Noel knocked on the door twice and waited. She felt a bit uncomfortable being out here all alone, with nothing but her cap, her cape, and her guns to keep her company. She was tempted to push the "panic button" that Hazama had given her, just for reassurance that it worked, but Hazama would probably look down on her for doing that. Besides, he trusted she could do this job quite easily, just ask Colton a few questions and get back to the safehouse when she was done. Simple right? But what if he thought she was spying on him? What if he didn't like her anymore? What if…

The door opened a crack and a gruff male voice grunted from behind it. Noel flinched a bit, but tried to keep herself calm.

"Oh, it's you." The man spoke, "What do you want?"

"Colton…Colton Black?"

"Who wants to know?"

"It's me, Noel Vermillion." The man said nothing in response, and Noel couldn't detect any movement either. "Remember from the Academy? You taught an elective class on gun-kata?"

"Gun-kata?" Colton snickered for a bit. "Everyone knows that style is bullshit."

"What? No! No sir, you taught me…"

"What do you want, an autograph or something? Stop wasting my time." The door closed suddenly. Noel wasn't sure if she was more scared or angry that Colton had just blown her off. She couldn't believe it at all. But she didn't come here to simply be turned away, so she knocked on the door a few more times. The door finally opened another crack, and Colton's gruff voice treated her like some stray dog who just took a dump on his doorstep. "What the hell are you still doing here, kid? Go! Shoo! Get lost!"

Noel took a deep breath and then said in a firm voice, "I'm here on a mission from the NOL's Intelligence Department."

"Intelligence?" Colton asked her, his voice a little less condescending, "What the hell are you doing there? I thought you were gonna be a military girl."

"It's a temporary assignment. Now please open up, I have a few questions to ask you."

"You, or the Intelligence Division?"

Noel looked behind herself, as if she expected Hazama to appear there, but she saw nothing more than a few upper-class citizens of Kagutsuchi walking around. "Just me."

The man grunted again from behind the door. Then after a few seconds, he closed the door, unlatched the safety bolt, and opened the door back up. "Come inside kid," Colton said."Let's have a little chat."

"What do you mean, chat?"

"Exactly what I said." Colton gestured to the inside of the house, "A quick chat."

"Mr. Black…when's the last time you had that floor cleaned?"

"What? Oh yeah, been meaning to do something about those stains. I keep forgetting that it's not like my time at the Academy when some cadet would have the duty of…" Colton looked up into Noel's distraught face, "Bad memories huh? Well, c'est la vie and all that."

"What does c'est la vie mean?"

"That's life. So, you coming inside now, or should I just go back to my previous business?"

Noel sighed. "Sure, I'll come in." She had to remind herself that it was part of the mission, and that maybe she could find out why this Colton Black seemed a lot different from the officer she had learned from back at the Academy. Still, for an upper-class domicile, it seemed rather unkempt on the inside. Quite a few shelves and tables had dust visibly clinging onto the surface, showing a long period of misuse. Stains of a few different colors appeared on the carpeting that took up most of the floor.

In the kitchen, Colton was pouring himself a drink while Noel stared at him with her mouth open.

"Mr. Black!"

"What, you want a drink too?" Colton raised his glass full of liquid. "Rum and Coke, keeps you awake and takes the pain away, if only for a brief moment."

"Of course not!"

"Your loss." Colton shrugged his shoulders, then proceeded to down half the glass. "So tell me Noel, what does the Intelligence Division want with an old, retired, cynical drunkard like me? You think they'd prefer someone who isn't a goddamned idiot."

"What happened to you, Mr. Black?"

"What happened? Magic happened, that's what. Haven't you heard? Bullets are useless now against anyone with a half-decent Barrier Ars Magus strapped to their body. Even the Library has been shifting most of its elite troops towards old-fashioned melee weaponry to break through these barriers." Colton finished off his drink and then slammed the glass on the table. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you stuck with my class on gun-kata, but you wasted your time. No one cares about guns anymore."

"You're wrong!" Noel shouted, "It was thanks to your teachings that I managed to arrest a pirate earlier today!"

"A pirate, huh?"

