Alan:
Hearing Morrison's story, I had many questions. Why would he not go himself? I'm pretty sure he could've handled it pretty easily when Elijah took too long, but then again, It might be understandable due to his position; a general doesn't get to walk around that freely, and on a surface level, the job did seem low-level, so I'll be fine with that conclusion for now. "I am ashamed; I am deeply ashamed to have brought nothing but bad news, about my subordinates no less." He said he was looking as down as ever.
"Tch, don't give me that! Is that all you're about? You were crying about the loss of a student or two, didn't you? So man up and take responsibility!" I had lost my cool for some reason. I didn't know why, but I couldn't control what was coming out of my mouth. "Hey! Mind your tongue, rookie! That's not how you talk to your superiors!" Lily joined in on the conversation, looking even more disgusted than before. It was genuine now; she did hate my guts. "Enough Lily!" Morrison shouted. "He's right; I am at fault, and I was being a coward and disrespecting their sacrifices." He muttered, with a down expression, but somehow he had a sense of responsibility to him now. I don't know how my words got through, but I'm glad for some reason.
"You're an odd one, aren't you?" I remained silent, sort of embarrassed but still unwavering. Somehow I did agree with whatever came out of my mouth. I had always hated the crying of hyper-up officials; it always pissed me off because I knew damn well they weren't sorry. The same happened with Morrison, but he was different. I did feel genuine regret from him. He was different but still an official. "Well, I'll get going; rest up well, boy. You've got a long life ahead of you." Morrison got up and turned towards the door. Before leaving, he looked over his left shoulder and said, "Thank you." He thanked me for some reason, even though I had disrespected him by how I talked. Stubbornly, I still looked at him the same way, but he had no hostility towards me, and likewise, I didn't have anything against him either. Though we had our differences, I realized our goal was the same. I was motivated like never before. I had to find the one behind everything in that incident, but for that, I would need to get out of this hospital. "How long until I can get out of the hospital?" I asked Arza, It shouldn't be long; you've been here for a month; I'm pretty sure you're all healed by now; it's a matter of time." Arza gave me a satisfying answer: "Alright. Can you do me a favor?" "Uh, sure." Arza replied. "Can you bring me files of everything discovered about the incident?" "Okay." Arza got excited for some reason, but knowing her, it's probably nothing too big.
A few hours had passed since she left. It was getting dark as the sun was setting. I had gotten bored from looking at the ceiling for too long, so I decided to sneak out of my room for a quick breather. I checked if there were any nurses or doctors around, but to my luck, there were none, so I snuck my way to the rooftop, as any main character from a show would do when in a hospital. As I opened the door for the rooftop, a cold breeze of the wind hit my face, got inside my clothes, sending a chill throughout my whole body. I muttered to myself, "I know, right? Want me to make it warm for you?" I heard a familiar voice from above. I looked left and right, but there was no one until I looked behind, and there was Noah sitting on top of the gateway of the rooftop, with flames coming out of his right hand as he smiled at me enthusiastically, "Yo!" He said this as I finally found where the sound came from. "Noah." "Yeah, how have you been?" He said as he jumped down and started wiping the dust off his clothes, "I'm doing good." "Of course you are, sleeping for a month! Talk about irresponsible." He laughed at me, but I stared at him tiredly and said, "You're one to talk." "Huhhhhh, I don't remember doing anything of the sort!" He said he was full of himself and really convinced that he hadn't done anything. "Oh really..." I grinned at him evilly and said, "You're the one who set the ally on fire, aren't you?" I asked him, knowing it was him. "I did, but that's what kept your ass alive, so be grateful, hmph!" He was starting to get annoyed now that I brought up his mess-ups. "I'm sure there were safer ways to do it than that, as careless as always." "Well, pardon me for realizing how much of a threat the creature was." "Going full power is still reckless. Noah, you and I both know; I know you could've handled it better, but oh well, what's done is done." I shook my head left and right as I showed my disappointment sarcastically. "Well, I ain't saving your ass again if that's the case!" Noah got mad as usual, but it wasn't serious, so I didn't worry. "Anyways, how's your training coming along? I can see you've got much better control over your flames now." "Yeah, they don't get out of control now, but I still have to be careful; it's still risky. Or so everyone says, It's not dangerous at all for me." Hearing that was a relief. Noah's flames were powerful, but they were so powerful they couldn't be controlled. It's been that way since the first time I met Noah.
"What about you? Are there any elements of Rukh awakening within you?" I shook my head slightly, but he understood: "I am still unaware of any elemental Rukh within me; there probably isn't any though." Noah leaned on his face and stared at the sky as he listened.
"I've given up hope. Elemental Rukh is just another asset anyway; I can do just fine without it." I tried to convince myself because thinking otherwise would be a pain in the ass. "You sure? Your condition a month ago didn't speak the same words as you are right now, though." He said sarcastically, noticably making fun of me. I looked at him with an angry and annoyed expression, "I'm joking, I'm joking. Besides, that brain you got inside your mug more than makes up for your lack of elemental powers." I remained silent for a bit. "I suppose you're right..."
