Chapter Text
Brushing imaginary dust off her sleeves—Alethea vaults herself off of the side of the railing of the Crux, her soles impacting the ground with a soft clack of polished stone against wood.
Her head turns to the sound of soft clapping as she brushes stray strands of hair from her face. “Quite an entrance,” the young man comments—light olive eyes twinkling with mirth. “May I presume you’re the Fontanian lawyer sent to investigate this case?”
“Yeah, that’s me. I’m Alethia. You must be Heizou, correct?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Heizou gives her a curt nod.
“Do you have the case files? I was only given a few details about the case, so I’m not the most informed at the moment. Care to enlighten me?”
“Of course,” he replies, a polite smile gracing his lips as he hands her a few files. “I prepared these in advance. I hope they’re to your liking.”
“Did you make any progress?”
“None so far,” the detective—Heizou comments with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Every avenue of investigation thus far has turned up a dead end. Those shipments were only ever spotted entering the port—Never leaving.”
“Then that means they’d be in Ritou,” Alethea deduces as Heizou offers a nod before letting a mirthless snort escape him.
“You’d think so wouldn’t you?” he chuckles mirthlessly. “That was the first assumption we followed—however…”
“No evidence was found?” Alethea finishes.
“On the contrary—there was,” Shikanoin Heizou states as he props one hand on his hip. “But that evidence contradicted the statements of the soldiers here at the port—those shipments never left.”
“So they got smuggled somewhere else,” Alethea mutters as Heizou nods enthusiastically.
“Exactly.”
Alethea becomes pensive as she crosses her arms—pondering who exactly would have the resources to take shipments to an undisclosed location from Ritou.
“We could check with the local fishermen. Maybe they’ll know something,” she suggests.
“I already requested my… esteemed Tenryou commission contacts to pull the records.”
“Oh really? Perfect!” Alethea glances about as she notices the populace of the ports gradually increasing.
Heizou follows her gaze and smirks. “Does the thought of wandering eyes bother you that much?” he snickers. “In that case—I know of a place in Ritou.”
“Though you’d better file your paperwork with the Tenryou commission first,” Heizou states. “They’re so uptight and rigid—especially in terms of the legal procedures. Getting a travel permit could take months,” he shakes his head sadly.
“—Well, unless you offer an extra tip in the commission to put you further up the line in terms of priority, if you catch my drift,” he winks.
Alethea sighs as she rests a hand on her palm.
He seems interesting to work with… although I’m not sure about the person he is underneath all of his fake smiles and charisma.
I shouldn’t judge him so harshly, after all, we will be working together for some time.
Stepping past Heizou who trails behind her, Alethea steps up to the nearest soldier, her insignia designating her as one of Fontaine’s highest-ranked Forensic Detectives with an investigation permit in the back pocket of her shorts.
“Hi there, I was wondering where I can file the paperwork for a travel permit?” she asks.
“A couple blocks down and to your left that way,” the soldier states as he eyes Heizou behind her warily.
“Perfect! Thank you!” Alethea gives the soldier a kind smile before she turns away, heading in the direction pointed out to her.
—
“—I’m saying I was sent a commission from the Tenryou Commission,” Alethea deadpans as she waves a stack of paperwork around which she drew out of her inventory. “My commissioner is Kujou Sara—”
“Wait, you’re the detective commissioned by Kujou-sama?” The woman in front of her asks as she pushes up her glasses.
“Yes,” Alethea deadpans.
Bitch.
“...In that case, come back tomorrow—your paperwork should be pushed through by then,” she coughs. “The fee is five hundred thousand mora. So be sure to have that amount.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
“What name should I place on the paperwork?”
“Alethea, please.”
—
“...What was the point of that.” Alethea sighed in frustration as she stared at the massive piles of boating permits on the table in front of her—they relocated to a private booth in a local restaurant to continue working away from prying eyes. “That was absolutely pointless!”
“It seems so—well, except for maybe this one,” Heizou hands over one of the papers to her—Alethea sits up tiredly as she rubs her eyes in exhaustion.
“Kama?” she blinks. “Isn’t that a clan name?”
“It was—” Heizou smirks, “Over a century ago that is.”
“Here, check these out,” Heizou shuffles over a small stack of papers to her.
Alethea’s eyes widen—“Aren’t these…?”
“The same application, just with different names?” Heizou finishes with a grin.
“It seems that this ‘Kama’ isn’t all which he appears to be.”
Alethea follows suit as the young detective stands, a smirk on his face—“Let’s investigate this “Kama” then.”
