Setting 34: 1859 DAY 23, Deling City, Red Light District, Vagabond's Vale Tavern, 2F

"For a nation which has an almost evil reputation

for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush,

we spend an enormous amount of time

standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting."

-Benchley, Robert

Benchley – Or Else!

Next to Zell's pad, this was the most wretched dump that she had ever stayed in. Unfortunately it was also the closest hostel to the only police station in the precinct that handled both homicides and finding missing persons. Her late sister, until recently, turned out to be both. Of course, now that the Galbadian authorities had found her body, she was no longer considered missing.

Mina Charleston had come a long way in recuperating from the initial shock and devastation that had followed the totally uninteresting mail form that had notified her of her sister's death. Of course, without her personal confirmation, the local authorities could not close the case. And since they had no intention of paying for her trip halfway around Terra from Balamb to Galbadia, her to answer to the summons was in every sense a courtesy call. With the Balamb Library unable to give her a four-month's pay advance, Mina had to resort to joining an anti-Malboro campaign that virtually provided for all her transportation fares and meal costs.

The only other option would have been to borrow it from Zell, but a lump sum amount would have been a gift too onerous for a relationship not yet tied together by a stone. She did not doubt that he did not have the means since he was a level A SeeD, meaning his wages were more than four times her own.

That and he is probably going to get a hefty holiday bonus for defeating Ultimecia this year, she reflected further.

But she was glad that she didn't have to ask him for anything. It was hard enough as it was to get him to pay any real attention to her, "real" being more than just the courtesy compliment or a recital of his daily schedule. She had seen Zell's teammate Irvine Kinneas flirting with the other librarians, and for all its insincerity, it was at least more effort than her own boyfriend was putting into the scant bits of time that they had together.

No, she reaffirmed for the fourth time, it was better not to have asked for any Gil.

One usually travels around the world with that kind of money with a partner on a luxury cruise. These circumstances were nothing of the kind. Besides, it was family business, and the last thing that she wanted to do was spoil the "Welcome Back from Time Compression" celebration they were throwing at Balamb Garden the night she left, even at the expense of not having any warm shoulder to cry on.

She could really use one right about now.

Perhaps it wasn't that the Galbadian police investigators were being deliberately unhelpful, but that they were merely incompetent. Nothing had turned up in the two weeks after the bodies had been found. All the details she had on the full-scale offings were leaked out, not released officially. Apparently her sister was involved, but not yet implicated, with one side or the other of two underground crime syndicates, both in the trafficking business – be it precious information, illegally manufactured or upgrades weapons, genetically modified chocoboes, illegally refined medicinal items, Guardian Force gene-splicing equipment, etc.

But the only suspect that the police had – the leader of the slaughtered gang who was the only one not accounted from among the bodies – had yet to be located in the professional, exhaustive countrywide search. Their only lead was leading them nowhere, and her having to nag at them to no avail in their waiting lounge day after day was becoming a nuisance to both parties.

Actually, it might have been partially her fault that she could not be of more help. Their not having a single clear photograph or profile of the suspect might have been remedied if she had not stupidly lost the photo that her sister had sent her a year or so before. Of course, the picture might have been taken long before it was sent to her, but at least it was something to go on. Also, the man in the photo could have been anyone, not necessarily the gang leader, but all these speculations were moot now that she could not produce it.

For the life of her she could find it among her luggage even though she remembered taking it out of her room in the Balamb residential quarters. If it was not here, then she must have dropped it along the way from there to Galbadia, halfway around Terra. It could be floating in the middle of the ocean or washed up on the shores of Cactuar Island for all she knew.

Regardless, being left out of the loop for the n-th time though she was sure that today there had been an unusual bustle at the station, she had decided to take things into her own hands.

Mina sat down on the bed in a position she had considerately selected for herself equidistantly far from both the unsightly bed sheet stain that had come with the room and the broken mattress spring. Then she reached into her handbag and took out the manilla folder that she had lifted from the public relation representative's desk while he was occupying himself with shouting at his equally unproductive subordinates. It all happened in an instant, and whether it was an act of courage or foolishness would have to be determined in consequentialist retrospect.

She flipped through the documents inside one by one until she realized that she did not have the expertise to decipher them, much less divulge their purpose. She seemed like maps or floor prints of various compounds. Those with typewriting on them were too technical for her as well. At length she sighed and replaced the folder and its contents back in her very plain handbag.

Her trip to Galbadia had not taught her very much about her sister or her lifestyle. However, in the more fashionable parts of the city, such as the one that had sprouted and flourished economically around the centrally-located Galbadia Mall, she had been re-educated about what it meant to live in the cosmopolitan, upper-tier society and to walk around with an upper-tier purse. Perhaps her third-tier, third-century bag was a dead giveaway of her rural Balamb lifestyle and Balamb means.

The glossy postcard that lied next to her desk lamp on the opposite side of the bed next to the headboard was reflecting a lamplight into the corner her eye. She leaned back and managed to pluck it off the table without standing up. Lying back across the bed and facing the ceiling, Mina held the postcard up and reread it.

