Chapter 194- Something is afoot
The gentle gaze of moonlight shone brightly in the multicoloured sky, burning as bright as any star. It was almost as if the moon itself was merely decoration though, given the way foul forces still held dominion over the landmass once called the land of white serenity. That time seemed like such a long time ago now, a mere relic of a past long forgotten by those who had lived through it like they were survivors of a time when the world went mad and stopped making sense.
Then again those who pledged themselves to Tzeentch got the pointless excuse that the world never stopped making sense, it's just the heretics' puny brains could no longer comprehend the truth of the universe.
That had been the thought process behind the mind of one Arima Kishou as he trudged his way through a vast wilderness, located in the northwestern regions of Lowee, with his suitcase in hand while looking like he were on his way to a corporate business meeting. His hair glistened in the sunlight whilst it swayed gently in the breeze, a sense of tranquillity about him that made him seem like a normal dude just going on a stroll through the woods.
Much like a certain vampire, however, he wasn't here for just an enthusiastic walk.
Thanks to the area being freed mainly of Youma or chaos-enhanced monsters, Arima had been able to make it far deeper inside these regions than ever before. Though considering how skilled he was the man knew he could have gone further on his own and come out with relatively few scratches. He doubted much could defeat him even at this point, even with his body being the way it was.
He hoped that he could find something though… and these suspicions turned out to be his only lead in years so he wasn't going to waste his limited time not taking this risk.
'Hmmmm… this is troublesome…' Arima thought to himself, casting his gaze throughout the wilderness with cautious lights shining from those orbs of his. He had been in this land for a good amount of hours now, and everything had been peaceful and quiet. Not one time did he get ambushed or any random encounters if he referred to the video game logic his colleagues always went on about during meetings.
No combat with any Abnormals, normal monsters, no demons, nothing… it's easy why one could see this as a problem right? Civilians might think this a good thing but anyone who had a brain could see the alarming signs this presented.
Perhaps it was a good thing that after Lowee's fall spec ops agents, especially those of the upper pantheons, were allowed a larger degree of autonomy with regards to their work. This way he could investigate this troubling scenario he'd been growing suspicious of since before that mission. He sensed that others had similar suspicions as well, so when he'd come here he had gone and thrown them a 'bone' as one might say.
He of course knew who would take it and who would not, he had factored those possibilities within his calculations before making his way here. Therefore it didn't matter whether or not they would come since he had a plan for any possibility.
Before long the man came to a small clearing deep within Lowee's northwestern regions, close to the end if he was being modest due to having mapped his route from his station here just in case. The forest above his head had parted slightly so the abundance of leaves didn't hinder the moonlight from showing things that ordinarily would have been enshrouded by darkness… which proved to be something that Arima felt thankful for in the following moments as he stopped by that clearing. The reason?
A corpse, or what remained of one, had been found leaning against one of the trees.
The corpse didn't bother the man, not only because it was Abnormal (although thanks to no small amount of effort on the Tekkadan's part people's opinions about them were starting to shift) but also because he had bigger concerns on his priority list. Namely examining the corpse itself for signs of what had killed it since it looked to have once been one worth being regarded highly ranking-wise.
Setting down his suitcase, Arima kneeled beside the corpse to see what had happened to it, examining its body from head to toe… Well, Arima couldn't make that comparison because only its upper body remained, with there being a massive hole beneath the bare ribcage where there should have been organs. He attributes the sight to some of the ruins he had investigated on prior quests when he had been a boy, of older cultures and civilisations that, without a Goddess, fell to the passage of time. One of those cultures had the custom of mummifying their dead and sometimes the living too if they were criminals.
He may not be an emotional nor expressive man, but even he had a small shudder at the thought when he learned that.
It soon became clear to him after inspecting the corpse that it had gone down fighting, against what he wasn't sure but the scene around him did have some other body parts surrounding it that Arima just now noticed. Parts decidedly inhuman and non-Youma as well, not to mention non-demonic either, which only left one enemy he could think of. An Abnormal did this, but what kind was the question? Whatever it was, it didn't seem like this was a clean job either due to the various marks on the body, indicating a massive struggle like he previously observed. Based on the messy kill, Arima suspected that the killer's hunting method had more to it and this was not the way it did things, but that would be to his advantage.
