Kenji looked skeptical, but he was a soldier. He followed orders. He left and returned a minute later, placing a heavy, sealed evidence bag on the polished office table. Inside was a single, unremarkable, graffiti-stained piece of a brick. It was the most mundane object Aiko had ever seen.
"Aiko-sama," Kenji said, his voice laced with a respectful confusion, "it is just a brick. It was two hundred meters from the target."
"Objects are witnesses, Kenji-san," Master Jin said quietly, his ancient eyes fixed on the object. "They do not have minds, but they have memory. They soak up the energy and events around them, especially events of great power." He looked at Aiko. "Aiko-sama is not going to probe the fortress; she is going to ask this witness what it saw."
Kaito's face was a mask of grim determination. He understood the theory, but he also understood the risk. If Kuroda was actively scanning, any spiritual ripple, no matter how small, could draw his attention.
"You will not do this unprotected," Kaito stated. It wasn't a request.
He walked behind the chair where Aiko sat, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. "Close your eyes," he commanded.
She obeyed, her heart thumping. She felt his power swell, but it wasn't the sharp, cutting energy she'd felt from the stone. This was different. It was the cool, silent, all-encompassing presence of shadow. His Kamaitachi spirit. He was wrapping his own aura around her, a cloak of darkness and wind to hide her light from the outside world. She was instantly cocooned, shielded. The distant, psychic "ping" of Kuroda's hunt vanished, completely blocked by Kaito's power.
"I'm shielding you," he murmured, his voice a low rumble just behind her ear, the warmth of his breath brushing her skin. "He cannot see you in my shadow. You are safe. Now, do it. Reach out. Tell me what it saw."
Protected by his darkness, Aiko placed her hands on the cold evidence bag, her fingers resting on the brick within. She took a deep breath and opened her senses, not projecting, but listening.
At first, there was nothing. Just the cold, inert memory of the brick itself. Rain. Sun. The smell of cheap spray paint.
Then, she focused, pushing her senses to feel the imprint of the warehouse two hundred meters away. The brick had been a silent witness for months, perhaps years. It had soaked in the ambient energy of the Chinkonshi's dark work.
The impressions came in a flood.
Cold. A deep, unnatural, corrosive cold that made her spirit ache.A sound, not a sound, but a psychic chant. A low, grating, repetitive pulse.Images, blurry and indistinct, of men in dark suits coming and going. Men whose faces were blank, whose auras felt like Kuroda's: empty, void.And then, a clear, sharp vision. She saw the wards being built. She saw a sorcerer, his face hidden by a glamour, standing at the base of the warehouse, chanting. As he chanted, he touched a thick, black cable that snaked from the wall into the ground, as if he were feeding it power.
"A power source," Aiko whispered, her eyes still closed, describing the vision to the room. "The wards aren't self-sustaining. They're being fed. Actively."
"Can you follow it?" Kaito's voice was a low, urgent hum in her ear.
Aiko pushed deeper, following the "memory" of the cable. It didn't go to the city power grid. It went down. "It goes underground," she murmured. "Deep into the foundation. It's connected to... something. An anchor. A stone... a dark, black stone, pulsing with the blight. It's in a sub-basement, a hidden room. That's the heart. It's not just a shield; it's a machine. It's drawing power from somewhere and feeding the wards."
She saw it all clearly in her mind: the dark, pulsing heart of the fortress.
"That's it," she breathed, pulling her hands away from the brick, the connection snapping. She opened her eyes, exhausted but triumphant, the world rushing back in. She leaned back, and her head rested against Kaito's arm, which was still gripping the back of her chair.
She looked at Kaito. His eyes were blazing with a cold, predatory light.
A fortress was impenetrable. But a machine had an off switch.
"You've found its heart, Aiko," he said, his voice a low, satisfied growl. He straightened up, his hands reluctantly leaving her shoulders. He looked at Kenji, the leader now fully in command.
"You have your target, Kenji," Kaito ordered. "Not the building. The power source. Find the city blueprints for that block. I want every sewer line, every power conduit, every subway tunnel within a thousand-meter radius of that sub-basement."
The fortress was no longer blind. Aiko hadn't just found a weakness. She had given them the key.