Quiet
The room was dark. A holographic globe hung at its center, and where people ought to have sat, imaging devices held the chairs instead. A man drowned in shadow, and beside him, his secretary.
Anyone who looked in would have taken it for an evil organization dreaming of the conquest of the world—the sort that spent human lives like straw to get there, never free of internal noise, crawling with those ready to betray it, and held together only because the boss was strong enough to force the matter. The air was not unlike a demon king's castle.
A darkness deeper than the dark swayed there, ominous.
"Please turn on the lights."
A switch clicked.
"Ah... And the mood was so good."
"Good? What was good about it? It's pitch-dark. I'll ruin my eyes."
"You think bodies like ours get ruined by something like this?"
"I am an ordinary superhuman. I am sensitive to this sort of thing."
"A young person already fretting over appearances—that won't do. You'll age fast that way."
"This isn't amusing."
"Ehh..."
He clicked his tongue.
"Get older, and the charm falls away. All you've done is grow more willful..."
"Please just announce that the meeting is starting. Everyone is waiting, aren't they?"
A low whirr. At Anastasia's word, the imaging devices came alive.
"There's no one but you, Anastasia. The boss is fine in every other way, but that eccentric streak of his is the problem."
The man whose nameplate on the table read Magician shuffled a deck of cards. He wore a white silk top hat and an all-white suit, and a mask hid half his face.
"As if this were the first time. Last time he had a ship set afloat in the middle of the Pacific. Next to that, this is civilized. The sea wind ruined my skin completely—do you know how much work it took to restore it?"
The woman seated beside Magician put in a word of her own. Her nameplate read Minder.
Minder gave her seductive lips a single flick, swept back her lustrous purple hair, and smiled at Anastasia with her eyes.
"Our baby. Have you been well? Nothing hurting? Look at that skin, spoiled under some worthless man."
"I'm fine, Minder."
"I told you to call me Mom. After the way I raised you, you can't even give me that much?"
"I must decline. And you are far too young, Minder, to be called anyone's mother."
"The child even knows how to flatter. All grown up already."
Minder poured her overflowing motherhood over Anastasia. Her looks could have toppled the models of the world, but she carried herself like a mother who had never quite grown up.
"Everyone, quiet. You're making a racket."
A low voice called them to order. The knight who spoke wore a helm that concealed his entire face, and full plate that was cracked, broken, and rusted through. Death Knight shifted, and metal rang.
"Ha ha ha. Has the meeting started, then? I rather think it hasn't."
The one needling him was a man with long hair tied back, a white lab coat on his shoulders, and glasses on his face.
"Scientist. Why do you do this to me? You picked a fight last time as well."
"Not a fight, exactly..."
"A joke, then? Comedy, that sort of thing?"
"My apologies. As expected, you're no fun to tease."
A blow landed on the round table.
"Quiet."
At the sound, every mouth shut. Their eyes turned to the only person actually seated at that table.
The light air they had shown Anastasia vanished. What reached them now was a vast pressure that passed beyond the machines and laid itself against their skin.
"Aside from Warrior, Giant, and Asura—has everyone gathered?"
"Yes."
Anastasia turned through the papers in her arms.
"Warrior and Asura are absent, on account of their mission in China."
"And Giant, the same as always?"
"Yes. Absent on protection duty, as usual."
"Then we're all here."
He straightened. Two lights blinked in the dark.
"Let us begin a meeting whose number I have long since lost."
"Yes!"
"Report."
"Reporting."
Magician rose from his seat.
"The war between Europe and Ilshikgyo has ended in Europe's victory."
"Has it."
"Yes. Ilshikgyo's temporary retreat weighed heavily on the course of things, and the allied forces sounded victory across countless fronts. Ilshikgyo offered no great resistance. They did nothing but withdraw."
Magician lifted the brim of his silk hat.
"This is plainly an anomaly."
Ilshikgyo were fanatics in the fullest sense. Their commanders might judge with reason, but most of them were bombs that had never learned what death was. Creatures with a screw loose, who used suicide attacks as a tactic, pulling back for no reason at all? Such a thing could not happen. They would die before they retreated. Withdrawal was absurd on its face.
"Pay it no mind. We already know, on this side."
"Understood."
"The situation in Europe?"
"The damage of the war has left the major cities of France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Britain, and the rest collapsed and paralyzed. Villains who smelled the opportunity are rioting everywhere, and the governments are sick to death of fighting yet another war against them."