Once he processed these findings, Arima considered making a call to his superiors back at the resistance. Usually, when a new Abnormal species is potentially discovered the doctrine has two possible options, the first being to immediately retreat from its territory and inform the authorities so they could conduct a more thorough exploration with people qualified for such recon work. That had been the more popular choice for a lot of people in the public, though for Spec Ops who believed themselves self-reliant and able to fight horrors like this on a daily occurrence it was more of a nuisance at best. Informing the authorities after fleeing like little bitches felt like a humiliation to many, hence why they liked the second method more.
Said second method consisted of investigating further and discovering more about the Abnormal traits, such as their behavioural patterns, strengths, weaknesses, habitat preferences, and anything that can help them classify it on their ranking system. Although there had been so many new species that properly cataloguing them all would be a nightmare in and of itself, it had become a growing consensus amongst the Spec Ops and guild authorities that having SOME intel about them was better than nothing, as intel was proven to increase one's survival rate on higher ranked missions. Considering the current dangers, that's especially important.
Being the man that he was, Arima preferred this one himself for a multitude of reasons as he stood up with a firm determination in his eyes. 'I must venture deeper. This enemy must be found, we cannot afford unknowns in this situation…' he thought before picking up his suitcase and continuing on his way into the forest.
This decision would be one he would later regret… among other things.
"This is it."
"Indeed it is. Shame your skimmer needed to be fixed, but hey shit happens."
"Truer words have not been spoken."
A small group of folk currently floated above the airspace above the advanced northwestern regions, having just recently arrived moments ago. The group had a healthy ratio of women and men, with three males and three females whilst one female was currently hugging another due to her lack of flight abilities. Based on their appearances, one could assume them to be the spec ops agents Rory, Katakuri and Team RAIL and they would not be wrong. If anything they'd be dead on the money.
As for why they were here, each of them had received a call from one of their own from when they had helped reopen Lowee to the outside world, Arima Kishou. It had been a sudden request and not much information had been gleaned from the call as it had been a simple voice call that didn't wait for their respective answers before terminating, leaving them with no choice but to arrive here in person.
Some of them had difficulty or refused to answer the call, however, with one of them being Rory who currently held onto Lucy by wrapping her arms around the girl's neck from the side. Apparently, during one of her earlier missions, Rory's ride had been damaged leaving her unable to use it for this one, forcing her to locate and hitch a ride on the redhead. It was currently being repaired at a Depot in the resistance HQ, but for now, would not be of any assistance to her.
Speaking of flight, each of them had their skimmers which were currently hovering in place several hundred feet above the average treeline, giving the group the perfect vantage point for them to scour their surroundings without being potentially threatened by any kind of retaliation. Youma couldn't extend their reach this high for the most part, and though they had been believed to be wiped out, none of them wanted to risk it with there being the possibility of there being another Abnormal type down there with capabilities revolving around anti-air fire.
Mihawk also didn't arrive, having refused to attend (Lucy had found this out herself) due to not being willing to waste his time on mere conjecture. The man believed little in threats that didn't immediately pose danger to his territory, as long as it didn't get near him or if it wasn't an order from someone like the CPU he would not intervene. It was a shame that his skills with a blade backed up his haughtiness there, though his bite was just as big as his bark. It mattered little in the end though it did frustrate a couple of members such as Ivan and herself.
Though unlike herself Ivan kept grumbling about it under his breath.
Something that Rory took notice of based on the look she aimed in his direction. "Be at ease, CYBORG." She said, using her comrade's codename in standard Spec Ops etiquette. "It is not the end of the world should one man decline the invitation of a bunch of nice ladies like us and our escorts," she added on with a teasing smirk, one which made Lucy chuckle since she could see what she was doing. Perhaps she and Rory could get along in the future, they could share stories of the times they made their comrades go hot under the collar. Oh, and maybe include Vert as well.
For some reason, Raven and the more collected members felt dreadful shudders travel down their spines like they were about to face an enemy more terrifying than the DPUs whose goal was their sanity.
Fortunately, Ivan started calming down when being addressed, not caring about the undertones he could detect but more about the context in her words progressed. "Yeah… I guess. Still, a dick move not to at least see if Arima's wrong…" he replied, growing quiet by the end out of annoyance with Mihawk. Maybe it was due to him serving in the same group as Raven but the thought of a Spec Ops Agent being so lax kind of irked him.
