“You’re gonna want to shut your mouth,” Anthony said, not really with heat.
Secilia just grinned.
“Or you can make me shut it?” she said suggestively.
He eyed her. “Maybe later.” He took his hand off Tamamo’s head, ignoring the young girl’s look of disappointment. “You have something important to tell us?”
“I do.” Secilia took several breaths, and it was clear that whatever she had to say would not be fun. “I… found some stuff out about Custodes Daemonium.”
“Did you find out about my mother?” asked Tamamo.
Secilia nodded. “I think so… though I’m also not completely sure. There is something else I found out as well.”
Anthony studied her, both physically and through their bond, and realized that whatever she had to say, it had something to do with him.
“It sounds like whatever you have to say is going to be big,” Tamamo said. “I should bring okasan’s retainers.”
“Let’s find a place to sit down and talk,” he said at last.
Secilia nodded in agreement, and Tamamo led them back to the meeting room where they had first spoken. She sat on the raised platform while they sat beneath it. The maid who had shown them here once more came with refreshments. They weren’t the only ones present this time either.
Sitting among them were several yokai. One of them was an older-looking man with the aesthetic appearance of a scholarly government official. He looked so ordinary that Anthony was shocked to learn this man was Ono no Takamura, a rather legendary figure. He was a noble, a scholar, a poet, and had once worked as an attendant to the Great King Enma. Anthony had no idea how Gitsune Hagaromo managed to get this man in her employ.
There was also Okiku. She was another rather famous figure. In fact, she along with Oiwa and Otsuyu were part of the Nibon San Dai Kaidan--or Japan’s Big Three Ghost Stories. She looked like a normal young girl with plain features, except her skin was pale as a ghosts. Her long hair was dark like midnight without stars but so lustrous that it shone anyway. She was hot, but she also was the kind of crazy that you didn’t stick your dick into unless you were willing to risk her wrath.
Last among them was another woman, who looked like the daughter of a prominent noble from the Heian period. She had dark hair, dark eyes, and skin as unblemished as the freshly fallen snow. While Okiku was pretty in a way that was unassuming, this woman was elegance personified and her eyes contained an intelligence that made it clear anyone who underestimated her did so at their own risk. She was Rokujo no Miyasundokoro. Or Lady Rokujo for short.
“I am pleased to see that you have finally called upon my services, Tamamo-sama,” Ono no Takamura said with a bow of his head and a wry smile.
She nodded. “I apologize for taking so long to call upon you. I did not wish to do so until I had a solid lead for us to follow.”
Lady Rokujo raised an eyebrow even as she hid her mouth behind a delicate folding fan. “You could have called upon us to help you search for a lead. I would have gladly used the resources at my disposal to help.”
“You were helping, though, and even with you and all the other yokai, we were still unable to find anything,” Tamamo said with a shake of her head. Lady Rokujo huffed but said nothing.
“Um… so you know where Gitsune-sama is now? Does that mean we can finally act?” asked Okiku. She was the oddest of the bunch. She sounded so meek that it was hard to believe she was in the same position as the other two, but Anthony didn’t doubt there was a reason for that.
“Secilia?” asked Sasha.
Everyone turned to Secilia as she stood up, and while the three yokai eyed her with suspicion, they said nothing as she tapped at her IDband and had it project a holographic 3D image into the air.
“Is that an island…?” asked Anthony.
“Your astute observational skills are astounding as always,” Secilia sniped--only to cough into her hand when she realized she was falling into bad habits. “Yes, it is an island located off the coast of Japan.”
Ono no Takamura rubbed his chin. “I do not recognize this island.”
“Nor should you,” Secilia said. “It’s a manmade island. From the documents I gathered, it was only completed a few weeks ago. It is also hidden under an extremely powerful illusion that’s being powered by a dragon vein directly underneath it and many magically powerful materials. The island itself is made primarily from Adamantite Aggregate. That’s what they created the foundation out of, but they also added a good deal of Nullstone into the island’s construction.”
Ono no Takamura leaned forward. “How much Nullstone are we talking?”
“The island is roughly 1,000 meters long and 500 wide, with a depth of around 50 meters above sea level. That means we’re dealing with roughly 25 million cubic meters of Adamantite Aggregatre, and the ratio of Adamantite to Nullstone is 1,000:1, meaning roughly 24,975 cubic meters of space is composed of Nullstone.”
“You’re kidding me,” Lady Rokujo said almost immediately. “Nullstone is so rare that even a single cubic centimeter is worth the entire national budget of a small nation! How did Custodes Daemonium get so much of it?!”
“Custodes Daemonium found an underwater mine with a ton of Nullstone deposits,” Secilia said. “After tracking the supply requests for the island, I located and tracked where the supplies were coming from, and found a mining operation several hundred kilometers away from Japan. There’s nothing there. No island. Nothing. Or so it appears. There’s a huge underwater mining operation going on there. But that’s not the important part right now. What is important is that this island was specifically made to both suppress and contain powerful magics. Perhaps even more important, it has a powerful temporal amplification array inside of it.”
