Both nurses wore a similar uniform split into two pieces. Their blue pants were loosely fitted, and designed with a white accent stitching. The matching white coat flowed down, covering their pants waists, and had shortened sleeves, high collars and eight buttons on the left side. The color was relatively bright in contrast to the usually monotonous colors used by most service workers.
Locking eyes with the female nurse, Vincent briskly approached the duo. He lightly tapped his finger on the desk and said with a restrained tone, "We're here to see Mr Junnan regarding an ongoing investigation. Could you inform him that we've returned?"
The woman blinked her eyes with a startled expression when she heard Vincent. After their eyes had met she silently prayed he would not have addressed her directly but alas her prayer seemed to be ignored. Closing the large record book in her hand, she let out a sigh then responded, "Um...Good afterno–"
"…Hm? Aren't you the Special investigators from earlier?"
Before she could complete her sentence, the other nurse exclaimed in astonishment. His calm demeanor suddenly took a lively turn as his light brown eyes scanned the brothers up and down.
"I heard you left to investigate the residences of the victims, I didn't think you'd return so soon," He said with a smile, glancing at the desk. "Mr. Junnan is in his office, I can give him a call to inform him you're here."
Vincent's gaze flickered to the name tags attached neatly to their right breast pockets. Quickly cementing their names to memory, he then turned towards the man and said, "Thanks for the offer Mr Dubois, but it seems Ms Anderson is already a step ahead of you."
"Haha, you're quite right, but please call me Elliott, Dubois is a common name around here and estimated guest such as yourselves deserve my respect." The man mustered, shifting his gaze to his colleagues.
Hearing Vincent's words, Damon and Henry watched curiously as the nurse, Ms Anderson reached for a white cube shaped communication device on her left.
As she plugged it in and operated the device, Henry's heart began racing. It was as if he was back home watching an old television commercial.
'Although this world seems to be an alternate earth, most people I've interacted with speak either Huaren or some variation of Selyrian. I wasn't expecting to see this here!'
The device bore a slight resemblance to an old phone model he had learned about in his previous life. It sported a rotating dial with assigned numbers ranging from zero to nine. Each number was associated with three letters of the Greek alphabet inspired from Phoenician.
"Henry?" At that moment, Damon asked puzzled beside him.
Henry jolted awake, snapping his gaze to Damon as he tried to conceal his thoughts."Huh?.. Oh…umm…What's wrong?"
"I should be the one asking" Damon raised a brow in annoyance before pointing towards the device." You were staring at the communicator as if it would suddenly vanish. Isn't that strange?"
"What's really strange is how Elliott knew who we were", Henry hurriedly shifted the conversation, without any intent of answering Damon. He then turned towards Elliott and said."You weren't here when we had our appointment."
"While I wasn't, a friend of mine was. He's the one that provided you with the addresses of the victims, Officer Charlie?" Elliott explained, laughing."He and I are good friends you see, we tend to spend quite a lot of time together. "
"Did you happen to receive a woman's body, maybe an hour and a half ago?" Damon asked, recalling the incident that took place earlier at Winchester street. Although reluctant, he gave up on inquiring about the device after sensing Henry's discomfort, instead pivoting the conversation in a productive direction.
But, upon hearing Damon's questions, Elliott's eyes widened.
"Sorry. Even though you're not the first, It's still weird to hear a child asking about dead bodies" He said with a saddened tone.
Taking a short pause, Elliott's gaze then shifted to a hanging clock on the wall, and he continued, "We did receive a body from Winchester street, but we weren't assigned to handle it directly. I can't say with certainty that the deceased is a woman, but my other colleague should have started his autopsy by now."
When Henry heard that, he couldn't help but ask, "Isn't that dangerous? I thought a specter had to see the bodies before."
"Heh, no. Do you think Mr Junnan could even run this place if that were true?" Reaching under the table, Elliot regained his smile as he said, "We don't worry about the residual spiritual energy or lingering intent once an analysis is performed."
After muttering a few words, he took out a one-handed device with a flat side opposite the handle and three light bars, lifting it up for them to see.
He then raised his other hand, extending his index finger upward as the rest of his fingers remained folded and said,"This device is able to discern the risk before we start handling the corpses. It's an experimental energy reader developed by Tenno corp and used to analyze the quantity and quality of spiritual energy within an item, determining if the item is too dangerous to be handled by non specters. While it hasn't been released globally quite a few establishments in the country currently have them."
Watching the man's lips flutter, Henry had a humorous thought. Surely if he were to give the man a pair of glass he would be the perfect recreation of the famous meme.
"Umm Elliott… Have you ever considered wearing glasses?"
"No, I can't say I have. My eyesight has been quite exceptional since I was child after all. I am rather interested in how you knew about the body though. Were you the ones who discovered her?."
As the question left his lips, Elliott felt a sharp sting on his elbow. "W-what was that for Trish?" he immediately turned, catching sight of his colleague as she let go of his stretched skin.
"How could you ask them that?" Ending her call, Ms Anderson had pinched Elliott's arm in displeasure. Without waiting for his reply, she then turned to the brothers and smiled softly "Mr Junnan will be with you in a moment. He's on his way down"
"… Alright." Vincent didn't expect Mr Junnan have other matters to attend to while they were handling the investigation, but he was glad to know the man took his profession seriously.
Just as Trish's words registered, Elliott Suddenly slapped himself on the forehead. "How careless of me! That must have been a terrible experience for you. I shouldn't have brought it up."
"It's fine, these two coincidently arrived at Winchester street right before the woman died, from what they told me it wasn't a pretty sight but there doing alright" Vincent admitted honestly.
'I'm alright, but I'm not sure if Henry is doing so good' Standing Behind Vincent, Damon noticed Henry's expression paled. While he wasn't able to accurately guess what Henry was thinking consistently, he could sense the disturbances in his spiritual energy.
'Now that I think about it, I don't even know what his trial was like or how he got his technique.'
["You could try asking boyah. After what you three did there's no room for secrets among you"] Tomoe said.
'As if you'd allow me to tell them anything.' Damon grumbled internally.
Despite his remarks, he silently Mulled over his master's words for a moment.In truth Damon was planning on discussing his trial eventually, but now he wondered if he should have done so from the beginning.
Furthermore, he had yet to find a method for severing the connection with Tomoe nor was he any closer to understanding what her true intentions were.
Could he truly risk implicating his siblings ?
It was the sound of footsteps that broke him out of his thoughts. Mr Junnan had apparently reached the bottom of the stairs behind them. Turning a short corner, he stepped into the hallway and waved towards the brothers before greeting them once more.
"I heard you boys found the bones?"
Authors Note:
Sorry for the delay guys , I've been sick for a couple days now but I'll try to post the next chapter by Saturday. The next two chapters will be really lore heavy to explain some concepts shown in earlier chapters and recent fights. The Paths will be explained and how the categories determine the path a specter walks. I'll also be exploring some hard limits for skills and spells