"Took you long enough."

"Shut up and get in." As soon as the other blonde strapped himself into the front passenger seat, he slammed on the gas and drove off. "Where are we going to first?"

"Slow down, we have all day." He rolled his eyes. "We're checking on the vault first. I need you to help extract some of their blueprints."

"Blueprints? I would think we'd be looking for things more useful than that."

"Well, unless you know how to get any of their tech to work without breaking the digital locks, those blueprints are the most useful things we could get from there. Trust me, their designs are practically flawless." He took a sip of coffee from his tumbler before holding out another. "I bought one for you too. It's decaf."

"I hate decaf."

"I know." He chuckled when he begrudgingly took it from his hands. "So then, how in snowy hell did you manage to get Levanov to not come?"

"I bribed her to interrogate Bishop instead."

"What?" He bursts into fits. "You bribed your girlfriend to question the one person she hates most in the entire world?! Kirito, I swear, you're the frickin' best."

"Shut it. It's not like I have any other options." He muttered. "She'll flip if she knew who we're seeing today."

"Okay, you know what? Just for that, I'll take the decaf. You can have the rest of mine."

~~~~~

He let Mano lead him to a small office. It hadn't been used until very recently, so the place was relatively empty. With the exception of a single person.

"Then, I'll leave you to him." She spun on her heel and walked off, leaving the two men alone.

Closing the door, he placed the bag he carried on to the desk. "I don't know what you liked, so I just bought some sandwiches."

"Aww, Jin, you shouldn't have." The man grinned as he spun around in his swivel chair. "You really didn't have to, you know. I could've grabbed my own lunch from the kiosk."

"We can't have lunch together there."

"Oh? You wanted to eat with me?" His teasing smirk almost immediately faltered. "Wait, Eva says that when you get like this, it's usually something bad. What happened?"

He deadpanned. "Everything happened, Hugo-san."

"It's Hibiki." He pointed at his white hair. "Well, either way, I appreciate the company." He took out the slices from their foam casing and took a bite, his grin ever present. "Man, I miss real food."

Jin took his own slice before kick starting the real topic. "Hibiki-san. How should we proceed from here?"

"Hm... Well, first thing's first, I need to know what you found out from Bishop." Somehow, the bread he was holding was already gone. "Mizel's been keeping me updated with what you all did back in the fortress, but we can't contact each other anymore. At least, not without raising suspicions." He blinked. "Wait, how did you get Mano to lead you here? I mean I agreed to help, but they said that the people I'll get to meet in person would be really limited."

"Takuya-san assigned me to be in charge of handling you. Mainly because I led the group that found you."

"That's... very convenient..."

"As for information from Bishop... We now know that the World Sabers have five bosses. And seeing how he said it, Bishop is undoubtedly one of them. He also confirmed our theory of them using Eva as a secret weapon of sort. All the other children they've experimented on will be turned to soldiers for their army."

"I was afraid of that..."

"He's basically going to use her to achieve what Mizel did five years ago."

"Controlling the world's computers?"

"Exactly."

"So first order of business would be to identify the remaining bosses, if possible." He sighed. "What about the location of their base? Did he give anything away?"

"He mentioned something about 'a surprise attack from the depths'... Though, we don't really know what he means."

"The depths, huh..." He hummed as he gathered his thoughts. "Well, that could mean a variety of things, but I doubt we'd get anything more from him. I'll try to get some information on my own. After all, as an ex-accountant, I have a couple of inside contacts." He winked.

Jin could only smile. "Then, I'll leave it to you. Thank you, Hibiki-san."

Watching him leave, he caught sight of his silver pendant. No... I should be thanking you...

~~~~~

"Saki-san, good afternoon!"

"Ban! Kazu! Ami! It's been so long since I've seen you three all together like this! Come on in, I've missed you!"

"Thank you! And we missed you too! Is Kitajima-san here?"

"Oh, not today. He went to the shop to get some kits for the kids."

"Ahh, speaking of them, is Asta-"

"Here." The blonde boy appeared in their sights when they entered the living room. He was sitting with his two friends, who were busy cleaning their LBXs. "Something you need?"

"We actually have something for you." Ban held up the grey case for him to see. "When we were investigating yesterday, Kousuke asked us to give this to you."

"What is it?"

"Something from Eva, we assume."

The blonde had an eyebrow raised. "What else could she want to give me?" The two stopped to take a peak as he opened the case. "What the..."

Inside was a core skeleton with black and purple armor frame pieces surrounding it, all ready to be assembled. A black CCM was there to match, tucked away on the side. On the top corner, a single name was written.

'Destructcher'

~~~~~~~~~~

Confluent: Flowing together