Walking through a halfway well-lit metal corridor, a melodious humming echoed throughout his surroundings.
A light jump hidden in every third step, Noctis casually opened a door to a commotionous sight, a light smile tugging at his lips. He couldn't help but hum softly to himself, buoyed by a sense of quiet contentment. The familiar halls and gentle rhythm in his steps reflected a rare clarity of mind, as if he were savoring a fleeting moment of peace after overcoming a great hurdle.
He had finally come closer to the end of his soul's assimilation.
That smile, together with the humming melody that had encompassed him, suddenly froze in place as his eyes slowly surveyed the room.
Alexia was hurrying back and forth between a few different rooms, holding stacks of papers of differing sizes, every time she came into view.
Trisha wore a pair of shadows beneath her eyes as she talked to Darron, who wore a thoughtful expression, while holding a report of sorts in hand. She had clearly worked through the night, it seemed.
Three people he did not know, each wearing a golden mask and similar attire. Two hands were smitten onto each mask's eyes, fingers of differing numbers holding them shut, with small crevices between each finger to reveal the smallest glimpse of truth, were talking with Recks. Who, in all the chaos, seemed to be the calmest person around, sometimes showing an expression of great distress before visibly calming down again and again. It seemed similar to a performance, in which the actor noticed he slipped out of character.
Noticing his gaze wandering through the room, Trisha excused herself from her conversation as she strode over, with less enthusiasm in her posture than normally.
"The lost sun has returned. What a blessing to have you back." She spoke, her smile too weak to reach her eyes.
Not reacting to her usual brazen behavior, Noctis' gaze further travled through the untypically filled-with-life room.
"What has brought about such commotion?
Has a large breach appeared?
Or are the companies in unrest again?"
Confused for a moment, Trisha asked, with a hint of bewilderment in her voice.
"Shouldn't you be one of the people who'd know most about it?"
Not making an effort to hide his confusion, Noctis simply shook his head as he waited for an explanation, a bit perplexed by her words.
Something he was most familiar with? The last things that he was involved with were…
Going through his memories, he remembered investigating a minor dispute between the two major Notium manufacturers, but he had been more involved in it to learn how such procedures worked. He had most definitely not been the main force to investigate and deal with it.
It was the same for collecting and escorting the kid who bonded with the Authority fragment. Darron was tasked to collect, with Noctis taking a more minor role of observing for any abnormalities.
That only left the most recent cases, considering the disappearance of multiple people. It might have been designated as high priority, but did it really warrant interference by the Royal Guard?
That was what the masks meant: people specially chosen by the higher-ups to oversee disputes between Authority Wielders they themselves could not handle. Back in the academy, he had not known about them; wearily, Noctis had never heard of them before that as well. It seemed they stayed more low-key to the public.
The rampant increase of disappearances might have been a bit out of the usual, but such cases had always been high. Why was it of such importance now? The only difference was that the body completely went missing without reappearing. Nothing truly notable.
Noticing his confused gaze as he tried to piece things together, Trisha finally spoke, a bit of exasperation in her voice.
"Hm… Lookes like you dont.
Your current task is being taken over, and you're to immediately transfer all documents and information pertaining to the case.
To add on, you're not to talk about it. I'm guessing by how serious the whole thing is being taken, you'll have to swear an oath of secrecy."
The tasks going to be transferred?
Noctis was surprised for a moment, then unsure whether he should have been jumping for joy or offended that all the work he had done would probably be credited to someone else.
Ignoring the thought for now, he poked further.
"Any idea on what brought this change about?" Noctis asked in a casual tone, intently watching the new golden-masked arrivals, one of the three's gaze slowly crossing Noctis' own. Inexplicably, his eyes began to tear up all of a sudden.
Following Nox's gaze, an unreadable emotion arose in Trisha's eyes as well, keenly noticed by Nox.
Noctis just couldn't tell whether the complicated emotion was arising because of the situation or those golden-masked individuals.
Thinking about it. It was only logical that shed have complicated emotions surrounding those individuals. After all, they did interrogate her after the incident, including Raef.
Perhaps she had to go through an even more thorough interrogation than Noctis himself, considering she had been at the Academy considerably longer.
Weirdly enough, even though coming to such a conclusion through a logical path of thought, Noctis felt this was not the correct reason for the unusually strong reaction.
Noctis's teary-eyed reaction, on the other hand, was for an entirely different reason.
"I only overheard bits and pieces, but… I overheard a name come up in a few conversations.
Dr. Klemens? I believe that was it.
Ever heard of him?
Oh—Hey—Why are your eyes so red?"
Raising an eyebrow at the mention of the name, taken out of his own thoughts. Noctis had little impression of the man. He had seemed to be a backwater Doctor living in a run-down store, as so many others of his kind did.
Did they find something at his place? Noctis had followed a hunch when telling Recks to let the place be searched. But in all honesty, he had expected little to come of it and that high-priority breach kind of interrupted his own investigation.
