Notes: People ignore Fuzetsus, that's canon. What isn't is my interpretation of how they ignore it, I thought that it would be stupid to allow people to think of the area but not able to see inside it. People notice when they suddenly can't see a large portion of the city. Therefore there has to be an attention deflector on it. Like the Somebody Else's Problem Field that Hitchhiker's Guide had.

Too bad that Simon knows how to counter one of those.

You can't say that time inside speeds up so fast that the battle is over before anyone outside can react. In the series, characters outside the field have managed to enter and join the battle.

"You actually fed the cat?" Floe said incredulously, "It's not like you to do
that. "

Simon shrugged, "Why not? I mean she fed the cat with me, right?"

They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Is Simon regaining his
memory? He might stop being so obsessed about the investigation.

Thomas pulled Floe and Tiriel away from Simon and said in a low tone, "It's
good that he's becoming more normal. Perhaps we should leave it alone.
It'll be better for you, Tiriel. "

As Floe nodded in agreement readily, Tiriel had to be persuaded however,
"Isn't that like him regaining his memories?"

"I don't think so; he would be telling us all about it if he remembered
something. "

There was no question that if anyone was to regain memories, it would be
Simon. Tiriel continued to waver but agreed reluctantly after some time.

"So what was that about?" Simon asked as they returned. Floe began to
make up an answer but Thomas interrupted smoothly, "We'll go check out
the nurse with Mrs. Limone after she comes in afterschool. Would you take
Tiriel and go find the tree that was mentioned in the diary?"

There was quite a large consideration at Thomas's suggestion. Tiriel
understood almost immediately and scowled at Thomas, who winked back.
"What's up with that look?" Simon asked, when he noticed Tiriel and Floe
looking a little embarrassed.

"If you don't get it, you'll won't even if we explain," Floe replied and
gestured for them to disperse, the bell for start of class was ringing, "You'll
better go back, Tiriel, class is starting. "

"What was that about?" Simon asked Tiriel as he joined her at the school
gate.

"Ignore Thomas, even though he is right in that we'll find more things if we
split up," Tiriel explained, feeling a little guilty at support the division. It's
not because of Simon!

As the two went out the school gate, the shadow on the roof of the building
watched them leave. They feel normal, Tomogara can't possibly want to go
to human school. So why is there a distortion following them?

There were two more fainter ones in the building. This has to be investigated,
whatever happens, it's a distortion, and it needs Tuning.

"It's only a small one. Slightly more than one Torch. Outlaw gave you an
assignment, this is not it. "

The shadow hesitated, and explained, "It's grown rapidly over the last two
days. I'll Tune it and leave immediately. I'll only be a little late for the
appointment. "

There was more silence as Simon and Tiriel walked down the street. Firstly, I
need to tell if they know the truth. A test at the center of the web then, if
they're responsible, they'll feel it.

"If we can find the diary, we'll have all the information we could possibly
find. Maybe there'll even be more links and evidence! And it starts with that
tree, the diary is going to be there, I just know it. "

Tiriel looked at the satellite picture of the town blankly, letting Simon
chatter on. It had become sort of a background noise to her, it was nice to
listen to it even though Simon thinking aloud was too fast for her to follow.

"I've marked six points in town where there's only one tree around.
Surprisingly, there wasn't too many spots, after all, you can't rest at a
road intersection of something. "

"Let's go then," she said, pointing to one spot at the graveyard, circled in
bright blue ink.

Simon looked crestfallen, "That's the problem, the six spots are all over town.
It'll take us all day just to look at even two of them. Plus, I'm not sure what
I'm supposed to find there. "

Scanning the map wasn't going to do much good. If Simon can't spot the
right tree, I have much less chances. Where would you go? "I think these
two are good choices, there's one isolated one at the riverbank and the other
is the graveyard one. "

The shadow looked around the base of the tree. "You could set up the
tuning pillar here. One will be enough for something this small. "

There was some movement in the shade of the tree and the shadow plunged a
large shining metal pillar into the ground. There, that'll be the bait. The sky
grew dark as the Fuzetsu spread its red tint over the small area around the
tree. Come.

Simon looked over the map, "Two of them? Where's the first one?"

"What do you mean? There are six points right? One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
See? The first one is the graveyard, right?"

He frowned at Tiriel. Something's wrong with that statement, but I don't
know what. "Is it just me or did you think there was something wrong with
what you just said?"

"Eh? Er…" She thought for a while, "It does sound kind of strange, but look,
there's the six points on the map. The graveyard is the most likely one, so
let's go there first!"

The map had six points, Simon was sure of that. He looked at it again. One.
Two. Three. Four. Five. Five points. I thought I found six in a rough circle
around the department store last night. I'm sure of it.

He stopped Tiriel in confusion, "Something's wrong. I'm missing something
here. "

Tiriel backed up, they had learnt that Simon's intuition was very accurate
sometimes. "What is wrong? The map?"

She looked at the six blue dots. True, I did say there were two likely spots,
but there's only the graveyard. "I did say there were two spots right? But
there's only the graveyard that could be likely. "

"Let's go sit down over there, I'm not letting this defeat me. " Simon had
already connected this to the girl's disappearance. We're having the same
kind of mental block as we have with our memories of the girl. The position
of one tree is hidden from us. I. Will. Find. It.

The shadow was about to give up and go find a local to tune the area. If
there hasn't been any change in the last fifteen minutes, they don't know.
I have better things to do than worry about normal people.

A flash went through its senses, the distortion jumped and danced before
stabilizing, a ratchet higher than it was before. The shadow stood up and
smiled. A threat I see. I'll defeat them here. And settled down to wait again.

Simon crouched over the map, with his ruler measuring distances over the
impromptu grid he had drawn. If our attention is being deflected from the
tree, I can pinpoint its location. Measure the distance of the side of each
square containing one object and compare that number with the row
above. If we're ignoring an object, the affected rows will be shorter.

"Got it!" Tiriel shouted with glee, "Over here! The river is too short on one
side!"

Simon nodded and drew in a finer grid. "28cm on this row, but 29 above
and below it. The heights are 17 here and 18 on either side. That's it. That
square contains our tree. "

As they went to get their bikes that they had borrowed from a rental store,
Simon's hand phone rang. He was lucky that his mother had agreed to
letting him borrow it to do this, she still thought he was playing with his
friends.

"Yes, Floe? You found her entry?"

"Mrs. Limone here, actually. Thomas found it. There isn't much but at least
we know she was actually underweight. And short too. "

"Oh! Mrs. Limone! Sorry about that, me and Tiriel found the tree that was
mentioned in her diary. Could you ask Floe and Thomas to come to the
corner of Bridge Street?"

They're coming, the four kids that are at the center of the distortion. The
shadow examined the impromptu scanning spell arrayed in front of it. They
aren't Tomogaras either, what is going on?

"Even an Unrestricted Spell can be fooled by a skilled Tomogara. Be on your
guard. "

The shadow nodded in agreement.

Notes: This is probably the second to last chapter. There may or may not be an epilogue depending on whether I feel the story needs one.