Chapter Eighty-Nine: Loving One Another

The news that Baba Eiken and Mashima Masami had been shown the door spread quickly through the company cafeteria at noon.

It was Monday lunchtime, the hour when overworked office drones should have been at their dullest, most exhausted, and least inclined to feel anything at all. Yet this rumor was like a shot of adrenaline laced with stimulants, and everyone was buzzing too hard to stop talking.

Chen Ziang and the returned Tsukimiya Rinna set down their trays and took a seat at a table. No sooner had they sat down than Rinna asked,

"So, I heard the new boss is really ruthless. Is it true? Baba and Mashima both got kicked out?"

"In fact, there was also Takahashi Kousuke," Chen Ziang said with a nod.

"Wow. Good riddance," Tsukimiya Rinna muttered, curling her lip. "He dumped all the work on you every day, hated you when he saw Baba but didn't dare protect you, and then worried that if you were called back you'd hate him for not protecting you, so he kept secretly sabotaging things behind your back... I don't like that man. It's better that he's gone."

Chen Ziang: ...

"So you knew too?" he asked in utter astonishment. "Rinna, then why didn't you tell me?"

"Mm, maybe because I'm not the sort of good girl who enjoys talking behind people's backs?" Tsukimiya Rinna said with a smile.

Chen Ziang took a bite of the steaming pork cutlet and said,

"Still, the new boss really is formidable. You know what? She already has a way to deal with Nishikawa Mie."

He explained Shakuwa Aoi's method, and Tsukimiya Rinna gave a snort.

"So what? Like nobody else could have thought of that? Setting a trap in a crowded district—if innocent people die when the time comes, does that count against Nishikawa Mie or the person who designed it? Put bluntly, everyone just doesn't want to say it out loud. Does she really think she's so clever?"

Chen Ziang: ...

"Rinna," he asked carefully, "do you have... some sort of problem with the new boss?"

"No, not at all." Tsukimiya Rinna looked genuinely surprised. "I just don't like leaders who are too harsh. Like the kind who resign if you don't hand over a sealed artifact, or the kind who tell people to get lost the moment they meet them."

"Well, I'm fine with it," Chen Ziang said with a nod. "After all, the one getting kicked out was Baba Eiken. The greatest contribution he could ever make to the Security Bureau was getting kicked out."

"True," Tsukimiya Rinna agreed. "So what's the new boss's name?"

"Shakuwa Aoi," Chen Ziang replied.

"Sorry, what did you say?" Tsukimiya Rinna asked with a smile.

Maybe it was imagination, but Chen Ziang thought he could read an uncontrollable killing intent in that smile.

"Shakuwa Aoi."

"Is that the Aoi in the word for fish?" she asked.

"No, the Aoi in the phrase that means a flaw cannot hide a virtue."

"Mm." Tsukimiya Rinna set down her spoon. "I take back what I said earlier."

"What did you say?"

"'No, not at all.'" Tsukimiya Rinna's smile faded. "I hate that name."

"But that's the boss's name," Chen Ziang said in surprise. "Even if she... I won't tell anyone, only you, but I think that although she's sharp-tongued, harsh, arrogant, and always acts as though she's above everyone else, she is our future superior after all, and... she also helped drive Baba away."

"No need for her to meddle. Baba would have left sooner or later anyway," Tsukimiya Rinna said coldly.

"Leave how?" Chen Ziang asked, puzzled.

"In the literal sense... forget it, I won't say it." Tsukimiya Rinna pushed away her tray and stood up.

"Rinna, where are you going?" Chen Ziang asked in astonishment.

"To see what our new boss is like," Tsukimiya Rinna said, flashing that same bright, false smile again.

It was very beautiful, but... somehow chilling.

---------------

Deep underground, in the Grand Intelligence Archive.

Shakuwa Aoi sat in her office chair, resting with an eye mask over her eyes.

Stacks of paper documents, already gone through, were piled on the office desk beside her like a small mountain.

Suddenly she pulled down the eye mask and opened her eyes, just in time to see Tsukimiya Rinna push open the door and enter.

"Something the matter?" Shakuwa Aoi asked coolly.

"Yes, I have a question." Tsukimiya Rinna smiled. "Shakuwa Aoi, why are you here?"

"Use plain language," Shakuwa Aoi said coldly.

"What I mean is," Tsukimiya Rinna said, her smile unchanged, "shouldn't you be in the Divine Capital, busy with a massacre right now?"

"Who do you think I am?" Shakuwa Aoi said haughtily. "Or have those memories that should never have existed gone to your head?"

