Chapter 3:The Tireless Resolve (Part 2)

After Kariyama hang up the call, all he could recall in his mind is how similar Lina's voice is to Haruna all while he is looking at the lighter that he is holding, which was a lighter gifted by James during their time together fighting the Witch's army on the year 2048, a symbol of friendship to him.

"Oh old friend. Why are your kids so wild like you." Says Kariyama to himself so that if he ever meet James again, he could ask as for why are his daughters so wild, a level of wildness equal to James himself. Hard headed, make conclusions before hearing everything and pushing are exactly the traits that he witnessed on the twins that were exactly what James had. "Like father, like daughters they said." He added before a light smile formed on his face as he remembers the good memories they had together. And as he is looking at the lighter, he realized that there's a figure reaching his room from the edge of his sight. And so when he lift his head, it turns out to be Jerald who is approaching the room with the intention of asking Kariyama about his choice of which serum should be use on the soldiers.

"Remembering the past?" Ask Jerald in a sarcastic manner as he tries to taunt his old friend and make him not too serious as he is entering Kariyama's office.

"Well. Yea, how do you know?" Ask Kariyama. Instead of answering Kariyama's question verbally, Jerald instead decides to point at the lighter Kariyama is holding in his left hand. Kariyama just chuckles at Jerald's answer and shrug himself.

"You have a sharp eye. Yeah, this lighter. James' lighter. An amazing warrior, a great friend. Something that everyone would ask for. He gave me this lighter to me on our last meet, just 3 days before he passed away 3 years ago. Such a shame, a guy great as him, gone." Says Kariyama before the light smile on his face slowly fade away thinking of the lost of his friend.

"Yes. It's a big of a shame. But at least he did an amazing deed. Saving mankind. Can you imagine that. Not everyone could say they saved mankind. But James did, and never once he spoke of it out of arrogance. I mean, who wake up every day knowing his ass saved billions." Says Jerald as he is pulling a chair to the table and taking a sit on it. Kariyama can only nods at the statement that Jerald said, being speechless of James' achievement within his short span of life.

"Oh, Kariyama. I heard you met up with his daughters yesterday. How were they?" Ask Jerald, being in interest of knowing if James' children followed his footstep.

"His kids? Yea I met with them yesterday to talk about the volunteers for this program. They are beautiful, you know like their mother. But they followed their father on the inside. Hot headed, likes to push people around. They also loved to make conclusion out of nowhere. Especially the youngest one. She followed her father exactly. I mean, she even smokes the same type of cigarette that her father used to smoke. If that is not James' traits, I don't know what is." Answer Kariyama. Jerald, hearing Kariyama's answer, feels almost in distrust.

"Wow, really?" Says Jerald in surprised tone. Kariyama can only nods.

"You remember our college time?" Kariyama ask his friend. Jerald who is looking ever more excited just nod once at Kariyama.

"Remember that one band that we were so crazy about? What is it? Spider Lily? Yea that band. Well you can pretty much say that they are the Spider Lily of their generation." Kariyama says with enthusiasm to Jerald who is extremely excited and surprised.

"Holy shit! Seriously?" yell Jerald at the top of his lungs in surprise to which Kariyama enthusiastically nods. "So. They like, play instruments and singing and all still. Just like how Spider Lily were?" Jerald ask in excitedness as he is remembering his college life and his obsession with Spider Lily band which was a band similar to Quadruplet.

"Yes. In a sense, James' daughters are exactly like Spider Lily. Fuck it, rather than saying it, lemme just show you how they really are." Says Kariyama before he pulls out his phone and open a full Bling Bands' concert and put it on the side of the table as the both of them watch it excitedly for 2 whole hours.

"God they are awesome. This made me feel young, my guy. Also, how come I did not know of this earlier?" Says Jerald, still in excitement after watching the concert. Kariyama who is taking his mobile device to turn it off suddenly look at Jerald after hearing his question and then lightly laugh at it.

