Notes:

Chapter Title: Sakkaku CROSSROADS (錯覚CROSSROADS lit. Illusionary Crossroads) - BiBi

"When I was little, my father told me that it was knowledge and power that made the human race so great. He pointed out that Tokyo was one of the most advanced cities in the world and gave me examples of how it was one of the most prosperous. How could I not believe him?

Even in my adult life, I believed that if we had enough knowledge, humanity could overcome anything.

That changed when the Ceresis destroyed Tokyo, and again four years later, when my father died during Bloody Valentine, just one more number in the hundreds that lost their lives and the thousands who lost what it meant to be human.

It was then I realized that my father had never been right. Humanity's greatest gift had never been knowledge, nor the means to obtain it. The greatest gift that we can ask for is the courage to accept everything that has happened—to be unafraid of the future, no matter what it may bring." —Toujou Nozomi

Umi brushed wet bangs out of her face in the early June rain as she stepped out from the cover of the stairwell. It wasn't quite morning yet, but she had a fair number of things to do that day and had decided that it was better if she got started early. The trek to the fence and back would take her at least a few hours combined and she'd promised Kotori she would pick up a few things for her and drop them off.

Her roommates had still been sleeping when Umi had quietly let herself out, and she'd taken extra care not to wake anyone up. Maki was a notorious night owl who absolutely detested being woken up earlier than necessary, but Umi had been especially careful to avoid Eli's wrath this morning—Eli hadn't been the same since she'd come home from the district building. Umi had expected her to sleep for sixteen hours straight, but what she had not expected was her extremely erratic temperament afterwards, something she hadn't seen from her in quite some time.

Maki had given up trying to deal with Eli's mood swings and spent most of her time shut up in her lab; she'd almost refused to let Umi in before Umi reminded her she was there to pick up the thing that she had wanted Rin to look at.

Umi did not particularly like or approve of Maki's method of handling this particular problem, as inevitably it would have to be addressed sooner or later, but she'd let it go at the time. However, the crux of the matter was sure to present itself in some way or another soon and she knew she had to deal with it before that—Umi fervently hoped that Eli would be in an amicable enough mood today to speak more than three sentences to her.

Because of the rain, she had thankfully spotted only a few military vehicles in the outskirts of Tokyo driving slowly in the mud. Few bounty hunters liked to hunt while it was raining and the outer district looked deserted. No doubt most of its inhabitants would be spending the day inside, which suited Umi just fine, because the less people that saw her today, the better.

Umi cast a furtive glance down both sides of the muddy road before she pushed the burlap curtain of a front door to Rin's shop aside. The narrow street was empty, but she could never be too sure that no one was following her. She had taken care to make it look like she was just venturing into Rin's shop after a successful hunt—her usual routine—though her mission today was far more sinister that that. The bullet in the plastic bag stuffed deep in the inside pocket of her jacket felt like it weighed a million more times than she actually did.

A cat brushed her ankles as she entered, rubbing its face against her pantleg for a few moments before slipping out into the storm, fur bristling. Rin herself had her eyes glued to the small television up on a shelf—Umi remembered that there was a televised senate meeting this morning, and she had to clear her throat once to catch Rin's attention.

"Umi-chan! You're awfully early today," she greeted, pushing herself up from her stool. "I was wondering if nya maybe weren't going to show up because it's raining."

Umi gave her a grim smile as she approached the counter. Rin's enthusiastic grin slacked a little as she drew closer, catching the serious expression in her amber gaze. "Is something the matter, Umi-chan?"

Umi thanked whatever gods remained above their skies that Rin had the sense to lower the volume of her voice. "No." She paused, looking around Rin's shop once even though they both knew it was empty. "Listen, Rin, can you do me a favour?"

Rin gave her a puzzled look as her head tilted slightly to one side. "What kind of favour are nya talking about?"

She pulled the bag out of her jacket pocket and pushed it across the countertop towards Rin. The orange-haired woman picked up the bag to examine its contents. "Can you identify this?" Umi asked her in a low voice, fervently hoping that Rin had made sure her shop wasn't bugged.

Rin looked at the bullet in the plastic for a few long heartbeats. "Well… I can't, but it shouldn't be a problem to ask one of the people who works for my dad." The expression in her hazel eyes finally turned serious. "Is this important, Umi-chan?"

