Purpose | World Trigger

にじゅうよん

Twenty-Four | Stress Test

"Luna sa, how did you even meet Jin. Much less, get into Tamakoma?" Kei asked as he passed a bottle of green tea to Luna. The both of them had just finished another sparring session, and Kei wanted to talk to her, so she decided to stay.

Not hesitating the least bit to lie, she answered, "That day when Miwa*-tai* attacked Yuma, I was in the area with my Side Effect on. I sensed someone in the area, and they weren't Trion Soldiers. I wanted to know who was at an abandoned train station, so I went over. When I spotted someone on sitting on top of the building, I walked up and met Jin-san. My recruitment is a result of Jin-san's Side Effect. He said he saw me signing up in the office with Yuma and the others. I met Yuma when Miwa*-tai* retreated."

Luna was glad that she strengthened her resolve as a weapon. When she received a message from Kei in the morning for a sparring session, it reminded her of his existence which led to the question,

Why do I hesitate answering Tachikawa-san's questions?

Luna came to the conclusion that she started seeing intangible value in this male named Tachikawa Kei. She started finding worth in him. It wasn't supposed to happen to her, those thoughts should never happen to her. But the fact that it was happening, it alerted Luna, that she was changing. Her efficiency as a weapon was dropping, and she needed to avoid that.

"Why would you want to know such a thing?" Luna asked Kei, who has been staring at her the whole time when she was providing the lie.

Kei seemed to be in deep thought, contemplating about something. However, he eventually provided an answer that caused her eyes to widen, a sign that the answer lied outside of her expectations, "I can't really tell you who it is, but you remind me of someone. There's just something that reminds you of them, but I can't put my finger on it.

Her reaction went unnoticed since no one was paying close attention to her. Luna knew exactly who Kei was talking about, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

He's talking about Crescent.

There was also a few things that Luna could infer from his statement. The first thing was that Tachikawa Kei has enough trust in her such that he would provide such valueable information to a mere B-Ranker. He was practically telling Luna that there's an unknown agent inside Border, and not even the leader of the top squad can learn about the identity of this agent.

The second thing was something that would only trouble her further. While she hasn't done anything that could potentially expose her, something intangible, something invisible was making Kei feel like Luna was Crescent. This was only possible because she had been spending quite a bit of time with him.

Of course, to fix the situation would be simple: to stop spending time with Tachikawa Kei. However, if she were to suddenly stop sparring with him, it would only raise his suspicions. That was the last thing she wanted to do.

Getting up from the bench she was sitting on, she thanked Kei for the drink and said before leaving, "That sounds like every organization."

~

Being called to Kido's office, Luna immediately used Crescent's Trigger when there was no one around. There was no reason for her to be summoned as Luna, therefore she arrived at the deduction that it was Crescent that Kido wanted to see. True enough, her deduction was correct. For when she stepped into the office, there stood Tachikawa Kei, Kazama Soya, Fuyushima Shinji and Jin.

The meeting began as soon as she arrived. She soon learnt that the reason for this meeting was that one of the planets were approaching Meeden soon. The futurer-seeing agent claimed that he did not see any humanoid Neighbors, but he did see a future where Border was being attacked.