Nao immediately motioned to everyone to be silent as she concentrated further.  ‘Are there any others?  I need to know.  What will we do?  We don’t know their strength yet, we don’t know anyone’s…  How are we supposed to make any sort of call without knowing a thing…’

The tension that had only started to relax in her neck when she detected the two new sources.  Immediately, she knew they were people and coming towards them with purpose.  It was like tracking via footprints, but using the air.  So she could tell now the difference between how someone that might casually walk or aggressively.  Other nuances still remained beyond her, but in time she could know more.  “It’s just those two.  But that elevator could have more.”

“They probably noticed the trap being triggered.  Everyone inside.”  Chiharu reopened her shadow pulling everyone into the other dimension and deeper still.  ‘Can’t risk that group from before noticing us.’

Waiting inside the depths worked well to hide from their possible pursuers.  It did mean though that she had no idea what happened.  Even a small opening into the real world might be detected.  Going completely blind didn’t give her any comfort.

“Could you tell if anyone got off the elevator, Nao?”

“It was too far out of my range.”

“So we’re dealing with two, maybe three then, Chiharu?”

“That’s a safe guess right now, Ayano.  I see your observation and analysis skills are improving.”

Taking the compliment with a small grin, Ayano looked back at the rest of the team.  “I didn’t really have a lot of choice.”  She doubted that she could match with Chiharu, but it was still important to put the pieces together.  ‘Three is still easy enough for us to deal with, but if one of them is really strong.  I wonder how many of them are thinking about this being the chance…’

Thoughts and feelings pulled her in more directions than she wished.  It gave her more stress than the mission or even Chiharu.  Every regret and pain channeled through her mind.  It wasn’t enough to freeze her, yet.  When would it, she feared.

Chapter 631 - Hiding in Shadows

“Think it’s enough time,” asked Kenta.  They sat in the dark purple and black mist longer than expected.  Even he knew the importance, but time always felt slow in such situations.  It surprised the others that he kept control of himself.  Perhaps, the training succeeded in something.

Pulling open a small opening, Chiharu quickly scanned through the apartment floor to get a read of the situation.  To her relief, the halls appeared empty.  Exiting first, she expanded her senses to try to pick up any hint of other threats.  ‘Nothing...for now...those traps, they must have noticed it went off…’  Chiharu looked around the hall again.  Nothing.  Invisible traps hovered in her mind.  They were even more at a disadvantage.

The others returned to reality shortly.  “What do you sense, Nao?”

She popped her eyes open briefly at the question and then narrowed them.  Searching around with her power, she felt the differences from before.  But the two from before, she stored their shape within her mind.  Each had something unique about them that she could recall, their fingerprint for her.  “They’re above us on the edge of my range.”  Following them with her power, she monitored their movements.  “They don’t seem to have noticed us.  They’re sweeping the floors.”

Kenta poked his head around carefully investigating down the hallway.  “Mission still a go, right?”

“Yes.  Sweep the rooms and Nao monitor the enemy.  Any change notify me immediately.”

“Right.”

The search slowly began once more, but with heightened tension throughout the team.  Chiharu divided her energies between the hunt and paranoia.  Doubts started to crawl into her mind.  Images of what happened the last time she led a team into the enemy stronghold came back to her.  She clenched her hand trying to force thoughts out.

Another floor with no results along with another.  Though they still have two more towers to search after this one, it really felt like they would never find the weaponsmith.  She didn’t like Kenta’s pessimism infecting her, but it was hard to ignore.

Regardless, they pushed forward still maintaining safety from the patrol.  But their ascent meant eventually crossing paths.  Each passing minute worried her more as the mission hadn’t failed.  It felt like something had to go wrong.  Yet somehow it managed to remain on course.

Perhaps, she just wished for things to go wrong and be proven right.

Ten floors up, they finally hit their risk once more.  The patrol Nao tracked approached only two floors away.  Chiharu herded her team back inside her shadow dimension to wait out the patrol.

The closed off senses to the outside world made the wait worse.  None of the powers of the patrol were known.  She couldn’t even be sure that they were the ones that laid the traps.  The amount of unknown in the mission continued to make her question her choice.  Yet she remained pressing forward.  Maybe it was a bad call, another in a long line of bad calls.  That would always be her reputation.

Counting out the time as a way to keep her focus away from negativity, Chiharu reached the point to check.  The others remained mostly quiet, she wasn’t sure if they were getting used to the routine or just tired of being shut down (likely the latter).  She slowly opened the portal back to the real world.