Umi nodded. "Rin, I wouldn't ask you if—"

The other woman cut her off. "It's fine, Umi-chan. But this'll take me at least a few days to organize. And… nya don't want everyone finding out about this, right?"

It wasn't a question that needed to be answered and they both knew it. Rin scrunched the plastic bag into her left hand and swept it off the countertop—Umi saw her slip it into the pockets of the pants she was wearing.

"Thank you, Rin," she said quietly.

Rin looked up and gave her a satisfied smile. "You'll just owe me big time, Umi-chan," she quipped in her normal voice.

Umi couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped her lips. "I'm sure I will," she replied, before turning to leave, Rin waving her out as she stepped back out into the rain.

The downpour had intensified in the half an hour or so that she'd been inside, and Umi was more than happy to step over the cement blocks at the waterfront and back onto cement. Her boots were caked in mud and she winced at the thought of the amount of attention she would attract in the grocery store. But there was no getting around it—she had promised Kotori she would pick up some groceries for her and Umi was nothing if not accountable.

Forty-five minutes later, she stopped at the base of the stairwell that led up to the apartment complex that Kotori shared with her mother. Hands full with the things Kotori had told her to buy and her bow on her back in a cloth cover, she fumbled a little for her keys, finally fishing them out of her jacket pocket and inserting the right one into the keyhole.

"Hello?" she called into the apartment.

Kotori's head popped up from behind the doorframe, her soft brown hair still in the customary braid she wore to work. She put a finger to her lips as she beckoned Umi in. "My mother's still sleeping," she whispered as she took one of the bags from Umi's hands as Umi took off her boots, feeling a slight blush creep up her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Umi apologized a little sheepishly, lowering her voice to match Kotori's whisper.

Kotori gave her a slight smile. "Don't worry about it, Umi-chan. Thank you for buying everything I wanted. I'll go put these away, okay? Go get yourself something warm to drink." While Kotori was busy in her small kitchen, Umi poured herself a cup of tea and sat on one of the stools in the living room, staring out at the rain that was drenching the city. She let the teacup warm up her hands while she sat there, her mind still on how exactly she was planning to breach the topic of Alisa in her impending conversation with Eli.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't hear Kotori come up behind her, starting a little when Kotori put a light hand on her shoulder. "Is something wrong, Umi-chan?"

Umi stared at the surface of her tea. "It's Eli," she finally answered. "She just… she hasn't been the same since she came back from the district building. It's… almost like I don't know who she is anymore."

Kotori was silent for awhile. While Umi did not like talking about Eli behind her back, she had given her fiancée a brief version of the events that had transpired in the last two weeks. Realistically, there was no way for her to hide something of that magnitude from Kotori—even if Kotori had not met the other members of Umi's family and were not friends with them, she had the heart in her to want to help them, no matter who they were.

Besides… if I can't trust Kotori, who in the world can I trust?

The answer narrowed down to a very short list that had not bothered Umi one bit… until she had met a certain brown-haired someone.

Kotori took a step towards the window, the fingers of one hand thoughtfully rested on her chin while the other was behind her back. "Well… are you sure you don't know her?" she asked as she half-turned to face Umi. "How would you describe her normally?"

Umi didn't even need to think about it before the answer came to her lips. "She tries the hardest to hide her weak side and tries too hard to solve her problems on her own without asking for help, and that makes it difficult to talk to her when there is a problem. But… out of all of us, she's probably the one that's most easily influenced by her feelings, and because of that, she's probably also the most prone to making a rash decision." She paused for a moment, realizing what Kotori was trying to do. "But she really does care about the people she loves." Maybe too much.

She looked up to see Kotori smiling at her. "See, Umi-chan? You do know her." She leaned down a little and pressed a gentle kiss to Umi's temple. Umi could feel her cheeks reddening again. Physical affection was something new to Umi—neither Maki nor Eli were much for grandiose displays of affection and it had been completely uncharted territory for her to try to navigate in. Even now, years later, certain things still made her blush, something Kotori never hesitated to point out when they happened.

This time, though, her fiancée let things slide as Umi gave her a weak smile in return. "I guess you're right," she sighed. It didn't make her look forward to that particular conversation any more, but it made her feel slightly better that Kotori agreed with her that it was the right thing to do.