Meanwhile, the said woman merely shook her head at her colleague's notion. "That's just how it is with people with too much power," she told him icily, her tone quickly silencing the conversationalists so they could pay attention to her. "They tend to exist within their little worlds and have to be reminded, usually through adversity, that they are not so different from anyone else, that they can bleed just as easily." memories of her travels over the last thousand years come back to her when she said this when she witnessed men and women alike grow too complacent thanks to reaching a high power level, only to fall in one form or another. It taught her many important lessons…
Lessons she believed her second to have not learned from in her thousands of years worth of living.
"Like that man, you're so into, DEATHSTROKE?" Rory teased back, not willing to back down on the issue based on the smile she was giving. She was fortunate Lucy was the one holding her though, cause the others might have dropped her. "He's more of a monster than the rest of us, would you say he's in the same boat may I ask?"
To her surprise, however, each of team RAIL nodded in unison as if they completely agreed with that statement of hers. She honestly thought they would say he's the exception to this norm out of blind admiration or feeling. "Yes, perhaps more so considering his potential." Raven declared with a biting cold creeping into her tone.
One that finally convinced Rory to drop this topic… though she didn't fear the group considering her power, she just found it more of a bother to continue arguing with the woman. She'd gotten what she had wanted from these people anyway.
"Back to the topic at hand." Katakuri declared to bring everyone back to the task at hand. His gruff, no-nonsense demeanour immediately captured Raven's attention as she studied the man carefully. He cast his gaze down to the wilderness beneath them, searching for something suitable from the back of his ride. "We shall land over there…" he told them, gesturing to a small clearing where he and the rest of the group noticed a faint trail of smoke. Smoke meant a campsite, and that meant that it would be clear of Abnormals, something each of them found relieving their doubts about going into a formerly Youma-infested area. "Then we shall track Arima down for his intel, whatever it shall be."
Everyone nodded, their expressions becoming harder than steel as they sped forth through the air in a gradual descent over the treeline towards this campsite.
Landing at the campsite was an easy affair, judging that a spec ops agent had made it turned out to be even easier.
Usually, campers just have things like tents, wood and a few tools for making fire. This is usually due to camping regulations which are different for different types of people, which are also different depending on the country one is camping in. This started during the first few hundred years of the fighting between Gamindustri residents and the Abnormals who had a hobby of attacking those who were outside their communities AKA campers, as they had learned they would be easier to kill due to the less ability to resist them.
Then there were the Spec Ops campsites which did NOT follow this rule, as they focused on turning their sites into miniature military grade outposts in technical terms. It was impossible but dammit it got pretty close a few times, to the point some were used by travelling adventurers and guild agents between long-term or even short-term missions since they were so equipped for defending this spot. These campsites are composed of a small bonfire with a circle of tents and walls made from monster materials, the type depending on the spec ops agents' prior hunts. Various traps cleverly hidden in the foliage surround the campsite and various mini com towers that resembled massive walkie-talkies monitored the surrounding lands for any signs of hostile activity.
Upon seeing all of these things inside the campsite when they landed, the group quickly deduced that it had been set up by Arima, something Aiden provided to them when he took a quick look at some of the com towers.
"How long has it been?" Katakuri questioned after having parked his ride just inside the camp's defensive walls. He referred to the amount of time since Arima had last been at the camp itself since it gave them an idea of how far he could have gone in the allotted time.
Aiden once more was the one who answered this, having used some of his gear to kneel on one leg before and hack into the main com tower at the centre of the campsite, since he'd discovered they had been password-locked. Thankfully the security on the com towers wasn't up to date with the latest cyberware which would have extended his time hacking by a few hours. "The com tower logs stated that they were last used about 4 hours ago, sir."
"4 hours…" Raven muttered as she closed her eyes and conjured a mental map of the region in her mind. Something she could do with ease right down to the tiniest details just like Lucy could with her region of Leanbox.
It's how they could teleport so effectively around the landmass after all.
A few seconds passed before she had a good idea of the amount of difference the man could have covered in that timeframe, so she quickly clicked her fingers and Lucy nodded, bringing out an iPhone. Seeing this reminded Raven that she wanted to eventually update her crew's gear when they got the chance, ideally, some Omnibracers would be decent once they're available.
Seeing her actions, Rory smirked as she hefted her Halberd onto her shoulder. "We got a search area?" she questioned, her smirk and amused glimmer hiding how she was truly feeling inside such as the suspicion she felt towards these two women. The boys she had assessed to be harmless humans with a few augmentations here and there that helped them stay toe to toe with their ranks, but everything about those two just didn't seem… human.
