Jin’s POV
   “Have you found anything yet, Audrey? Those ghosts are already inside the mine.” Jin tells Audrey.

   The elder Graylock is flipping the pages of the sinister book rapidly. At the same time, her eyes are moving from left to right with a speed just as swift. Heaven knows whether she can find, well, whatever she’s looking for if she’s reading that quickly.

   Jin waits for a few seconds. Audrey isn’t replying at all.

   “Um, Audrey?” Jin tries another attempt.

   “Don’t bother, Minase. Whenever nee-san is reading, she tends to be so absorbed it’s near impossible to get her attention.” Aldenia informs.

   “Wow, imagine being so engrossed over reading, of all things.”

   Aldenia shudders.

   “I know, right?” she agrees. “Books just give me a headache. Especially reference books.”

   “Let me guess. That’s why you have terrible grades.”

   “It’s not like I wasn’t trying, you know?”

   “Uh-huh.”

   “You don’t believe me at all!” Aldenia accuses.

   “Can you blame me? You-”

   “AHEM!”

   Jin got interrupted as Audrey clears her throat loudly. He looks at her again. Her eyes are still glued to the book. Even so, the message is clear: that both Jin and Aldenia are bothering her. Jin took the hint and decided to drop the conversation. Aldenia is also clamming up. After a few more seconds, Audrey lets out a loud gasp.

   “Did you find something?” Jin asks her.

   Instead of answering, Audrey closes the book and makes it disappear. She then flies towards the mine and enters it. In the next moment, a bright light appears from the entrance. Audrey has cast Grand Ascension, the same Spell that Jin cast on Tengu when he got the vengeful spirit of the former emperor out of his father’s body, on the ghosts. A few seconds later, Audrey comes out of the mine and rejoins Jin and Aldenia.

   “My apologies for rushing out like that.” Audrey apologies while inclining her head.

   “No worries. More importantly, mind telling us what was that about?”

   “Whoever summoned the ghosts were forcing them to collect negative energies. It is part of a long-term ritual which grants the person who attempts it immense dark power.” Audrey explains.

   “Why does it have to be a mine, of all places?” Jin asks.

   “The most important requirement of the ritual involves searching for a location where numerous tragic deaths have occurred, the more the better. So no, it is not restricted to mines.”

   “Now that you mentioned it, my school used to be a military base. After a tragic massacre, it became haunted.” Jin recalls.

   “Whatever did you do with its undead inhabitants?”

   “I got rid of most of them.”

   ““Most”, you say?”

   “I decided to spare a really tone-deaf female ghost who used to be a student there.”

   “Oh, so the ghost used to be a she?” Aldenia asks with a slightly judgemental tone.

   “Does it matter? It’s not like I had any ulterior motive.”

   “You’d better not, or I’ll be telling Esty.”

   Audrey clears her throat a second time.

   “When exactly did you find out about the haunting?” she asks Jin next.

   “Hmm, that was not long after I was sent back here, so I would say around five months ago?”

   Audrey furrows her eyebrows.

   “So this nefarious scheme has been going on for that long…”

   “Are you sure that these two incidents are connected?”

   “Tell me, did your school ever had evil spirits inhabiting it?”

   “Not that I know of. Even if I don’t, I doubt their existence will remain a mystery for long, what with the internet and all.”

   “Precisely. Do you not find it rather strange that your school is infested with spirits of the deceased not long after your return?”

   “I guess it’s too much of a coincidence. Say, does your school has something like the Seven Mysteries too?”

   “Nope. Kitajoshi wasn’t built on anything, so the entire place is completely free of urban legends.” Aldenia replies glumly.

   “You should be glad of that fact, Al!” Audrey chides.

   “I am, nee-san. Still, it’s kind of boring that it’s free of simple excitement.”

   “You know, it’s kind of rare to see you being knowledgeable about something other than BL.” Jin says to Aldenia.

   “You would know the history of our school too if your principal yammer on and on about it every single day.”

   Ah yes, the school principal whom Audrey brainwashed so that her and her sister could be enrolled without raising any eyebrow.

   “Well, enough about our schools. Our problems have just increased by one.”

   “No kidding. Before we decide on what to do next, though, I need to report this to both Shannon-san and Sergeant Wakaba.”

   “Is it okay if we land first?” Aldenia requests sheepishly. “My mana is almost spent.”

   “Sure thing.”

   After the three of them have landed on the cold hard ground, Jin pulls out his phone out of thin air and calls Shannon so that he could report to her on this incident.

   “This keeps getting worse and worse, doesn’t it?” the CIA agent mumbles on the other side of the phone.

   “It sure does. Can you report this to Clark-san?”

   “Gladly. After I’m done doing that, I shall make sure that every able-bodied civil servant will assist in searching for haunted areas. Once that is done, I shall message you the locations.”

   “I appreciate it. Well, I need to break off the call since I still have one more phone call to make.”

   “Yes. Thank you for your report.”