Kotori giggled. "You know, I'm always right when it comes to things like this." She made a shooing motion with her hands. "Now come help me with lunch or it'll take me forever to finish." Umi took her offered hand and followed her into the kitchen, where Kotori promptly tied a frilly apron around her that made her growl but made her fiancée erupt in peals of repeated laughter watching her struggle with it.

She supposed that if it made Kotori happy, that was all that mattered.

Umi let herself into the darkened apartment, noting that the shades had only been half drawn, letting in watery light that did not quite penetrate the stillness of the rainy day outside. She took care to make an extra bit of noise removing her boots and jacket, and waited a few heartbeats before calling out a tentative greeting.

"Hello?"

There was no reply until she poked her head around the corner of the hallway and spotted Eli sitting on her chair by the window, hand resting against the side of her face. The blonde barely turned at the sound of Umi's approach. "Hey."

Noting that Eli was at least willing to say something to her today, Umi stepped over the threshold of the doorway and stood just on the inside of the small, almost-bare room. There was no need for any of them to keep anything important in the apartment, and each of their rooms had one or two personal items in them at best. Her eyes lingered over a photograph on the bedside cabinet, and Umi swallowed nervously. Here we go…

"Can we talk?" She had decided on the way back from Kotori's that there was no point in beating about the bush. Not only would it most likely spark Eli's irrational irritation again, it would only delay the inevitable conversation, and likely make it harder than it had to be.

Eli did not reply, but Umi wasn't going to give up that easily—undeterred by the lack of a response, she ploughed on. "You… haven't been the same since you went to the district building," she ventured, pausing when she noticed Eli stiffen slightly. "What happened?"

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of falling rain against the windows and balcony. Umi got the sense that Eli was trying to decide between divulging in what had actually transpired with Toujou, or telling her to leave and not come back. She kept quiet, crossing her arms as she waited.

She was not prepared for the softness in Eli's voice when she finally spoke. "Umi. Do you think… I'm doing the right thing?"

For a moment, Umi wasn't sure if she was finally losing her mind, or she'd actually heard Eli say the sentence she thought she had. A few seconds dragged by before Umi realized the blonde was serious. She took a step towards her. "What?" It was difficult to keep the blank shock out of her words and Umi hated how derisive she sounded as she took a few more steps towards her. "Are you serious?" She paused for a moment. "Eli… what happened?" she repeated.

Eli finally stood up, though she kept her gaze firmly on the dreary view outside the window. Umi noticed that she had her hands balled into fists at her side before she forcibly relaxed them. "Toujou… asked me if I was sure I wanted to know the truth to the answers I wanted to find."

Umi bit down on her lower lip because she could sense that there was more to this particular insight, controlling the urge to stop Eli right then and there. I know where this is going to go.

"I don't know…" Eli continued, a hint of pain creeping into the soft tone of her voice. "There was something about the way she said it that made me feel like she knew more than what she was letting on. Not the information, but… it was like she'd been in my shoes before. It was like… she was trying to stop me from making what she thought was a bad decision."

"Why are you even considering what she's saying?" Umi interrupted, unable to control herself any longer. "Of course she's going to tell you something like that—it would be nice if you worked for her for absolute free, would it not? I know I was against you going in the first place, but Eli, this is something you've been working towards for years. Are you just going to give up this up because Toujou-sama, someone we both know we don't trust, said that it wasn't a good idea?"

She took an involuntary step back as Eli finally whipped around, the storm of emotions in her blue eyes making Umi flinch inwardly. "I know that. I know all of that," she repeated. "But like you said, Toujou has no reason to trust me. She could've let me walk away with that information and not come back. Why would she want to do that? Why would she tell me that it's a bad decision, when she has literally nothing to gain from saying it? It doesn't make sense."

Umi let her arms drop to her sides as she closed her eyes for a brief moment. "Are you going to regret saying no, then?" She found that she had more control of her voice than she had thought as she continued. "You need to decide, Eli. Maybe Toujou-sama is right. Maybe it is a bad decision. But are you sure you're going to be okay with making the decision to not know for the rest of your life?"

The two of them stared at each other for a long time. It might've lasted only the space of a single heartbeat, or dragged on forever in infinite seconds.

