Ruins

"This should be the place." Xing Tian looks up from her phone to see an office building. The building is mostly made out of unpainted brick, giving the building an 'old look'. There are at least three companies occupying the building, but there is one company she is looking for.

"Aleph's Investigation." She doesn't know why a detective firm is the destination and how a detective can help her with visiting the ruins. But regardless, she cannot stand around and hope for answers to come!

She enters the building and makes her way to the detective firm's entrance. A wood door stands between her and the office with a doorbell on the side. She rings the doorbell, loudly declaring her arrival.

Before long, she can hear scrambling feet on the other side of the door before it opens. Behind the door reveals the scar faced detective, Aleph, who is surprised by someone coming to his agency.

"Hello miss, is there anything you want?" The man asks Xing Tian skeptically. 'What is a young girl coming to his detective agency?' He thought to himself as he analysed the girl. He has made many enemies before so he has to be careful.

Xing Tian fishes out her wallet before revealing the photo she carries all the time. "I was told by a colleague that you have the permission to let me look into the local ruins." As soon as she shows the photo, the man's expression is clarified before opening the door wide.

"You must be Xing Tian then, come on in." The girl mutters a thank you as she enters, scanning the office space. Contrary to her preconceived belief, the office is more messy than what she thought when it comes to a detective. No papers strewn around the floor but his desk is definitely not neat at all.

"Sorry about the mess," the man apologizes and he returns to his desk. "I was working on another missing pet case."

Xing Tian tilts her head in curiosity, but decides not to question it. Maybe his agency involves more domestic cases. Aleph offers her to sit before giving her a cup of tea, a gesture she greatly appreciates.

"Now let's get down to business." The man finger tents as he begins. "I heard from Tom that you want to go to the ruins right?" Xing Tian nods to confirm this, which brings Aleph a pleased smile.

"Then I am happy to tell you we can go there as soon as possible, as long as I accompany you." Xing Tian elates from the bottom of her heart, another step to understanding her origin and the reason why she has the photo.

However, Aleph slows her down with a contract paper placed on the desk. "Before that, you need to read and sign the contract." She immediately reads the contract, careful to make sure there is no loophole that would hurt her in the future.

With the contract sign, Aleph quickly files the contract in a plastic folder before picking up his sunglasses. "I think we are ready to leave for the ruins now." Without another word, both of them left the office for the ruins.

Xing Tian and Aleph use the latter's car to arrive at the ruins, which is located at the outskirts of the city. In that hour, both of them made small talk about Xing Tian's purpose to go to the ruins. The girl didn't really hesitate in answering it, which made the talk into a storytelling of her past.

The man absorbs the information like a sponge, keeping the information into a corner of his mind. The girl is very honest, in his opinion. Perhaps too honest which made him question whether she had been taken advantage of before.

But such questions shouldn't be asked for now as they have a ruin to go. As the journey continues, both of them fall into a comfortable silence. Neither probes each other into talking more, which both of them prefer.

"Is that the ruins?" Xing Tian asks as stone structures and fallen stone buildings are coming into view. Aleph nods, confirming her question. "This is the Faunus's ruins, the latest one to be found three years ago."

The car slows down and eventually comes to a stop. Parking just outside of the vicinity, Xing Tian can finally scan the surroundings.

The place is mostly deserted with the only occupants being the archeologists. Tents are set up around the ruins and some machinery is set up in different corners of the site. For the ruins, she can see familiar unreadable texts on pillars, walls and some stone tablets lying about.

"Are you fascinated by the ruins?" Aleph asks as he approaches her from behind. Without turning around, she nods as she continues to study the ruins. "This one's more destroyed than the others." The ruins are far more destroyed than the ones she visited before, but at the very least there are some readable words.

Aleph shrugs his shoulders. "None of us know why, but we can only assume this one got the short end of the stick due to the environment." Xing Tian slowly nods before turning to him. "Anyway, I asked one of the escorts to let us in and he allowed us."

He hands her a tag which says she is a visitor before putting on his own tag. "How are you able to get access to this ruin anyway?" Xing Tian asks, remembering all the times she has to sneak into the ruins when convenient access is not available.

"Let's just say I have a good network of connections." The detective says cryptically before leading the girl to an entrance to the underground. A guard, their escort, follows both of them silently as they descend. The light slowly dims as they continue, only electrical lamps act as their source of light. When they reach the bottom of the stairs, Xing Tian immediately marches forward without stopping.

Their footsteps echo alongside some voices, perhaps discussing the texts that are etched on the walls. But none of those distracts Xing Tian from seemingly walking straight non-stop towards the deepest part of the ruin.

Under the sunglasses, Aleph pays attention to the girl curiously. She has a neutral expression the whole time, but her eyes have an interesting story.

One has to really concentrate to see her eyes have a soft glow on it. The man turns away from observing her with a slight curve on the corner of his lips. 'Interesting.' He thought to himself as he continued to follow her by her side.

They eventually reach a large hall where stone pillars stand firmly. Statues of monsters, some recognizable as they look like the Glitches, stand on different sides of the walls of the hall. The room is dimly lit despite the electric lamps installed everywhere in the room, as if darkness consumes the light.

Computers and many other machineries are planted around the room with cameras aiming at the statues. However, there are more cameras and other machines surrounding the middle of the hall.

In the middle of the hall, a platform can be seen with an altar in the middle. Glass panes surround the platform, boxing it in as if they want to contain something sinister. On the altar, an odd item can be seen.

Said item looks like a heart shaped jewel with the texture similar to the skins of Glitches. The heart jewel pulses once in a while as if it is a real heart, but no sound is produced despite its 'movement'.

Aleph stops walking as he watches Xing Tian slowly approach the platform as if she is in a trance. When she is close to the glass box, she stops in front of it in silence.

"The Glitched Heart." Xing Tian mutters out under her breath. "So it is here this whole time."

Aleph raises his eyebrow and approaches the girl. "This is what you have been finding?"

She nods. "Odd, isn't it? That I travel all around the world just to find an ancient relic that just so happens to relate to my past?" She ambles around the glass box, never breaking her sight off the Glitched Heart.

"In the ruins located in Brazil, I got my first hint to my past. It was a voice that told me that hint." She exposits while Aleph takes in the information. "It told me to go to Arabia to find 'the Glitched Heart piece'."

Aleph removes his sunglasses, revealing his stern eyes as he scrutinizes the girl before speaking. "But the artifact that was in that ruin, upon removal for further research and inspection, caused a disaster that was known throughout the world."

"The Glitch Outbreak." Xing Tian replies and stops once they finish walking around the box. "I was there when it happened. The removal of that artifact caused that disaster, but that was not the main topic."

She turns around, revealing her glowing eyes that look like a Glitched texture. "In that ruin, I was told that… the Glitched Heart, even the pieces, held my memories. But without proper procedure, it could bring disaster."

Red errors appear in her eyes as she clenches her hands into a fist. "And I was too late to stop it."