Keep me in distant sight

Chapitre 7 : Land far is unreachable

Konoha takes some time to arrange everything on the table, putting papers he had already read in their respective files and leaving the said files on a chair. It's half for having a clear table, thus a clear headspace and half to delay the inevitable. Inside him, simmering lowly in his veins, there's a whole sea of anxious questions and dread just begging to boil over the lid of his rationality. It doesn't help that he's exhausted, yet, unable to sleep. He has waited for this opportunity for so long that it seems like a waste to succumb to his most basic needs, even if, logically, he would be much more attentive after a little nap.

Moreover, he isn't pushing his luck. Sure, the building is closed until further notice and the end of the typhoon was announced two days from now. But if he can work in less than his allotted time, plot his next move, rest and sneak away as soon as the locks are open, then he isn't taking any risks. He knows nobody is inside the building, knows that there aren't any cameras in this part as no one comes here except the Archives Masters and their apprentice, but he also knows that trying his luck has already failed them once. It could fail them, him, twice, something he refuses to let happen with his whole being.

Plus, if he's honest, he's wary of their current Archives' Master. The lady is reputed for her ways of knowing everything and he isn't putting past her to have some stuff inside her building. His cover might have been busted already, but the rain impact he hears on the ceiling is what protects him from being arrested on the spot.

Or perhaps she's keeping quiet. Tsukishima did pull him aside when he started working here just to tell him what he knows about his friends' last moments on Earth. The fact that he was allowed to meet them without her hasn't been sitting right with him. These two seem to have their own agenda, apart from the EASA. Perhaps he's safe here. Perhaps she has seen him and decided to let him search to his heart's content. He can't possibly know.

And he doesn't have the time to care. He has more important things to do.

Back to business.

The clock reads 4:46AM when he opens Exodus's file. The picture of a young man with bleached blond hair and bored eyes greets him, along with a black stamp exposing his status as a soulbonded individual. Yaku Morisuke and Aran Ojiro bear a mark as well, but it was definitely added later since the ink isn't as washed-off as the rest. A little paragraph was added, handwritten :

"K.Kenma always seemed far away, in his head most of the time. It came as a surprise for his superior when he volunteered to travel to Proxima Centauri B, despite having never manifested the slightest interest in taking charge of a mission. It raises some suspicion within the EASA but ultimately, since he was the only one willing, he was prepared for the trip following the same protocol as all the pilots before him. He landed four years after his launch. His spaceship safely transmitted datas. However, his spaceship stopped emitting approximately one hour after his landing and nothing was heard of him ever since. When his room was investigated by ourselves and my apprentices, evidence showed that he had manifested the telepathic bond and had been calculating where his soulmate could be.

To whoever follows after me and reads this, you have proof that sentient life exists out there, beyond our system. We, N., Archives' Master of the EASA, have to admit that we don't know what to do with this information. All of us knew of the possibility of life on Proxima Centauri B since the latest screening, a year before the launch. Traces of life were found after atmospheric screening. However, to think a bond could reach that far blows away thousands of years of beliefs. We, N., think we will abstain from informing the authorities about our discovery - humans wage wars like they breathe oxygen. An intragalactic war would surely be detrimental to our kind.

Naniwa of Sendai, 15th Archives' Master of the EASA."

Holy. Fucking. Shit. There's so much to unpack he doesn't know where to begin. His notes are erratic, flying across his notebook without a care for spacing. Someone else couldn't read. Hell, he doesn't even know if future him will be able to decipher what was all but thrown on paper. This Kenma fellow actually landed on Proxima, had emitted for a short amount of time before manually deactivating everything, as if he wanted to be forgotten by Humanity or perhaps preventing humans from learning too much about Proxima - or simply to protect his soulmate which is completely understandable. But protecting them of what?