She watched as Eli eventually tilted her head up by the slightest margin, taking a deep breath before speaking again. "No. You're right." The tone of her voice intensified as she continued. "I have to know. Even if this is the wrong decision to make, it'll hurt more not to know for the rest of my life, knowing I could've had the chance to figure it out."

Eli finally met her gaze again as the two of them stood there; the only sound between them for several long minutes was the rain outside as Umi watched the resolve form in Eli's cerulean gaze.

The silence was broken when Umi's phone rang in her pocket, causing both of them to look at it. She pulled it out of her shirt pocket, narrowing her eyes slightly when the name of the caller appeared on the display: Nishikino Maki. She put it to her ear as it rang again. "Hello?"

"Umi?" Maki's voice sounded strained and Umi could hear the sound of rapid footsteps against linoleum floors as Maki walked. "Where are you right now?"

"In the apartment. Why?" By the tone of Maki's voice, she assumed that the redhead was not up for anything other than business at the moment.

"Have you seen the news this morning?"

"No," she replied.

There was a hint of static on the other end before Maki spoke. "Go turn the television on. Now."

Striding into the living room, Eli following her, Umi did what she was told. Her fingers tightened on the small device in her hand as a news report from Kyoto re-broadcasted; she wasn't even aware of the fact that Maki had hung up on her.

"The body of Maeda Yuusuke, former district head of Kyoto, was discovered in the outer district of Kyoto this morning. The cause of death is still unknown, though an autopsy is underway. The senate of Kyoto will meet this morning to determine Maeda's successor, and authorities would like to inform the citizens of Kyoto that no public threat has been identified at this time."

The message was put on repeat as Umi stared at it for the second time in a row, as though listening to it again would somehow make the words clearer. What is going on? Why—

She was distracted from her thoughts when Eli spoke behind her. "This was bound to happen."

Umi half-turned towards her. "What do you mean?" She caught sight of the expression on Eli's face, wondering exactly how she would've come to that conclusion so quickly before she remembered that Eli dealt with private military corporations and businessmen on an almost daily basis, neither of which—in Tokyo at the very least— had a spotless reputation for things of a similar calibre.

"The moment he went missing—there was no way he'd be found alive. District heads don't just wander out of the district buildings in the middle of the night for a stroll. In fact," she went on. "I'm surprised it took them a week and a half to find him."

"So you think someone killed him on purpose? But, I mean, why now?" she asked. "He's been the district head ever since the first Ceresis attacks."

Eli shook her head. "You don't get how this works, Umi. At least within the big businesses and military corporations I've dealt with… and it's probably similar enough if you're a politician. It's too obvious if you get rid of someone right when they come into power, especially if you're rivals. It's much more convenient if you leave them alone, let them think they're safe, and then finally get them out of your way when they're actually in your way."

It took a few minutes for Umi to digest what Eli had just said. "But… they're just going to get found out, are they not? Who killed him, I mean?"

The blonde shrugged. "They still haven't figured out who killed the guy at the scramble—or even found out what the sniper looks like. Murder may be illegal, Umi, but it doesn't mean no one does it. Especially in this city, where the most successful companies are the ones scrambling to make bigger guns than everyone else. I'm sure you've noticed—ordinary citizens like us are just tools for them to conduct their corporate wars on each other, especially most of us don't have the power to leave the city's boundaries. It's about who you can intimidate the most, and there aren't any laws stopping how you do it. I'm pretty sure the political world is no different."

Even as Eli spoke the words, Umi knew she was right. She had seen how the private military companies and weapons manufacturers conducted themselves, especially outside of the fence perimeter where technically, the government had no control over, and especially in people like Satou Fubuki, who had been groomed and lived eyeball deep in Tokyo's darker side.

Umi was about to open her mouth to respond when a second phone rang—she recognized the ringtone as Eli's. Noting that Eli didn't even pause to look at the screen before answering it, she waited, although she was not surprised in the slightest when Eli addressed the caller by name. "Toujou-sama."

She watched Eli's fingers tighten slightly against the outside of her phone as she spoke. "No, I'll be there." She hung up before making her way to the door, letting out a disgusted snort as she took in the weather outside. Umi didn't follow her, knowing where she was going.

