Whispers of Lightning: Break

In the early morning hours of an ordinary day…

Ravyn, dressed in black and putting on her hair clip as usual, touches the soil in a pot of cactus that Pierret gave as a birthday present. The soil was dry enough for her to water spray on it twice before leaving the room down the stairs at Gentle’Sand. The girl went to the back of the store to allocate the materials stock for this week’s sandwich ingredients and then went to the herbal medicine drawer. She picked up a few leaves, roots, and dried flowers and placed them in the cauldron in the corner of the room.

"Thank you as always."

Gentle who just came down spoke gently to Ravyn.

"Not at all. It might take some time, but Pierret will definitely get well again. I promise."

Ravyn comforted Gentle and blew into the cauldron to speed up the fire. Her heart was filled with hope that her best friend would soon recover from the chronic illness.

"Looking at you now reminds me of the girl who runs here crying every time she sees smoke when the medicine is brewed. You’ve grown up to be strong and dependent. Pim must be proud of you, Ravyn."

"I appreciate your compliment. But I doubt that."

The girl replied. Even Gentle, who knew Pim for so long, couldn't argue with her about it. To be fair, the last time he tried didn't end well. When the medicine was finished boiling, Ravyn scooped up a dipper into a ceramic bowl and covered the lid for Pierret, who would wake up around 10 o’clock to drink it. Ravyn then leaves the shop to go to work.

Ravyn’s routine was to walk to her office in a building not far from Gentle’s shop. On the third floor fire escape way, there is an open room with an elevator door inside. On the front it was written ‘Staff only’. As she entered and closed the door, Ravyn picked up the silver-and-smooth AB ring and put it on. The camera in front of the elevator then started scanning to identify Ravyn’s face along with her ring. Not long after, the system’s response sounded, and the AB elevator door opened.

[‘Verification completed. Hello, Ravyn Nipha’]

######

At the intelligence department, Hand of Devotion building…

"Yu is on leave?"

Ravyn asked after not seeing her in the room.

"Yeah."

Zen and Leila confirmed it simultaneously.

"I answered her first."

Ex-hacker girl claims she’s faster.

"No way, I’m the one who said it first. You copycat."

The young man did not agree. Since Leila has been here, Zen, who feels like he has found a friend in the same league, has always come to the office and competed in everything with her. As head Charles was summoned to the headquarters about the leads regarding the Donkey gang, a mountain of requests were distributed to them. Instead of the two new brilliant employees who should lighten the workloads, it turns out that Ravyn and others have to work on missions harder.

######

Midday at the AB food court…

"Yu deserves a break. She hardly takes the day off ever since she came to work here."

Kanji told Ravyn before munching on chocolate in his mouth.

"But she told me that she likes to work hard so that she won’t get too distracted by attractive men. Though, she shouldn’t have to worry about that with her profiles."

Ravyn felt things didn’t add up.

"Agreed, this is unusual. And let me make this thing clear about Yu: she is actually just admiring the boys as a hobby. Anyone who is serious about her gets rejected without any exception. Because there is only one man who makes Yu work so hard that she will forget about him every day. Before she knew it, our Yu and workaholic were just synonyms. Oh, talking about this makes me worry about her even more."

Kanji replied. And now that he sees the worried look on Ravyn’s face, the boy came up with a suggestion.

"I’m free this weekend. So, is my canteen angel interested in visiting her?"

######

Weekend in front of Yu’s little house…

"My bad boy gives you a comfortable ride, isn’t it?"

Kanji boasted as he patted his patchwork seat on his old bike.

"What about your office car?"

Ravyn put a hand on her aching back since she was a cyclist who brought them both to Yu’s house on the outskirts of town.

"I exchange it for the tuition fees of Kavi and Kala, my fifth and sixth siblings."

"It must have been hard on you."

Ravyn didn’t know that Kanji had made a special contract with the organization to cover his monthly expenses.

"I’m good, because I’m big bro Kanji."

The boy gives out a cheering mood and leads Ravyn to Yu’s house.

