A/N: Sorry for a long update...
My laptop broke and I need to wait for 3 months to update...
Now that it is now working, I could now post thechapters I have finished thus far...
Chapter 14 Unyielding Truth
Everyone in the interrogation room are calm and quiet.
There are a few spectators for the event outside, like Numbuh 60, who is viewing it in his personal office through a screen. It is also being watched by several agents from the TND, who also knew of Yukari Hirai and Kazumi Yoshida personally.
All they know that a time is coming that the identity of the TND will be revealed in the phase 4 of the KND's plan, but since Phase 2 is still in implementation, all they could do is to observe on what the interview would hold out regarding their future plans.
Numbuh 86 is itching to press the button. She is in charge of the joystick that controls the prisoners, and she already have in mind what kind of 'torture' she would do to them.
"Well, let's say..." she stood up, and walk around the three persons seated tightly together, fulfilling her part as the lead interrogator, and continued "I'll start of with the adult man."
"Huh, if it where not of your unusual tricks, I could've eliminated you..." Sydonay replied with a cold stare to her.
"Now, choose, truth, or dare..." Numbuh 86 grinned, with her hand itching to move the joystick.
"I don't like the sound of that..." Numbuh 2 mumbled.
"Why is that?" Kazumi whispered at Hoagie, making Shana stare at her intently. Since she is sitting in the other side of the interrogation table with Yuji and Sydonay, and is virtually immobilized by the unusual bracelet she can't remove at her own will, and the fact that there is no melon bread around, there is nothing she can do about.
"Maybe a dare..." Sydonay replied. At that, Numbuh 86 remarked "Then, my dare is... PUNCH YOURSELF MANY TIMES AND SAY SOMETHING YOU KNOW ABOUT FATHER?"
"I'm not silly to do that, and what kind of Father are you talking..." At that exact moment, Numbuh 86 moved the joystick and Sydonay's left arm punched him in an uppercut, something that Sydonay wasn't expecting. That action nearly cost the lost of his sunglasses, since it was thrown away to the floor after the punch is made.
"Trying to defy us huh?" Numbuh 86 responded.
"Wow, he looks more charming without those glasses!" Numbuh 3 remarked. Jealousy somehow struck the Australian in the room and yelled "JUST PUNCH HIM AGAIN NUMBUH..." At that, Numbuh 86 throws at him a spoon, which then throws Numbuh 2 backward, making him fall with the sit on his back.
"OH SHUT UP WALLY!" Numbuh 86 yelled. "I'm in control of this remote. You can't make me do otherwise!"
Yuji then remarked to Shana "This kind of torture is much more scarier..."
Numbuh 86 heard it and made Yuji fall on the ground in a way similar to how Wally fell on the ground. This made both Kazumi and Shana shocked, with Kazumi even standing up to speak out that concern. This is helped with the added "YUJI!" in both of their voices.
"I think you're overdoing this Fanny!" Numbuh 5 remarked. "I know your hatred with boys AND adults but not in this way!"
"I don't care..." Numbuh 86 stubbornly replied "I can do what I want with this remote on hand."
"Just get to the point and ask them why are they killing children!" Numbuh 1 yelled out. "We are conducting this interview so that we would know why they are doing this massacre by letting them disappear!"
"Is this all this fuzz is all about?" Shana finally spoke up "Kidnapping all three of us for the sake of the children disappearing? If there is someone you should kidnap, it should be that adult who punch himself earlier!"
"SAYS FROM THE PERSON WHO TOOK YUKARI HIRAI'S EXISTENCE!" Numbuh 362's voice held out loud in the room. "I know who you really are, 'Yukari Hirai'... you are an imposter!"
"How could you say that?" Shana remarked, trying to insist the children that she is Yukari Hirai. "Tell them about that Kazumi, I'm the very same Hirai you met in high school, and your friend in..."
"Shana, I'm sorry..." Kazumi remarked, in which Yuji and Shana was surprised by that reply. She looked downward and said "The Yukari Hirai I know is actually my mentor, the very person who inspired me to be a KND agent when I was young..." He then stared straight at Shana's eyes and replied "My loyalty shall be that first to the Kids Next Door, even if I'm already a teenager, and so is the Hirai I know!"
"What the..." Yuji said "I don't get everything right..."
"Numbuh 86..." Numbuh 362 said "Could you make the teenager sit properly? I want to question him a bit."
"But I like..."
"Please Fanny..." Kazumi remarked "I want to know why Hirai is with Yuji even before she disappear... Having Hirai with him isn't an accident, and having Shana her existence is more than pure coincidence..."
At that, Yuji was allowed to be sited properly, and Sydonay manages to have his glasses with him under Numbuh 86's request (since she is more insecure with Sydonay without the glasses in the first place), and the interview continued with Numbuh 362 speaking "Now that I know that the imposter's name is actually Shana, I want to know WHY... and that boils down to you male teenager!"
"What, me?" Yuji remarked "I don't even have a motive for 'killing' Hirai, in fact, Hirai's loss is the very event that made my eyes open to another world that you are just entering!"