Eli paused after she threw on a jacket, pushing her hair back underneath a hood as the stiff breeze grabbed at it. "Umi… thanks," she said quietly, before closing the door with a slam, aided by a gust of wind.

Eli stared at the screen of the computer in front of her, finally satisfied with the end product of her labour: Toujou had asked her to completely recreate the security system of the district building and while it was not a job that she usually agreed to doing, every time annoyance prickled against her nerves for the past few days, Umi's words came back to her: "Are you sure you're going to be okay with making the decision to not know for the rest of your life?"

She could admit that Toujou's words had made her feel uneasy and had somehow made its way to the hesitant, indecisive side that she'd spent years building up a wall to try to hide. But Eli was also convinced of one thing—based on the uncharacteristic emotion in Toujou's voice when she had spoken to her, she was certain that violet-haired woman had accidentally let her composure slip. There had been a sincerely genuine tone in her words that Eli had never heard from her before, whether it had been on air or in her brief interactions with her. Umi hadn't been there, so Eli could understand why her blue-haired friend had been so quick to dismiss Toujou's sentiments, and even though Umi's words had had the desired effect on her, she had no doubt that there was some sort of story behind Toujou's warning, if only for the fact that it had come out like a plea. She couldn't quite explain why it had had such a big impact on her, enough to trigger habits that she did her best to hide, but… There's something about her. It's… like she's always trying to find something to say or do that gets me, whether it's on purpose or not.

She gave her head a small shake, dislodging blonde bangs from the hairclip she tried to keep them in order with. Now isn't the time to wonder about her intentions. She stood up, wincing slightly at the flare of pins and needles in her legs.

At least after this, I won't have to worry about managing this. Toujou had already informed her that one of her own tech specialists would be taking over the new security system.

If truth was told, in the few days Eli had stayed at the district building she had avoided Toujou's office as much as possible. Not only was she not keen to speak one on one again with her head of state, she also didn't want the purple-haired woman to say something else that would completely change the resolve she'd already made.

But now she had no choice—she had to let Toujou know she was finished and Eli found her anxiety levels rising ever so slightly as she followed Koizumi to the door of Toujou's office.

Thankfully, there were no voices coming from behind the door this time as the demure young woman knocked timidly on the wood. "Ayase-san's here to see you, Toujou-sama," she announced in her customary barely-audible voice; Eli wondered if Toujou could even hear her from behind the heavy oak.

"Come in," came the reply, as one of her bodyguards opened the door from the inside.

Eli took a breath, feeling her heart rate elevate against her sternum as she walked over the threshold.

Toujou was sitting at her desk, but she had already put away whatever she was looking at before Eli had come through the door. She noticed that the chair she'd been sitting in last time wasn't here this time, but standing didn't bother her—she didn't intend to stay any longer than absolutely necessary anyways.

"Ayase-san. I take it you're finished?" she asked as soon as Eli looked up.

"Yes," she replied, carefully keeping her reply a one-word sentence.

If Toujou was bothered or offended by her brevity, she didn't show it. "Good. I'll have my tech team monitor that in the future. Thank you."

There was a pause, as Toujou opened her mouth once and closed it before speaking again. "About… the investigation we discussed last time. I had Koizumi-san look through the city's records."

Eli's breath caught in her throat. She was unsure of what she was expecting, but her feelings didn't have time to manifest completely before Toujou continued. "Currently, there is no one by the name of Ayase Alisa employed, residing, or studying in the city of Tokyo. Koizumi-san has compared the last entry in her file to birth dates, physical descriptions, and hospital admissions within the last four years. There aren't any matches."

This information did not surprise Eli. She doubted Koizumi had access to more databases than she did at any given time, but at least the limited research she had been able to do herself had not been wrong. "So…"

Toujou finished her sentence for her as she laced her fingers together on her desktop. "So, the conclusion as of right now is that Ayase Alisa-san is not in Tokyo. However, as you might be aware of, the city doesn't keep a record of anyone who lives in the outer district. Do you think that that's a possibility?"

Eli didn't know how to answer her. She had been to the outskirts of Tokyo before—remembering the desolation she had seen on the Edenra victim's faces, pain clenched her throat for a moment as she considered the possibility. "I guess," she replied finally, when she trusted herself enough not to show that emotion on her face.

The violet-haired woman was silent for a few heartbeats at her reply. "Then I'll order an investigation to start in the outer districts. But, it will take some time to conduct a thorough investigation."

