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And this time, it was one of Chihiro\'s retainers, granted access to this debriefing, who spoke out to fill the void left in the wake of what the officer said.

"What was so important for our clan to be doing, for our rivals to go that far to indirectly stop us?"

"That\'s right," the officer nodded his head as he smiled lightly. "That\'s why, rather than relying on some dumb luck, we went ahead and, at the cost of raising the odds of them getting interested in your clan, managed to throw enough wrenches into their investigation to buy you enough time for a quick trip into the spiritual world."

I took a deeper breath than usual, sensing that we were now approaching the crux of the matter—the topic that was the actual reason behind this meeting.

"According to our current calculations, as long as you are back within a week, you should be safe. Heck, even two weeks shouldn\'t be all that bad, given how this amount of time only raises the odds of them finding anything about your clan to a mere single percent," the officer elaborated a bit, only to then breathe out and shake his head before locking his eyes right on my face. "For every day after the two-week deadline, however, those odds are going to double. And that, according to simple math…"

"You will get a total of six days before they are pretty much guaranteed to figure something out. And while we will do our best to keep delaying the investigation…"

I breathed out.

"It\'s not something you can do ad infinitum."

This time, the officer didn\'t show much reaction to me voicing the logical conclusion to what was discussed so far.

"The question is," I leaned my head over my shoulder while crossing my hands over my chest, "how is it going to get to us if the inquisition finds out about our involvement before we return?"

This was the absolute crux of this meeting: the degree of danger we would accept by going into the spiritual world while the investigation into the power plant attack case was still ongoing.

"That\'s where it all becomes merely a prediction, one that\'s much closer to a guess than anything we\'ve discussed before," the officer sighed before turning sideways toward the screen and pointing the remote at it.

Click.

"This is the list of people that the inquisition got an interest in. The black names are those who we failed to find any information about after their encounter with the inquisitors. The names marked in red are the people those bastards killed on sight, while the names written in blue…"

I glanced over at the predominantly black list, with only a handful of red and a select few blue names.

"...are the ones the inquisition admitted to taking away, before presenting the world with a list of their alleged crimes, the verdict of their judiciary system, and finally the long stretch of the prison time they are supposedly serving."

I swallowed my spit as I realized quite an interesting detail.

\'There are no other colors marking any of the names. Meaning, they either didn\'t bother including freak cases that don\'t fit the bill, or…\'

Claire reached out and grabbed my hand, only to slightly squeeze down on it, most likely sensing the turmoil inside me as I started to connect the dots.

Click.

"This here is the list of cases when the inquisition\'s involvement nearly sparked a war between the modern and spiritual worlds," the officer explained as he switched the slide to a dense list written in extremely small letters, detailing incidents the inquisition was involved in ever since the modern world started keeping records of such matters.

Click.

"And this here is a list of times when we suspected their involvement but found no evidence of it."

Finally, after the following click, the screen turned dark rather than revealing yet another set of worrying data. At this point, the officer put the remote down onto his lectern before grabbing its edges again as he leaned in.

"In other words, it\'s best if you return within a week. It\'s important for you to return within two, while knowing you are already pushing your luck. And there better be some REALLY important reason if you end up staying there for even a day longer than that. In the meantime, however, while you two will be away…"

The officer looked over to the side, to where two of Chihiro\'s men sat in relative silence.

"I guess that\'s where the two of us come in," one of the men I had just looked at suddenly announced in a calm, perfectly collected voice. "Or, to make it painfully obvious," he added as he turned to look directly at me, "we will be here while you guys are out, ready to take the fall for whatever the inquisition discovers in case you fail to return in time."

Hearing this, I allowed my left eyebrow to raise a bit, as I couldn\'t help but ask quite the obvious question in the private realm of my own mind.

\'If you are willing to take the fall for us, for what reason should we hurry back home from the spiritual world, then?\'

"And the reason why this is a bad scenario is quite obvious," the man continued, his small, cheeky smile proving he was fully aware of the obvious question that nigh-instantly floated into my head.

"Between the two of us, you guys know infinitely more about the case, making it that much easier for you two to make a believable lie. And ultimately, this is going to be your responsibility anyway," the man explained, only to then sigh as he leaned back on his chair.

"All in all, while we will be here to cover your asses, the most we can do is try to stall for you to get just a little bit more time to return once…" the man hesitated a bit before shaking his head a little, "no, not once. IF things take a turn for the worse."