"We aren't young anymore, I guess that's why." Says Kariyama as he is being reminded of his youth, a time where he considered himself in ignorance and blinded by money. But then he got waken up from his self reflection as he suddenly sees that his friend is suddenly standing up.

"Well, it's pretty late. I better get back to everyone and tell them about this. By this I mean the serum result and everything. No-not about the bands and all of our other conversation." Says Jerald as he's packing all of the files hurriedly and walk out, leaving Kariyama alone.

The Next Day

Time: 13:32

Kariyama sits in his office, researching the tech, weapon and ability of an average Zygonian soldier based on the recorded material from the attack on London. As he is watching a video from the helmet camera of a soldier that had to fight a 7 foot tall Zygonian soldier using a knife, he realized something, and so he stopped the video only to see that the Zygonian soldier has a few 50 caliber holes in his chest, on where the heart of a human would be, and yet the Zygonian is still standing strong, fighting as if there's not multiple half an inch holes in his chest. Watching that made Kariyama confused, why is he not dead even when multiple 50 caliber rounds that penetrated his chest. After assessing the situation, he decided to come up with a hypothesis that their heart is not same like human, on the chest, despite looking very same to human, having most organs similar to human and in position not too far from that human has. Kariyama ultimately decided to check on other footage to confirm his hypothesis that he has in mind. After spending some time assessing each of the videos, it is confirmed that his hypothesis is correct and that Zygonian's heart position is not the same as that of a human. Right as he finishes with his thoughts, he lift his head and look out the door's window and see Jerald approaching his office this time without any files in his hands. Kariyama, knowing who will arrive today, just hopes that everything will be fine.

Jerald arrived in front of Kariyama's office, he then swing his hand in front of the office's keycard sensor which detected the chip that has been planted inside his palm and instantly unlocked the door. Jerald then slide open the door, step inside the office and close the door behind him. As soon as he turned around to face Kariyama, he sees Kariyama with an optimistic look as he's expecting the good news.

"Are you alright, Sir?" Jerald asked Kariyama.

"Why yes my friend. I am just expecting news from you." Answered Kariyama.

"I see. Uh well, I just got news that Azuki Lina and her sisters has landed approximately 5 minutes ago. And their ETA is 7 if the traffic is not a problem." Says Jerald as he approaches the desk and take a seat on one of the chair there.

"Amazi- wait. What do you mean "her sisters"?" Ask Kariyama in surprise as he did not expect Lina to bring anybody else except for herself.

"Well, yes Sir. the driver told that he has 5 passengers in total. 4 of them I assumed are Lina and her sisters. But I don't know about the 5th person. All he told me that the 5th passenger is a Germanic male in his 20s." Jerald answered. The answer left Kariyama confused, thinking who could be so trusted by Lina to be brought along. A friend? Impossible, ain't no way she's that dumb to bring a friend to such serious matter, he thought to himself. A relative of her, perhaps. No, impossible. All of her relatives are Japanese, he thought to himself again. In the end he decided to witness with his own eyes who is this mysterious 5th person is.

"I see I see, well, let's go and greet them then." Says Kariyama enthusiastically. Jerald then nods at Kariyama's suggestion and escort him to the front door of UNDF's main Headquater.

Kariyama and Jerald arrived perfectly in time as the car carrying Lina is also arriving at the front gate. One of the guard guarding the entrance went over to the car to open the door. Comes out from the car are 4 exactly identical quadruplet. Each of them are exactly indistinguishable from the one before physically. Height, looks and even skin tone of each of them are the same. the only things that set each of them apart are their hair length which they use to tell who's older and who's younger and their eyes color which differs from person to person. Their clothings today however, definitely sets one of them apart. As Lina, setting herself apart

Kariyama, relieved to see Lina arrived safely and without any problem as an expression of calmness can be seen on his face, although in his mind, he is a bit worried that Lina's sisters are following along, as it could compromise the project if they are to ever leak out informations. But more than anything, he's interested in knowing, who did Lina trusted so much to bring. After all 4 of them got out of the car, the man that Kariyama has been looking for finally showed himself. The look of the man confuses Kariyama a bit as he's more of an American and not Germanic like what Jerald and Kariyama has been informed. Although he has a lot of questions, he decided to greet Lina and her sisters first.