"Fine," she said. What else can I say?

There was a loud knock at the door, but Koizumi wasn't there to announce anyone this time as an older man entered the room without waiting for a reply. Eli recognized Fujiwara Hayato simply from the way he carried himself as he strode to the front of the room until he stood only about a foot away from Toujou's desk.

To Toujou's credit, she didn't seem fazed at all from the stormy expression on the man's face. "Fujiwara-san," she greeted him. "You may go, Ayase-san," she said over Fujiwara's shoulder as Eli turned to go.

"No," he instantly interjected. "She can stay."

Although her back had already been half-turned to the district leader, Eli whipped around to look at the older man. He was at least a head taller than both herself and Toujou and she had to admit that he struck an intimidating figure postured in front of her desk.

"Can I ask what this is about, Fujiwara-san?" Eli noticed that she'd put her usual cheerful lilt to her voice back in her words as she spoke to her chief advisor.

"Why are you giving ordinary citizens access to sensitive information?" he asked without preamble. Eli furrowed her eyebrows at the harshness in his tone.

"I believe that is between Ayase-san and myself, Fujiwara-san," Toujou replied delicately.

"With all due respect, Toujou-sama, it absolutely is not," he responded instantly. "The reasons that citizens aren't allowed access to the city's database are very simple."

Toujou finally stood up. Barely matching his nose in height, there was a glint of something what Eli suspected might've been anger in her green eyes as she met his gaze equally. "I am aware of this city's regulations, Fujiwara-san. But as I've already told you, this isn't any of your concern."

Eli could almost see the fury building up in the older man as Toujou dismissed his concerns nonchalantly. "You could have hired anyone. Anybody. In fact, I gave you a list of recommendations to look through—all of the people on that list would have had the sufficient skills to do the things you're asking. Why, exactly, did you choose her, when her price of cooperation was so high? I've known you since your father and I became friends, Toujou-sama. Your behaviour is out of line. He would be ashamed of what you're trying to do already, and—"

"That's enough." Toujou cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "I don't believe I have to justify my actions to you, Fujiwara-san. I've already explained my reasoning to you, and unfortunately, it's nobody's fault but your own that you cannot accept it. If that's all you came in here to say, then I'm afraid I don't like what you're implying." Her voice still carried the same sweet undertones that Eli had come to associate with her manner of presentation, but Toujou's expression was far from amused.

Fujiwara glared at the purple-haired young woman for a few more heartbeats, but Eli guessed that even he didn't have the nerve to defy her twice. He pushed past her on his way out the door when Toujou didn't react. "Watch yourself," he growled quietly at her as he passed. "Because I'll be watching you."

He slammed the door shut after him.

"I apologize." Toujou's voice came from behind her, her tone losing its pleasant, playful quality.

Eli didn't say anything for a few long moments, the advisor's words echoing in her mind as she thought them through. "Did he… really give you a list of recommendations?" The question slipped out before she remembered who she was talking to.

Toujou didn't seem to mind, however. "He did. But as I already explained to you, I had my reasons for my choice."

She took a breath, about to say something, before Eli thought about it and closed her mouth. She made her way towards the door as well, but her fingers had barely brushed the doorknob when Toujou spoke again.

"If you don't mind, Ayase-san, I have a question for you."

She paused. "What is it?" she asked hesitantly.

"Ayase Alisa-san is your younger sister, isn't she?"

Every muscle in her body seemed to freeze—the question was like a physical blow. Even now, years later, she was still unaccustomed to the amount of pain that one sentence was able to bring, and Eli had to swallow a few times before she found her voice.

"Yes," she finally replied, before opening the door to leave, eager to get away before Toujou could ask her any more soul-searching questions.

But, as things turned out, she wouldn't be able to stay away from Toujou for long—the district leader had scheduled her meeting with the other district heads of Japan for that afternoon. Fortunately, Eli had already been able to pass off the new security program she'd written for her off to her new tech team. Unfortunately, that didn't grant her a recess from Toujou's latest meeting.

When Eli arrived at the conference room, however, it was mercifully nearly empty, as most of Toujou's advisors hadn't arrived yet. There were the customary security guards that lined the blackened windows, and she made a point to stay away from the door as politicians began filing through it. Fujiwara was one of the last to arrive, and he glowered at her from his seat beside Toujou for a minute before turning away.