Will I be questioned next?
Just as the thought came to mind, the golden masked man, whose gaze Noctis' own crossed and since then had firmly settled on, started walking over. His mask, unlike the others', had a full finger more hiding his eyes, making it even more difficult to tell where he was looking at any given moment than the others'.
Four fingers… I've never seen one with four.
What bewildered and surprised Noctis even more than the higher count of fingers, which he knew were a sign of status, were the strings of fate surrounding him or… it.
It was truly difficult to glimpse his or her actual figure through the thick and most of all numerous veils of strings surrounding it, layering over each other in a chaotic mess.
They were all shining so brightly that Noctis had difficulty keeping his eyes open, as the person neared with every step. It was a wonder that he could even tell it was wearing a gold mask, between all the golden, shining, string-like lines.
Averting his gaze involuntarily, unable to hold it high even at the risk of offending the person of status.
Noctis' eyes felt incredibly warm at this moment, unable to stop tearing up. His ability was being overwhelmed by the mere sight of it, that thing that could might aswell have been nothing but a bundle of strings.
As his gaze drooped down, a particular pair of pale-cored strings fell into view. One was weaving itself at the very moment, and represented his newly formed connection to the gold-masked individual.
It was a bit thicker than usual, but not by much. It most likely just meant that it had read a report about him.
The other was of an entirely different nature. It was a string representing the future path of an individual. Those strings that wrapped around a certain individual and showed the future fate of a person usualy did not start with a pale core. But after observing and interacting with many people, Noctis noticed that such strings would turn pale-cored and lose their pure golden texture when interacting with him.
In the end, they turned out like the very distinct strings of connection that only Noctis seemed to be privy to.
He could, to this day, not quite say what use or implications this phenomenon held. Noctis did only know that this sudden paling of strings had thrown a stone into his original theories about his pale connections.
"Hello, are you Noctis Raveth? Would you be so kind as to answer a few of my questions?"
Seeing one of the pale strings be replaced by a lighter fabric of sorts- no, it was no fabric. It was a thick layer of golden strings. Noctis' gaze travled up for the split of a second, out of pure instinct.
"Argh!"
He regretted the decision immediately, averting his gaze the next moment. A few droplets of blood ran down one of his eyes, which he quickly wiped away in response.
Unable to see the masked expression of the Inspector of the royal guard. Not even daring to lift his gaze to the point of looking the man in the face, or where his mask sat. Noctis tried to scramble for an excuse or a way to at least avoid offending the man, who had to be of high status or power.
What a dumb thought; people of high status have always had power, and people with great power are always put into positions of high status. Why even make the distinction? Both went hand in hand!
Before Noctis found the words to express himself, he heard a praising voice come from in front of him.
It had a certain pleasant ring to it, filled with nothing but admiration.
"Wonderful, our city is truly blessed to have Authority such as yours in our midst.
Can you see it? No, your rank seems to be limiting you.
But you can see something enough to even hurt you. That is praiseworthy."
Staying silent for a moment, Noctis lowered his leg slightly, angled his back by a few degrees, moved his right hand to the chest right over his heart, while stretching out the left arm to the side, ending in a courteous bow.
Using his glib tongue, Noctis spoke, mimicking the man's own tone.
"The pleasure is on my side." Closing his eyes fully. Noctis lifted his head so that it was now on eye level with the man of the royal guard.
For some, it might have been difficult to perfectly meet the man's eye level without eyesight, but for Noctis, this task was child's play.
Ignoring that he had been practicing not to fully rely on his sight, considering his eyes liked to play games with him. At this moment, a golden shine was pressing through his eyelids, intensifying whenever he met the face of the man, or where the face of the man was.
"So how can I be of help?" Noctis asked, upholding the polite tone, his eyes closed as tight as he humanly could.
He was unsure if he was leaving a good impression, but it was bound to be better to be polite than not be with this guy he could not even look upon without frying his eyes.
Feeling the blurry golden shine shift a few times, as if nodding, Noctis suppressed a sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry that I can't directly look upon you. I hope you understand. Your pristine image is too much for my lowly self."
"You flatter me. It's perfectly fine. All authority Wielders have their quirks to deal with; some are simply better at hiding them than others. It's a price for rising above the cattle.
Let's get to the point. Your colleague told me that you ordered the investigation of Dr. Klemens."
Tilting his head slightly, Noctis nodded slowly. So it truly had to do with him.
"Did you find something?" Noctis asked in return. In truth, he had been quite curious about the entire case from the very beginning. There were simply too many peculiarities surrounding it. As an enthusiastic explorer of the unknown, his curiosity inevitably awakened.
He heard a sigh resound through his brilliant golden yet somehow completely dark world.
The royal guard members' next words shocked Noctis greatly. The flatness, with not the slightest hint of compassion, gave the entire sentence a surreal feeling.
"He is dead, and his farmecy has been burnt down."