Day broke over the Saturnine City. Rhea and Yuga had barely slept, having arrived so late from Cavally that the night was already well underway.
"...Finally," Rhea yawned, stretching.
She took a quick shower, dressing with a nervous determination. Yuga, who looked like he hadn't closed his eyes at all, had already prepared breakfast. They swallowed it in silence, their stomachs in knots, then hurried to catch a floating taxi.
The machine glided toward the city center, a maze of arrogant skyscrapers piercing Saturn's clouds. They stopped in front of the tallest one, an intimidating monolith of glass and steel.
"This is it?" Rhea murmured.
"Yeah, this is it," Yuga said, his face unusually grave. "We're taking the elevator. Most importantly, don't say a word."
Rhea nodded, and they entered.
The elevator deposited them on the seventh floor. The atmosphere was the opposite of the silence outside: a vast, open-plan office buzzing with activity. Dozens of workers, their gazes fixed on floating data windows, handled administrative tasks with the clatter of holographic keyboards.
Yuga guided her through the labyrinth of desks, explaining in a low voice, "Only the President of the city has access to the complete archives of the peoples of this planet. The records are on the top floor."
But the top floor wasn't so simple. The corridor was crisscrossed by Sparts, their mechanical patrols echoing on the marble floor. The elevator to the summit was guarded.
"So, what's the plan?" Rhea whispered. "There are way too many people."
Yuga scanned the area. "If I get close enough to the elevator, I can teleport us inside. But it's too risky with all these eyes."
He spotted the desk closest to the elevator and approached, putting on an official air.
"Hi sir, I'm Yuga, from the Order of the Sky."
The worker didn't even look up from his floating screen. "Hi. I'm busy. If you want an appointment, talk to the secretary for a time slot."
"Okay." Yuga backed away and rejoined Rhea. "It's a no-go. Too many witnesses. The best bet is to wait for the lunch break. In two hours. There will be fewer people."
"Two hours?" Rhea said, anxious. "Alright. We'll wait in the restrooms."
They separated, Rhea to the women's, Yuga to the men's, sharing micro-earbuds to stay in contact. The wait was torture.
At 12:25, the chime for the break sounded. The office's buzz died down.
"I'm going," Yuga's voice said in Rhea's ear.
They stepped out. The floor was almost empty. Only six workers were still at their desks. The elevator guard, however, hadn't moved, and the Sparts were still patrolling.
"Plan B," Rhea said.
Discreetly, she pulled a small vial from her bag. With a quick flick, she tossed it into the center of the room. It hit the floor with a barely audible pschht, releasing an almost invisible gas.
"Now!"
Yuga teleported. Blink. The first worker collapsed onto his desk. Blink. The second. Blink. In less than five seconds, all six workers were asleep.
The elevator guard, alerted by the thuds, stood up. "Hey! What the..."
Blink. Yuga appeared right in front of him, the elevator at his back. He grabbed Rhea's arm. "Stay still!"
Blink.
They were inside, the elevator doors sliding shut. Yuga slammed the button for the summit. Their hearts were pounding.
They arrived in a silent, sterile corridor. Shockingly, there was no security. "Not even Sparts have access here," Yuga breathed, hacking a wall console. "I'm erasing our presence from the cameras. The archive room must be this way."
They ran. Yuga checked the room's internal cameras: empty. They entered and sealed the heavy doors behind them.
To their surprise, the room looked less like dusty archives and more like a high-tech conference room, lined with digital shelves.
"Okay, we don't have much time," Rhea said, her voice vibrating with pressure. "Look for anything about the moon's inhabitants. 'Moon Clan,' 'Lunains,' anything. Let me know if you find it!"
"On it!"
The search was frantic. They swept the shelves, opening files, but found nothing. Archives of other clans, economic reports, treaties... but nothing on the moon. Rhea ran from one row to another, despair setting in.
Suddenly, Yuga, who was still instinctively monitoring the cameras, froze.
"Damn. Someone's coming. A group."
At the same instant, a name on a digital file caught his eye. "ADA".
"Rhea!" he hissed. "The storage closets! Quick!"
Rhea saw it. Her last chance. She grabbed the data slate containing all the "ADA" documents and dove into a supply closet, holding her breath. Yuga did the same on the other side of the room.