*ring!*

*ring!*

They rang the doorbell and called for Yu, but there was no answer. Kanji was about to use the spare key from under the flower pot as Yu had told him, but found that it wasn’t locked. When Ravyn and Kanji came inside the living room, they found that the interior looked larger than it seemed from the outside. Pale yellow walls and wooden furniture blend into the room. Things were arranged in an orderly manner, but no one was there except for them. Ravyn noticed that a piece of paper was placed on a round sofa that read:

‘On a trip to other cities for a while. <3’

And Kanji was the first to notice that Yu’s bedroom had the light on.

"Ravyn.."

Kanji called for the purple-haired girl and turned his face toward that room to give her a signal. They both looked at each other and nodded. The boy grabbed a baseball bat in the sports corner of the house, and Ravyn stooped low, ready to grab a gun from her shoe at any moment before entering Yu’s bedroom.

"No one's here."

Kanji sighed when everything he saw was a tidy room with a backpack on the bed.

"Hold on, the zipper of the backpack hasn’t been fully pulled up."

Ravyn mentioned that because Yu always kept things neat and she would never leave her stuff like this. She investigated the room thoroughly, but her findings were only a slight burnt surface on the floor and Yu’s AB ring under the bed. Upon picking it up, Ravyn found a schematic diagram of a research center that had been closed for many years because of unethical experimentation. Its location is at the heart of the peaceful Lerson city, the city with no Airburst and further away from Themeise.

"That place looks terrifying. Plus, AB doesn’t have the authority to look after that area. You probably don’t want to go there, do you?"

The boy asked his friend.

"Kanji, you go back first and take Yu’s ring back. I’ll find a way to get there myself."

Ravyn told Kanji, after she contacted the branch about Yu gone missing.

"Alright, be careful, okay?"

Kanji hurriedly accepted her guidance because he still remembered what he’d been through during his mission to the black market. But suddenly, a thunderclap sounded, and a man from nowhere appeared standing in front of Kanji, who was about to leave the room.

*Crack!*

Kanji panics and falls back to his buttocks on the ground. That stranger had the white aura radiated into multiple lightning streaks surrounding him for a moment before they dispersed. He had gray hair and an expressionless statuette face in a light blue tuxedo suit. He looked around the room without paying much attention to the two people in front of him and spoke up.

"Excuse me, but please pick up that bag on the bed for me."

As soon as Ravyn became aware that this guy had possessed Lost Wisdom, she kept guard and interrogated him.

"Who are you?"

"It’s Weiss, Weiss Schobilde from Yiclu Energy. I’m Yu’s friend."

The gray-haired man handed his business card with the CEO position to Ravyn and Kanji. Despite the strange name that sounds similar to ‘igloo’, it’s the biggest renewable energy corporation in Komveena and everyone knows about it.

"Didn’t Yu tell you people that she wouldn’t be coming back here anytime soon?"

Weiss continued.

"And can you tell me why?"

Ravyn proceeds to interview this business mogul.

"She has business with me and it’s quite personal."

Weiss’s answer makes Kanji gasp from recognizing him.

"Oh, rich man. You’re Yu's ex."

"Yes, but we’re still good friends. Well, it’s nice to meet both of you, but I have to hurry and give that bag to Yu."

Weiss tried to cut the chase. Ravyn then zipped Yu’s bag and handed it to him. When Weiss took it, it got stuck because Ravyn hadn’t let go of that backpack yet.

"If you knew Yu, then you would know that she works at Airburst. You wouldn’t have thought that her colleague would neglect the person who summoned the lightning flash out of thin air, did you?"

Ravyn attempted to play tug of war with Weiss, but it seemed like he was about to snatch the bag and flee at any moment.

"You’re at an abandoned research facility in Lerson City?"

The girl asked him again, mentioning the lab’s blueprint she saw on Yu’s AB ring. And she seemed to guess right.

…How did she know about my secret base? Did Yu tell her about it?...

Weiss let out a shocked expression on his face for a moment before he replied.

"What a surprise. How do you know that?"

"I’m just guessing."

Ravyn taunted Weiss and let go of Yu’s backpack.

"Thank you… And let me tell you something, the power you two just witnessed will cost your lives."

The white lightning atmosphere is formed and surrounds Weiss.

*Crack!* *Rumble!*

"TIME TO DIE."