"Shut your mouth up teenager!" Numbuh 362 remarked "I was the very person who assigned her a mission! I assigned to her a mission that Numbuh 274 is very successful at..."
"Wait, if I remember correctly, Numbuh 274 is a promising young agent before I got decommissioned..." Kazumi pondered something on her memory "Did he became..."
"He's the Soopreme leader before me..." Numbuh 362 remarked "And he's a TND agent as well..."
"An undercover one at that..." Numbuh 1 remarked "He's pretty good at that... he even fooled nearly the entire KND that he is really a Tean Ninja."
"But I swear, I'm not part of whatever that is!" Yuji remarked.
"But not someone from your family..." Numbuh 362 remarked. "The plan is actually very simple... she will be your girlfriend and extract as much information about your father. Don't you even think that Hirai would take a real liking at you with that in mind?"
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Shana yelled back at the KND Soopreme Leader "If that was so, then I'm suppose to remember that one in the first place!"
"Shana, it is also possible that there is actually no memory of Hirai about this retaining in the existence you got." A voice spoke up for everyone. The children shuddered a bit, but Kazumi remarked "Alastor, you finally spoke, I'm so sorry but I'm more loyal to the KND before everything else."
"Wait, Alastor?" Numbuh 362 shivered, thinking that the interview suddenly became a bit spooky "Is there really a ghost or..."
"Mam, there's no ghost..." Kazumi said, stressing the point out "It's Shana's necklace, and the being who gave her the power to be a Flame Haze."
"I understand your loyalty Kazumi..." the voice from Shana's necklace resounded again "But everything I hear doesn't make sense. Shana can speak anything she wanted, Sydonay will not reveal anything, and Yuji doesn't even know how his family is connected to this Father you are talking about, but I know you wanted to hear from someone coming from the Crimson Realm, and I'm open to discussion."
"So, what's worse with a Flame Manipulator? A Flame Manipulator with a Talking Necklace!" Numbuh 2 tried to crack a joke, but everyone stared at him blankly. With that, Numbuh 2 said "Fine, none of my jokes work for you..."
"Well, you finally spoke up..." Sydonay remarked "I never thought you'll stay silent after letting the kids punch myself in the face."
"It seems that you won't reveal everything Thousand Changes..." the necklace spoke up "But what matters most are several questions to be answered." He took a pause and continued "The technology the children made is unique impressive. You impressed me for doing that, by using the very laws of existence against us. Whatever that is, you figured out that by placing some sort of equipment that suppresses our abilities to control existence by locking our existence from the inside. That is really impressive, and a lot of Denizens would beg to have such power."
"Well, it is." Numbuh 2 replied "In fact..."
An Angry Bird plush toy was flung towards Numbuh 2's mouth, coming from Numbuh 86's direction, rendering him to muffle. He then spat it out and yelled "What was that for Fanny?"
"SHUT UP AND DON'T SPILL OUR TECHNOLOGY TO THEM!"
"Alright..." Numbuh 2 groaned a bit.
"Then answer my question then..." Numbuh 1 remarked "Why are YOU killing children?"
"Not every 'Flame Manipulators' kill children..." Alastor replied with sureness in what he's saying "There are two groups, one that aims to use human existence to their own purpose, and the other that retards the effect the former does, and slays the first group in order to keep the balance of everything in this world."
"That has to be the lousiest explanation I heard!" Numbuh 1 shouted, out of disbelief because of the nonsensical balance Alastor is talking about. "If you are to preserve the existence, then why are the first ones still alive? And why is your owner taking the existence of the very agent we have?"
"I know this is a bit emotional to you..." Alastor remarked "...but my contractor didn't do it for any other reason than observation on Yuji Sakai's special capability. But even before that, Hirai's going to disappear because someone else manages to devour her existence beforehand. She is already dead before she disappeared..."
"You liar!" Numbuh 362 shouted back at the necklace's voice. "It's pretty obvious you're working with someone!"
"How are you sure with that, little miss?" Alastor replied. "Crimson Denizens work on their own accord, by that, we mean by our own decisions. We just, in your sense of terms, work for what we think is right."
"You know what we think is right?" Numbuh 362 spoke again "THAT YOU WOULD BE..."
Immediately, something unusual happens around them. Sounds of alarms are raised, and the room is covered in red blinking lights. Every KND members know the meaning of this mess, and that is...
"Oh great, not now..." Kazumi remarked.
Immediately, Numbuh 362 commanded "Numbuh 86, contact Numbuh 60, Numbuh 1, contact Moonbase, and..."
Suddenly, the Public Announcement of a female kid sounded in the alarm.
"This is no drill and definitely NOT A FLAME MANIPULATOR SIMULATOR!"
"OH great..." 362 remarked, sending confusion in Kazumi's mind, so are the prisoners. Immediately, Numbuh 362 changes her commands, saying "Sector V, sent the prisoners to their prison. 546, go with Sector V and act like a prisoner. Numbuh 86, contact Moonbase for back-up!"
"What, why?" Kazumi asks, out of the astonishment of the command.
The KND commander pulled her closer forcibly, and whispered to her ear "This is an emergency scenario you may have never heard. We are facing against an army of Flame Manipulators!"