The Promise of Tomorrow

Chapter 43

"This stupid pendant... Why isn't it working?!" Ellen growled, frustrated as she wasn't gaining any power whatsoever. "What did you do... WHAT DID YOU DO?!" she demanded an answer, her anger imminent as Y/n then stood up and then grinned. "As expected, you know little about me," Y/n mused as his punk outfit reappeared once more. Soon enough, the pendant then glowed and before Ellen could react, it had encased half of Ellen's body in ice, rendering her immobile.

 "Oh my, you really fell for all of my traps. I'm sorry to tell you, but that necklace you're holding?

That's fake, and this trick was already used once," Y/n told Ellen as he looked at her. "You know, the fact that YOU presumed I defeated Kurumi of all people speaks volumes of what you truly know of what I am," he mocked DEM's clear lack of research while catching Tonomachi's attention when Kurumi's name was heard. "Kurumi? That was our member in our school club that got missing right? Why are you mentioning- Wait, is she also a Spirit too?!" Tonomachi finally caught up and realized that Kurumi wasn't the person she seemed to be.

"Yes, and a cruel one at that. At first, we wanted to kill her, considering her kill count. However, we decided to do something else: forcing her to become an asset for us. However, most of the documentations were fabricated as..."

"We omitted the fact about the whole operation and our association with Ratatoskr and Amerhauser Productions. We simply made Y/n take the credit," Origami flatly told Kurumi about the information fabrication they made. "Of course, it was a joint operation of opposing associations. We wouldn't want AST to be exposed as a traitor to the nation after all," Kurumi chimed as they continued to gather information. 

"I do wonder... Why don't we just kill them now? At this point, we'll be helping out Ryo and our sponsors with their war against this wretched industry," Kurumi declared, justifying her want to kill and consume the hostages instead of letting them live. "You're not doing anything unless we say so," Origami argued, and was about to enforce an order to her servant when something caught her eye. 

Files labeled with the names Shuhei Karasawa and Kirei Amaya grabbed her attention.

These were the names of Y/n's parents. Why were they there? Are they involved in DEM's affairs of all things? Immediately opening the file, Origami saw that back then, both Shuhei and Kirei were involved in Project Dei, the creation of a Human-Wizard-Spirit hybrid. 'So this is Johannes' origins...' Origami thought as she continued to delved deeper into the files.

It was then revealed that the two were the major contributors of this project. However, their talents were more of exploited rather than them voluntarily being helpful as information about what the project was all about was omitted, knowing they wouldn't agree to helping DEM if they knew what they were doing. 

It didn't take them long, and they had caught wind of the truth as soon as they witnessed what the truth behind Project Dei was. The DEM bio-engineered a child made to combat Spirits and with their help, and they saw first hand the abuse Johannes suffered. The first to stand up against the organization was Shuhei, who became a secret whistleblower that led to Jakob pinpointing the location of Johannes.

Kirei had released articles, exposing DEM's wrongdoings under the name Karasu. However it didn't take long before the industry caught wind of their plans. Soon enough, the truth then dawned upon Origami, her facial expression turned from shock to exasperation as she read what had really happened on the accident.