Invisible Hollow Incident | A Zenless Zone Zero Fan Story

Chapter 11: Operating in Shadows

"Just Yanagi is fine."

Ellen lets her W-Engine power down as her arm drops to her side, the sensation of pins and needles coursing through it from the shock of her strike being pre-maturely forcefully stopped.
Guess there's a reason she's in Section 6...

"Is your arm alright?"

Ellen shakes it around a little, suddenly feeling a bit more sympathy towards Cyrus.
"It's fine, I've had worse. Am I in trouble or something?"

Yanagi lets out a slight chuckle.
"No, you're not in trouble, everything's fine, but I do still need to talk to you. Is there anywhere more private we can go?"

Ellen hesitates, unsure how she wants to handle the situation, looking around she sees lights start turning on, most likely as a result of the sound made after their weapons clashed. Realising she doesn't have the time to think it through, she sighs, preparing herself for whatever rabbit hole she might be about to find herself in.
"I live nearby, follow me."

The walk to Ellen's house is filled with silence, while feeling somewhat relaxed there is still an underlying tension that Ellen isn't able to fully shake off. Looking at Yanagi, she isn't able to get any kind of read on her. Of course, being employed under Victoria Housekeeping, Ellen's had plenty of experience interacting with people of higher status, but it's almost always been through Lyacon or Rina.
Before long, she finds herself outside her house, unlocking the door, questions rushing through her mind that she hopes she'll be able to get an answer to. Heading inside, she shows Yanagi where the living room is before grabbing two glasses of water, setting them on the table and sitting down herself.

"I want to make sure you know I'm being fully transparent so, before I go ahead, if you have any immediate concerns, please let me know."

"Well... the stalking was a bit strange..."

"Ah... yes... it wasn't my intention to actually meet like this tonight, though I guess I should have expected things to not go smoothly given its you. My original plan was to leave you a note and make contact tomorrow so it wasn't so sudden, but since a lot of your information is classified I've had to result to other means in order to get it passed onto you."

"Why not just reach out through my boss? The Force already commissioned us anyway."

"I've not been made aware of Victoria Housekeeping being commissioned."

"That tracks..."

"Hm?"

"Nothing... just thinking out loud. Well, that was really my only concern, so, what's with meeting like this?"

Yanagi takes a little bit to respond, seemingly carefully thinking through what she is about to say next before taking out a small, black, unmarked box and placing it on the table. It looked fairly un-assuming at first but on closer inspection it looks to be made of an incredibly high quality material.
"I'm going to get straight to the point, I'm sure you're aware of what the Invisible Hollow refers to."

"I don't think there's anyone that doesn't know."

"The media certainly has run with the story... Right, everything I'm about to say cannot leave this room under any circumstances."
Yanagi takes a moment to re-adjust her glasses before continuing.
"Put simply, we believe there's some kind of cover up going on in relation to it. It's not known why or who's behind it, but whoever it is seems to have enough connections that they've been pulling some strings and preventing any avenues of being able to officially investigate anything. So, we've had to take steps to look into things... unofficially. I'm assuming it's all making sense so far?"

"You keep saying 'we.'"

"Ah, yes... well, I'm not the only one heading this effort, Miss Hoshimi Miyabi is also involved. That actually leads nicely into my next point and the main reason why I'm here. Due to the nature of this cover up, we quickly discovered trying to investigate things on our own wasn't going to get anywhere fast. "
Yanagi pushes the box over to Ellen who picks it up and discovers it's hinged like a ring box. Opening it up, she discovers what appears to be a badge with a slightly modified version of the Void Hunter logo on it.