Enter Sera Masumi
The room was steeped in near-total darkness, stripped of any furniture or ornament beyond a battered wooden table at its center, on which sat a lone, outdated computer.
There were no lights anywhere. The computer's screen was the sole source of illumination, and its faint glow spilled across the face of the visitor, lending his features an eerie, inscrutable cast.
Then, without warning, a voice shattered the tomb-like silence. It seemed to issue from a speaker, weathered by the weight of years yet threaded with an ineffable authority.
"The Rainbow Rose?" The voice had been altered somehow, laced with crackles of static, its original timbre all but unrecognizable.
"Yes." The screen's pale light flickered over the man's face, now bright, now dark, making him look positively sinister — and yet his bearing remained one of absolute deference.
"A few days ago, one of our members in London stumbled upon something remarkable: this flower that F Country sent as a gift to the British royal family. Around it, fruit takes far longer to rot. It will surely be of great use to the organization's research."
He went on, "The trouble is, the flower grows only in F Country itself. The ones gifted to the royal family took an enormous expenditure of manpower and resources to transport safely to London. And even then, by the time they arrived, their potency had already been significantly diminished..."
The visitor laid out the full story of the flower's discovery and its principal effects, emphasizing that the only way to unleash its true power was to work with it on F Country's native soil.
When he finished, silence settled over the room for a long moment.
At last, the speaker crackled back to life. "Confirm the Rainbow Rose's properties as quickly as you can. If it proves truly valuable to the organization's experiments, we relocate the research operations to F Country. When that time comes, act as circumstances dictate."
The man bowed his head and answered, "Yes," then hesitated before venturing a question. "Should we keep this from Cyno... from Kumado?"
Wait — no. Cognac. "Should we keep this from Cognac?"
When no reply came from the boss, he pressed on. "Cognac was the organization's chief operative in Europe. Once we begin moving, if we don't deliberately seal off information, he's bound to catch wind of something."
"Keep it from him for now. Tell him when we need his help." The boss left it at that — a remark with no clear meaning either way — and the screen before the man went dark.
Evidently, the boss had logged off.
Even so, the visitor answered "Yes" to the empty room with the same deference as before, carefully erased every trace of his presence, and slipped out.
"That's him?"
On the rooftop of a distant high-rise, two figures were watching the building through binoculars.
The orange-haired man of the pair lowered his and let the complaint out with visible dissatisfaction. "Some old geezer with one foot already in the grave, and you went out of your way to call me in? What is this — a joke at my expense?"
"Of course not! Tartaglia, could you go five minutes without thinking about fighting?" the blond man beside him — Aether — shot back, exasperated. "Think about it. I obviously didn't drag you here to brawl with some old man."
Aether lowered his binoculars as well, then turned and started back toward the stairwell leading into the building's interior.
Tartaglia blinked, mildly caught off guard, but quickly fell into step, and the two of them rode the elevator down together.
When they emerged, Aether led him straight to the car he'd driven over.
Only after they were both seated inside did Aether finally speak. "I brought you here today just so you'd know his face. For the next while, keep tabs on his movements. Once he's served our purpose, arrange for him to have an 'accident' and disappear — leave nothing behind."
"Fine." Tartaglia slumped back against the seat and drew out his answer in a long, lazy drone. "But only for the Traveler's sake."
Ugh. He'd assumed this Cognac guy suddenly coming into the picture meant there'd be a good fight in it for him. Instead he'd been handed a job with all the challenge of swatting a fly.
Aether paid the smoldering discontent beside him no mind. He simply started the engine and drove for the organization's London base, where they could map out the old man's usual haunts while they were at it.
Wanmin Restaurant.
Having finished delivering the cat, Xia Yu hurried over to the restaurant, and her eyes instinctively sought out the familiar table.
To her surprise, it wasn't just Ran and Sonoko sitting there as she'd expected — today a third girl in the same Teitan High uniform had joined them.
Medium-length black hair, a somewhat androgynous face — Xia Yu recognized her at a glance. That had to be Sera Masumi.
So she'd transferred into Teitan High barely a few days after Ran got back from London. Talk about fast moves.