She would say that they would be more monstrous than the lot of them.
She compared them to the CPUs in terms of feel.
Before long Lucy had a map of the landmass on her phone which she focused on the region they currently occupied. From there they all peered at her screen from behind her shoulders as she highlighted a vast amount of the region. "I'd say using the campsite as a base and the routes available… This should be a good enough area for us to cover. It's big sure but these towers…" she paused, tapping the tower they stood next to. "Have good range so if any hostels sneak up on us we should be ready for them."
"Very well, we will stick to one group and cover one half for now, then regroup back here before taking on the other half. We'll stick within the com towers range for the first time, then when we repeat it we'll go outside their range." again taking the leadership role for the party, Katakuri started issuing their plans for their future conduct with each of them nodding their heads.
Minus Raven that is. "Do not dictate what we do. My squad will gather intel our way," she told the man, glancing over to Aiden without acknowledging the stare that she got from Katakuri in turn. So far he had not proven himself to her and she cared little for rumours and things she had not seen for herself. Thus she would be the self she had long since discarded when she met the redhead male. "FALCON, you take to the skies and be our aerial support. Circle us in a 50-metre diameter field. CYBORG, keep scanning our surroundings, more ears out the less likely faulty electronics will hinder us from perceiving an ambush."
"Yes ma'am!"
Raven watched as Aiden deployed his wings and took to the skies, immediately veering off to set up the aerial perimeter whilst Ivan got to work on his tasks. The sheer speed behind their movements to follow her orders betrayed a sense of unity to the team that the other agents, who had been used to solitary existences for years, stared like they were watching an alien species descend from the heavens or something. A mix of confusion and bafflement.
'At this point, Lucy can use our powers when we get the chance to dispose of whatever Arima found, should he have found anything…' Raven thought to herself, narrowing her eyes at the skies above as memories of the forest 4 years ago flooded her mind. Why 4 years one might ask? Cause that had been the last time Raven had been to this region, though she couldn't recall why she had been here before. As soon as she got the chance, however, she and Lucy would scour the area on their own, it'd be more efficient this way.
BEEP-BEEP!
"SAMURAI, we got bogies coming calling!"
"?!"
Immediately snapping to attention when she got the call from her comrade in the air, Raven reached out with her senses and sure enough, she could sense a group of entities racing towards their position from the east. Based on what she was sensing they would be here in a few minutes, making her grimace at their high speed. 'Tch, an ambush!' she thought to herself, drawing her Odachi from its sheathe while Lucy drew her Beyblade.
As for the non-team RAIL members, they got the same notification from both Aiden and the com towers which started beeping prompting them to eye a bunch of approaching blips.
Rory giggled as her eyes turned malicious, bloodlust burning inside her eyes like torches in the dark as she summoned her Halberd to her hand, playfully twirling it in various arcs before settling for holding it in a diagonal stance, the blade facing the ground. "Ufufufu looks like we got ourselves a welcoming committee…" she mused between her disturbing giggles. Both Lucy AND Raven gave her a wide berth when they felt the bloodlust form an opaque yet fiery aura around her form, like a second skin.
However, they also didn't fail to notice the faint sense of divinity about her.
Katakuri summoned his own Trident into his hand as he clenched his free one into his fist, not a single word leaving his mouth behind his scarf. The group each got into various combat stances while the unseen hostiles sped ever closer, a battle being imminent for the two sides.
For a moment they stayed like this, tense and alert amid the thick and heavy silence. None of them moved a muscle, not even a twitch of the slightest fingers. Their gazes remained focused and unimpeded, like searchlights identifying the assassins intending to take their lives. All sound seemingly stopped around the entire forest as if it were a living entity that had silenced all forms of life JUST for this moment… like the forest hadn't been eerily quiet this entire time.
Silence…
Silence…
WHISTLE!
A low breeze whistling through the air passed through, causing their respective hair to sway with slow and gentle waving motions while those with long bangs didn't move to brush them aside. That would require a few seconds of their vision to be impaired and a few seconds could be all the difference between life and a not-so-painless demise. To the agents, it felt like a knife had been put at their throats with the slightest mistake being the last nail in their coffins.
…
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…
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…
…
…
…
… RUSTLE!
"?!"
