed coffee and magic stimulants in order to keep myself focused. The plot that I was piecing together was so unbelievable I was unable to look away for even a moment despite my exhaustion. I think it is finally time fo… ZZZZZZ.
Later on I was woken up by Hikari angrily as she demanded to know where I had been yesterday. Apparently, I had worked for over 24 hours straight as I dashed about in the other world looking for info and had missed school that day. Thankfully it was Saturday today, so I could sleep in. She had covered for me by saying that I was sick. She was about to press me for details about where I had been, but I simply told her that I had gone to the hospital due to a mild infection. I then promptly fell asleep. And in my sleep my nightmares came again after a short absence. But instead of Hafor Village burning, it was Tokyo. And instead of the faces of the villagers appearing, the faces of my parents, Reiji, and Hikari appeared instead. I eventually woke up in a cold sweat at 3 in the afternoon.
Project Redemption. That’s the name of the plan that Fujioka and the group he is a part of is working on. Based on the communications there are 4 other executives distributed in both this world and the other world along with many subordinates. Although it seems like the subordinates are completely in the dark about the executives’ plans. Identifying information was redacted and the details of what they are trying to do are mostly absent, but Fujioka appears to be in charge of logistics and human resources. All those documents detailed shipping and purchasing of weapons, materials and people in both worlds although identifying information was again redacted.
My frantic investigations were to try and ferret out the redacted information on these documents. They were going somewhere they called “The Place in Between” to move between worlds. They were supplying the slavers with arms and money in exchange for slaves, but I don’t know what they are doing with them. In my world they seem to have established corporations to generate income and to provide a cover for the massive amounts of materials they have been collecting.
The only executive still in the other world is the handler for these slaver groups and he has also been successfully keeping the Cult of Chains off their trail. From what I can tell, this group is planning to conduct a large-scale magical ritual here in my world. I don’t know what the purpose of it is, but the sheer scale is dangerous. I’ll have to get more information about their plan, and the quickest way to do that is to hunt down the unknown executives. The only lead I have is in the other world: I’ll interrogate the executive there first and keep Fujioka alive for observation for now.