Lina, who notices Kariyama standing on the side of the entrance of the headquarter with someone she doesn't quite recognize decides to take the first step and greet him and thus starts walking to him.

"Good afternoon, Sir." Greet Lina with the most optimism someone can have as she stood in front Kariyama with a smile on her face.

"Good afternoon to you, Lina." Kariyama greets back. "So how's the flight here?" Kariyama ask her right afterwards.

"It's good. Not all perfect because there's turbulence here and there, but it is a pretty far flight, from Japan to US. So I'm not complaining." Answer Lina in the most optimistic way someone who's going to war would answer. Kariyama sigh after hearing Lina's answer.

"I'm sorry Lina. At such short time window to get a plane there, I could only afford to get a fast plane to Japan." Says Kariyama in the manner of apologizing as if he did anything wrong on his part. The sudden apologize pushed Lina back a bit thimking that she miss-said something that makes her response sounds as if she's complain.

"Eh-No Sir. it's fine. Really. It's nothing big. I wasn't complaining. You don't have to apologize for anything." Says Lina worriedly thinking she might've hurt Kariyama's feelings. Listening to how extremely worried Lina is about him, Kariyama can only smile at the preciousness and innocence that is this little girl, or at least that's what Kariyama think she is.

"It's fine Lina, you don't need to worry about me. I wasn't hurt or anything. I was just trying to explain to you on why the plane that you came with wasn't the comfortable one." Says Kariyama calmly while he's messaging the both of Lina's shoulders as he is trying to explain to the worried Lina about the misunderstanding. Hearing Kariyama's explanation, Lina can only let out a small nervous chuckles before very slowly saying "Thought I screwed up 2 mins after I arrived." to herself while looking down.

"Anyway, Lina. if you don't mind me asking? Who is that person that you brought with you." Ask Kariyama in curiosity all in while he's slowly letting go of Lina. After a while, Lina finally calm herself down enough to answer Kariyama's question.

"Th-that's our bodyguard. We call him Greo and I just thought of bringing him because Luna said he might be helpful or at least that's what I thought she said." Lina answers Kariyama's question as she turns to see the man who she and everyone she knows call Greoji, who is 173cm tall, German-American looking person with an oval face and brown eyes, black hair and a well built body talking to Luna. Hearing Lina's answer, Kariyama can only nod while thinking who this young man could possibly be because his face looks awfully familiar to Kariyama, his body is too well built for a civilian bodyguard, this man has some military background but it's impossible because he looks too young. In the end, he had to put aside all of the questions he has and consider it all as some coincidence although he is interested in reading his file to know more of this interesting fellow. What lurks in Kariyama's mind now is how to explain to her that they all are not allowed. In the end, he decided not to tell her, but instead to let her big sister know instead and thus he turn to face Jerald who is swiping his tablet reading some vital messages about the battles against the Zygon from across the world.

"Jerald, read the comms later." Kariyama orders Jerald in French.

"Yes." Jerald simply reply back in French. Now with that part of the problem is out of the way, Kariyama can continue with his original intentions of inviting Lina to Washington DC.

"Lina." Kariyama said as he turns to face her. Lina's eyes went wide open hearing her name. "Remember yesterday's call? We promised to talk about your father's journal and this special glasses of your's that your father gifted to you. Could we have a walk and discuss it." Kariyama says in a demanding tone that makes Lina feels a bit uncomfortable. In the very split second that it takes Lina to reply, her mind begin to flock with bad thoughts that makes her decides that it's better to not talk about it alone and instead with her sister with her.