"Yes! A real pirate! With that evil look in his eyes, that weird sword technique, and those hands that threatened to…to…" Noel tried to think of the correct expression. "…to ruin my innocence!"

Colton suddenly burst out into laughter. "Wow kid, you're wound up tighter than the Imperator's cat. Here, try this, it'll loosen ya up." Colton poured a different drink in a second glass and slid it across the table to Noel.

"Mr. Black, about that information…"

"You finish that glass, I'll tell you everything you need to know."

Sol leaned against a wall as he took a few deep breaths. He had been trying to find that cat who stole his lunch for awhile now, if only because it might hold some answers about what this Kagutsuchi place was. Unfortunately, he was still hungry, and people didn't seem to recognize World Dollars as true currency here, so it made things a bit difficult.

Sol looked up to try and get his bearings. The only landmarks in the area were a bunch of sewer pipes, but otherwise it was pretty dark in this area, save for some sunlight that streaked through cracks in the ceiling. What was this place? Some kind of water treatment plant? Why would they put one all the way down here without a visible way out? Where were all the people? Even that one map he borrowed from a tourist stand back in Orient Town didn't seem to list the location of this place.

Even though he was tired, hungry, and a little pissed off, Sol knew he was going to get nothing accomplished down here, but then something happened: he felt something tugging at his leg. He tried walking out of it, but that same entity started dragging him in as a black mass slowly grew around his feet.

"What the hell?" Sol unsheathed his sword, the Fuuenken, and started cutting the strange substance off of his feet with small strokes. However, the mass kept growing. Drawing magic power from his weapon, he channeled a flame around the blade, and then plunged it into the mass at his feet. The black mass slid away and Sol could almost swear he heard something scream. "First cat-people, now semi-intelligent black goo?" Sol wondered aloud, "This place is getting crazy." Sol planned to go move forward but then saw an even bigger mass of black goo blocking his path, this time with a plain white mask that seemed to act as a face.

Sol was even more perplexed when he heard strange sounds coming from the mass, as if someone was speaking in disjointed syllables. "An…sh…n't…poss…what…no…hap…ex…is…"

"Look, I'm getting a little tired of this." Sol pointed his sword at the mass, "You tell me right now what the hell is going on, or I'm cutting a path through you."

"Li…boy…pl…th…he…ch…is…but…"

"Can you speak? What the hell are you muttering?"

"Mat…is…words…in…sit…shun…? No…ha…not…wis"

"Fine, your loss."

"Eat...eat you…see if…or sat…"

Sol again channeled the flame into his Fuuenken, and this time caused magical fire to shoot up from the ground underneath the masked black blob. The flames struck the black mass and caused it to scream. Then the masked blob leaped into the air, where Sol lost sight of it in the shadows of the piping.

"Where did you go?" Sol tried to find it, but the damn thing had vanished from sight. Sol shrugged his shoulders and prepared to leave thinking the strange being had lost interest in him. Then a large, yellowish spike came out of nowhere and slashed him across the shoulder of his weapon arm.

"Pointlesspointlesspointlesspointless…." The mass whispered out loud before screeching in what appeared to be some form of demented laughter. Sol grimaced from the pain but continued looking for the thing. Another yellowish spike came forward, but his guard was slower this time. He blocked it, but didn't expect a second one to appear right underneath it and stab him in the chest.

Sol switched the sword to his undamaged chest, but the pain in his chest and shoulder did not feel particularly good, and if not for his Gear traits he probably wouldn't have survived. He decided to create some light in the area to find the black mass and channeled another flame through his Fuuenken, but something weird happened. The flame shot out from the sword in all directions, accidentally hitting the black mass in the process.

"WAAAAAAAASTE!" It shouted as it was now covered in magical flame, "EV…TH…TOUCH…WAAAAASTE!"

"Shut up!" Sol shouted, bringing his sword up to finish the thing off again, and cut through it.

"NOT…OV…NEV…CA…ANY…AAAAAA!" The black mass was cut in two as the bottom half sunk to the floor and the top half with the face mask floated up in the air, screaming until it disappeared.

