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My eyes widened as I stared right at Chihiro\'s amused face.

"I mean exactly what I said, kid," the man grinned in a way that contrasted with the usually serious and dignified look on his face. "We only brought like ten crystal-based sensors with us," he revealed with a shake of his shoulders before adding in a casual tone, "all the other devices were put in place the day after the near miss."

My eyes kept growing wider while the strange, unfamiliar pain in my chest continued to grow more and more profound.

It was only when my body started to choke and gasp for air that I realized I was actually holding my breath to the point I was starting to self-suffocate.

\'He got me…\' I thought, taking in a desperate breath, only to then slowly exhale it out.

Up until this point, I thought I would be the one playing others if that were ever to be the case, not the other way around. And so, I was pretty damn sure Chihiro was set on abandoning this whole project up until the moment when Claire managed to convince him otherwise.

As things turned out, however, it was all just a mask, a game of shadows that I became an unexpected victim of.

"Actually, I\'ve got quite a lot of reports of several clans growing more and more annoyed with the prospect of me breaking through," Chihiro casually continued to reveal stuff as he sat down on one of the chairs set in the now remodeled control center of the entire factory.

"There are strict protocols over who is privy to what information, all to accommodate the algorithms that can calculate who is selling the information from what kind of stuff shows up or is taken advantage of. That\'s why I couldn\'t tell you before."

Chihiro shook his head while lowering it a tiny little bit… only to then raise it back up, revealing a huge smirk that formed on his lips.

"This kind of information warfare is something you will have to eventually master. For now, however, it\'s good enough if you know that it exists… and that this is how most of the modern conflicts take place, especially on the scale that matters to us."

Chihiro leaned back in his chair, wiping off his smirk and smile in general as he once again assumed his usual, serious and dignified expression.

"By luring other clans in with the information of certain, fabricated weaknesses, I can discover where the information is leaking from. And then…" Chihiro suddenly stopped his explanation, only to cast his eyes right on my face. "And then, can you guess what happens next?"

I squinted my eyes.

\'He wouldn\'t be asking me if he wanted a straightforward answer,\' I thought, delving beyond the level of simple and brutal efficiency and trying to find ways to actually capitalize on such findings rather than simply removing the rotten parts of the clan.

"Nothing happens," while I couldn\'t be sure if this was the correct answer, it was still what I decided to go with. "You keep feeding them small truths so that at the right moment, you can feed them one big lie."

Chihiro\'s eyes remained on my face, drilling into my own eyes and every tiniest expression I made, as if to judge my answer beyond just the meaning behind my words, all the way to the level of how I felt about such a tactic, what my stance was on the morality behind it, and the like.

"That\'s right," the man finally admitted, confirming my guess with a simple, slight nod of his head. "A huge part of the clan\'s assets is dedicated strictly to this purpose.

In the position we are in, it\'s oftentimes easier to throw sand into the enemy\'s eyes, redirect them somewhere else, or generally avoid direct confrontation rather than accepting their challenge and putting our pride over the actual results or benefits."

Listening to Chihiro\'s explanation, I couldn\'t help but feel a strange sense of disconnection.

On one side, the machinations, manipulations, and schemes he was talking about were all a part of high-society games played for ages before either of us were born. Nowadays, the game simply adopted more modern methods and tools, but the goal, the constant push for more and more power at the cost of the power wielded by others… those were all the same.

And yet, from what I could read between Chihiro\'s lines…

Weren\'t the cultivation clans of the city pretty much treating it all on a level of child\'s play, something only good enough to amuse themselves with, while mostly based on ideas and aspects that most modern and pragmatic adults wouldn\'t give two shits about?

"Why are you telling me all of this?" I asked, only to see the man\'s eyebrow move up a bit, hinting at some sort of expectation.

\'It\'s not like he didn\'t like the question, but more like… it wasn\'t a question good enough?\' I thought, racing my mind to figure out just what could be missing in what I asked for Chihiro to make this kind of face.