   Jin calls Sergeant Wakaba next. Naturally, she didn’t take the report very well either.

   “I can’t help but wonder just how much more complicated this is going to get…” she says after letting out a sigh.

   “Please don’t jinx it, sergeant. I don’t want any more headache as much as you do, probably more.”

   “You know, you and Esty are the causes of most of the migraine episodes that I had.”

   “Von Mantus aside, Did I ever cause you any problems?” Jin asks innocently.

   “I can’t believe that you actually have the nerve to ask that. Ah, whatever. I’ll be contacting the onmyojis so that they could do something about the haunted spots. Please do your best over there.”

   “Please do and understood.”

   “So, what now?” Aldenia asks once Jin has hung up.

   “I guess we’ll have to look for something else to be used as bait to lure out the Hammerheads.” Jin decides.

   Audrey hangs her head in shame.

   “Please accept my apology for exorcizing the spirits without thinking of the consequences.” she apologizes.

   “What’s done is done. Don’t beat yourself up too much for it. Besides, you probably thought that your father summoned them, didn’t you?”

   The mere mention of Austin Graylock made Aldenia tremble in fear. Audrey, on the other hand, nodded.

   “My head went blank as soon as the possibility entered my mind, you see.”

   Jin shrugs. “I don’t blame you. Still, I doubt snuffing out a single battery source will make much difference. I guess we need to find the culprit as soon as possible.”

   “Agreed.”

   Aldenia is still trembling, but it stopped as soon as her elder sister hugged her.

   “Do you want to take a break?” Jin asks Aldenia.

   The tomboy with the tanned skin shakes her head.

   “No need for that.” she declines firmly. “If I had to rest every single time our father is mentioned, I can’t get anything done.”

   “All right, just don’t push-”

   Jin is interrupted as he sensed five someone or something flying towards him and the Graylock sisters. The two girls probably noticed as well since Audrey has let go of Aldenia, and the latter has taken a deep breath.

   “Only five? They sure are underestimating us…” Jin mumbles.

   “Perhaps they are sent as scouts, or are responsible for stalling us until the main forces arrive.” Audrey suggests.

   Aldenia cracks her fists. “Either way, all of them are going down.”

   “True that.” Jin agrees.

   “The two of you are overly eager to start a fight.” Audrey chides. “What if they are not here to fight us?”

   “Does it matter? Our goal is to capture them anyway. Might as well soften them up a bit before we do. Am I right, or am I right, Aldenia?”

   “We totally should.” Aldenia agrees.

   Audrey lets out a tired sigh.

   “Please allow me to talk to them before you fight them.” she pleads.

   “You’re probably going to waste your time, but sure I guess.”

   Aldenia points towards a direction. “Oh, there they are now.”

   And so they are. Jin could finally see the silhouettes of five individuals flying straight towards here. Whoever they are, all of them seem to be human. They waste no time in landing right in front of Jin and the Graylock sisters.

   All five of them are wearing the exact same outfit: a white metallic helmet which looks like the head of a hammerhead shark, a dark blue skin suit, a black sleeveless vest, a pair of black gloves, and a pair of black knee boots. Based on the body shapes, there are three men and two women. Jin couldn’t help but stare at one of the women. He has a sinking suspicion that he ought to know her. It’s bugging him so much he can’t stop staring at her.

   Audrey raises up both her hands slowly to indicate that she means the five no harm.

   “Greetings. You people are the Detroit Hammerheads, correct?”

   “That’s right.” one of the men replies with a surprisingly pleasant voice.

   “To what honor do we owe for your visit?”

   “Well, it would appear that you have robbed us of our precious source of ghost energy-”

   Jin didn’t let the man finish saying whatever that he was going to say. He points his left index finger and quickly mutters a few words. A single second later, the whole group is encased in an icy coffin.

   “Silver Wolf-san!” Audrey chides.

   “Hey, I already let you talk to them. And those few words he said were enough to label them as guilty.”

   “Still-”

   CRACK!

   A huge crack appears at the right side of the coffin, which is the exact location that the woman who bothered Jin to no end was standing.

   BOOM!

   The ice coffin explodes loudly. The explosion was so huge a dust cloud was formed. When the dust cloud has dispersed, the woman is seen holding a rapier made of silver. Jin recognizes that rapier anywhere. As he had thought, he knows who the woman is, or girl, to be more exact, as she’s only one year older than he is.

   “I’ll handle the one with the rapier. You girls take care of the rest.” Jin tells Audrey and Aldenia.

   “Understood!”

   “Got it!”

   Jin charges towards the girl with the rapier. As he was about to reach her, he pulled Felfarthen out of thin air. He then swings the double-bladed sword vertically.

   CLASH!

   The girl intercepts Jin’s sword slash calmly with her rapier. They begin to exchange blows with a speed no regular person could ever hope to follow. There are sounds of fighting coming from Jin’s left side, but he’s too busy right now to be concerned about the sisters.

   CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

   Yup, it’s her alright. The way she moves, her strength and speed, Jin knows them all too well from all those times they’ve sparred together. Even so, she’s showing no sign of recognizing him, even though both his armor and his sword are dead giveaways.

   CLASH!

   Jin managed to land a lucky blow to her helmet. The helmet was cracked from the blow, and the split pieces fell to the ground, thus revealing the face within.

   The girl has blond, short curly hair. Her brown eyes are dead and lifeless. One look and Jin could tell that she’s being mind-controlled. That would explain why she didn’t react to him.

   “Is that Princess Beatrice? Why is she-whoa!” Aldenia whispers before she is cut off.

   That’s right. The girl is none other than Princess Beatrice Verina Atwood, the only child of King Alistair Bennet Atwood.

   “It’s been a while, Your Highness.” Jin greets Beatrice nonchalantly.

   Rather than wasting her breath, Beatrice takes up a stance. Jin shrugs. Guess she’s not in the mood for a conversation.

   “Do the two of you need any help?” Jin asks the sisters without looking away from Beatrice.

   “No need! You just focus on Her Highness!” he hears Aldenia replies.

   “We can take care of ourselves well enough!” Audrey agrees.

   Jin shrugs again. Similar to Beatrice, he takes up a stance too. In the next moment, the two of them clash once more.

   The sound of steel clashing against steel has never stopped for the first few minutes. It’s been almost half a year since both Jin and Beatrice have clashed swords like this. Due to Her Highness’s request, they were going at it for real every single time they sparred, so this is just like one of those times. The only difference this time is that the now mind-controlled Beatrice is after his head for real. Perhaps that’s the reason her strikes are much sharper than before. Perhaps she had not been lax in her practice. Either way, Jin has no intention of going easy. After all, his life is on the line.

   Still, he’s not making any progress. The two of them have sparred for so many times she knows of most, if not all of his tiny habits when he’s swinging his sword. Combined with the fact that Beatrice is quite an observant person, even a slight twitch of one of Jin’s arm muscles is enough to alert her of his incoming attack. Unless…

   Jin takes a few steps back and stabs Felfarthen on the ground right in front of him. His action is so sudden and out of nowhere Beatrice is tilting her head in confusion. Jin slams his fists together.

   “Well, here goes nothing…” he mumbles.

   He charges forward while pulling back his left fist. Beatrice tries to block the punch by placing her rapier in front of her diagonally. Her effort was wasted, for Jin wasn’t planning to punch her at all. Just as he got within striking distance, he bent down and kicked her ribs with his right leg. Beatrice flew away with a soft grunt, but managed to stop by stabbing her rapier on the ground. Without giving her a time to rest, Jin continues his attack by only using his limbs.

   Contrary to the sword against sword fight just now, Beatrice is clearly having a harder time now that Jin has switched to using his fists and legs. For one thing, they’ve only sparred against each other by using their weapons. Secondly, the moves Jin is using right now are based on a certain annoying yet cutest-in-the-world demon. Considering that the princesses of the two races have never fought each other, the human princess will have a hard time adapting Jin’s movements.

   SLAM!

   Jin manages to punch away Beatrice’s rapier with an uppercut. Before Beatrice could react, he puts his left index finer on her mouth.

   “Freeze,” he whispers.

   And that’s exactly what happened to her. Or to be more precise, she got turned into a human-sized popsicle. Now then, time to take care of the rest of the-

   “We surrender.”

   Jin turns his neck to look at the one who spoke. It’s the man with the pleasant voice again. He and the others are all raising both their hands high in the air as a sign of surrendering. Aldenia and Audrey are injured in a few places, but Jin could tell that those injuries are nothing serious.

   “What? Are you serious?”

   “I am. There’s no way we could beat you after you took care of our trump card.”

   Jin shakes his head in disgust. “You only see her as a tool, don’t you?”

   “And what is wrong with that? Compared to the times when she was a princess or a fugitive, she has an actual purpose now.”

   “Purpose? She’s not even in control of her own body and mind! How do you even know of her history, anyway?”

   “I made her talk after we controlled her mind. Interestingly enough, she plain refused to tell us your true identity.”

   “It’s called being loyal, which is a term you’re definitely not familiar with.”

   Jin refuses to talk to that man any further. Whatever he was going to say was cut off as he and the other Hammerheads are turned to giant popsicles as well by Jin.

   “Why did you freeze her up? Aren’t you going to undo her hypnotism?” Aldenia asks as she’s staring at the popsicle that’s containing Beatrice.

   Jin shakes his head. “I took one look at her and found that the hypnotism isn’t magic-based. In that case, an amateur like me shouldn’t take the risk, or something bad might happen to her.”

   “So, what? You’re going to bring her to a psychiatrist?”

   “No, I know someone who can do a much better job.”

   Jin takes out his phone while letting out a soft sigh. He doesn’t want to call her if he could help it since she would get jealous again. However, she’s the best hypnotist he knows, so he has to rely on her.