Safety checks appeared to pass.  The patrol went down without noticing them.  They continued forward marching to the next floor.  She kept listening for any change as they walked up the stairs.

“Back to more boring stealth mission…”

“Are you really that eager for a fight, Kenta?”

“No…Ayano, course not, but still…a little excitement would be nice.”

“Kenta…”  A flash forward within Ayano’s mind relayed the future to her once more.  She jerked back and immediately grabbed Kenta by the shoulder.  “Stop!  Everyone!”  Her heart pounded for an instant still reeling from the vision.  They never got easier on her.

Chiharu looked back picking up on the increased pulse and heavy breathing from Ayano.  “Another trap?”

“Yeah…I dealt with it, but…”

“They know we’re here.”  Quickly, Chiharu searched internally among her back up plans.  This fell in line with what she expected to happen after the first trap was discovered.  The doubt she harbored rose with renewed intensity.  Even back up plans still had to deal with the traps and the unknown.  She could only think of so many options.

She looked down at her team.  The people that she gathered and forced into this fight.  People that didn’t want to be here tonight risking their lives.  Blackmailed nearly into doing what she needed of them.  Everything that served her own ego, her own agenda.

What was the right answer?

Sacrifice?  Death?  Retreat?  Life?

She stared at them deeply.  Panic covered Ayano, no doubt still dealing with the trauma of another evaded future and countless possible future ones.  Kenta looked to Chiharu for an answer while Nao pensively listened, being the diligent one.

There was only one answer.

The shadow portal opened up, but a different one, not that they would know it as such.  “This is as far as we go.  I’m aborting the mission.”

Ayano sighed with relief.  It took a little longer for her to recover her breathing, but her body calmed down.  ‘I’m glad…I’m not sure if I could’ve gone through it…’

“The hell, boss!  We’re here now.”

“And we clearly are lacking in intel.  We went in knowing nothing about the enemy, this was always a risk.  But I’m not about to pointlessly throw your lives away.  I’ll come up with a new plan.”

This actually stunned them all for a moment.  The image that they had of Chiharu didn’t match with what she said just now.  It made them pause for a moment in their goals.  A bit of shock that they hesitated with what they wished.  Staring back at Chiharu, they didn’t expect to find conflict.

However, Kenta leaned forward, tightening his fists up forcing his resolve back.  “Maybe you’re right, boss.  But we’re also unknown to them, right?  You’ve been training us and teaching us everything you know for this day.  Have a little faith in us!  We won’t let you down.”

Chiharu held silent, becoming surprised like them.  She especially didn’t think to hear such things from Kenta, who she recognized to hold the most hatred for her.  They all did, that much she knew and she knew it was a useful tool for her to channel.  It gave them the drive she needed.  And it kept her in check, always cautious around them and whatever they might try against her.  Trained now as they were, it would be a different fight with all their cards on the table.

“You were the one that died, Kenta,” Ayano said dryly.

“Hey, c’mon!  We can do this!  We just have to be careful, right?”

“Kenta…”

“What you say, boss?”  He still only got silence from her.  It didn’t appear to be convincing enough.  This had to happen, he needed to happen.  “We know where the enemy is, they don’t know where we are.  That means it’s our advantage.  We set a trap of our own.”

“This is a stealth mission, Kenta.  We’re not supposed to be fighting!”

“And the longer we stand around debating it the less it is one.”

“Which is why we need to leave like she said.”

“Boss?  We can do this!”

Time ticked away.  Chiharu knew she had to make a decision quickly.  Precious seconds already wasted listening to his plea to stay.  Everything told her to follow the plan.  The past reminded her of the cost of forcing the plan forward on emotion.  She knew the right course of action.

Yet, she felt something possibly genuine from Kenta.  There were valid options with what he suggested.  She had them as back ups if things turned south and fighting was unavoidable.  Kenta was always eager for a fight, something that worried her.  But she trained them and worked to improve their powers.  It did not have to be a repeat of the past.

Chiharu broke her stone expression as she considered her alternatives.  She had run out of time.  A decision was required and they stared at her for the call.  The choice that she made would have impacts that she could not even understand.

The burden of leadership weighed on her.

Firmly up her stance, she finally made her call.  “Very well.  We’ll set an ambush for them.  But remember this will have to be fast.  If the fight gets out of control, we’ve lost our advantage.”

“We’ll make it happen, boss!”