"B-but what about my bags and stuffs. I couldn't leave it here, who's going to lift it for me, right." Lina nervously replies while pointing at the one backpack she's wearing as she tries to create some excuse to not talk about it privately. Moments after she said that, her back suddenly feels light, too light to the point where it feels like she's not wearing anything anymore, she then tilt her head to see one of the guard guarding the door, more specifically one that helped opened the car's door earlier, lifting the handle of her backpack.

"You can let go of the bag miss, we'll take good care of it." Says the guard. Lina could only nervously and confusely smile while nodding as a sign of thanks to the guard before sliding the both of her hands off the bag strap.

"Sir, can we at least talk with my sister's present? I'm not that good with talking." Lina nervously asked as point with her thumb at Luna who is approaching Lina and Kariyama's position.

"Lina, it is more than within my understanding that you are not used to all these, but you are no longer Azuki Lina, the idol. You are a member of UNDF. You cannot hesitate or fear, especially when it involve the salvation of mankind. Do you understand that?" replied Kariyama trying to give spirit to Lina. Lina's face turn slightly red hearing Kariyama calling her a member of UNDF. Lina somehow incapable of spewing out a single word either due to the intense emotion she's feeling or she's just feeling shy, can only nods as Kariyama.

"Good. Now let's not waste our time, I believe we have a lot to talk." Says Kariyama while pointing and at the same time walking to the main entrance to the "UNDF Office Way" which is an almost circular hallway that covers around 4.2 kilometers in length and is the main hallway to more than 800 offices and rooms that keeps the circle of bureaucracy going. To say it is crowded is an understatement, but to say it is filled to the brim with people is an overstatement. The truth of how packed the place is lied somewhere in the middle, usually. Lina who see Kariyama is already walking and could leave her behind hastily follows Kariyama before one second later run back to her backpack before she hurriedly search and pull out a spectacle and a leather covered book from the bag and runs back to Kariyama so she doesn't get left behind.

Upon reaching the main entrance to "Office Way", Kariyama and Lina are met with 2 guards guarding the main entrance to the glorious hallway, just like how Lina and her sisters were met with 2 guards guarding the main UNDF Headquater entrance, but this time they are much more armed and have much more sophisticated technologies to deal with certain situations like automatic data scanner, infrared scanner, X-Ray scanner and so on and all are located on their utility belt. One of the guard approached Kariyama and pulls out a scanner like tool from his utility belt.

"Your hand, Sir." Demand the guard as he is preparing to scan Kariyama's hand for some unusual reason to Lina, all in while the other guard pull out a foldable tablet. Kariyama obliged the request knowing it's the usual procedure by showing his right hand and pulling back the cuff of his shirt, showing his wrist. The guard then proceeds to scan his wrist which contain a microchip that contain a special code only scannable by the special scanner. Seconds after the guard scanned Kariyama's wrist, the tablet on the other guard's possession makes a long beep which to Lina who never experienced this kind of security before, could only mean 2 things, either the scanner didn't catch whatever the scanner supposed to scan or Kariyama is a fraud afterall and she has been lied to this entire time, both endings are bad to her but good for her, it's neither of them. The guard who's holding the tablet then verify the codes in the microchip is indeed Kariyama's. With that out of the way, Kariyama now only need to do a biometric scan which includes the retinal scan and fingerprint scan to confirm that really is him and not somebody else. Lina who is awkwardly standing beside Kariyama the entire time meanwhile is extremely amazed but at the same time confused by such complexity that is the security measures to enter the hallway. This is because in her book of experience, the most security she has seen organizers of concerts take for the security and privacy of the idols are security pins or in some fancy cases, fingerprint scanners. The problem both systems of security is that they are easily bypassed by the stalkers with dedication. In security pins case, they are actually very easily hacked or short circuited, the same with fingerprints scanner which usually after short circuited automatically unlocked the door so whoever inside are not trapped. Lina at this point is so well developed in her amazement of the security measures caused her to in a sense zone out that she didn't realized Kairyama is finished his identification process and walked halfway past the gate only to realize that Lina isn't following him. He then turn around to see Lina who is still standing in the same place she has been for the past few minutes, her eyes locked in one direction, which seems to be the security booth.