"Why are you telling me all of this…" I asked again, repeating my question from before word for word… before adding just two more words, "right now?"

Why are you telling me all of this and why are you telling me all of this right now. Those two sentences differed only by two small words… and yet, the meaning of the question changed completely.

Now, rather than asking why Chihiro would bring all of this up, I was questioning the timing of him doing so.

And when a small, smirkish smile returned to the man\'s lips, I could pretty much guess the answer even before Chihiro could voice it out.

"It\'s because I\'m hearing whispers that one of the clans got fed up with the game and decided to go ham," Chihiro announced, right as a small, red diode started to blink on the control panel, only to be then accompanied by another diode, green this time, that started to flash on the other end of it.

"Go on," Chihiro chuckled a little before pointing his whole hand at the console, "pick it up."

I squinted my eyes… but still turned around and did as the man suggested.

Approaching the control panel, I looked over the room\'s window, at the main factory floor where the workers were already pretty much done with their task.

As it turned out, with only about ten measuring devices missing from the final build, what I took to take us hours upon hours of hard and ultimately boring work, ended up taking no more than ten minutes to finish.

\'Well, it\'s good to know we are pretty much ready to begin,\' I thought, pressing the button below the flashing green diode to kill it off, seeing how it was no longer necessary now that I\'d gotten the message behind it.

When it came to the other flashing diode, the meaning behind it made it a little bit more complex for me to solve. And so, on my way to do so, I picked up the radio strapped directly to the control panel before clicking it on and raising it to my mouth.

"Tim speaking, what\'s up?"

"Boss, there seems to be some sort of a protest starting right by our doors," the old-school radio slightly distorted the voice coming from the other end of the line, but not enough to make it hard for me to recognize the other party. "What should we do about it?"

I took in a deep breath before twisting on my hips and stealing a glance at the man.

"Do you want me to deal with it, or would you like to take a shot at it?" Chihiro asked with a small hint of mischief in the very corner of his lips.

"Which means," Claire interjected, reminding the two of us that she was still there, even if she formerly didn\'t see a single reason to speak up, "whatever you do, he has you covered. So relax, do whatever you think is best and even if it all goes to shit, big daddy here will be ready to step in and save the day," she said with an open and slightly mocking grin on her lips.

"Ehh…" Chihiro sighed. "Is this you?!" he suddenly turned all angry while throwing me a furious stare. "Is this you who made my daughter so rebellious?!" Chihiro wailed out in complaint… only to then break out in all smiles, making it clear he was merely horsing around.

"Well, if you want me to do it, I don\'t see why not," I said, only to pick the radio back up and raise it to my mouth again. "Tim here again. Don\'t let them in. If they try to enter forcefully, you are free to use whatever methods you deem necessary to stop them from doing so."

I took a deep breath to sort my thoughts out.

"Don\'t escalate more than necessary, but don\'t hold back from doing so either. As for the details…" I paused for a moment, only to roll my eyes as I opted to push my worries for later, "as for the details, I will leave them at your discretion."

A moment of silence followed my orders, a moment long enough for me to start wondering whether I messed up and accidentally pulled the cord connecting the radio to the console or something…

"Understood. We will do our best to keep them at bay. But since it doesn\'t look like something that will just blow over…" the leader of the guards on the other end of the line took a moment, either by taking a page from my book of theatrics or because he actually needed some time to think whether or not he should utter his next words.

"Just in case, I would apprecieate if you could remain with your hand on the radio at all times. Gale out."

The short signal indicated the call had come to an end, prompting me to hurriedly put the device back down on the table before turning back and locking my eyes on Chihiro\'s face.

"Okay, now that we only have as long as it will take them to bring out their big guns under the cover of this protest, how about we hurry up with the first round of testing?" I suggested, putting my hands on my hips and gracing Claire and her dad with a small, slightly mischievous smile.

"I don\'t know how you two see it, but I would much rather face whatever is coming for us with an actual god on our side!"