Kenji's new office was the same old supply closet, but now it was crowded.
He sat at his desk—a fold-out metal table—with his hat pulled low, meticulously filling out a requisition form for a new electric kettle. Across from him, sharing a ridiculously small two-seater sofa, were his new "monitors," Ren and Sora.
The official reason they were there was to form the Tactical Audit Team, focused on preventing future Code Delta breaches. The real reason, Kenji knew, was surveillance. Commander Elara had perfectly weaponized their contradictory Jujutsu specialties against him.
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The Auditing Team
"Grandmaster," Ren began, his voice perfectly modulated, holding a pristine digital notepad. "We've cross-referenced the energy signature you left at the Auction House with existing IAB data. The 'Temporal-Pressure Wave' theory is mathematically sound—if the power source is capable of near-absolute Mana Compaction."
Ren was trying to rationalize the Dark Magic. His own Snap Cast Mastery relied on perfect compression, so he was searching for the logic in Kenji's destructive, instantaneous counter-spell. He was searching for the lie.
"The energy spike was still volatile," Sora interjected, bouncing her knee lightly, causing the cheap sofa to groan. She wasn't looking at data; she was sensing the Mana lingering on Kenji's clothes. "It didn't feel like compression. It felt like expulsion. Like a massive, chaotic release that was instantly stopped. Like a cork pulled from a bottle."
Sora was searching for the truth. Her Kinetic Mana Augmentation made her sensitive to messy, high-volume energy—the very signature of the Dark Magic that Kenji had desperately tried to clean up.
"It was efficient," Kenji stated flatly, signing his ramen requisition with a flourish. "The problem is solved. Now, your first assignment: Audit the IAB Vault's defensive logs. Akira and Haruka's attack on the Auction House was a diversion to hide their true objective."
Ren instantly brought up the schematics. "The IAB's High-Value Artifact Vault. It holds the Blade of Union—the artifact the Cursed Assembly requires to permanently fuse their powers."
"Exactly," Kenji confirmed. "Akira is obsessed with unified, clean power. The Blade of Union is his ultimate goal. He didn't hit the Vault before because its defenses rely on Grandmaster Rina's specialized Aetherial Projection shields—she can counter any elemental attack. But now that we're distracted, he'll move."
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The Second Anomaly
Sora suddenly stopped bouncing her knee. Her eyes narrowed as she channeled her kinetic senses, not for Kenji, but for the wider IAB complex.
"Grandmaster, there's a problem," she warned, the chaotic energy around her spiking slightly. "There's an odd Mana trail. It's low-volume, chronological tracing... but it's too precise. Like tracing a single atom."
Ren immediately engaged his Snap Cast senses. "She's right. The signature belongs to Grandmaster Kaito. He's operating at the lowest energy level possible, but he's not in his tower. He's deep in the IAB archives."
Kenji looked up, finally engaged. Kaito, the Strategic Interceptor, was the most passive of the Special Grades, using his Chronal Tracing Jujutsu only for high-level intelligence. Kaito didn't move unless the past or future was critical to the present.
"Why is Kaito tracing history in the archives while the IAB is on high alert?" Kenji mused. "His power is about prediction and detection. He's looking for something we missed in Akira's history."
A new report flashed across Ren's notepad—an urgent memo from the IAB Archives division. A confidential file regarding the IAB's earliest experiments with reality-bending Mana and power suppression protocols—dating back to Kenji's induction—had been accessed.
Kenji felt a cold dread settle in. Kaito wasn't tracing Akira's history; he was tracing Kenji's.
"Kaito has realized that the threat isn't the Assembly's strength, but the source of the power that defeated them," Kenji realized aloud. "He's searching the past to verify the lie I told Elara."
The surveillance wasn't just external anymore. The most dangerous intelligence asset in the IAB was now actively hunting for the secret of the Dark Magic. The Cursed Assembly was a problem, but Grandmaster Kaito was a catastrophic threat. Kenji knew he had to move—not to solve a crime, but to stop the truth about his past from being excavated.