10:30am, April 17th, 1955, Palermo, Sicily's Office, in the Chief's room
"You said there was a group of seven unknown arcanists appearing in the wedding's massacre?"
The man lightly tapped his finger on the table as he listened to the person on the other side of the telephone.
"They helped the Marino?"
"Uh-huh. I got it."
His expression darkened a little bit.
"How about their appearances?"
"A violent short guy with wolves, a tall woman wearing trousers and wide-brimmed hat, a freaky white and black-haired girl with balloons, an orange-haired chick and a gray-haired chick, the female boss who didn't talk much and a man who could summon an army helicopter?"
The man slightly raised his voice as he repeated the words of the other person. His tapping speed also became faster.
"I know who they are."
He answered in a calm manner.
"Yes. Let me handle them."
He hung up the phone and took a deep breath. As soon as he exhaled, he began to swear.
"Those f*cking stupid shithead mafias!"
He glared at the telephone and punched really hard on the table that created a resounding sound.
"Think you were powerful enough to deal with those people with superpowers on your own? You egotistical shithead!"
The more he recalled the disgusting, discriminatory looks on their faces, the more he wanted to shoot three times in the back of their heads. The man, or we could call him the Sicily's Chief, was extremely mad about how his temporary cooperators hadn't informed him about such a big deal until now.
"There's no record of any of them ever appearing in Sicily before April 15th, 1955. So their presence at the Marino clan's wedding might be just a coincidence."
He murmured to himself.
"Those Marino bastards were hard to be affiliated with."
"Even my current connection with them, no, the Sicily's Office with them, is thanks to the tireless attempt of the former's Chief."
The Marino clan's origin dated back to the 1850s. They weren't mafia at first, but a small group of Sicilian revolutionaries consisted of peasants, fisherman and lazzaroni who fought against the Bourbon's regime with the hope of regaining the independence of Sicily. They were just one of the revolutionary groups at that time and gradually expanded their clan from the unification of Italy period till now.
(*lazzaroni: the poorest of the lower class in the city)
What made them a mafia clan that could make other clans afraid of was neither the long history nor strong force, but their people who were at every corner of Sicily. It was really difficult to tell if someone you met accidentally on the street was actually a Marino, regardless of their age, gender or jobs.
The Sicily's Office was formed even before the beginning of the Marino clan. Originally, arcanists and humans kept their distance and didn't violate each other's boundaries. Nonetheless, that situation changed when the former Chief of the Sicily's Office proposed a friendship with a mafia clan during the 1910s.
The chosen mafia clan was the Marino clan, who didn't advocate prioritizing violence and had a large information network in Sicily. Miraculously, the former Chief succeeded in just 5 years with her ceaseless efforts.
From that time to the present, people from the Marino clan slowly lost their stigma towards arcanists to the extent that two groups of people could converse normally with each other.
After the Ferrozas's incident on January 23th, 1955, although it wasn't obvious, the people of Marino once again began to have a grudge against arcanists, except the one from Sicily's Office.
Once doubts arised, it was difficult to disappear.
There was no way those Marino would proactively tell them the details of Ferrozas's first case, not to mention the Timekeeper's team could convince the others to speak just by their small efforts in fighting.
He knew that those amateur investigators would return to Palermo soon to inform him about the Marino clan's massacre. However, there were three important things about the Timekeeper's team that he had underestimated.
Firstly, the Timekeeper's unit was never an amateur investigative group in the first place. In contrast to their youthful appearances, they had handled several cases involving arcanists and always completed them. They even confronted the most dangerous terrorist organization, Manus Vindictae.
Secondly, they had saved a plethora of people and fulfilled wishes of the most respected person of Marino. Not only they fought alongside the people of Marino to support the evacuation, but also protected the children and gave the injured dedicated treatment due to the two doctors in their team.
Finally, even in his dream, he wouldn't have expected that the Timekeeper's team were the messengers of the victim in the first case of Ferrozas.
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8:46am, April 17th, 1955, Taormina, in the house of a Marino member.
"These dishes were so good..."
The sound of forks hitting the plates and the soft sound of swallowing covered the small dining room. On the long table in the middle of the room, a variety of dishes which had red, yellow and light green as the main colors were made from the freshest ingredients in the early morning market.
"I think both my tongue and my belly are blessed."
Sonetto expressed her satisfaction as she finished the orange juice in her glass.
"Agree." Sitting next to her, Vertin nodded.
"I like the desserts a lot."
Balloon Party smiled happily with a watermelon-shaped marzipan in her hand.
"Can I bring them back to the suitcase?"
With a pair of puppy eyes, she politely asked the woman who cooked the food for them.
"Oh, you want to take some frutta martorana home? Of course, I have made a lot of them. This kind of sweets can last very long if you keep it in a cool place."
The affable woman nodded and gave Balloon Party instructions on how to preserve it.
"La signora, wrap me some of them too."
Pavia raised his head from the glass of granita made from figs and looked at the woman.
"Yes, I will prepare for you all."
The kind-hearted lady then looked back to Pavia with worried eyes.
"Young man, are you eating enough? You looked so thin!"
"I'm good. No need to care about me."
The man turned his sight back to the granita's glass and continued to enjoy it.
She wanted to talk to him more, but Vertin stopped her.
"Mrs. Marino, we really appreciated your delicious and hearty meal, as well as the warm water and new clothes you provided us."