"If I did get that type of Rukh, I wouldn't want it to be a compound, especially ice, because the cold really makes me feel terrible, as it is right now." My finger tips and mouth were shivering from the cold; somehow I had just realized so. All this time I was on the rooftop, I didn't feel a thing, aside from when I opened the gate. "I can't lie; it would be cool if you actually awakened ice powers, no pun intended." I looked at him, disappointed at his cheesy joke. "It would mean I could just melt your ice over and over with my flames." He said with a confident smirk on his face, "I'd like to see you try." I replied, accepting the imaginary challenge.
"Hey!" I heard the voice of a girl coming over from the stairs. She got to the rooftop soon, and she was sort of a short girl with dark blue bangs for hair. She was wearing a similar outfit to Arza, but she had a band wrapped around her upper body. She came up panting, "Ms. Arza sent me... To deliver these documents!" The files I had asked for had finally arrived. "I'll help you with them if you want." She said, "Thanks; it'll be a great help." "What's your name, though?" I asked her, "Lucille." "Pleasure to meet you, Lucille." Her face went up, and she gave me a smile. "Likewise, Alan." I took some documents off her hands and offered to help carry most of them. "Alright then, y'all get to it; I'll take my leave. Adios." Noah suddenly said as he purposely fell from the fence of the rooftop. I hurried to look down below to see if he got injured or something, but he was walking just fine out of the hospital gate.
Alright, Lucille, let's go down and get to work." She nodded, and we went down and entered my hospital room. I lit up the lamp beside the bed, folded the blanket, and put it aside. Having a clear place to put all the documents, we sat on two sides of the bed as we went through the documents. "Oh? What's this?" She said as she discovered some clue, perhaps, "What's the matter?" I asked curiously, "Look at this." She showed me a page; it said, "Save the soul society, Ichi-." "Wait, that's from a manga, isn't it?" I asked as I realized what she had shown me was no information about the case: "Yeah, it's my favorite." She replied, smiling with her eyes closed. "Yeah, I like it too, but we seriously need to focus on the case, alright?" She shook it off and said, "I'm sorry!" She apologized, but I shook my head, saying it's okay.
"Alright then, let's get over what we got so far." It had been half an hour since that, and we were just silently looking through them. Lucille nodded. "So I've got these: the names of the deceased, which don't have a few names on them, and the other is the research the science department conducted on the creature you fought." It's good to know they did some research on the thing I fought, which might be the closest clue I've got. "Let me know about the victims." She showed me pictures of them all, and almost all of them were confirmed dead, but two of them weren't. "What about those two?" I asked her about the victims, unconfirmed if they were dead or not, and she nodded again, "This was Conan Briggs, whose limbs were found in the creature's belly a week after the incident." My facial expression went from curious to a bit sad and disgusted, but I shook it off as Lucille was moving on to the next person. "This was Hye Dokgo; he was a colleague of Elijah and one of the three General Morrison sent for backup for him; nothing of him was discovered, not even a trace to my surprise." "I see..." I muttered in amazement that such a large organization as ours couldn't find a trace of a missing member: "Due to not finding anything, the leaders will most likely mark him as deceased, consumed by the flames most likely." "That's interesting; I still think they shouldn't just give up on him." "Why's that?" She replied. Idk, but I just have this gut feeling that perhaps he or his body at least can still be found." "Is that so?" "Yeah, maybe we should inform the higher-ups later. But for now, let's move on to the research conducted on the creature." She nodded again and closed the folder of the victims, put it aside, and opened the other folder.
"Here's the document; first it identifies the creature's true identity; his name was Lee, and he previously worked in the Solitaire Academy around 5 years ago as a janitor until he was kicked out for stealing, or so I heard, but before the incident he was working as a janitor in a nearby restaurant to that alley." The creature being human was no surprise to me; I knew it looked like a man after all, but what could've caused him to become something like that? I'll dig in some more. "So what have they come up with as the reason for his inflation?" I asked her, and she flipped the page. "It was caused by Rukh; someone must've manipulated his body to act that way, and so the reports say. "It all made sense to me, after all. "Makes sense, after all, if you pour a bit of your Rukh into any, you can control it, but it definitely needs a high level of control over it." I muttered to myself. "But how did they do it? Normally, if anyone attempted such a thing, the human would've exploded from inside, starting from the part of their body the Rukh was channeling towards. Our foe is a dangerous one, Lucille." "I agree." She replied.
We looked and looked through the documents, and nothing new popped up. The first lead was our strongest one, so it would be wisest to investigate it thoroughly. "Let's go, Lucille; we're pretty much done here; time to take a look at where it all began."
We sorted the documents into their folders and headed out to the Alley where it all occurred.