"Now, what if-and you're gonna have to hear me out on this one-you stop asking me about this vampire reporter." Xuan hissed at Yue. "I don't know anyone with that description."

Of course, that was a lie. Yamato fit the description Yue gave to a T, but the last thing he wanted another thing Yamato could hang over his head.

Clearly, Yue saw through his lie. Her eyes shimmered with annoyance and her nails dug into her notepad.

"Tang Xuan, I need you for a minute." Raven poked her head in, "There's some damage reports we need to talk about."

Xuan grumbled but ultimately got up, "Last time I'll say this, I don't know any Esper who looks like that."

Yue rolled her eyes as he left, but her lips were in a smile.

She never said the culprit was an Esper. She could have implied it, but she never said so. In fact, she didn't even know if the culprit was an Esper at all. Why he would assume it was an Esper gave her more reason to go to his desk and search around.

She'd noticed that he always had a specific paper in his hands whenever she or someone else came in. This paper would always slid under whatever was nearby, and Xuan himself would act like he never held such paper.

Today, he slid it under his computer. She snapped a picture of the front and back, and slid it back into place before Xuan could return.

She slipped out of his office and said, "Good day, Xuan. Raven."

Raven gave her a nod and continued talking to Xuan.

Yue was certain that whatever was on the paper would help her get Xuan to talk.

So far, she'd asked him four times about the mysterious reporter. The first time, he was definitely startled by the description—as if he knew some like that—but refused to explain why and quickly left.

The second time, he said he might know someone like that. The final two times, he downright told Yue to leave and that he knew no one of the sort, in a panicked and confused manner.

He was hiding something. Not very well, but he knew the culprit.

***

Xuan looked at the time and huffed. "I-I'm sorry, Raven, I've gotta go."

"Alright," Raven's sighed, "but remember to not create a mess in the commons room again.

"I understand!" He called as he sprinted off.

Today was the day he and Yuuhime decided to go to the Arcade. He was quite excited, in all honesty, because he hadn't been to the arcade in months!

He was so excited to get going that he didn't notice Yun Chuan, running right into him.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" He sprang up and helped Chuan up, who simply laughed.

"Don't be so worried, I'm fine." Chuan replied.

"Ahahaha..." Xuan's face showed embarrassment as he went to go, more carefully.

"Hey, where are you off to?"

"Arcade with a friend."

"I see," Chuan stroked his goatee, "I think Arcana and Mona went there, too."

"Cool, see ya!" Xuan said as he left once again.

Chuan could never understand the young ops chief...

***

Yuuhime tapped her feet as she awaited Xuan. To say she was excited was an understatement. She was bursting with excitement and joy, not being able to keep a straight face.

Her mind kept wandering to the night she kissed him. Her stomach flip flopped, but in a good way.

"Yuuhime!" She perked up as she saw Xuan running towards her.

"Hi, Xuan!" She got up and waved excitedly.

"You ready for today?"

"Always."

"Perfect. The arcade's just down the block, so let's stop waisting time and go!"

The two walked down the quiet streets. It had snowed quite a bit, so it wasn't perfect weather to be out on a stroll. They both thought it was very pretty anyways.

"So, what have you done this week to make Raven annoyed?" Yuuhime asked, knowing that something most likely happened.

"Swapped notes with Lewis and made a mess. It was an honest whoopsie," He said, "We also made a mess in the commons room last night, but that definitely was half my fault.

"What about you? Anything fun this week, anything that would give me an excuse to beat the living hell out of Yamato?"

She giggled at his remark and said, "No, but I did hang out with Intisar and Li Guang. Yamato was bearable, actually."

"That's both good news and bad news." He sighed, "I wish I could punch him."

"Yeah, me too. But I like talking to you about how much we wanna punch him, instead of actually punching him."

Xuan grinned, "Same."

"Is this it?" Yuuhime hopped to the large entrance to the arcade.

The big light-up sign was covered in snow, but the large windows revealed the busy inside of the arcade.

Xuan dramatically swung the door open and said, "After you."

"Why, thank you." Yuuhime giggled as she stepped in.

The arcade was dark, but also warm and welcoming.

"Wow..." She whispered.

"Come on, let's go get some coins." He pulled out some paper money and went to a machine. She followed, watching him insert the money into the machine and getting coins in return.

"This is...one, two, three...twenty coins," He explained, "You put one or two into the machine, depending on the game, and then you can play it."

"O-ok." She nodded, "Can I try?"

"Sure. Which one you wanna play first?"

She looked around, and saw a punching bag. Some men were punching it, laughing at each other and trying to beat the high score.

She went over and said, "May I try?"

One man looked at her and laughed, "Sure, little lady. Try to beat four!"

The men laughed. She smiled as she put in one coin. Winding up, she punched the bag, causing it to fly up and smash the top part of the machine. The number on the screen was not four, it was 999; the highest score on the game.

The men stopped laughing.