—
The man named Kama turned out to be a ferryman. Although, while his past was quite mysterious—his personality held none of that sort of charm.
“So—” Alethea sighs as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “You were commissioned by a person named Enjou to secretly bring crates and occasionally people to this place called Tsurumi island?”
“Did you know what was in those crates?!”
“Yes?” Kama says meekly. “They were books—pretty old ones by the looks of it. They were in scripts that I couldn’t read, but they were most certainly books.”
“What about the people you smuggled out of Ritou?”
“...Enjou said they were his fellow colleagues—one of them though wasn’t, but she claimed to be doing research as it was a commission she was given from someone at the Sumeru Akademia,” Kama sighs. “I normally wouldn’t let anyone go to Tsurumi island in the first place unless they can hold their own in a fight—but that woman who came with Enjou—I forgot her name—she was…a high-ranking Adventurer,” he shrugs.
“So I figured it’d be fine—Enjou, while plain, didn’t necessarily feel ordinary either—undeniably, there was something off with him,” Kama grumbles. “Which is why I took them there in the first place—No one in their right mind would willingly venture to Tsurumi island—especially since it no longer exists on maps or in history either.”
“...the island is like its inhabitants—nothing more than a ghost forgotten by the world.”
—
Heizou and Alethea glance at each other and nod, sharing the same line of thought.
“Will you take us there?” she asks. “To Tsurumi island?”
“I believe that this “Enjou” is the criminal we’re looking for. Given that you confessed to being an unwitting accomplice—I believe that Kujou-sama would be willing to be lenient in your sentencing,” Heizou comments as Kama slumps.
“Alright—” he sighs. “But on Tsurumi island, no matter what— do not stray off the path .”
“In addition, do not—under any circ*mstances—interfere with the “storyline” of the island.”
Both Heizou and Alethea become puzzled. “Storyline?” they ask.
“...Hopefully you never need to know,” Kama sighs, his gaze shadowed and pained. “Hopefully no one needs to know…even after the person capable of saving that child comes.”
“If you meet a boy named Ruu,” Kama sighs, “Do not follow him—for by then, you will begin to become part of the “storyline” of Tsurumi’s downfall. By that point—the only way to leave the island would be to ‘destroy fate’ or death.”
“...most people who get caught up in the “storyline” die,” Kama warns. “Tsurumi island is not the place for misplaced heroics—it is a place of tragedy and death.”
“I hope you find what you're looking for—” Kama sighs, “The moment you do—leave.”
“I’ll wait by the Statue of the Seven.”
Kama guides them to the docks where a small boat hidden in an alcove rests. He beckons them to step on board.
“Tsurumi island is a place of many mysteries—and filled with as many perils,” he hums as he begins rowing, their boat drifting further and further into the sea.
—
Soon they’re surrounded by fog, yet Kama keeps rowing even as Alethea couldn’t see more than a few millimeters in front of her face.
It was strange. How could this man know exactly where he was going amidst this fog?
“How do you know where we’re going?” she asks.
“...Children always know the way back to their home—even after a century,” Kama states wistfully. “Besides—it’s not the first time, nor the last time, that I’ll be making this trip.”
—
Soon the fog clears up as they bump against a small island with a Statue of the Seven.
“Dear travelers, welcome to Tsurumi island—I hope you do not regret your choice in coming here,” Kama sighs. “Pass through the gate to enter the island—nowhere else—lest you get lost wandering amidst the ghosts of this place forever.”
Heizou and Alethea glance at each other as a shiver crawls up their spine.
But there was only one way for them to finish this case—and that is to go onwards, creepy island or not.
The pair step out of the boat and turn to face Kama who sits in his boat with the oar in his lap—a rope tied to a nearby tree.
“I’ll be waiting here,” he states. “Good luck.”
The pair freeze as they hear a piercing howl in the distance. Alethea recognizes it—familiar from something a friend of hers told her a while back about a creature an Eremite encountered near a withered tree close to the desert: A wolf-like monster with a carapace made up of some kind of starsilver-like alloy, capable of melting metal with its saliva alone. A being of the Abyss that wanders at sites that have been corrupted or placed under a Ley Line disorder.
“...Rifthounds,” Alethea mutters with her eyes wide. “sh*t, this place is crawling with them.”
“Well I’ll let you handle this,” Heizou replies, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to one side. “I’m not one for violence.”
“You’re lucky that I don’t mind getting my hands dirty,” Alethea replies, pulling out her bow and conjuring three Pyro arrows, getting ready to kill off the rift hounds. “But don’t just stand there and look pretty. I might need backup.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal, partner.”