At once a brief rustling sound from behind one of the walls caused their ears to twitch, and like some unseen signal being roused a series of shimmers passed over it. That served as their only warning before each Spec Ops Agent's instincts told them to dodge. Katakuri jumped high into the air first followed by Ivan, with Lucy and Raven leaping to opposite sides and Rory stabbing her Halber's rear end into the ground and using it as a pole to lift herself upside down near its main end.
Good thing that they did these means of dodging because a faint headwind accompanied a series of cuts being made across the ground and through the air itself. The cuts felt so sharp and vicious that they could make those made by a beast's claws a run for their money like nature itself were a sack of flesh needing to be cut open to expose its innards to a mass of ravenous fangs.
'?!'
Each of the agents widened their eyes at the sight of these deep gashes, gashes which tore through both the com tower and also blew holes in the defensive walls. As if to remind people that no matter what a wall wasn't going to be shit if it can't keep anyone out of it. Immediately they realised they were dealing with some Abnormals, so they quickly got to work in dealing with this new and unseen threat since nothing could be made out about these creatures.
Any attempts to try identifying the attackers turned out to be futile, save for some faint shimmers dancing throughout the campsite like flying darts, shooting through the area with little means of tracking them.
Katakuri came out swinging first, in that he raised his right arm back as it… seemingly lost all physical solid form, morphing into this yellowish stuff. "MOCHI…!" The arm also held his Trident, twisting inwards for a few seconds. He then finally fell downwards towards the ground where he saw some of the shimmers starting to gather, thrusting the now untwisting arm forwards. "TSUKI!"
BOOM!
Immediately a large explosion shook the whole area upon the Trident stabbing where he thought an enemy would have been. However, the shimmers there seemingly sensed this attack coming because they all split apart before they could be turned to spaghetti, keeping themselves out of sight and out of mind. Katakuri landed with a THUD and immediately sensed danger coming his way at high speeds. Something which did pique his interest before the large man swung his Trident, blocking some invisible attacks from landing on his hard-ass abs.
'Hmmm, there is a somewhat noteworthy power behind these attacks…' the said man thought, flinging his trident away and closing his eyes. Since these enemies remained unseen, he decided not to trust his eyes but his other senses instead, to which he became a living human tank blocking dozens of attacks from all kinds of angles. 'Judging from the types of attacks Mogura's tanking and their strength difference, I'm being assaulted by a group of four.'
Once she had landed on the ground again, Rory giggled as she created a low tremor from the force she put into it. The tremor had a LOT of power put into it, enough for the shimmers to briefly stumble a bit which caused them to slow down. Some of them then broke from the main group and dashed towards her with their hidden weapons at the ready, closing the distance between them in seconds.
SLASH-SLASH!
It happened quicker than a heartbeat, several gashes appeared around Rory's neck before blood spewed forth like geysers bursting through the earth. Accompanying this was her head being lopped off her shoulders, spiralling through the air like a spinning sausage… her lips remaining in a wide grin as her eyes gazed down at the ones who gave her head in the most literal manner possible.
The Shimmers remained immobile behind her headless body, various chittering sounds leaving whatever functioned as their maws, as it stumbled backwards… but it did not fall.
Instead, it twirled around like a beyblade and hurled her Halberd at them, causing several surprised, disbelieving yet frantic skittering sounds to escape the shimmers. They just BARELY managed to avoid the Halberd which slammed right into the walls behind them… shredding through the whole thing to embed itself into the ground outside.
All the while, Rory's head fell into her body's hands which then proceeded to place it atop her neck stump. Following this a series of tendrils launched themselves from both sides to connect, mixing. Before long, she had restored her head with a faint yet hysterical, twisted giggle leaving her lips as she put on a magical girl kind of pose. "Hehehehehehe, nice try boys! Better do harder next time!" she proclaimed with her tongue out and a single wink.
"Lucy, these foes are invisible!" Raven called out to her second while Ivan kept dodging the attackers by shifting his Bionic arm (yelling its name Bionica with some examples being 'FEED THEIR SPINES TO YOUR CIRCUITS, BIONICA!' and other shit like that) into various forms to repel them, this whole thing now making her remember why she remembered coming here 400 years ago: she had found a series of entities that could cloak themselves. Last she recalled their tech was what allowed them to be invisible in the form of cloaking devices and they regularly hunted a newly spawned Abnormal for sport till she came in and introduced another ice age to their asses.