"Did I win?" She asked, smiling innocently.

"Yeah, you got the high score!" Xuan said happily. "I don't think even I could beat that."

"I'm sure you could if you tried," She said, "Let's go find a different game, one both of us can play."

"There's a racing game we could play, it's pretty fun."

So, they went off to find the game.

Meanwhile, Mona had to peek over to see what the loud bang was about, and was shocked to see Yuuhime destroy the high score of the boxing game. She had just barely hit 650, the highest anyone had gotten before that!

"Uh, Mona?" Arcana asked, peeking at her. "This was your date idea, I only agreed to come because I love you."

"Did-did you see that?" Mona stuttered.

"See what?"

"Yuuhime! She-?!"

She huffed and composed herself. "Come on, Arcana."

"What is it?" Arcana asked, confused.

She dragged him to the boxing game and starred at the tops score. Her score, then the 999 Yuuhime got.

"Holy shiz, they must of cheated of something." He said.

"Nope, I saw her." She said, dismayed. "How could she have gotten that much?!"

"Eh, oh well." He shrugged, "Hey, how about we go play that one shooter game again?"

"Sure..." But she didn't mean it. She had a mission: find out how Yuuhime could have possibly gotten the highest score possible.

Thankfully, the shooter game was next to where Xuan and Yuuhime were.

"Let me help you." Xuan said, taking Yuuhime's hand as she sat on the seat

"Thank you." She said, getting ready to start.

He slid two coins into the machine, "One for me! One for you!"

He hopped onto his seat and got ready.

"Should we do an easy one?" He asked, "Or a medium one?"

"Easy." Yuuhime replied.

He chose a pretty island runway, full of easy turns but lots of shortcuts.

The loud rumbling of the game signified that they started.

Xuan was better at the game than Yuuhime, but he made sure to not go too far ahead. He noticed she liked it when she could see him.

"I win!" Xuan announced. Yuuhime smiled at his joy and returned it with light clapping.

"So happy, congratulations!" She chirped.

He hopped off and looked around. "Isn't that the game you wanted to play?"

He pointed to an older machine, right in the lime light for everyone to see.

"Yes! Can we go?"

"Of course, you didn't even need to ask."

She skipped over and examined the machine. She stuck a coin inside and the game booted up.

"Huh, that's some fancy looking buttons." He commented as she started playing.

"This is so cool." She breathed, her eyes shining and her mouth twitching a small smile.

He felt himself blush at her excitement. He lightly placed his hand on her shoulder as he watched her play.

"You're really good at this."

"I may or may not of watched a bunch of TubeTube videos about it."

"Seriously? Pretty sick how you can do all this without practicing at all."

"Yeah, but I made my own makeshift one at home with cardboard boxes to practice the moves. I'll show you how to play after I'm done, if you'd like."

"Sure, why not?"

She beat the game fairy quickly and made a spot for him.

"Alright, so what do-" He started, but stopped when he felt her hands grab his wrists lightly and start guiding them.

"Ok, so first, this first part is really easy, you just have to push this button and hold up for this combo."

"U-uh huh." Her chest was pressed against his back, clueless at how flustered this made him. She was too invested in showing him the ropes.

"Good! See, that's easy. Now, if you press both these buttons at once while you're running backward, you can shoot a super big sunflower laser."

He nodded along.

All while Mona was watching, flabbergasted at Yuuhime's skills once again.

"She's some sorta brains-brawn person!" She gasped.

"...uhm, I guess?" Arcana said, "But she really just seems like an arcade ner...and there she goes."

Mona snuck closer to Yuuhime and Xuan, "And just look at that, Arcana. She's got him wrapped around her tiny little finger!"

"Just looks like she's helping him to me..." He smirked a little, "Heyyy, wanna do that for me?-aaaaaand she's off again."

Mona climbed up the stairs to the second floor and looked down at the first floor, where Yuuhime and Xuan were.

"Mona," Arcana said, "What are you even doing?"

"Spying," She announced, "I'm impressed at Miss Yuuhime for being so strong and smart, running under everyone's radars for so long. But not me, I can see through her."

"Uhm...ok." He said, then under his breath, "I mean, spying sounds more fun than what we were doing soooo..."

They both strained to look at the two.

"Darn, I died!" Xuan sighed with a smile.

"You did so good," Yuuhime said happily, "You got further than a normal person."

"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have known about this sick moves."

"Hehe, I have watched a lot of videos on it."

"Well, what do you wanna do now?"

"I saw some other fighting games. How about we go try them out?"

"Sure! There's this one I'm good at, not as good as Mona but still decent."

"Is Mona a really good video game player?"

"Probably the best I know," He smiled fondly, "It's so interesting to watch her."

"Intisar is also good at video games," She said, "There's this one online game where she has a mic and pretends to be lost and puts on this cute feminine voice to get some of the "simps" to help her, then she kills them.

"I don't know what "simps" mean, though..."