Sol suddenly fell to the ground, incredibly fatigued. Dammit, I used too much power. How did that happen? He tried to stand up, but even doing that was difficult. Something went wrong when he called upon the power of the Fuuenken to light up the area, and he lost control of the magic. "Can't fall asleep, not here." Sol growled out loud, mostly for his own benefit, "That thing might come back. Gotta find some kinda shelter…"

"Ugh, this place reeks of filth." Rachel spoke, disgruntled, as she shifted into the area. "I can't imagine why anyone would want to go down here. Do the peasantry actually like living in this squalor?"

Rachel took a few steps forward through the muck of the sewers until she found what she was searching for: another crude imitation of a Nox Nyctores that didn't belong in this world. This particular one was a lot shorter than the first blade, and was being held by a dirty man who seemed to be sleeping on the floor. "Hmph, sleeping in this place? I don't know how anyone could do it."

"That's peasantry for ya, mistress." Her cat-like familiar Nago spoke, "Just like the job they were born to do, handle filth. They probably love sleeping in it."

"Nago, collect the blade from this man as well, we will study them later."

Nago warped into a cape around Rachel, and then focused itself into molding an arm big enough to collect the sword. Just as he was about to grab it, the man twitched his weapon arm and cut the familiar's appendage, causing Nago to retract back into the large cape form around Rachel. "OW! Mistress, he's hitting me!" Nago complained.

"Hands off my sword." Sol growled, "I've had enough of you creatures playing with me!"

"How rude." Rachel said, suddenly finding her nails a lot more important than the man in front of her, "I was merely trying to study a strange weapon, but it seems that weapon came attached to an alien specimen."

Sol didn't say anything else, but simply attacked out of anger. Rachel jumped into the air and easily lept out of Sol's range as the man tried channeling more magic through the Fuuenken. However, the act only drained his energy further.

"What's wrong, can't handle your power?" Rachel spoke as she balanced on top of a nearby pipe, "You really should rest up. If you use too much seithr, it will drive you quite mad."

"Shut up!" He channeled another flame into his blade, adrenaline keeping him from falling over, and lept up into the air to strike at Rachel, but something weird happened. He suddenly felt the wind resistance against his body a lot more than he normally would, especially considering that he was underground and there was very little natural wind flowing through here.

"George the Thirteenth." Rachel summoned a frog through a small rift, "I have need of your services now." As Sol missed the target and landed on the other side of the sewer, he saw what appeared to be a mechanical frog dropped right next to him. He thought the strange girl was taunting him.

Then the frog released a large burst of electricity, zapping him until he could no longer stand.

"Hmph, he was a difficult one to tame." Rachel told her familiars as she effortlessly floated to the ground with Nago's help. "But I must admit his spirit reminds me of another short-tempered rat from awhile ago. You think that buffoon would at least have the decency to write a letter once in awhile."

"Yeah, that Ragna guy doesn't think about your feelings!" Gii shouted.

"So what should we do with this one?" Rachel mused. "I could just take the sword, but there's something odd about this one. Something not quite human."

"What do you mean, not human?"

"He seems to have an awfully fast healing rate for someone who looks so unclean, but not exactly like that of a vampire." Rachel stepped over him. "I suppose I'll have to study them both further." She snapped her fingers in the air twice. "Valkenhayn?"

Rachel's butler Valkenhayn appeared out of nowhere, as seemed to be his custom, "You called for me, madam?"

"Please escort this man back home, but separate him from his sword and deliver it to me. Be wary, he may wake up very soon."

"Certainly, madam Rachel."

"And when you're finished with him, I want you to get me a new pair of shoes. These ones are filthy enough from walking in this place."

"Of course."

Rachel disappeared from view along with her familiars and her frog George XIII, and Valkenhayn sighed. "Looks like I have to clean up after her mess again. Sometimes I wonder why I took this job." Valkenhayn grabbed Sol by the back of the neck with one hand and ripped his sword free with another. "I suppose it's your fault for just being in the wrong place when Rachel happened to get bored." He said sarcastically to the downed Sol. "She's like that, you know."

"What happened?" Valkenhayn thought he heard the tired warrior grumble as he slung him over his shoulder, "How did I become so weak?"

Valkenhayn declined to answer him as he shifted back to the mansion with Sol and sword in tow.