“A temporal amplification array… you think Hisashi Tokiya is there?” asked Anthony.
“Oh, I know he is there--and he’s not alone,” Secilia said, tapping a few more buttons. “Take a look at this.”
The island vanished and several security feeds soon appeared. It switched between them rapidly before stopping on one. In it was Hisashi Tokiya, a rather average-looking Japanese man, and several others. While the man himself walked toward the boarding ramp of an advanced sea-fairing vessel, the others were pushing along a tube-shaped stasis pod.
Anthony thought Secilia would zoom into the pod or the people, but instead, she zoomed into small area just barely on the edge of the camera’s vision. There, visible between a pair of massive shipping crates, was a familiar face.
“PROFESSOR?!” Anthony leapt to his feet.
“It does look a lot like Professor Incanscino, doesn’t it?” asked Secilia. “I ran a thorough scan of her, and it’s a 99% match. However… I’m sure you can see what’s wrong here.”
Anthony, in his shock, did not immediately notice what could be wrong. That was his professor! But then he took a closer look and realized some things that were off. First was that her body looked almost incorporeal. He could see slightly through her. Second was that she looked…
“She looks like a child,” he mumbled.
Secilia had always looked young. She had been turned into an immortal time witch after bonding to the previous incubus at the tender age of sixteen, though with her petite frame, she looked even younger than that. However, he would have still not mistaken her for anything other than an adult woman thanks to her mannerisms. This Professor Incanscino, however, looked even younger. Her features had the youthful elasticity and roundness of someone in their tweens. She looked barely ten years old.
What was going on?
“Professor Incanscino?” Ono no Takamura tilted his head. “You are referring to the Time Witch, yes? Is that her? What is she doing here?”
Secilia shrugged. “I mean… this person is genetically a 99% match, but it looks like she’s been de-aged to when she was a kid. Also, notice how she’s translucent? This isn’t a real body but an incorporeal body.”
“Meaning she’s not the real Professor Incanscino,” Anthony said, trying to calm down and think this through rationally. “But she’s also not a time clone… or not a full time clone? I’m not sure what is going on here. There’s not enough information. Keep playing it.”
“Sure thing,” said Secilia, and she pressed the button to play the camera feed.
Hisashi Tokiya and his subbordinates, who were all clearly ghouls from their pale skin and the black veins on their bodies, entered the vessel with the tube, which then took off. The camera feed cut off then.
Lady Rokujo waved her fan. “The timestamp says this happened six days ago. Gitsune Hagaromo-sama vanished almost two weeks ago, so whoever is in that stasis tube cannot be her. Does this not mean we still have no idea where she is?”
“It means we have a lead,” Anthony said. He rubbed his jaw. “I’m certain the person in that tube is Professor Incanscino, and they are likely taking her to the island where Gitsune and the other Bijuu are being kept. Her time magic would be a huge boon to Satoru if he wishes to keep her and the other Bijuu locked up.”
“I’ve confirmed that the temporal amplification array is designed to cut that island off from the rest of the world’s time,” said Secilia. “Our dear professor was likely the final component they needed.”
“But we still don’t know for sure that Gitsune Hagaromo-sama is even there,” Lady Rokujo argued.
Secilia shrugged. “This is the only lead I was able to find, and believe me, I scoured every inch of Custodes Daemonium’s network that I could.”
“I believe it is worth looking into,” Ono no Takamura said. He glanced appreciatively at Secilia. “I believe I have underestimated you humans. I’m q uite surprised you were able to find so much information so quickly, when our own forces have been struggling to find even a thread of information ever since Gitsune-sama disappeared.”
Secilia grinned. “What can I say? I’m a genius.”
“Now that we have a potential lead, we should figure out how to reach this island,” Sasha said, arms crossed. She was already prepared to move onto the next topic--coming up with a plan of action.
“Getting there won’t be easy,” Secilia began. “Like I said, that island’s time has been completely cut off from the rest of the world’s. To reach it, we will need someone who has exceptional control over time magic.”
Anthony sighed. “And the only one we know of is Professor Incanscino. Is there someone among the yokai who have control over time?”
“There are…” Ono no Takamura began, but then he sighed. “However, none can manipulate time to the extent of the Time Witch or Hisashi Tokiya.”
Okiku spoke again. “And if that island’s time is being powered by the Time Witch in conjunction with the temporal array, then…”
“Breaking through will be impossible,” Anthony sighed.
He wanted to flip over the small table with his refreshments on it. Ever since hearing about Hisashi Tokiya, he had been hoping they would find a lead on his professor’s whereabouts. Anthony not only missed her from a personal standpoint, but now, more than ever, they needed her power to combat the forces arrayed against them. However, they had now discovered where she may be… but it was completely out of reach.
“Let us investigate the area where Hisashi Tokiya left,” Tamamo said at last. “Perhaps we will find a clue to help us reach the island.”
And perhaps it would lead to another dead end, but it was better than nothing, and now that they had a lead, Anthony couldn’t just sit there. He decided to volunteer for the task of reconnaissance.