He laughed.

"Eh, doesn't matter," He presented a machine to her, "because here we are at the best game here: Rat Fighter 3D!"

"Oooh!"

"Here, I'll play it first then you can try it." He stuck a coin into the machine and started to play.

"It's basically your average fighting game, but the combos you can do are super precise AND you have passives for each specific fighter."

"Can you fight with other people?"

"Nah, you used to be able to, but this one's pair got destroyed in a miramon attack a while ago. So now all you can do is fight NPCs."

"Hm."

"Alright, here we go!"

Launching right into battle, she now realized why this was his favorite game. The gameplay was extremely easy but complex. She felt exhilarated watching him play, but that was mainly because of his funny comments.

"And that's Rat Fighter 3D!" He sang as he won. "Wanna try?"

"Do I ever." She slid into place and chose her fighter.

"This is the attack button, this is the passive button, and this is the ultimate button." He said, pointing, "These three smaller buttons are combo buttons you can press in combination for cool attacks!"

She nodded and started to play. Though she wasn't as talented as Xuan, she still had fun, especially when he lightly touched her hands to show her what to do next.

"I won!" She said happily. She turned to Xuan, who gave her a high five and a big grin.

"This was so fun," he said, "but aren't you getting a little hungry?"

"Mhm," she said, "hey, on our way here, I saw a market that had a bogo sign up for all sweet treats."

"Then that's where we're going, eh?" He asked, and she nodded, skipping to the door as he followed her.

"Man," Mona slid down the stairs and peered out the window at the two running for the market, "They left!"

"Are we gonna follow them?" Arcana asked, walking up behind her.

"You know it!" She announced, and ran out.

Unfortunately, it seemed her spying mission was coming to an end.

"Look, hey Mona!" Xuan called, waving.

"Hey!" She waved back, annoyed at her spotting.

"Wanna come with us to get some treats?" Xuan asked, "There's a bogo going on."

"Sure!" Arcana said, "I didn't have breakfast today, somebody wanted to get to the arcade as early as possible."

Mona rolled her eyes and shrugged, "What can I say?"

Yuuhime smiled. "What if we hung out all four of us?"

"Sounds great to me." Xuan said.

"Agreed!" Arcana smiled at Mona, "What do ya say, hon?"

"I guess that sounds fun." Mona said reluctantly.

"Nice! Let's hurry, I'm starving." Xuan said, hurrying over to the market. Yuuhime followed, a giant and goofy smile plastered on her face.

***

Yue slid into her room and pulled up the pictures of his paper. It was a letter on one side, written in blue glittery ink:

'Hello, Mr. Tang Xuan

'I'm aware of the fact that you and Yuuhime seem to be getting close. Congratulations! I'm quite excited to personally become closer to you. I'm sure you're wondering what I mean by that, and let's just say that my music box is dying to be used more.

'Anyways, just know that I know your every move. I know people from all walks of life. I'm aware that by the time you'll get this, you'll most likely be going to work, because you usually check your mail in the morning and look through it on your way there. I know the people you care about. I know the people you look up to. I know where you live. So don't cross me, and do as I ask.

'Chao!

'~Yamato

'P.S. You should tell me if you want to take Yuuhime on a nice date, I have the money after all!'

"Isn't that just nice." Yue said to herself sarcastically. Despite the disturbing contents, she had a name now: Yamato.

She then turned to the back side, where plain black pen was scribbled in Xuan's handwriting, tiny and all over the back:

'Important:

'He knows where my friends live;

'Yamato's address: **********;

'Yamato called me in to take care of Yuuhime, since she was sick. Who knows what else he'll make me do?;

'Yuuhime told me that Yamato doesn't like it when she chooses her clothes, that's why she had to hide her new clothes at her friend Norah's house. She needs help but I don't know how I can help her without getting on Yamato's bad side.

'I'm hate to admit it, but my burns are getting worse. I'd probably be unable to move if not for Yuuhime saving me.

'I missed the Day of Thanks celebration because of him. I'm so sorry, Li Ling.

'I'm so sick. What the hell did he do to the food...'

This was also quite disgusting. The panic, the fear that all the quickly sprawled out letters displayed raised more questions than answered. The most important question she now had was why he even wrote all this to begin with. It was as if he was trying to get discovered...

...a way for him to ask for help without asking for help.

It clicked.

"Yamato," whoever that was, threatened Tang Xuan and now the ops chief was stuck doing whatever Yamato wanted. Despite trying to "hide" the letter and his rambles, he knew that someone with a keen eye would notice him.

That had to be what was going on, right?

She checked the address. It was an isolated one, not around many other houses, from what she could gather. It was near Utgard, in the forest, by an old highway that not many people went to anymore.

It was obvious to her now that she was close to finding the person responsible for Divine Weakening. It was practically in her reach.

She got up and made sure the pictures of the letter were well hidden. She knew the perfect person to help her.