Anastasia handed a sheaf of paper to the Darkness.
Graphs set out the damage in each nation, and the number of the dead. Dozens of pages, and the Darkness took them in at a glance before he asked:
"The villains?"
"Heroes who ignored the counsel of Captain Earth, who fought in the war, and of the governments, and forced their way onto the field, are taking the villains in hand. Coming back from the front, they are clearing every city they pass."
"Absorb the villains Captain Earth has broken. Do not let them learn that the organization exists."
"Understood."
"Anything unusual?"
"...The British royal family has learned of the Spirit Coffin."
The hall went still.
"The Coffin? How did they..."
Scientist let the words slip under his breath.
"Is it true?"
"All but certain. Several of the Knights of the Round Table moved in secret."
The Knights of the Round Table. Britain's greatest strength.
They had moved?
"Do we know who?"
"...It could not be confirmed."
Tap. Tap.
In the Darkness's silence, cold sweat broke on the executives. Magician could not keep still, guilty as a thief betrayed by his own feet.
"Forgive me. I will settle Britain at the earliest—"
"Enough."
Tap.
The last strike demanded silence.
"Learn only how Britain came to know of the Coffin. Know that, and nothing else matters."
"Thank you."
Magician wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief and sat, as if the report were finished.
"Next."
"I will report."
Minder took up where he had left off.
"We are aggressively acquiring companies bankrupted by the war with Ilshikgyo, and companies that were pruned away. At present we have taken thirteen affiliates of major corporations and twenty mid-sized firms. Anything at the level of a small enterprise or below was not included."
"Can Asura and Warrior provide support?"
"If we use our major corporations in China, the villain organizations, and our lines into the Party, we can support them without inconvenience."
"Good. Next."
Minder sat. Death Knight rose.
"The disappearances in South America."
His helm shifted.
"Simultaneous disappearances are currently unfolding across multiple nations of South America—Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Chile, and others."
The Darkness looked at the number they had investigated.
"A hundred thousand?"
"The result of our own inquiry."
A hundred thousand missing was nothing to make a fuss over. Take every nation of South America together, and a hundred thousand missing was, if anything, on the low side.
"You couldn't trace where the missing went?"
"Forgive me. The subordinates who followed them lost contact as a group, so we could not learn even that far."
Lost contact?
"Not a single one survived?"
"Not one of them left any information behind. The method of the disappearances could not be known either."
So no one knew how a hundred thousand people had vanished.
The true number might not be a hundred thousand. More. Far more.
From South America, the Darkness felt an enormous malice spilling over.
"Death Knight, stand by in South America for the time being. The investigation into the missing ends here."
"May I ask the reason?"
Death Knight's manner was cautious, as though even the question were a grave disloyalty.
"You alone cannot bear what is happening in South America. I will send separate support later. Receive the assignment together with them."
"...I receive your command."
"Ahem."
Scientist, having glanced at Death Knight's unsettled breath, cleared his throat.
"Production of the D-series is in difficulty. The Devil's Tree has anorexia, and we cannot harvest its blood. Research has slowed considerably, and the mass-production system for the D-series has stopped completely. As the chart shows, our reserves are severely insufficient as well."
The chart did show it. Set aside the stock the organization itself would use, and there was effectively nothing left to scatter across the world.
"At this rate, the plan will be disrupted. This problem must be solved quickly."
Scientist's expression hardened. He was the one in full charge of the D-series. If it vanished like this, there would be no place left for him to stand.
"The Devil's Tree... It's the trauma. Attach a counselor, and see to its mental health."
"Yes?! What... is that?"
Scientist nearly cursed aloud. Trauma, in that monster? What kind of nonsense was this?
But the Darkness was in earnest.
"It is the truth, so secure a counselor. Coax the Devil's Tree. Soothe it and settle it, and it will improve. It is no different from a human."
"...Understood."
Scientist let out a sigh he could not hold back. He was about to be stuck minding a brat that had no place in his fate.
"Don't take it so hard. I'll give you another line of research."
"What research?"
At the word, Scientist's eyes lit.
"...Begin the research of death."
"...Understood."
A deep smile formed at the corner of his mouth.
"Then we will move on to the next item."
The executives' reports came to an end, and Anastasia's report began.
And so the meeting went on.