Lucy, hearing her boss's statement, gave a simple "Got it!" before she flung her Beyblade around their vicinity. She knew what she was doing, however, having thrown it in a full circular motion so it circled the entire camp fast enough to generate a dust cloud. This cloud, unlike Katakuri's, had been much larger to the point where it covered the entire campsite in its presence with the majority of the agents grimacing as they did what they could to shield their eyes from the dust particles in the air. But like them…
So were the shimmers who had paused in their offence at the abrupt change in the atmosphere, many confused yet fearful jitters leaving them as dust particles fell onto their bodies to give away their shapes.
But most importantly their POSITION got uncovered, something Raven exposed in the next couple of seconds… by dashing forth like a bullet towards one of them with her Odachi held in a two-handed stance behind her in prep for an upper slice from the left hip. She only vaguely paid attention to their rather insectoid yet humanoid forms for a split second, before she made her move…
And sliced.
SLICE!
"SCREEEEE!"
A loud screech akin to a siren's pained wail escaped the shimmer's being while Raven's blade had sliced through its arm leaving a massive gash running up it. Sadly she didn't get a limb severing like she'd intended due to the beast twisting to face her at the last second repositioning its arm. Though that didn't feel like a conscious decision but more out of an instinctual desire to overcome an enemy far greater than itself… the usual opposite state of being for any animal with good survival instincts. So either these things were dumb enough to not have good instincts or they were more than they appeared… and the way that the other chattered about like they were some kind of animal debating something lent evidence to this.
Raven didn't care though, just tried to finish the beast off with an overhand horizontal slice that could have beheaded the injured shimmer. However, it ducked beneath it and kicked off the ground towards one of the wall ledges with the rest of its pack following suit, all of them jumping down into the forest outside.
"SAMURAI, they're fleeing! Permission to pursue!"
Raven shook her head when Aiden communicated with her through their com channel, frowning as she eyed the light green stains on Odachi's blade. The cut must not have been too shallow based on the amount she could observe on its surface. "Negative, we don't know how many more are out there, they could be leading us to a trap," she replied, glancing over to the rest of the group who were busy recovering from the ambush. "Report back to us here, we've got some stuff to do."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Cutting off the com channel, Raven narrowed her eyes as she glanced over to the group again with Rory summoning her Halberd through the wall like it were a hammer that only let those worthy wield the powers of a god. Lucy had retrieved her Beyblade while going over to see if Ivan was doing alright, the male having suffered the most damage out of their squad due to having been targeted more than the rest of them. Likely due to these things thinking him the weakest link to them, but fortunately the boy's injuries weren't too serious so he should heal up relatively quickly.
Nonetheless, this proved to be a problem.
That ambush had been a sign, she believed, a sign something much bigger was going on in this region of the landmass. Those things had abilities much too similar to those Abnormals she had fought against four years ago, and that worried her somewhat. It wasn't enough for her to consider it a trait of the enemy but for now, it was a coincidence that the woman would be keeping an eye out for.
More worryingly though the cloaking was done through technology, a wrist bracer she remembered after examining one of the corpses she had felled during her trip here four years ago. The bracers while using a language foreign to anything seen on this world, reminded her of Nico's Bracers and now his Omnibracer, making her wonder if that had been their first encounter with those creatures or if it was just a random thing she'd noticed.
But the thing was, there hadn't been too many Abnormals capable of using tools like those bracers in a manner akin to agents, usually sticking with their fangs, claws, etc. If this was what she thought it was, then these Abnormals had the ability and intelligence to use tools from other races which did not bode well for the resistance at the moment. Abnormals with such intelligence were rare enough, but the resistance didn't need that kind of threat running down their backyard.
After this meeting they were likely going, Raven's going to assist them in reuniting with Arima, cause they did NOT feel like his hunch was a hunch anymore
Chapter End!
Hey guys, welcome to the first OEG Update I've made in a long time! Man where the hell does the time go? Don't worry I do intend on finishing this longas fic of mine that's multi-million regarding word count, holy hell.
While most of the reasonings were other stories, lack of inspiration and motivation, the real reason for the long delay was that I was trying to make a plan for how this final arc was going to work out. It was not easy, and the lack of a consensus on the poll didn't help either, but I decided to try doing something about it after stalling for so long. I hope I got it figured out cause with the plan I can add stuff that I feel is interesting enough to care about. Bit of a short chapter but this is the arc's introduction so I'm trying something different here. Hope you like it and see you in the next chap.
PEACE OUT!