"Lina? Lina?" Kariyama calls out her name, as he's trying to assess what's running through her mind currently.

"Lina!" He calls her name again, but this time louder than before, although not too loud. The call out this time seems to work as Lina's bubble of thought got popped and she wakes up to reality once again only to find Kariyama who has been standing next to her to now be standing infront of her, a few feets away. Lina, in her usual style, panicked and at the same time embarrassed as she doesn't know what happened, and in her panic, she produced a couple of untranslatable incoherent noises, tried to do a speed walk to Kariyama while face down as her face is getting as red as a tomato because of the embarrassment. After walking a few steps, she is stopped by the security guards.

"Your hand, Miss. We need to scan your hand." Says one of the guard, in a demanding tone. All in while, Lina in embarrassment, with her face still being red, is incapable of uttering a single word. But this time, before she is capable of making a single incomprehensible noise, Kariyama backed her up.

"She's a guest, she doesn't have the chip." Says Kariyama to the guard all in while Lina can only nods at his words. One of the guard, slightly nod at Kariyama before pulling out a what seems to be an injector gun.

"Your hand, miss. Any of them is fine." Says the guard, this time in a calmer tone compared to before. In respond to that, Lina gives them her left hand, her domain hand and guard who's holding the gun then gently hold Lina's hand before putting the gun on the top part of the hand, right at the wrist. He then pulls the trigger which inject a temporary microchip into her wrist, enabling them to track where she's at. The injection caused a sting which startled Lina, which even though not visible to everyone's eyes, could be felt by the guard who's holding her hand.

"Sorry, I forgot to tell you that the injection stings a bit." Apologize the guard as he forgot about how the injector gun can cause a sting as the chip is injected into the person's body.

"Thanks." Says Lina in Japanese as soft and as slow as she can. She then continue to talk to Kariyama, but at a much slower pace this time. Kariyama who sees Lina's out of the blue weird act can feel a weird aura flowing out of her.

"Are you good, Lina?" Asked concerned Kariyama when Lina arrive in front of him. Lina only nods at the question without saying any words. Despite suspecting that something may be bothering Lina, Kariyama decides not to ask any further questions out of respect for her privacy. As someone with experience raising a teenage son and understanding their dislike for having their privacy breached, Kariyama chooses not to make Lina uncomfortable by prying. After that question, none of them spoke a single word and unsurprisingly it is becoming more awkward for the both of them and for Kariyama especially, wasting the valueable time so in attempt to get things going, he leaned his head to his right which is the way to the "Office Way" in a semblance it would mean to Lina "Let's go" or "Let's get going" all without saying a word. Lina surprisingly sees the signaling and nod to it despite her head being down so low that all she should be able to see is the floor, but against all odds, she sees Kariyama's gestures. The both of them continue the walk to the Office Way to discuss the possibly last hope for humanity.

Author's notes:

•(Unrelated to the novel)

-I lied :)

-Also, a huge thanks to my senior for helping me improvised my novel. He is also an author, a much more elite one than me from what I can tell, so if you perhaps want to read it, here's the name, the title and the website where you can read i at:

Name: AgentWolf

Title: ODYSSEY

Website: itch.io

(just a side warning, it's a furry novel)

•(Related to the novel)

-Firstly, please forgive me if you read this and notices hella lot of grammatical errors, english is not my first language. Secondly, this is just for clarification, but most of the times, the characters were speaking english. Yes, they were not speaking Japanese translated to English because I cannot write in Hiragana. They are most of the times speaking english, except for C3P1, during the barbeque scene. At that time they were speaking Japanese because [enter Japanese stereotype of them cannot speak English]

(can't wait to regret not proofreading the whole thing first)