As the team's representative, the gray-haired girl stood up, walked towards the woman, took off her hat and bowed.
"These trivial things can't be compared with your work." She held Vertin's hand tightly, "You saved my family. Nothing can ever be compared with that."
As if remembering something, she lightly slapped her forehead and asked Vertin.
"Where are the other two people in your group? I believed seeing them just a moment ago."
"They had some personal things to take care of."
Vertin replied.
"They will come back before we depart."
The woman nodded.
"Alright, I'm leaving. If you need anything else, just go to the opposite grocery store and tell me."
Twenty minutes after the woman left, Tennant and Click returned respectively. Tennant took a sip of the orange juice in the glass that was placed at her seat and told her teammates about her discovery.
"There are more and more obvious eyes "watching" us on the street."
She smiled amusingly.
"They are monitoring our every move after our interference in the massacre."
Click nodded in agreement with her words.
"From Catania airport to Palermo, then from Palermo to Taormina, those sewer rats have followed us from the beginning."
Pavia licked the remaining sweet sauce off his lips.
"This further proves there's really something wrong with the Sicily's Chief."
Sonetto knitted her eyebrows.
"Have you remembered anything about the mysterious drawings at the wedding scene yet?"
Vertin asked the short black hair girl who had been quiet for a long time.
"Based on the remaining lines we found, it was a kind of ritual."
Necrologist answered.
"I've asked some people who have expertise in cults about it. They all said it was a sacrificial ritual to summon something..."
She paused for a while and continued with a puzzled look on her face.
"...something horrible that couldn't be named."
Everyone in this room knew that those people whom Necrologist had talked to were the deceased in her tombstone. Though they didn't know if that information could be trusted or not, it was the only clue they could find now.
Hearing her words, the man who wore sunglasses laughed sarcastically.
"Is there something that can be more terrible than that Storm?"
"If yes, then..."
He leaned on the back of the chair and looked at the ceiling which was decorated with all phases of the moon.
"This world must be doomed."
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What was the situation of those seven arcanists after the reinforcement of the Marino clan and the Greco clan came?
They returned to their rented house and found that every object which could be used had already been destroyed. Even the car provided by the Sicily's Office was smashed into a pile of scrap metal. The walls were covered with many red crooked texts in Italian, which Pavia explained that were just some sh*t words from the losers.
Luckily, they didn't bring much luggages for this journey and all of the precious things were always carried with them. For example, Balloon Party and her balloon, Click with his photographer case and his cameras, Pavia with his sunglasses and his clothes, Necrologist and her glass cage, Sonetto and her glass pen, Tennant with her gun and jewelries, Vertin and her Timekeeper's outfit.
"So, the only valuable thing that we lost was money. Am I right?" Tennant concluded.
"Maybe? I don't know." Balloon Party shook her head.
"Let's find those Marinos. It's time for them to do what they said."
Pavia took the lead and others followed him. They walked down the street and stopped in front of a flower shop named Marino. Coincidentally, it was next to the gelato shop in which Pavia used to go.
"Oh, that was the gelato shop you told me about before."
Balloon Party pointed at the gelato shop and looked at the man with sunglasses.
"Yes, yes." He replied perfunctorily, "After meeting those Marinos, you will have a pile of money to buy as much gelato as you wish."
"I believe in your words." Balloon Party watched him closely.
"Whatever you want."
Pavia walked into the flower shop without showing much concern about her strange look.
And that was what happened before the scene in the dining room.
Now, they were on the way to Palermo in a new car that was provided by the Marino clan. Pavia was still their driver, Tennant sat next to him and the position of others at the back seat remained the same, including Click who was sitting on the car's roof.
"This is the fourth time I tried to contact Madam Z, but she didn't pick up."
Since knowing about the suspicious relation between the Sicily's Chief and other incidents, Sonetto had never relaxed for a moment. She was scared that if she missed any information, the situation would become worse and worse. Not being able to connect with Madam Z was like a small fire that began to ignite the peaceful field in her heart.
That was when Vertin used both of her hands to cover hers. As she felt the warmth spreading from the other hands to her hands, she just realized her hands were so cold.
"Don't worry, Sonetto."
She heard her childhood friend call her name. Unconsciously, she had changed her sight from their hands to Vertin's gray eyes.
"Everything will be alright. Trust me."
Still the same voice that contained a mysterious arcanum she didn't know the name. An arcanum that could persuade every person and make them follow her kind words.
Sonetto clearly knew that wasn't an arcanum at all, yet she still couldn't resist it.
"Thank you, Timekeeper."
After a few inhales and exhales while looking straight at those calm eyes, she heard herself saying.
"I'm fine now."
'A talented scammer but choosing a righteous way. What a pity.'
Tennant chuckled as she watched the interaction between the two girls at the back seat.
After a while, Pavia suddenly said.
"Let me tell you straight, Boss."
Pavia looked at Necrologist in the rearview mirror.
"I'm the one who ends my former boss' life in the future. And that damn old man is also the grandson of your 'customer'."
"Do you have any problem with that?"
He asked casually, as if the answer wouldn't matter to him at all.
"Mrs. Marino has rested in peace. What happens to him in the future won't be my responsibility anymore." Necrologist slightly shook her head.
"I like your attitude. Never nosy in other people's business." Pavia smiled.