“I said, I’m not hungry,” Senna stated with a vein protruding from her temple in annoyance.
Thomas rose his brow and responded with an overly exaggerated, “Is that so?”
Lined up in front of Senna was a plethora of empty plates that once housed strawberry shortcakes, trifles, and tarts. Even as she spoke, she was halfway through devouring a French vanilla slice while another plate of macaroons sat on her lap.
She had been like this ever since they got home, consuming a plethora of desserts while her temper was particularly volatile. Her eyes glowed like charcoals in the night the entire time, a typical physiological manifestation of her hunger.
Thomas leaned over from behind Senna and brought his arm to her mouth, pressing it against her lips before directly stating, “Eat.”
Senna didn’t respond verbally, but he felt her lips move before her teeth sank into his forearm like a vampire. She held his arm in her hands as she sucked his blood at a pace much slower and gentler than she normally would.
“Why are you being so gentle, hmm? This isn’t like you.”
“Shut up.”
Senna rebuked Thomas heartlessly as she stopped drinking his blood, leaving several punctures in his arm from her teeth.
Unlike normally, the wound didn’t vanish immediately, but the blood flow do quite quickly staunch itself before the flesh around the holes begun quivering and stitched themselves together. Thomas was still affected though, his face slightly pale from being anemic.
“You managed to keep some of your strength?” Senna asked while squinting her eyes in suspicion.
“Not really,” Thomas shrugged with a chuckle. “Astaroth knew it wouldn’t be able to take my soul, which is why he instead targeted my power. He clearly didn’t understand that my soul was my power though. What he took was the power I had in this vessel. If the vessel is a bucket, and the soul strength I put in it was water, he stuck a straw in and sucked up all the water.”
“So he didn’t technically get all of our power. That explains why he was so weak, I had just thought he was not used to your power. Can’t you just strengthen yourself again?”
Thomas shrugged and slumped back into the single chair beside the window looking over the local shopping street.
“That straw is still there. Any soul force I inject into the body, even if it is just for recovery, gets drained rapidly. Unless I want to donate my strength to that demon, I am pretty useless. We better not let the church find out, hahaha!”
“Would you take this more seriously!?” Senna slapped her hands down on the sofa and glared at him hatefully. “If you get yourself killed, I will erase all life and turn this planet back into the rock in which it came!”
“Hey, hey, hey, even I know that is a bit extreme. Sigh, why are the living so obsessed with life and ending it is their greatest threat.”
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*
With a puzzled expression, Thomas got up and checked the entry door to their store. The old sign on the door definitely stated ‘open’, so people would normally just walk in.
As he opened the door, he was met with a small drone carrying a thick padded A4 size envelope. The moment the drone detected him, it quickly scanned his face and stated in an electronic voice.
“THOMAS SMITH, IDENTIFIED. CONFIRMATION OF DELIVERY VERIFIED. NOW DEPARTING.”
The padded envelope was released and dropped on the ground in front of Thomas before the drone silently flew away, its propellors muffled by magic or some other military grade implementation he didn’t understand.
Bringing the envelope inside, he calmly opened it and took out a document filled with a large number of files.
“These are all the military information of Laurence Academy of the Gifted. There are missing person cases, injuries, law suits, shady dealings, and more. Damn, this school has some strong connections to get away with a lot of this.”
Senna snatched a pile of the documents out of his hand and also started glancing through them.
“Humans are corrupt, greedy, and megalomaniac. What more is there to say?”
“There are a lot of good people out there too, you know.”
Senna just gave him a blank stare before silently returning to looking through the documents.
“We are joined this evening by the special guest, Dr. Sandra Bowler, a microbiologist and supernatural anatomist who is the lead researcher in exploring the new territory behind the gate at the Laurence Academy of the Gifted that has taken the country by storm. Dr. Sandra, the Protectorate has kept a tight seal on events the past couple of days, not letting any news leak. What can you tell us about this new land?”
The evening news had a large portrait style screen where Dr. Sandra Bowler, a woman in her late 40s if appearances were to be assessed, stood in body armor. Behind her, a large number of the Protectorate’s forces could be seen driving heavily armored trucks around what could only be described as a heavily fortified military compound.
