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SHADE

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"What\'re you three doing here?"

This was bad.

Shade expected that his [Move] would last as long as they needed it, nor would it completely mask their presence from someone that actually had a keen eye, but he at least hoped that he would buy them enough time to get to the center of the explosion without arousing suspicion.

Then again, he really shouldn\'t take too much stock on his power\'s ability to mask their presence.

"We\'re here to investigate the damage," Shade quickly replied, changing up his inflection as he subtly used his [Manifest]\'s ability to influence the man\'s perception of them. "An Intellect has tasked us with surveying the surrounding areas and cataloguing the destruction of property for possible reimbursement."

That was a lie, of course, one that would only work if the Academic in front of them wasn\'t coordinating with his fellow Marqueans. Sure, it was plausible, but if he was asked to name the supposed Intellect in charge of them, he wouldn\'t even be able to throw the blame on someone should suspicions arise higher.

"I see," the Academic raised an eyebrow as he looked at them suspiciously. "That kind of runs different from our standing orders though. Can I get the name of which Intellect relayed your orders?"

Shade felt his two other companions tense up even further, clearly getting ready to either run or fight at a moment\'s notice. Still, it hopefully wouldn\'t come that. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve, and he wasn\'t given the job as a negotiator for nothing.

"It came from the Office of the Head Intellect," he deftly replied, hoping that his vagueness would make the cut. "The orders I got told us to see to the costs of the property damage around the explosion."

Shade inwardly thanked the fact that he managed to not name or even imply what the Head Intellect\'s gender even was. Telling someone that it came from the office instead of being from the person themselves usually worked whenever the person in question was always busy to send other men to do their work for them. Being the Head Intellect, surely they\'d have lackeys to do their bidding. It wouldn\'t make sense for a head of a nation to do all of their work alone, especially for a nation as bureaucratic and complicated with its inner workings as Marquee.

"A likely story," the Academic snorted, and Shade could already tell that he had just said the wrong things. "I don\'t recall the Head Intellect ever doing such things like that. She would usually-"

[*BOOM!*]

Without any warning, the ground suddenly shook, a massive plume of white light shooting out from the nearby crater as Shade quickly positioned himself a bit away from the real Academic. Seeing the opportunity, he stayed his hand to his two companions as a plan formed in his head.

"What was that?!" the Academic shouted out in alarm, his hand quickly going to his breast pocket, probably to make his [Manifest] available to him at a moment\'s notice.

"I don\'t know, but we have to see what that was," Shade called out, using the current confusion to his advantage as he took the lead. "Well? What\'re you waiting for?"

"W-What?"

"Come on!" Shade called out, quickly running toward their target location. "Hurry! It might be an enemy!"

Hopefully, Shen and Maruki would catch his drift and prepare their weapons in an attempt to look concerned. On top of that, they should hopefully be ready for a fight. Whatever was causing these explosions would surely be related to them. Whether it be Moriya or Lady Guidance, maybe it was even the Princess... This was going to be a bumpy ride.

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[*BOOM!*]

"Woah!"

Another explosion rocked the facility, this time it was far louder and more menacing than the first few rhythmic explosions that took us by surprise. It was only a good thing that the blast radius hadn\'t changed, what with Shizu and I still making our way down toward where Guidance was surely waiting for us. And no, I refused to believe that she was dead. She was too powerful with her [Manifest] for that to happen, even if it was the game\'s fault for it to happen in the first place.

"Moriya?!" Shizu yelped out behind me, having fallen behind with how bright the place was to her.

"I\'m fine!" I called out in reply. "You?!"

"I\'m fine as well!"

Before long, the princess managed to catch up to me, her black and green eyes tearing up even as she squinted to try and peer through the brightness. We had finally reached the edge of the crater, and now was the time to either save Guidance from under us, or perhaps.... No, I won\'t think about that possibility.

"The explosion spat out another massive stream of numbers," she reported, her eyes practically flowing like a river the more she peered through the light. "I can\'t... I don\'t know what it does, but it\'s just so... thick."

I sighed as I couldn\'t help but stare at Shizu\'s tear-streaked face. She had been crying for a few minutes now, but no matter how much I tell her to turn off her eyes, she still kept using them. Never mind the fact that she couldn\'t even see below us with how bright with numbers it supposedly was, the fact that she had them on for hours on end now was the more pressing problem in my opinion. I mean, she had never left them active for longer than even half an hour at most before all of this, and now, combined with her clear lack of sleep, I could already tell that there will be consequences for what she was doing to herself.

"Wait... I can see the city?"

What?

Looking up, the smoke and bright lights were pretty much making visibility a complete zero, but there were still some semblances of small lights dotting through the smoke. The crater itself was glowing bright with light, and the thing underneath us that was causing it in the first place seemed to pulse and thrum every other second or so. It sounded more like an engine than anything else though... Like a generator forcibly making itself heard despite all attempts to smother it to keep noise complaints down.

"I guess we\'ve been walking for so long that we made our way back to Centrax," I wondered aloud, my mind already whirring with the potential fallout from this destruction. "After this, I\'m pretty sure we won\'t ever be welcome to this place again."

"I don\'t mind so long as this thing is off me before the day is over," Shizu scoffed as she pointed at her chest, forgetting that it had probably been around twenty-four hours since we last took some downtime. "I don\'t wanna piece of blasphemous metal inside me. I don\'t even want it in me right now!"

"We\'ll get to that once we get Guidance back," I reassured her. "She\'ll take that thing out of you no problem."

Shizu gave off a pained smile, and I returned it with a genuine one in an attempt to lift her spirits up. I knew it was kind of futile, that the princess had practically given up on someone that she had called a god, but I just knew that Guidance was still down there, and this recent explosion just proved it. Surely, this thing wouldn\'t act unpredictably without someone fiddling with it, and that was all that I needed to know before I went down there and checked on the dev myself.

Taking a small breath, I eyed the edges of the crater before crouching down. Slowly, I clung onto the ruined sides of the crater, slowly lowering myself down as I jumped from one available ledge to another.

"W-Wait for me!"

Above me, I noticed Shizu hesitating despite having never shown any sort of behavior like this in the face of danger. Was the thing that was below us really that scary for her to act this way?

Shaking my head, I turned my focus back on the task at hand. Slowly lowering myself one floor at a time, the heat coming from below slowly became apparent as I felt my back starting to burn from it. Still, I pressed on, even as my hands began holding onto scalding hot metal. It didn\'t matter. My passive was enough to keep me topped up despite the constant damage over time.

"H-Hot!" Shizu yelped. "I-I don\'t think I can go further!"

"Just stay right there then!" I called out. "I\'ll be back in a bit."

Leaving Shizu standing on a nearby ledge, I pressed on further down. The damage I was taking was starting to get faster, but my passive was still holding strong. Eventually, I made it to the bottom of the pit, and the first thing I noticed was a shimmering shield that was constantly being eroded by the heat. Almost immediately, I knew who was responsible for this.

"Guidance?!"

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