"What memories are those?" Tsukimiya Rinna asked.

"Do you really mean to childishly believe you traveled back from the future into the past?" Shakuwa Aoi asked with a cold smile. "You should know that any form of time travel inevitably draws the pursuit of the Time Hounds."

"Of course I know the Time Hounds," Tsukimiya Rinna said. The smile vanished from her face at once, replaced by a deep, terrible indifference and cruelty. "But even memories from a parallel universe are still my memories."

"From the moment those memories formed, they became part of my mind. What reason do I have not to believe them, and what reason do I have... not to hate you?"

"Hate me?" Shakuwa Aoi gave a disdainful smile. "What did I do to make you hate me so much?"

"Was it because, in your memories, I failed to play the role of savior and left you to shoulder that foolish duty? Or because you think it was me who failed to..."

At that point, Shakuwa Aoi's voice suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong? Go on," Tsukimiya Rinna said, staring at her in a hushed voice. "Your nails have grown back. That makes you happy, doesn't it?"

At her feet, the writhing shadow began to spread in all directions.

The shadows sealed the door, climbed the bookshelves, and rampaged along the walls without restraint, as though determined to turn the entire place into a pit of cold, unearthly dread.

"I understand now." Shakuwa Aoi rose from her chair and, with the same cool, arrogant tone, remarked as if looking down from on high, "Those without power always like to take their anger out on those who can make decisions, and to blame their own failures on the mistakes of others."

"You're actually willing to admit that was a mistake?" Tsukimiya Rinna bared a vicious smile. "I thought you'd keep your teeth clenched and refuse to repent to the end."

"But it doesn't matter anymore, Shakuwa Aoi."

At last the shadows sealed the whole room shut. Every source of light vanished, leaving only a deep, malignant darkness.

"Because today, you will die here."

----------------

In the company cafeteria, Chen Ziang finished his pork cutlet rice and looked at Tsukimiya Rinna's untouched tray, frowning in surprise.

She said she was going to meet the new boss and get acquainted with her, so why had she been gone so long? She hadn't even eaten.

He decided to go and see what was going on.

Leaving the cafeteria and taking the elevator up to the intelligence section, Chen Ziang was surprised to find that no one was guarding the front desk.

Well, maybe they had all gone to lunch.

When he reached the door to the Grand Intelligence Archive, Chen Ziang knocked.

"Anyone there?"

Silence answered from beyond the door, not even an echo.

"Anyone there?" Chen Ziang knocked again to make sure.

After a moment, Tsukimiya Rinna's voice suddenly came from inside.

"What's the matter, senior? I'm chatting with the new boss."

"Oh, nothing," Chen Ziang replied. "I came to check on things."

Then Shakuwa Aoi's voice came from behind the door as well.

"If it's nothing, you can leave."

"Okay." Chen Ziang turned to go, but something felt off.

Given Shakuwa Aoi's personality, even if she were telling me to leave, she should say something like, "Why haven't you left yet?" or "Are you trying to be a watchdog?" or just "Get lost." Why use polite, hypothetical phrases like "if it's nothing" and "you can leave"?

Still uneasy because of what had happened in Lingyi Town, when Nishikawa Mie had set him up, Chen Ziang knocked again.

"By the way, about this afternoon's meeting, I have something to report..."

Before he could finish, the door was pushed open from the inside, as though someone behind it had turned the handle.

Shakuwa Aoi sat in her office chair, expressionless, like a statue; Tsukimiya Rinna leaned against the wall beside her, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

"What is it?" Shakuwa Aoi asked coldly.

"For the meeting this afternoon, you said two o'clock, but you didn't say which conference room," Chen Ziang said quickly.

"Just arrange it yourself," Shakuwa Aoi said impatiently. "Now, get lost with Tsukimiya and stop disturbing my work!"

"Let's go," Chen Ziang thought. Rinna really did seem to have clashed with the new boss again. He hurriedly gave her a look.

Tsukimiya Rinna seemed reluctant, but under Chen Ziang's urging, she still left with him.

After the door closed, Shakuwa Aoi was silent for a moment before slowly opening her outer garment.

It revealed an abdomen soaked in blood, the cavity beneath with most of its internal organs ruined.

She extended the fingers of her right hand and pressed them against the gaping wound in her abdomen. Inhaling sharply through clenched teeth, she painfully curled four of her fingers inward as though gripping something that did not exist, then yanked hard.

A flawless, flat abdomen was revealed once more, as though it had never suffered a wound at all.