Obscure Footages

Date: September 11

Place: Kyoto Headquarters

[Rei]

The room was silent.

Noel only took a few seconds to march towards me with a piece of paper from my table. "Someone told me to give you this," he looked troubled and was waiting for a response as I read the three sentences that were carefully written by him, I assume as he was holding a pen.

"They wanted to relay that the call was urgent and wished to speak with you personally," he continued as he got no response from me. "They left no number to call back but only this weird note."

"Don't worry, I know who sent this. I'll handle it as soon as we're done," I reassured him as I saw the confusion in his expression. 

"We've finished the report on this, Captain Rei," Kikoe couldn't help but interfere, eager to discover more information about the mystery of his sister.

"Drop the captain," I gave him a slight glare as those titles gave me a weird vibe.

A sigh escaped my mouth as Cedrick glanced my way, looking as apologetic as myself. "That will have to wait," Kikoe didn't look pleased at all, unable to retaliate. "There's another urgent request from the higher-ups that needs urgent attention," I explained and sat down with the rest of them, putting two of the folders on the table.

"The Knights requested our help with this one," I pointed at the file that Cecillion gave me. 

"The Knights?" Kikoe murmured. "Aren't they elite enough to handle any missions?" he shared his thoughts. "Why would the first in the ranks entrust this with the Reapers, which are currently at the bottom ladder?" a quiet scoff slipped out of me at his remark while Cedrick also had a smug, Noel only looked worried.

"OH!" Kikoe realized his words. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like that," he started fidgeting and stuttering.

"Who knew you had that image of us," I sarcastically said as I smiled at him. But he took it in a different meaning when his complexion worsened. "In all seriousness, every other group is having a hard time and is swamped with work," I held out my hand to the direction of my table where Cedrick waved all the papers that were in his hands.

"So sometimes simple tasks get passed around like these," implementing to the two additional files in front of us.

"Ohh..." Kikoe prolonged while Noel just sat in silence, listening.

"This one is due today," they both looked a little worried. "And this one," I paused.

[Cedrick]

"Cedrick and I will handle this one," she says pointing to the other file. I only rolled my eyes and continued writing the summary of this report.

"But let's discuss it over lunch. The cafeteria should still have some lunch menu," she added and was about to stand up when Kikoe proposed something. 

"Why don't we discuss it here, it'll be more efficient that way," he looked nervous and she only smiled. "I'll go get the trays, I'm sure you guys are tired enough," he stood up without waiting for her approval.

"I'll come with you," Noel followed behind and exited the lounge.

"What was that about?" she only shrugged at my question.

"Probably just wanted some fresh air," she took a look at what was inside the urgent one. "Or he missed his courier job," she followed.

"Rei," I say with a nagging tone, leaving the paperwork and sitting beside her.

"Sorry," she then began to tell me about the other file. "Take a look at this," she gave me a picture from it. "Does this look familiar?"

"Not at..." I was about to finish my sentence when I finally saw what she meant. 

It was a bunch of pictures of the surveillance cameras around the whole HQ where a man was snooping around. There were no faces to be seen as everything was blurry and the man was covered in all-black items of clothing.

"Isn't this the mystery man that we were after?" I gasped at some of the pictures where he was caught entering premises where unforgettable things happened to us. 

The first I noticed was the time in the practice area where only authorized personnel could come in, another one was the time when someone broke into our office multiple times and trashed it to find something, a familiar scene where Rei was prohibited and under supervision from her commotion with the old man.

"Tell me I'm not dreaming," she showed me another picture where everyone was on the ground, ready to teleport to the crashed planes, the time when we lost all our members.

That figure was in a lot more incidents than both of us anticipated. "And even the time when the interrogation happened," I also gave her a picture of it.

"Something's telling me that we'll be seeing him soon," she gritted her teeth at the picture of the man who was staring directly at the cameras around our shared room with the others.

A cold wind blew on my back that gave me the shivers. It made me look at her as she started emitting thin specks of the black clouds of dust, her eyes focused on another picture by the table, the man pointing a gun at the dead body of Acel on the elevator.

"Well one thing's for sure," I sighed. I put everything back in the folder and tidied it up. "He's not a friend of yours," I claimed.

I walked over to one of the drawers on her table to get some syringes. 

She was left in the chair just staring into blank space as the dust became denser.

"Just calm down," I gave her a few minutes to relax as I tried and assess if her emotions would escalate further. I comforted her back and called her name a couple of times. 

But it didn't seem to get any better. "I'm sorry," I say as I gently sink the needle on her thigh. Slowly, she lost her balance and collapsed on my shoulder. The black dust slowly dispersed and vanished.

I gladly caught her and let her rest there as my fingers brushed away the strands of hair that were covering her face.