Further behind her, there was a giant tear in the fabric of space itself, an expansive uncivilized world that had no notion of night or day being displayed in the distance.
“Thank you for having me, Brian. A lot of information is still being understood and carefully processed, but I can tell you that it is unlike anything we ever thought. This isn’t just a new land, but an entirely new world. There are creatures and fauna here that have never been seen before, and many magical breeds of flora as well. We have seen floating mountains in the distance, so many of us are hopeful for new and never before seen minerals as well.”
“That sounds promising from a research standpoint, and appealing for investors, but what about safety. This tear has appeared in the middle of a school for our children of all places, yet it won’t be closing or postponing its activities. Isn’t the school neglecting their safety by making this decision?”
“I actually take the unpopular opinion here and disagree with that. It is a complicated situation, all things considered, but humanity’s combat forces dropped to an all time low during the golden era prior to the Departure of Machine. Monster attacks are at an all time high and there have been signs of many global undercurrents of tension stirring since then.”
Sandra closed her eyes almost in resignation, but soon opened them and stared into the camera and stated with determination.
“Our current goal is in reconnaissance and research of the nearby zones. Eliminating any highly dangerous monsters roaming about and the installation of monitoring and defensive infrastructure. Come next year, the students at Laurence Academy of the Gifted, and expeditions from the other elite magic schools within the country, will have the opportunity to enter the gate to train their magic and combat experience.”
The newscaster, Brian, had a shocked and appalled look on his face, but any viewer with a keen eye would be able to tell that this was forced. He clearly knew about this before the interview, and was just putting on a facade as if it was the first time he heard it.
“I can imagine many parents are going to be outraged at that news. These are children, Sandra, children.”
“We already understand and expect that to a degree. These children are not only the future of our country, but they are some of the most talented individuals we have recorded in the past century. We want to nurture that talent and ensure that no matter how shaky or uncertain the future is, our country will remain the global powerhouse.”
The conversation on the news continued for some time, even discussing the Protectorate’s role in opening up the land and how the invite to other forces within the country to also be able to explore the land had been opened.
“This is where we will be heading, Senna,” Thomas smiled while scratching his ear with the tv remote. “You are coming in with me, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. I am not about to let you go off and pointlessly kill yourself. Right now however, I would rather you stop destroying paper and look for any clues as to who that girl we saw in the rift was.”
“Oh, she is right here. I found her nearly an hour ago.” Thomas flew a paper plane to Senna that he had been holding in his hand over to the demi-fallen fae, her brows dropping in annoyance as she unfolded the plane.
“Laurie Hudson, 16 years old, missing. Huh? This was 30 years ago, but she clearly still looked 16 when she appeared at the rift.”
“How odd indeed~ Such a beautiful girl goes missing, appearing once again without aging a day~”
“Wait a minute!”
Senna flicked back a couple of pages in her hands, even forgetting her anger at Thomas for not telling her this information for nearly an hour.
“Here it is. Hubert Plaid, a mathematics teacher at the time. Two years after the incident, he was found guilty of raping several underage girls and sentenced to prison.”
“So?”
“This is why you are a useless detective. A beautiful girl goes missing, 2 years later one of her teachers is found guilty of rape. You said that location was purgatory, where the souls of monsters go after death, right? What if she didn’t go missing, but was killed? ”
“But she was human. Why would she go to purgatory if she was killed?”
“Maybe… she wasn’t human.”
Thomas took the document relating to the teacher from Senna’s hand and casually looked over it.
“I think it is more likely that she fell into purgatory through a weak point of space, given how close the realms are pressing against one another.”
“She has been missing for over 30 years but hasn’t aged a day? That is unlikely.”
“Time flows differently between dimensions. It could have only been a few months or a year for her.”
“…That wasn’t the gaze of someone lost for a matter of months, nor was she trying to return home.”
Senna intently glared at him with her icy gaze, grabbing the document he was holding and shoving it into his face before rubbing into his face, venting her frustrations on him.
“You are forcing me to enter that rift to work for the country, agreeing to do their work for them despite being as weak as a human. You can at least do your investigative work properly.”
“Mphhhm, mmmph-okay, okay. I never said we wouldn’t follow up on it. Let’s go see the missing girl’s mother first, then that convicted former teacher. We also need to search for any other notable events that occurred during that time.”
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