Chapter 18 - A dark past?

"Welcome WJO member" The girl greeted with a friendly smile.

Yuudai was shocked and confused, she didn't show any signs of lying, she was really greeting them.

The girl realized. "Oh! You must be tired and hungry, not to worry! We got a banquet for all of you"

"How do you know about the WJO?" Yuudai asked, trying to calm down.

"Oh, that?" The girl said. "Why don't we talk about that with some food and wine?" she happily said.

"Huh?" Yuudai said, very confused.

Yuudai hesitated but since he and the rest were quite tired, he politely accepted.

"Great then!" The girl shouted in excitement and then ordered her men to prepare a banquet for everyone.

Everyone left the submarine and followed the girl to a small city, their buildings were constructed with metal and their civilization was quite advanced, maybe more advanced than the surface.

"Yuudai, what is this place?" Izanami asked while she contemplated all the technology she had never seen.

"So Atlantis does exist?" Kenshin asked. "Well, we were very wrong Commander"

They arrived in the middle of the city, a long and massive table full of food and drinks awaited them, including the people living there.

"What do we do?" Nicole asked.

Yuudai sighed and calmed down a bit. "Everyone, enjoy the party"

The crewmates and his friends jumped and shouted in excitement and started digging in. Yuudai and Emi were in a not crowded place to talk about "Atlantis"

"So, you think WJO arrived here before us?" Emi asked.

"Yes, but I haven't found any files about this" He said. "The files about this might have been deleted by the leader"

Emi was surprised and confused "Why would he do that?" She asked.

"I still have no clue about that" He said. "She might know" he suggested while looking at the girl, who was drinking and eating with the others.

"Possibly" Emi said.

Both of them approached the girl, she was drinking a lot of wine while everyone cheered.

"Excuse us, could we talk to you?" Emi asked.

"Hm? O-Oh sure..." She said a bit drunk. "Let me just... sober up"

After a few minutes, the girl asked them to follow them to some sort of building that looked like the Lincoln Memorial but with another man and a woman sitting in different chairs.

The girl realized something. "Oh! I never presented myself" she said. "I'm Kate Haynes"

"So, Kate, who is this man?" Yuudai asked.

"It's like Lincoln's Memorial in Washington DC" Emi said.

"Washington?" Kate asked with a confused look. "Anyways! These two are the founders" she said with excitement.

"So, how do you know about the WJO?" Emi asked.

"Look closer" Kate pointed it out.

Yuudai looked closer and realized that the WJO initials were on their clothes, Emi saw it as well, they were suprised.

"What were their names?" Yuudai asked, curious.

"Adrian Haynes and Sabrina Mays" Kate said.

"Wait, Haynes?" Yuudai said surprised. "You're their daughter?"

"Well, great-grandaughter" Kate corrected.

"Great? That means..." Emi said, starting to realize.

"Yeah, we've been here at least 100 years" Kate said, calmly.

Yuudai and Emi were surprised, the WJO maybe had known about this for 100 years, the existence of people and advanced technology underwater.

"I never heard of them..." Yuudai said.

"Hm? What do you mean?" Kate asked.

Yuudai didn't respond and approached the statue, he looked around it and saw a keyboard and a screen on the back.

"What is this?" Yuudai asked.

"Oh, that?" Kate said. "It was left by the founders"

"So anyway, could you explain about this whole place?" Emi asked.

Kate explained. A few years ago a secret exploration team arrived on a massive cave underwater and they decided to build a civilization down there, the two captains became the founders of this place, many of the crewmates agreed to the idea, and some hated it, so they decided to try to come to light about this. Luckily the founders discovered their plan and they were executed, for an unknown reason the founders and crewmates left the city and their families and never returned.

"And so, that's why I'm excited!" Kate shouted happily.

"So they were all from the WJO?" Yuudai asked.

"Supposedly" She responded.

"And so, how do you access this?" Emi said while she looked at the screen.

"I think it needs a code" Kate said. "But none of us know down here"

"You know what WJO stands for?" Emi asked.

"When Joy Overcomes You?" Kate asked.

"Not even close and you added another word" Yuudai said.

"We never questioned what it stood for" Kate said.

"Emi, try putting World Judgement Organization" Yuudai suggested.

Emi typed it and a door opened behind Sabrina's statue, it led to some stairs that went underground.

"World Judgment Organization?" Kate said surprised.

Without hesitation, Yuudai and Emi started walking down the stairs with Kate chasing after them. The stairs were going deep underground, the stairs weren't very visible due to the darkness so they carefully walked down the stairs.

At the bottom, they arrived at a closed door. Yuudai opened the door without hesitation, behind the door there was a room with many books and a computer on top of a table.

"Emi, please check the books" Yuudai politely asked.

While she checked the books, Kate and Yuudai turned the computer on, it contained many different files.

"There are many different documents" Yuudai said. "Let's check the photos"

He clicked the file labeled as "Photos", it contained many pictures of Adrian and Sabrina together and some with a little boy.

"Yuudai, these are books of different subjects" Emi said, returning one of the books. "Science, Technology, English and so on"

"I'm a bit surprised that this computer is still working" Yuudai said and then clicked a file with the name "Videos", it contained many videos of them but one of them stood out.

"Project Atlantis?" Kate read.

Yuudai pressed it without hesitation and the video played.

