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It was not as troublesome of a deal that Kazuki had expected when he signed up to help his school counselor. Tiring, yes, but at times, he would rather have these monotonous yet consistently easy jobs to do.
"Here you go," he said before dropping pieces of paper beside the woman busy at work.
With his eyes half-closed, Kazuki looked around only to find himself amazed at the sight he saw. It was as if he was transported to a completely different apartment unit.
Sadohara's place did not become a luxurious residence or anything like that, but having clean pathways and neatly arranged files on the cabinets felt like an otherworldly experience. The dim, orange tint of the lights also seemed a lot brighter now, especially with the cobwebs and dirt out of the way.
Kazuki had little knowledge of how much time had passed since he started disposing of the cans of liquor and soft drinks, but it had to be quite late if the wind blowing from an open window had turned chilly.
Wow. When I get back home, I really should thank Hikari. I know this is tough, but actually doing it is a whole different experience.
"Gah! Why do I have the feeling that I just ended up doing house cleaning for free?!" he exclaimed in realization while wiping off the sweat falling down his forehead.
"Ohoho? You only realized now?"
Ms. Sadohara winked affectionately before turning her attention back to her laptop.
Kazuki shook his head after getting roped into doing errands for the school counselor again. "Unbelievable."
"To be fair, it's much easier to work now. The air feels a lot better, and working on data has become a lot quicker. In fact, I'm almost done now... after two hours."
"Two hours?!"
Kazuki's eyes widened before he checked his phone to confirm that, much to his chagrin, two hours had indeed passed.
He was really working for that long?
"I apologize if I inconvenienced you. I'll make up for it when school starts back up. Give it a week or two, okay?"
"What took you so long anyway?"
"Hmm, in addition to finding clues about what happened to the IRIS project all these years, I also went through some research in order to reunite with an old friend of mine."
"Old friend?"
Ms. Sadohara pointed a finger gun at him and smiled, and he quickly understood the gesture.
"Can't you use your connections instead?"
"Weeell... let's just say that my reputation took a hit after that incident three years ago. Causing a whole chunk of Elysium's facility to burn down does that to you. Despite everything, there are still things that the military and the tech sectors refuse to open to me again, so I have to do all the dirty work."
"You mean the gun?"
"Yeeeep... And any research regarding the IRIS was confiscated, so I've been doing my darnest these past days to recover data on those. My research back then was on point, so if only I can find information and reassemble the puzzle..."
"Then, we can find a way to reverse the host's dilemma and extract the powers of the Magna Arbiter. If the two keys were never to meet, Izaya would never be able to open the gate to Babel. But how are we going to go about it?"
"It's never been done before, but we have to take risks at this point."
Ms. Sadohara unplugged her laptop before stretching her hands. "Oh, it's also gotten a bit late. Sorry for keeping you here for so long."
YOU ARE READING
Fractal Plane: Purgatory Survivors
БоевикVictory in the Temple of Recollections came at a steep price. Still reeling from the loss, Kazuki and his female Awakener friends begin the road to recovery. Surrounded by people with fragmented memories and an unprecedented change in Shiroki City...
