Moving forward, they went into the stairwell and arrived at the next floor with the same process being repeated.  Another dead end that forced them into the next and the next floor after that.  However, it didn’t take long before the repetition set in and triggered someone.

Within the stairwell before the next floor, Kenta softly spoke to vent.  “Is this really the mission?  A damn needle in the hay?”

“That’s right.”

“We’re going to be at this forever!”

“And it’s not ending any faster with you questioning me about it.”

“I mean come on, don’t ya have your shadows to speed this up?”

“If I did, do you think I’d be doing it this way?”

“Kenta, look at it this way, it’ll be a quiet mission.”  He grumbled a little at the remark.  “You’re not looking for a fight are you?”

“Of course not!  But damnit, this is boring!”

“Not all missions will be thrilling contracts that’d fit a movie.  Enjoy the quiet while it lasts. Don’t forget the danger present.”

“Yeah...yeah…”

A bit of a subtle exhaled sigh came from Chiharu as the first friction with the team surfaced.  It happened sooner than she would have liked, but later than predicted.  Perhaps, she had managed to instill a little more restraint into him and the others than she originally gave herself credit.  Though she knew it wouldn’t last.

Chapter 630 - Diving Through Shadows

A quiet mission was what she wanted more than anything.  The woman that wielded lightning would be more than any of them could handle.  Even being in the building made every nerve end in her body tingle with memory of the last encounter.  It didn’t slow her down, but it was almost like a fake signal that kept telling her the woman was nearby, as if her body could sense her.  She didn’t have such a useful ability and she knew it.  Just a show of the nervousness.

They continued through the tower slowly working down as Chiharu tried to keep the older yet less patient members of her team from falling out of the mission.  It became nearly a secondary objective to the mission.  She started to regret some of it.  Regret or not, Chiharu made the decision and she pushed through on it.

After nearly an hour of systematic searching, they found themselves approaching the ground floor.  Though the vast complex stretched over four city blocks, there were different facilities and purposes in each of the sections.  Pedestrian bridges connected between each allowing for travel between each quadrant of the apartment.

The ground floor as it was labeled actually felt more like a separate structure besides itself.  Built as a nearly self-sustaining complex, it looked more akin to a mall than an apartment.  It took up four entire floors for the whole thing allowing for a vast array of services provided to the exclusive use of the residences.

While the exterior of the building didn’t look high end, the reality within was a modern and technologically reliant construction.  Not the most expensive location within the city, it did have a higher than the average rent due to the numerous services that it offered.  From grocery stores to bathhouses and gyms, it had everything one would need short of employment.

The Children clearly picked this location as an ideal place to house a vast membership and be able to manage their needs.  Though with the new situation and the breakdown of the economy, Chiharu wondered how long the food would survive and what sort of means they had for long term survival.  It was easy to forget that even though they all still lived, Japan was effectively in a post-apocalypse scenario.  Supplies would eventually start running out if they hadn’t already.  But Chiharu tried not to bother herself with matters that didn’t affect her mission.

Looking to the final floor of the apartments, they found nothing but more sleeping members of the cult.  Their target remained elusive as before.  The dark thought passed her mind in a brief moment that they could be killing all of the members and crippling the cult with the way that they worked.  It passed almost as quickly as it came.  Pragmatic as she might have been, that remained a bridge out of her reach, even ignoring the moral implications.

“So we finished an entire building, what now?  Just march on over to the next?”

“You already know the answer, Kenta.  Try to be a little more constructive with your complaints.”

Pressing on, the tension in the team increased now for them.  No longer were they just going through empty halls of low risk.  Up until now, it was very unlikely that they would run into anyone other than possibly someone unable to sleep.  Even if someone didn’t think about conventional means of entry, trying to thoroughly cover a place as large as this would be impossible.

Hence, the real patrols and gathering of anyone still active at this hour would be on the ground floor in the commerce part of the apartments.  Even going along the edge as they planned to reach the next tower came with a risk.  They would be the closest to any sort of patrols or individuals.  It would be a true test if anyone was nearby.

The apartments had pathways that connected the ground floor facilities together, but for the sake of the residents each apartment had dedicated skyways that ignored going lower.  Crossing one of these into the next tower was the intention.  As a possible choke point, she knew the risks involved.