"Project Atlantis" Adrian walked to the front of the camera. "A secret project that WJO doesn't know about, with the purpose to create an advanced civilization under the sea!"

"We found a perfect place to build it" Sabrina said while she walked in. "Packed with many resources"

"And gathered an amazing crew to help" Adrian happily said. "But, WJO can't know about this"

"End the recording" Sabrina shouted.

The video stopped playing.

"Project Atlantis..." Yuudai said, trying to remember if he had heard about the project before.

"Hey, there's another recording" Kate pointed out. "For WJO members" she read.

Emi walked to see it and then Yuudai pressed it.

The recording was in the same room that they were in and Adrian and Sabrina were standing in front of the camera.

"If you're able to watch this you must be from WJO" Adrian said. "The World Judgement Organization, what are they?"

"Saviours? Angels? Or terrorists?" Sabrina said. "A year ago we discovered the hidden truth about WJO"

"Hidden truth?" Emi asked, curious.

"Their pillars are made of deaths and lies" Sabrina said with an angry tone and expression.

"Calm down Sabrina" Adrian calmly said. "They contributed to many terrorist attacks all around the world, pulling strings in the dark"

"Many of them involved killing many civilians and politicians" Sabrina said.

"Many of our trusted crewmates tried to report back to WJO, we sadly had to put them down" Adrian said. "Some were our very trusted friends"

"We'll stay here until our son grows up to an age that we can put in charge of this civilization" Sabrina said. "And then we'll have to... kill ourselves"

Kate was devastated when she heard what her great-grandmother had said and broke down in tears.

"If you think we're lying, we can't do anything since this is a recording" Sabrina said. "You can report this to the WJO or not"

"The fate of this place lies on your hands, WJO member" Adrian said.

The recording stopped playing.

Yuudai and Emi were speechless, they didn't know what to do.

"Emi, could I speak with you outside?" Yuudai asked, trying to let Kate have some alone time.

Emi agreed and they both left the secret room to discuss the matter.

"We put ourselves in a tough situation" Yuudai said.

"Is it really?" Emi asked.

"If we told them about this place they'll discover the secret room and question the loyalty of everyone here, including us and the crewmates" Yuudai said. "But if we don't we'll have to show everyone here the recording, of course, some might betray us"

"What about Commander Nicole?" Emi asked.

"She'll listen" Yuudai responded.

Minutes later, Kate came up, holding something on her back.

"You okay now?" Emi asked.

Kate nodded, she was shaking a bit.

"We decided to not talk about this place to the WJO" Yuudai reassured her. "So please, put that knife down"

Kate was surprised, she dropped the knife without hesitation. "H-How did u know?" she asked surprised.

"A leader would try to protect their people, even if it meant to kill their guests" Yuudai explained.

"You're lucky that we're reasonable people" Emi said.

"I-I..." Kate broke down in tears once more and hugged both of them. "Thank you so much!"

Yuudai and Emi calmed her down and wiped her tears off.

"W-We should show it to everyone" Kate said and started running back to the party.

When Emi and Yuudai returned, Kate had already been projecting the recording on big floating screens.

Nicole walked to them. "Well, this will be a problem" she calmly said. "I won't tell if you guys don't"

"We don't intend to" Yuudai happily said.

"Well, we should gather the resources and return" Nicole said. "Let's hope the crewmates sober up before the ride"

Nicole ordered her men to gather the resources they came for and to start packing them in the submarine, she also threatened her men so that they couldn't tell WJO.

They stayed in "The City of Atlantis" for a day, preparing to leave. The next day, everyone was ready to leave, Yuudai, Emi and Kate were talking with each other.

"I thank you for keeping this place a secret" Kate said. "But is it really necessary to leave this fast?"

"The longer we stay, the more chances someone will betray us" Emi said.

"Take care" Yuudai said with a smile and both entered the submarine.

"Oh, we disabled the shark" Kate shouted. "You guys can return safely"

Yuudai waved goodbye as the door closed and the submarine started submerging. The ride was calm and peaceful, but everyone in the submarine was worried, the organization they devoted to were actually terrorists, Yuudai was worried as well but he was more curious, he wanted to see their full past.

Hours later, everyone returned to the beach house.

"Welcome back Miss Emi" Rika greeted."Would you and your friends like dinner?"

Emi politely declined, she explained that everyone was tired and they decided to skip dinner and sleep.

"Yeah, the travel was quite exhausting" Izanami said.

"We almost died!" Kenshin said with a tired expression.

"We'll use our last day to go to the beach" Nobuo said. "We barely enjoyed it"

Izumi was already asleep and Mika was carrying her on her back.

"I'm gonna carry her to bed now" Mika said. "Good night"

Everyone slowly followed, except for Yuudai who was sitting on the kitchen chair, thinking of something.

"Is something bothering Mister Yuudai?" Rika asked.

"Oh, it's nothing..." Yuudai said. "I just need to call someone"

"Did something happen?" Rika asked, in a worried tone.

"I devoted myself to serve WJO for years, knowing that they hide dark secrets makes me start to doubt them, making me doubt all the choices I made for WJO" Yuudai said.

"What will you do?" Rika asked.

Yuudai went silent for a few seconds and answered with a serious tone and face. "Find answers"

"If you need anything you can ask me" Rika said with a gentle smile.

Yuudai thanked her and called someone on his phone.

"Hello? I'd like to make an offer" Yuudai said.