Inside the bridge of the Hyperion, Theresa stared intently at the screen.
Ever since confirming the missing persons cases were linked to a Herrscher, the long-dormant Anti-Entropy organization had finally stirred back to life. As allies, the Far East Branch naturally followed suit. Theresa, with a grand wave of her hand, activated the Hyperion, which had been docked for months.
Their destination: ARC City, to retrieve Kiana.
Of course, she had previously considered investigating the city remotely via the network. But every time she tried to query information related to ARC City, a mysterious force would sever her connection. The city's network felt like it was behind an impenetrable barrier – information could enter, but not leave.
Left with no other choice, she had to personally pilot the Hyperion.
"I wonder how Kiana is doing now," Theresa sighed, gazing at the steadily navigating screen.
She casually reached for the bitter melon juice beside her, intending to take a sip. But just as the cup reached her lips, a frantic knocking echoed from the door. Startled, her small hand trembled, nearly spilling the juice all over herself.
Luckily, her reflexes were quick enough to stabilize the cup. Opening the door, she found Bronya, panting heavily.
"Bronya? Weren't you investigating Kiana's whereabouts?" Theresa looked slightly puzzled.
But Bronya clearly had more urgent matters. Without even addressing her as 'Principal,' she shoved her tablet into Theresa's hands. "Look at this."
"What is it?"
"Surveillance footage from that office building massacre."
"Surveillance? But didn't the Anti-Entropy investigators say all the cameras were damaged?" Feeling suspicious, Theresa tapped the play button.
The footage showed an exterior shot of the office building. Judging by the grime on the lens, it was likely a forgotten camera in some corner. However, from this angle, it happened to capture the building's back entrance.
"There's nothing here..." After watching for over ten seconds with no change, Theresa was about to ask when she suddenly saw a white blur flash across the screen.
Her eyebrow arched. She immediately rewound at 0.2x speed. Soon, a figure appeared in the blurry footage.
"That's... white hair, and those movements..."
"Correct. Based on my understanding of her, that is Kiana," Bronya stated her conclusion.
"Wait, you're saying Kiana was at the office building when the incident occurred? How is that possible?"
"I didn't believe it was Kiana at first either. But later, I checked the passenger lists for all flights into New Jersey that day. Although I didn't find her entry record, I happened to learn from a flight attendant that there was indeed a white-haired girl on one of the flights. Normally, flight attendants wouldn't remember so clearly, but a male passenger had fainted at the time, so she remembered the passengers on that flight."
"Realizing it might be Kiana, I used some... ah, less-than-compliant methods to investigate the destinations of all passengers on that flight. Then I found a hotel check-in record without any personal information."
"Meaning, someone erased all traces of her itinerary?"
"Not only that, even the traffic cameras on the roads were all altered." Saying this, Bronya wiped sweat from her forehead. "Thankfully, Project Bunny helped. Otherwise, I couldn't have extracted so much information from such short footage."
"If this surveillance footage was valid, why didn't the Anti-Entropy personnel find it?"
"That's exactly why I came to find you." Bronya frowned, lowering her voice. "I suspect there's a mole within Anti-Entropy."
"This..."
"Mr. Welt also mentioned that Anti-Entropy is an alliance. Since it's a union of multiple organizations, the existence of moles is unavoidable. The local police department reported the missing persons cases early on, but the Sovereign only found out two days ago. It's highly likely this camera footage was also deliberately tampered with."
"But what does this have to do with Kiana? The murders couldn't have been her doing, right?"
"Of course not. What I mean is, since someone helped Kiana erase her traces, if we can identify which parts were erased and compare them with elements in the footage, we can roughly identify the real culprit." With that, Bronya displayed her investigation results.
"From street camera footage, this guy seemed to be following someone. But there's no image of anyone else in the frame. So, it's highly likely he was following Kiana."
"Look here: Kiana appeared at this location in the office building. A few seconds later, this guy also appeared. Further on is the time the murders occurred."
"Meaning, Kiana likely went into the building to find something, and this guy followed her inside and committed the murders."
"In that case, we should notify Mr. Welt immediately to arrest him," Theresa said, putting down the tablet, ready to contact Anti-Entropy.
"Wait, Principal, I'm not finished. Doesn't this person look familiar?"
"?"
"Correct. This is one of the missing persons from the earlier cases. What's worse... he's dead." Bronya's tone grew heavy as she pulled up another surveillance recording. The screen showed a figure in a black hooded trench coat and a corpse lying on the ground – the corpse of the middle-aged man.
Theresa was about to zoom in when she noticed the hooded figure on the screen vanish. The next second, the screen went dark. The entire recording lasted only a few seconds, but it was chilling. Especially the final moment – the surveillance feed went from discovered to dark in less than a second, despite the figure being hundreds of meters away.
"Was he silenced?" After watching the footage, both fell silent. Being intelligent, they immediately grasped the connection. What worried them more was Kiana being involved in this incident.
Suddenly, Theresa's brow furrowed. She directed Bronya to play the final frame by frame. Finally, she spotted a clue. "The screen going black at the end wasn't the signal being cut; it was blocked by someone."
By adjusting the color and zooming in, they finally made out a face in the split-second image before the screen went black.
Golden eyes, grey short hair... a boy.
The moment she saw his face clearly, Bronya subconsciously shivered. "Those eyes... I think I've seen them before."
She closed her eyes, rapidly searching her memory. Soon, a specific memory surfaced.
"The mysterious person who pretended to be Kiana back then... had those exact eyes."
It wasn't surprising she remembered clearly; the battle between Ren and Senti back then had left a deep psychological scar.
The person traveling with Kiana, the one helping erase her traces, the target she was currently searching for... clearly, all clues converged into a single line.
"Actually, we should have met this person before," Theresa suddenly spoke.
"Hm?"
"After the Great Eruption back then, the first time we went to ARC City looking for Kiana, didn't we see a photo of him appearing alongside Kiana? And... during the Nagazora City incident, before I lost consciousness, I think I saw him too."
"His name seemed to be..."
"Ren."