Motioning quietly for the team to remain back, Chiharu silently walked forward using her shadow portals to eliminate even the sound of her feet.  ‘I’m not hearing anyone…’  The approach to the bridge looked safe at a glance.  Nearby stairs went down to the lower floors making her cautious towards alerting.

Each moment of time felt dragged out as she pictured the woman that attacked her before and the possible other outcomes.  She slowly moved forward in spite of her mind’s constant attacks on her resolve.  Her heightened senses picked up long distant sounds as she focused her range out further.  Throughout the area below dozens of distinct sounds dully encroached upon her ears.  With so much building between them, she couldn’t have the sort of accuracy that Nao gained.

But she could confirm their safety in the immediate reach.  ‘Should be safe…’  She motioned for the rest to catch up.  Watching them, even Kenta seemed to acknowledge the present risk as he moved in careful and deliberate strides as she taught him.  Even scheming as she no doubt expected of them, they felt the palpable dangers.

None more than Nao understood what they were dealing with as she kept the fears to herself.  ‘There’s so many down there.  I don’t even want to imagine how strong they might be...this is more than we can handle…’  Chiharu relied on her for scouting, but her family trusted her to find the opportunity if it was around.  But she couldn’t know their strength, so she worried what she could realistically do for them.  ‘How are they expecting this to work out?’

Tensions remained high as they gathered with Chiharu.  Even the chatty Kenta held his words back.  Receiving the final confirmation from Nao, they proceeded together over the bridge keeping low to the ground out of the sight of the windows.

Chiharu felt each step initially with the mounting stress of staying undetected.  But a little of that melted away as they progressed safely.  Even with it going smoothly, she forced herself to not get lax still having that woman in the back of her mind.

Watching the rest as they moved ahead, Ayano cautiously looked around feeling the most useless at the moment, even if Nao was the only one helping with the mission.  Even her role as the leader didn’t mean a lot, since Chiharu held command.  She just simply followed and prayed for a quiet end to the mission.

However, when she looked forward she suddenly saw a weird green light appear.  Bright, blindingly so, she turned away only to hear a wet squelch that didn’t sound familiar, yet left her with an unsettling feeling in her heart.  Once she could look back, she found half of the body of Kenta and Nao gone with just blood and guts spread over the floor and Yuichi in shock.  Chiharu’s usually stoic expression carried a bit of shock and anger that Ayano found surprising.

As the scene played out to a slow crawl and coming to a stop, Ayano came back to reality.  ‘Damnit!  It was trapped.  The trap turned out to be a dud and fades away.’  She watched carefully as Kenta continued on the path she previously witnessed and then passed the point with nothing happening.

A sigh came from Ayano with the moment now cleared.  But she quickly returned to alert as she realized the issue.  Tapping out a signal on her comms, she alerted the group and Chiharu immediately stopped.  Though a little confused, the others paused as well.  “There’s traps on the path.  They’re lethal, instantly.”

Everyone quickly froze up understanding the severity of her words.  They looked around in the hopes of finding the trap that she had seen, but as she already knew they would not see it.  “It’s invisible until triggered, I think.”

“Invisible traps, that’s cheap…”

“Could you see more in your vision?”

“Just the one, I don’t know how many more there might be.”

“No risks then.”  Chiharu immediately opened her shadows around everyone and pulled them into her dimension temporarily.  Pushing them through, she guided them to the other side quickly before she lost her focus.  They all came out on the other side of the bridge and near to the stairwell up.  “Be mindful for more traps.”

They all nodded and transitioned into the stairwell as they moved onto the next floor.  Chiharu quickly cleared the floor as they continued up to rule it out as well.  They still had four towers remaining, but the constant fear in the back of her head was that the swordsmith wasn’t even being kept at this location.  But she needed clues if she had been taken somewhere else.

Such concerns had to wait as she returned to the rest and proceeded in clearing floor after floor of the second tower.  After the eventful scene on the bridge, the more calm and mundane passes through the floor came as a welcome break to the stress.

On the fifteenth floor that changed however as they heard the elevator moving from below.  Immediately, they went into a defensive position moving back into the stairwell.  They all looked over to Chiharu for her orders.  But she kept them still as the elevator could mean anything.

Waiting on the seemingly slow elevator as time crawled, they wondered with stress making them sweat.  Only through Chiharu could they monitor the situation as the elevator went on past the floor making them relax.

Until Nao spoke, “Someone coming up from below on the stairs...two of them.”