An Assassin's Respite

Yuu's Investigation

Kazuna and Kagura have been training for 3 days now, continuing her practice on performing the sheathed s***h when coming in contact with an outside force. She had made significant progress and was able to fight pretty well with the move. Ria, who was always watching their training sessions, was impressed by her ability to learn so quickly. Their spar was incredible to watch as there were quick sparks as they dashed towards each other. After a few minutes, Kazuna calls for them to take a break.

"You've improved greatly these past few days." He notes.

"It's all thanks to your training." She replies with a smile."It may have helped, but in the end, you decide whether the training will yield results or not and how significant they will be." He adds.

Kagura blushes as she quietly takes the praise.

"Although I would like to polish up your sheathed s***h a bit more, let's move on to the other strikes just so that we can go over them before the training camp." Kazuna states.

Kagura nods in response as she waits for him to continue.

"Next is the double s***h. Just as it sounds, it's two slashes in quick succession. The key is to flow into the second s***h to limit your opponent's ability to defend. Thanks to the training you did with learning the sheathed s***h, this shouldn't be easy for you to get the hang of." He states.

"Why is this considered a technique?" She asks, unsure as to why simple consecutive strikes are a technique.

"The same could be said for any technique, what makes them techniques is the subtle differences in your stance and footwork.

Kazuna pulls out his sword and performs two simple slashes.

"As you said, two simple slashes aren't different nor potent enough to be considered techniques, but.." He says as he changes his stance.

"Once you add your own personal touch." He says as he changes his stance.

"Even simple slashes can become powerful techniques." He notes as he performs the double s***h.

The difference was easy to notice. The double s***h he performed seemed to cut the air and was brilliant to watch. 

"You really have an impressive understanding of swordsmanship," Kagura notes.

"Although I appreciate the praise, there is still much I don't know. Everything I do know is based on what I learned from the grandfather's incomplete training and what I taught myself." He says in an attempt to lessen her praise.

"If I had a dollar for every time you tried to lessen my praise only to make me even more impressed, I wouldn't be rich, but I'd still have a few dollars," Kagura says.

"What a weird thing to say," Kazuna says with a slight chuckle.

"The point is that it's just as impressive that you know so much and can use such a powerful and unique style without being fully trained in it. You managed to take what you learned and truly make it your own." Kagura says.

"Make it my own, huh?" Kazuna says in a daze-like tone.

"In any case, it shouldn't be hard for you to get this one down since you have a pretty good handle on the sheathed slash." He notes.

Kagura nods as they begin training on the second strike.

While the students of GA were training and studying, Yuu was at the Coalition headquarters for some official business. He decided now was the perfect time to gather intel. He wanted to take advantage of the fact that the higher-ups were having a meeting discussing the upcoming GA training camp. Yuu had gotten one of the higher-ups that he trusted to invite him to the meeting and give him time to investigate by saying he would be late due to him having other meetings to attend.

"Thank you, Willaim, I'll be sure to make the most of the time that you've given me," Yuu says to himself after he appears in an office room.

There were 8 officials that belonged to the higher epsilon. The first room he decided to check was Sakura's. He begins to walk around the room, careful not to touch too many things. He didn't want to move things from their original position or leave behind too many fingerprints. He checked drawers, photos, under the furniture, and even checked some files on the computer. But he found nothing that warranted further investigating.

"Well, I had basically no suspicions on Sakura anyway." He notes to himself as he moves to the next room.

Next was Price. He followed the same procedure. Although he didn't find anything that connected to Zer, he did find some backwater deals and money laundering, so he saved those files onto an external device and moved on. He found nothing of interest in the next few rooms, so he had started to gain hope that none of the people he had previously trusted betrayed him, but then he got to Ban's room. It's not that he was suspicious of him, in fact, he wasn't suspicious of anyone. But if there really was a spy among their ranks and they were able to elude him, Ban would be the first person to suspect.

He investigated thoroughly, going as far as to pull every book he had on his shelves and flip through them to see if he activated a switch of some sort or found something in them. He pulled a drawer open and checked to see if there was a hidden panel and was somewhat surprised to see find one. He opens it and finds a key.

"What could this go to? There isn't a safe in this room." He notes to himself.

He places the key on the desk and begins to check his computer. He looks closely through his files and finds some that caught his eye. He tries to open them but finds that they're locked behind a passcode.

"It'll be too risky to try and guess the passcode." He notes to himself as he teleports out of the room and returns with someone else.

"How many times have I told you to stop doing that!" The guy shouts./

"Keep it down!" Yuu whispers back while holding a finger to his mouth.

"Where are we?" He asks.

"In Ban's office. I need you to hack into his computer." Yuu explains.

"I see that you're in a hurry so I'll save asking for an explanation for later." The man says as he gets to work.

The man's name was Tristan and he was the one that hacked into the security system and Yuu trusted him more than anyone. His power was network. It allowed him to see digital code in a way that no one else could. To him, it was like a language that only he could speak allowing him to be the best hacker/programmer in the world.

"Whoever encoded this is serious business, even I"m having trouble getting in," Tristan states as he furiously types.

After a couple more minutes, he finally manages to get in.

"Finally, I'm in." He says while wiping a bead of sweat off his face.

"Keep an eye out for anything that matches what we're looking for," Yuu notes.

Tristan nods as he sifts through the data.

"So far, I haven't found anything that links him to being in contact with Zer, but it does appear that he's been collecting information on him and it seems like he has even more than we do." He notes.

"What!?" Yuu exclaims.

"I know, even I'm finding that hard to believe and I'm looking at it." Tristan replies.

"Can you export it to an external device?" Yuu asks.

Tristan shakes his head.

"Not without alerting him of us tampering with it. The best we could hope for is to take a picture of everything we can." He replies.

"We won't be able to get everything, so we'll just have to live with what we can get." Yuu says as he begins to take pictures.

He manages to take a few pictures before the time he had allotted himself had run out. 

"Unfortunately, we'll have to get going." Yuu says as he puts his phone away.

"Wait, what's this?" Tristan questions.

Yuu leans in and reads what Tristan was and his eyes go wide.

"What the...?" He whispers as his eyes go through the information. 

He hurries to take his phone out and take a picture, but they hear a knock at the door. The were silent and remained frozen for a moment, but Yuu has Tristan quickly log out of the computer and he quickly outs everything back in place. He realizes that the key he had pulled out was still out so he decided to take it with him and he teleported the both of them away just before the door opened.

He shortly returns to the Coalition Headquarters and begins to make his way to the meeting room. Luckily, Ban's room was on the way to their so he decided to see who was in there. He places his ear on the door and listens carefully.

"He said it would be here. Am I looking in the wrong place? Whatever, I guess I'll just report this to him." He hears someone say.

He quickly realises that whoever was in there was about to head out the room so he quickly moves up the hall and turns the corner. He hears whoever was in there come out so he teleports into the room and returns the key to the secret compartment. 

"It's a good thing i had Tristan make a spare, but what a blunder. I completely forgot about it. And what was that? I couldn't read it all, so I was only able to get through about half the page, but it didn't look good. Something tells me things are about to get very troublesome." He says to himself as he teleports out of the room once morore, this time in appearing in front of the meeting room.