Cassell College, Lionheart Society office.
Chu Zihang browsed the Nightwatch Forum. The pinned thread, highlighted in red, had a startling title: [Gossip] Shocking! The red-haired witch elopes to Japan with the S-rank freshman! An intimate getaway at a Hakone hot spring inn!
The poster's ID was "Twilight Shines." The opening post contained just two terse phrases: Vacation on the college's dime. What has the world come to?
Chu Zihang scrolled down. In the second post, "Twilight Shines" had attached a screenshot of the college's public financial disclosures. Nono's travel request was brazenly explicit: Psychological assessment and environmental adjustment assistance for an S-rank student, to be conducted in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The budget was followed by a string of zeros. From the third post onward, the thread devolved into a contest over who had it worst. Some said the S-rank had been abducted by the red-haired witch; someone else had pulled airport surveillance footage and pointed out how natural the two looked getting off the plane in the middle of the night.
He scrolled down another two posts.
"An S-rank deserves S-rank treatment, of course."
"Caesar cleverly deploys a honey trap?"
Chu Zihang enlarged the airport photo in the thread, stopping on Lu Mingfei's blurry face.
"I posted that."
Susie sat down beside him with a coffee and glanced at the screen. "You follow gossip too?"
"That isn't your ID."
"My alt." Susie caught the straw between her teeth. "Look at this one-the two checked into a luxury hot spring inn on the shore of Lake Ashi. Tsk, tsk. I don't know whether to feel sorry for the S-rank or Caesar."
Chu Zihang didn't answer. He scrolled back to the top of the thread and opened the photo again.
"Chu Zihang?"
Susie waved a hand in front of his eyes and realized his gaze had already lost focus. She shook her head, took her coffee, and walked away.
Lu Mingfei.
He sat against the back of his chair, staring at that name, lost in thought.
Tokyo, Genji Heavy Industries headquarters.
Gen Chisei stepped out of the elevator. He had intended to check on Erii, but as he reached the middle of the corridor, a secretary in a black suit hurried up to him.
"Young master, the patriarch asks that you go to the top-floor conference room immediately."
"Now?"
"The representatives of the Eight Families of Sheqi are all here."
Gen Chisei asked no more questions. Anything that prompted Tachibana Masamune to summon all eight families at once would be serious.
The conference room door swung open. Both sides of the long table were full. Tachibana Masamune sat to the right of the head seat, with an empty chair to the left.
Gen Chisei walked over and sat down.
"What is it?"
Tachibana Masamune said, "Headquarters' S-rank arrived in Japan three days ago."
Gen Chisei said, "I know."
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Headquarters notified us in advance." Gen Chisei leaned back in his chair. "They hoped we could offer him some assistance. I arranged a car and booked an inn."
Fuma Kotaro watched him expressionlessly.
"You also assigned someone to him."
"A driver," Gen Chisei said. "Only responsible for transportation and day-to-day contact."
"What did he do in Hakone?"
"Kept Caesar Gattuso's girlfriend company." Gen Chisei smiled faintly. "Perhaps that's how an S-rank operates."
Fuma Kotaro said, "Your observations are very much focused on everyday life, young master."
Gen Chisei's half-smile vanished. "Mr. Fuma, please continue."
Fuma Kotaro opened the file in front of him, drew out a sheet of paper, and pushed it to the center of the table.
"The Sakurai Family's undercover operative at the inn submitted a report." He tapped the paper. "After arriving in Hakone, the target displayed a clear sense of purpose. He precisely avoided every tourist route and chose a path through the areas with the thickest geological strata."
Miyamoto Shio frowned slightly.
"More specifically, he demonstrated professional judgment of the geological structure. Where the natural rock lay, where there was artificial backfill, how much pressure from above a section of air-raid tunnel could bear-the route he took suggested he was searching for some sort of underground structure."
"An underground tomb?" the head of the Ryuma Family interjected. "There are quite a few Kofun Period burial sites around Hakone."
"That is the strangest part," Fuma Kotaro continued. "We are certain there is nothing there. But the most crucial evidence is this surveillance footage."
The screen at the front of the conference room lit up.
The footage showed Lake Ashi at night, filmed from high on a distant mountainside. The angle was oblique, presumably zoomed in through a telephoto lens. The lake rippled with flecks of silver beneath the moonlight, and the trees along its shore resembled a blurred smear of ink.
Onscreen, Lu Mingfei took a step forward, setting his foot onto the water.
Gen Chisei leaned forward slightly.
An enormous golden screen of light spread beneath Lu Mingfei's feet. Layers of hexagonal structures extended outward, like a sheet of amber that had suddenly solidified, covering half the lake. Lu Mingfei stood steadily on that golden expanse, as though his feet were planted on solid ground.
The view zoomed in a little, revealing the details of the changes in the water. Chaotic ripples suddenly appeared around the edges of the golden screen. Crests and troughs collided, churning the lake into fine white foam.
But directly beneath the screen, the water seemed to be pinned down by something pressing hard from above. Every ripple vanished the instant it approached that area. The surface became absolutely flat, without so much as a tiny undulation, like a polished black mirror.
Then Lu Mingfei appeared to suffer some tremendous pain. He slowly bent over and sank to his knees on the lake, the golden light supporting him above the water.
The red-haired girl rushed into the water from the shore. She stepped onto the golden expanse, crouched down, and gripped Lu Mingfei's shoulders with both hands.
Tachibana Masamune pressed the remote, returning the footage to its final frame. Nono was supporting Lu Mingfei, whose head hung low. The golden screen over the lake was fading, peeling away piece by piece from the edges and dissolving into fragments of light that sank beneath the water.
"What Word Spirit is this?" Gen Chisei asked.
Miyamoto Shio took off his glasses and wiped them. "I don't know."
"You're the head of the Miyamoto Family. What does the Iwaryu Research Institute's analysis say?"
"None of the known Word Spirit sequences produces a hexagonal screen of light. But the pain the S-rank displayed closely resembles someone entering Spirit Vision after experiencing psychic resonance."
Gen Chisei watched Lu Mingfei on the screen.
"If he really entered Spirit Vision," Gen Chisei said, "then there is something there after all."
Tachibana Masamune set the remote on the table with a soft tap.
Everyone's attention returned to him.
"We called you here to make you aware of the situation." He looked at Gen Chisei. "Headquarters' S-rank came to Japan, and we offered him assistance according to protocol. Nothing more."
"At present, we cannot determine whether the S-rank is acting of his own accord or on the college's instructions," Tachibana Masamune said. "But since he is only looking for now, we will make no response before he leaves."
"Meeting adjourned."
Chairs scraped as the representatives of the eight families filed out. Fuma Kotaro paused beside Gen Chisei as he passed, as though he wanted to say something. In the end, he merely nodded and pushed the door open to leave.
Only two people remained in the conference room.
Gen Chisei stood and walked toward the door, then turned back to ask, "How is Erii today?"
"The same as yesterday."
Tachibana Masamune spoke with his gaze resting on the final frame of the recording.