One of Toujou's aides went up to her and whispered something in her ear; Eli watched her narrow her emerald eyes before nodding. The video screen crackled to life, but instead of the nine other district rulers that she'd expected, there was only one: Tenjoin Ryosuke, the CEO-turned-district-head of Osaka.

"Good afternoon, Toujou-sama," he greeted her, his voice every bit as oily as Eli remembered it to be from the last conference. "Let's cut to the chase, shall we? I'd like to discuss the proposal of a rail gun module with you. As you know, the other district leaders have already agreed with me on its usefulness in eliminating the Ceresis, which is why they won't be joining us today. Because that's the case, I would appreciate your… cooperation."

"I've read your plans, President Tenjoin. Unfortunately, we don't see eye to eye about its necessity."

Eli would've liked to continue to pay attention to the conversation, but something distracted her. She had upgraded several programs within the district building's security system and she scanned them quickly. There were consistent flickers in one of the three sets of cameras in the grounds that was being monitored by one of her programs. It wasn't enough to catch a solid image of anything, which was probably why Toujou's tech team had dismissed it. However, the shadows were consistent enough that it made her suspicious, and Eli didn't dismiss her hunches.

Opening the program in particular, she scanned it, but found no evidence of a breach. As Tenjoin droned on over her head, she tried to pinpoint the patterns in the seemingly random flickers. It was too consistent to be a bug, and she mined the raw data from her security program before opening up her command system to write another.

She was fairly certain it was movement, but if it wasn't triggering anything in the security system itself, then whoever it was was tripping the cameras somehow with some sort of program. Nervous sweat gathered underneath her bangs as she worked. If it was a program, then Eli was confident in her abilities to hack into it—she just had to get on the network they were using.

She decided to check the network monitoring, just in case. Nothing had come up as a red flag so far, but halfway down the list, Eli spotted the same network that Toujou was currently using as her call as a duplicate. There was a chance it was a glitch, of course, but she highly doubted it.

Her own identification program alerted her that it was complete, comparing the addresses of the networks. One of them was indeed the network that was hosting the conference, the other a clever copy. She had to admit it was clever—the address was nearly identical to Toujou's and someone who wasn't paying attention would've dismissed the second network as a glitch and not thought twice about it.

The network itself was easy enough to break into, and soon Eli found herself staring at several camera images, except they were backwards—the viewer into the camera that was supposed to be filming them. She realized with a jolt that someone was in the grounds—or very near it— and dread chilled her to the core when she realized what the person with the program was looking at.

"Get down!" she screeched at Toujou, who looked bewildered to have been interrupted. But her sentence had had its desired effect as Toujou stood up and took a tiny step backwards seconds before a shot punched through the black-out glass of the window, missing her by less than a few inches. It hit one of her advisors in the shoulder and blew a large hole in the wall opposite, sending a spray of broken glass and dust everywhere.

The video conference on the screen cut off immediately as pandemonium erupted.

A second shot rang out only seconds later, dropping one of the bodyguards that had rushed to line up against the broken windows, clearly trying to prevent a hit on anyone in the room beyond. A few of them had pulled out their guns, but Eli knew that their weapons had no chance to outrange a sniper rifle, of which the assailant had to be using. She cast a quick glance in Toujou's direction—the violet-haired woman was being helped by Fujiwara into a somewhat-shielded corner of the room.

She would have to hope that that was enough to keep her safe for the moment; Eli knew she had seconds before the sniper lined up his next shot, using the information he was somehow still receiving from the cameras in the grounds to hide his location at the same time. Using the network access she'd gained earlier, she hacked into his target algorithm program, scrambling the information that he had about target location, temperature and body heat, and wind speed.

Heart pounding against her chest, several seconds had passed before she realized that no more shots were being fired. A cold sweat had broken out over her skin and Eli realized she was trembling slightly, but her marginally shaky outer demeanor was nothing compared to Toujou's as Eli caught a glimpse of the district leader over the heads of the dozens of security guards that had somehow filtered into the room in the aftermath.

There was an unreadable expression in Toujou's verdant gaze as she stared out the window that gave the impression of calm, though from her tense posture and slightly bowed head, Eli knew that there was some sort of inner storm brewing, but she didn't know Toujou well enough to know what it was.

