Shadow Slave

Saint seemed to hesitate before accepting the revolver, but then gave Sunny a reluctant nod. She checked the gun with precise and confident movements, making sure that it was loaded, then hid it in the pocket of her trench coat.

It was hard to tell if she felt safer with a weapon since her expression was almost always calm and placid, but Sunny hoped that she did.

Because he himself felt troubled.

Being mundane was already bad enough, but he was at least confident in his ability to overpower most enemies in a brawl. Now that firearms entered the picture, though, Sunny had to face his own mortality.

One bullet was enough to end his life. ”How... nostalgic.” He was reminded of his youth in the outskirts of NQSC, where armed thugs had been like deities who wielded power over life and death at their fingertips. It was such a long time since Sunny had felt threatened by guns that he was having trouble adjusting to this new old reality.

“By the way, aren’t we supposed to have those, as well?”

Effie’s question made him scratch the back of his head.

”Right. As detectives, we have the right to carry firearms.” Sunny rummaged in the Devil Detective’s memories for a few moments.

“But they are under lock and key back at the Police Department. We can only take them out after providing a proper justification and filling out a bunch of forms.”

Guns were a rarity in Mirage City, and even cops hesitated to use them. Still... maybe it would be prudent to retrieve their own revolvers from the armory sooner rather than later, considering that random assassins were running around with them. He sighed.

“Anyway... where were we?”

They had poured over all the available information last night, finding ways in which it was different from how it had been before. Luckily, Sunny had studied the investigation board in the Devil Detective’s apartment at the start of their stay in Mirage City, so he knew what to look for. What they had discovered was that the victims of the Nihilist were now connected to the Valor Group in subtle, but undeniable ways. The owner of a construction company, the archivist, the suspiciously affluent civil inspector...

All of them were tied to the Valor Group, either obviously or covertly.

In and of itself, that was a meaningless clue. After all, the Valor Group was too vast and influential — here in Mirage City, everyone was connected to it in one way or another. However, that clue ceased to be meaningless when one factored in one vital detail — that these connections had been formed only recently, in the process of Mirage City rewriting itself to fit the story of how the Nihilist chose his victims.

It was because of how the stories of these people had changed that Sunny could deduce that their connection to Valor was the reason for their deaths, as opposed to a mere coincidence.

The root of the matter still dodged him, though. At best, he knew where to look for it.

Sunny grimaced.

“There are only a few hours left before we are supposed to start interviewing persons of interest in the Other Mordret’s attempted assassination case. That can potentially shed more light on the identity of the culprit... that was the plan yesterday, at least. However, today, I think that our plans were too conservative.” Ꞧ𝓪ŊỖᛒËṤ

Effie arched an eyebrow. “Whad do you mean?”

Sunny shrugged.

“The city was not trying to kill us yesterday, so we could take our sweet time. But there is a deadline now — quite literally. So, we need to hurry things along.”

Morgan, who had changed out of the borrowed nurse uniform into a spare set of clothes Effie had kept in the car, looked at herself in displeasure. The sleeves of the hoodie she was wearing were obviously too long for her, and the hoodie itself looked way too baggy on her svelte body.

Pursing her lips, she rolled up the sleeves and let out a heavy sigh.

”How are we going to hurry them, exactly?”

Sunny remained silent for a few moments, then smiled.

“Well, no matter how you look at it, there is one person at the center of all of this. The source of Mirage City... Mordret. The Other Mordret, I mean.”

Hearing that, Saint frowned slightly, but did not say anything. She removed the cap from the water bottle in her hands and brought it to her lips, taking a measured sip.

Sunny shrugged.

”So, let’s kidnap him.”

Saint spat out the water, coughed, and looked at him with wide eyes.

‘Huh. She can make that expression, as well.’

Effie and Morgan remained more composed, but they seemed surprised, as well.

”Kidnap him?”

Sunny nodded simply.

“That is the easiest solution. Listen... we don’t have a lot of time, and we have too many things to do. We need to catch the Nihilist, we need to protect Saint, we need to make sure that the Other Mordret survives — all the while staying alive ourselves. So, let’s turn all these things into one thing”

He pointed to the altar of the abandoned church, where Mordret’s photo lay at the center of the investigation map.

“We need to put him and Saint together to remove the need to split our forces for protecting them both in separate locations. We also don’t know enough to find the Nihilist... so, let’s make the Nihilist come to us instead. As long as we have the Other Mordret, whoever is trying to get rid of him will come for us, and that will be our chance to follow the traces back to the source.”

Saint wiped her lips with the back of her hand and pierced him with a glare.

”Now, wait a moment...”

Morgan spoke then, interrupting her:

“He is already protected enough. He is the most protected person in the city. Believe me, I know — otherwise, I would have already killed him. So what good will kidnapping him do?”

Sunny shook his head.

“If the person pulling the strings is hidden within Valor, like the Other Mordret thinks, then his own security might represent the most threat to him. The same people who are meant to protect him might become his executioners.”

She frowned, but did not object to that line of reasoning immediately.

In that ensuing silence, Effie said with a dubious expression.

“That might be true, but they will still protect him from us. So, how are we even supposed to kidnap him?”

Sunny suppressed a smile, as if he had been expecting that exact question.

“Elementary, my dear Effie.”

He walked over to Morgan, placed a hand on her shoulder, and grinned.

“We have his baby sister. I’m sure he’s worried out of her mind right now... so, we just need to use Morgan as a lure.”

Morgan looked at him in displeasure, while Effie smiled brightly.

“Oh, I see. Sure, that makes sense.”

As the three of them gave each other calm looks, already thinking about the practical steps of what they needed to accomplish, Saint finally spoke again:

“Wait, hold on. Wait a second. We are not seriously planning to kidnap the CEO of the Valor Group, are we? That... that would be insane.”

She fell silent then, hearing her own words, and sighed.

Sunny grinned.

”Don’t worry. We’ll only kidnap him a little...”