It was addressed and sent from Winhill from five days before from a colleague she had met during the early stages of the anti-Malboro campaign before he parted ways with them to pick up a librarian's job, just like the one she had. Apparently Jer had wound up in Nova Trabia Garden.

Nova Trabia Garden, she repeated thoughtfully. That is probably where Irvine and Zell are docked, alright.

Though Zell did not tell her of his new assignment at the party, she had reason to believe that she had found out about it before he had. On her way out of the ballroom, Headmaster Cramer was chuckling about environmental surveys with Mrs. Kramer. It was only in brief passing, and so she unintentionally overheard no more than that the two SeeDs would rendezvous with Commander Lionheart in Nova Trabia Garden after finishing their own scouting project.

Though she had not loitered around long enough to hear the length of the assignment, she estimated that they had probably completed it. As for her, it would not be long before the inspectors realized that the file was not in the office. Her time left in Galbadia was limited.

The last steam-liner that would ship off for Trabia Continent this evening was set to embark at nine. If she hurried now, she would make it to the port in time for an hour-stroll around the boardwalk. The ticket office would be closed by then, but she had the foresight to purchase a stub to reserve a seat for one aboard the Marquessa earlier during the day. At their published speed, she calculated that the journey would take a day and a half, two at most, meaning she could disembark with at least a fresh new afternoon awaiting her.

Half an hour later, as her bus was passing the most gentry and posh sectors of the city, she looked out her window to admire the gated mansion that she had read in her Deling City introductory tour brochure belonged to General Caraway, one of the figureheads of the nation, and until recently not a very big-spender in the capital. News headlines would occasionally touch upon a few grand investments that he had made in the past weeks, but not having her own Gil to spend, she could not hop into the bandwagon and shadow the big players. If Galbadia would ever recover economically, the new wave of growth would have to be spearheaded by the military and political towers, the only ones with any influence and capital to burn for fun.

All the lights in the sector blacked out, the traffic lights included. The startled bus-driver braked fast and her ride lurched to a screeching halt and the one other passenger aboard shrieked. Luckily, though, the traffic had long since dissipated at that hour, so there weren't any other vehicles on the street that might have run into them.

Mina readjusted her bags next to her on the seat and then lifted her wrist up next to her ear and listened carefully. Her watch was still ticking, so the power blackout it was not due to an EMP attack. She sighed in relief. If war was going to take this country, the hawks should at least have the decency to let her get off the materialistic rock before the first shot rang out.

The bus resumed it course, a little slower to be sure, but eventually they found the streets brightly lit eight blocks further down. Turning back to look at the Caraway mansion one last time, Mina Charleston noted that it the palace of lights was now pitch black. Facing forwards again, she settled back in her seat and found it more comfortable than it was a minute ago. The thought that perhaps even the cosmopolitan, upper-tier elites had their moments of helplessness was somehow reassuring.

The rosy warm feeling lasted for about two seconds before the bus crashed into an unforgiving block of concrete the size of the sky and she was hurtled headlong out of her seat towards the front windshields.

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.

Recommended Background Music Song List for Division Two-

Setting 27: Mass Missle's "Ima Made Nandomo"

Setting 28: Nagase Tomoya's "Hitori bocchi no Haburashi" (Mukodono OST)

Setting 29: Raiko's "ALIVE"

Setting 30: TiA's "Ryuuesi"

Setting 31: Kumi Koda's "1000 Words" (or "Sen no Kotoba") from Final Fantasy X-2

Setting 32: WANDS' "Don't Cry"

Setting 33: Hound Dog's "Rocks"

Setting 34: WANDS' "Sekai-chyuu Dare Yori Kitto"

Setting 35: Tasuku's "Little by Little - Kanashimi wo Yasashisa Ni"

Setting 36: Asian Kung-fu Generation's "Haruka Kanata"

Setting 37: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) "Moon Light" (Odoru Daisousasen OST)

Setting 38: Oda Yuji's "Love Somebody"

Setting 39: WANDS' "Sekai ga Owaru made wa"

Setting 40: Shela's "Days"

Setting 41: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) "Moon Light" (Odoru Daisousasen OST)

Setting 42: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) "Moon Light" (Odoru Daisousasen OST)

Setting 43: Orange Range's "Viva Rock"

Setting 44: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) "Moon Light" (Odoru Daisousasen OST)

Setting 45: Sambomaster's "Seishun Kyosokyoku"

Setting 45.5: Akihiko Matsumoto's "Rhythm And Police" (Odoru Daisousasen OST)

Setting 45: Seo Jin Young's "Uh Jyuh Myuh" (Summer Scent OST)

Epilogue: "Ending Theme- Tidus and Yuna" from Final Fantasy X

Setting 47: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) "Moon Light" (Odoru Daisousasen OST)

Chapter-By-Chapter Plot Recapitulation: Cagnet's "Here We Are Again"

Postscript: Yuki's "Home Sweet Home" AND F4's "Yen Hua De Ji Jie"

PuPu's Saga Miscellany: Utada Hikaru's "Can You Keep A Secret"