They shut the doors a second before the room's main lock disengaged.
Several men entered. They were adults, dressed in strange, formal attire. But the one who sat in the main chair at the head of the table had the body of a teenager.
Yuga, hidden, risked a glance through the crack in the door.
His blood ran cold. He stopped breathing.
It wasn't possible. His eyes had to be playing tricks on him.
The man sitting in the main chair... it was the same face as Angel's.
The same eyes. The same long blond hair. The same bronzed dark skin. Yuga clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp of shock.
"So," said "Tiger's" voice, calm and melodic, "what brings you here?"
The other members of the conference wore thick white hoods, like a cult.
"Sir," said a hooded man, "your plan has begun its execution. Mr. Belz Akabané will be here soon to tell you more."
Angel's face smiled. A cold smile that Yuga had never seen.
"That pleases me greatly. Above all, do not forget your roles. We will divide Saturn into zones, and you will orchestrate the same 'Millennial Theater' you have been running for so long."
"It is understood, Sir."
Yuga, still in shock, understood. The man in the chair was the King of END. The white hoods... the connection to Angel... it all made a terrifying kind of sense. Rhea, hidden on her side, had seen and heard everything.
The conference was brief. The hooded men left.
Rhea and Yuga waited for an agonizing minute before they dared to creep out of their hiding spots.
The moment they stepped out, the door opened again.
A man with a red beard entered suddenly, stopping short when he saw them. The shock was plain on his face.
"YOU! What are you doing here?!"
Yuga, still reeling from his discovery, only had time to grab Rhea's hand, who was clutching the "ADA" data slate to her chest. A block of stone formed around the man's fists. He charged them.
He landed a powerful blow on Yuga, launching him and Rhea backward, straight through the reinforced glass of the skyscraper.
The city's maximum-level alert blared.
They were falling. The void. The wind screaming. The red-bearded man leaped out after them.
Just before they hit the ground, Yuga managed to teleport, reappearing in an alley several blocks away. The city shrieked with sirens. Sparts were converging from all directions.
They ran, they hid, Yuga teleporting in short, desperate jumps until they were finally near his house. A final teleport landed them directly in his living room.
Yuga locked the door, shut the curtains. Silence. Only their ragged breathing broke the tension, while outside, the city was under siege.
"IT IS ANGEL! ISN'T IT?!" Yuga exploded, his voice shattered by anger and confusion.
"NO!" Rhea shouted. "You'll understand later!"
"LATER? NO, TELL ME! IT'S ANGEL!"
"You know perfectly well he's with Yabal and Léopold!" Rhea shot back, catching her breath. "We want to know who Tiger is too! We met him when we arrived, and I know it's confusing! So just imagine what Angel must be feeling!"
Yuga fell silent, remembering Angel's strange calm, his pained expression, and what Yabal had said about his trauma.
Rhea was pacing, connecting the dots. "'Belz Akabané'... that's Yabal's father. What is this 'plan'? How does he know Tiger?"
"Yabal's father?" Yuga repeated, stunned.
"Yes! The owner of the largest tech company on Earth! Could he be connected to the men in white hoods?! That would explain it... that would explain why Yabal found that document about Tiger in the 'Great White Castle in the sky'!"
"A white castle in the sky? Wait..." Yuga grabbed his head. "This is too much. I... I need to calm down. I have to call my superiors."
He went to his communication terminal, while Rhea finally sat, the "ADA" data slate on her knees. She opened it. Her family name was Ada. Rhea Ada.
She scoured the documents. The history of the Lunains. Expulsion reports. And finally, a list. She landed on the names of the last two Lunains with the "Ada" surname registered on Earth: Fugaku Ada and Lumine Ada.
They were her father's and mother's names.
She had confirmation. Everything she'd read on the Dolphin Tree was true. The story of her clan... Rhea began to cry, tears of sadness and rage. She hated her father even more, now that she knew what he was: a Lunain.
At the same time, Yuga, on the phone, turned pale. He had just learned from his contact that the Chief of the Order of the Sky, along with several elite members, were currently en route... to Earth. A top-secret mission.
The mysteries were only just beginning to unravel...