Looming Danger

Pacing back and forth in her office Hazel was feeling at a loss. Yesterday she had received reports about Scaleth dying in the Astral Zone which took her by surprise. He was a cautious man from her point of view and wouldn't put himself in such dangerous situations willingly which led her to wonder who could have possibly killed him while he was out there. While it did piss her off a little that he died under her watch with no idea who did it thankfully she would get her answer eventually once her people out there finished up their job and arrived back but until then she was left in the dark with only speculation. Which led to her current situation.

"Was it those two, Dellin or Zellin? No, they are too caught up in the competition happening soon as well so it has to be someone else."

Unfortunately that was her biggest hurdle and frustration. There were too many different possibilities of who it could be that it left her in an endless spiral of guessing and without the information from her people she was at a loss for an all too important matter. Someone killing her people was just something she couldn't accept especially at such a busy time where she needed every last person she could get her hands on and Scaleth being the stronger of the batch was a huge loss for her entire clan.

*Knock, Knock*

"What is it?"

With impatience in her voice some anger carried in it hearing the door interrupting her thoughts.

"Reporting."

"About time."

Sighing she finally settled down a little bit because now she could at least get somewhere with his return.

"So what did you find."

"Ma'am, after arriving we found him with a deep knife mark in his chest and most likely dead for some time already with no one in sight. After that I was called inside and performed a soul search to try and get some information."

"And? tell me what you found."

Hazel knew his ability allowed him to search through the souls of anyone which was why she let him command her scout unit. With his ability they were able to figure out things with relative ease when people died or wouldn't talk though it had its downsides as well. Hopefully she wouldn't see it this time but she noticed the look on his face and already had an idea of what he was about to say. A little frustrated she listened though and With a bit of hesitant look he finally spoke up.

"Unfortunately we found him too late which is why it took so long to gather any information from him. Which also means his memories we're mostly gone and the only thing I could see were some images of the scene."

"Hmm..."

Closing her eyes she felt a headache coming on. This was the biggest disadvantage of his ability. If someone had died it became increasingly worse and more difficult over time which is why it was usually best to use it on people who were alive. But at the very least she could work with how the culprits looked.

"So what did you see?"

"There were three people in total we saw whether there were more is unknown though faded a bit. The first was a male man with white hair while the second image I saw was a older woman with red hair and lastly was a younger woman with purple hair. From what I saw it looked like they were very obviously the ones behind his death. But I can't discredit the fact that there could very well be more."

"Were there any symbols or things that could tie them to any clans or organizations on their bodies?"

"No, they were all just wearing casual wear."

"Did you get a feel for their strength at least."

"Nope."

"Names?"

"No."

"Haa....give me a second to think."

Watching her, the man sat quietly in front of her and waited. He wished he could do more for her but that's all that he could find. After a minute she finally opened her eyes again with calmness as she spoke.

"Do you know the time Scaleth arrived?"

"Yes we have the approximate time of his arrival and death."

"That's good enough then. Go back to the Astral Zone and find the records of whoever entered the area within that time and use that. Of course also look throughout the city to find them."

"But Ma'am there's a lot of people that went through their. It would take forever… and getting that information isn't easy."

"Just threaten them with our name if you have to or steal it and find the names we can easily recognize and take them off the list that should make it easier and while it is important to find the culprits we still have other things to do. So it will only be your unit working on this. Do your best and figure it out as fast as possible."

Hearing that unreasonable demand he swallowed his thoughts and shut his mouth before making a mistake. He long knew how unreasonable she could be sometimes but there was nothing he could do. Once she set her mind on something it was done.

"Yes Ma'am."

With that he turned to take his leave and start working on investigating. If needed he could hire other people to work and help him but they were within a tight budget at the moment so it would be his last resort. Remembering those three faces he saw his frustration transferred to them a little as he walked down the hall to his unit's room to bring the bad news. Watching him leave she settled herself as she started walking out the door as well.

"Time to check on our candidates."

Now that the Scaleth situation was being handled she could properly focus on the upcoming competition in the future and check on everyone to make sure everything was going smoothly. "No matter what we will not lose." Losing was simply not an option for her and to win she would pull out all her cards just to make it happen. With her footsteps sounding throughout the hall as she walked she calmly made her way to the training area.

Surrounded in darkness slowly his eyes began to open once more.