She flinched slightly when Toujou looked up directly at her, the expression in her green eyes changing when their gazes met for a brief moment. It was a mixture of surprise and gratitude, but it only lingered there for a second before Toujou looked away, distracted by the horde of bodyguards and politicians alike.

Eli stood there for a few minutes, wondering if the purple-haired woman had let her composure slip again for the second time in as many weeks.

Umi gripped her phone tightly as she strode purposefully down the darkened streets of Tokyo's outer district. It had finally stopped raining after a few days, and she'd received a text from Rin earlier that had contained a single line: The results are back.

She was thankful that the tightened security around the city hadn't held her up for too long at the waterfront—there seemed to be an inordinate amount of soldiers patrolling the city ever since the disastrous district meeting that had ended with Toujou narrowly avoiding assassination. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, but at least the extra security—at least for her—only served as a mild disruption of her daily activities.

Umi's boots crunched on the dusty gravel of the unpaved roads as she neared Rin's shop. It was almost pitch black; there were a few flickering street lights that miraculously still worked despite not having been maintained for nearly ten years that provided minimal lighting, but the darkness suited her just fine, especially given the nature of tonight's trip.

There was a single light still on in Rin's shop as she neared it, and Umi hesitated for the slightest moment before she pushed aside the burlap flap.

Rin was sitting on her stool, one of her cats in her lap, obviously already waiting for her as she stroked the white cat's fur absent-mindedly. Umi could almost see the anxiety that rolled off the orange-haired woman in waves as she approached.

She brushed the cat off her lap and shooed it away as Umi stopped at the counter, resting her hands on its surface. No words between them were exchanged until Rin drew out the evidence bag from underneath the counter and placed it on the glass surface. "Well?" she asked, impatience and apprehension making her words shorter than she intended them to be.

When Rin spoke, there was none of the usual exuberant excitement in her voice and Umi noticed that she had dropped her customary cat imitations in her speech. "Umi-chan, where did you get this?" she asked quietly.

"It doesn't matter," she muttered, unwilling to give Rin that information—not because she didn't trust Rin or didn't want to, but because she knew that information of that sort could be dangerous.

Rin gave her an uncharacteristically concerned look out of her hazel eyes, but didn't press the issue. "This bullet is from a 0.50 calibre heavy machine gun. My contact at my dad's company ran it through their database. As far as I know, nobody in Tokyo makes machine guns of that calibre anymore, which is probably why it doesn't have any identification."

Umi narrowed her eyes as Rin continued, dropping her voice. "Umi-chan, you saw the news about Toujou-sama the other day, right? The district government and police department contracted my dad to look into the bullets they got from the district building. They're the same as this one."

Umi felt the fingers of her hands tighten as she processed the implications of that statement. "So… it's the same person."

Rin nodded solemnly. "Or at least using the same gun."

Umi scrunched the thin plastic bag into one of her hands and stuffed it in her jacket pocket. "Thank you, Rin."

The other woman eyed her seriously as she turned to leave. "Umi-chan, I don't like where this is going."

Umi turned her head to look back as she paused by the doorway. "No," she replied. "Neither do I."

A chilly breeze had picked up as she stepped out, and she noticed that storm clouds were gathering in the distance again, promising more rain for the coming days. Umi kept her pace brisk and her collar up around her neck as she walked, one hand on the bow strapped to her back in case she ran into someone she didn't want to; she could never be too careful this late at night.

Halfway through her silent trek back through the outskirts, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Prying fingers stiff with cold off the strap of her bow, she pulled it out and placed it to her ear, wincing at the temperature of the metal casing. "Hello?"

"Umi, it's me." Eli's voice was slightly crackly because reception in the outer districts tended to be flaky at best.

"Eli? Wait. I haven't heard from you at all since—are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but I don't have time to chat right now. Listen, Umi. Are you willing to take on a job?"

Notes: Welp, I know there wasn't any tomato in this chapter but I promise Maki's role gets (way) bigger later in the story. I hope I handled everyone's ~feelings~ ok in this chapter lol - someone let me know if parts of this make no sense. I felt like I could've explained them a bit better since I figured out headcanon works a little different translating onto paper.