Twenty five minutes ago, in a private laboratory in Lorentz apartment
Tit...Tit...Tit...
"Oh."
Hearing a small sound coming out from his drawer, the boy who had an abnormal right eye with black sclera and yellow iris exclaimed in surprise. He stopped writing the report about the operation of the newest machine and pulled the drawer of his working desk.
Lying beneath the mess of objects, a spot of red light quickly flashed on and off continuously. The boy dug the mess by his hands and took out the device that was the source of strobe light.
"Well, she finally used it."
He smiled with a bit of satisfaction.
"Now, I should inform Madam Z and ask her to give permission for the foreign signal emitting from that invention of mine..."
Without any hesitation, X dropped his unfinished work and left the laboratory, muttering.
"...or else, the information security department will freak out."
As he activated the "TeLEPorT" floppy disk, he immediately appeared in the hall of the Foundation's Headquarter. Some staff members were startled by his sudden presence, but soon recognized his identity based on his ID card. X gave them a slight nod and a smile as greetings, then moved towards the predetermined direction.
When there was only one step to knock on the door of Madam Z's office room, X suddenly sneezed.
'Someone mentioned me just now?'
While thinking so, he took a tissue from his lab coat's pocket to wipe his nose.
'If that was my old customer, I hope they weren't accidentally killed by the errors of the products.'
With a usual friendly smile on his face, X knocked three times on the door and announced the people inside his arrival.
...........
"X has informed me about the emergency signal you sent. After trying to contact Sicily's Office and doing a few tests, we concluded that all the comms from Sicily were unable to connect with the Foundation." Madam Z said.
"Yes, this situation started last night or a few hours sooner, but the connection was still fine before 9 a.m yesterday." Vertin replied.
"There are some words from X you should hear first."
Madam Z passed the cell phone to X and asked the staff members from Laplace if they had determined the location of the devices emitting the jamming signals.
"We've located most of them, Madam!"
"Madam, we also spotted other jamming signals activated throughout Italy."
A staff member of the Laplace called her and pointed to the computer's screen. As she could see, various red dots stretched from North Italy to South Italy, creating a dense network. This meant that the culprits had prepared those things for a long time under the Foundation's nose.
"Hello, Vertin. I will be quick."
While talking to the phone, the boy's fingers were moving swiftly on the keyboard.
"Remember that the device you installed on your phone consumes a rather large amount of energy.Your phone's battery will soon be depleted in the next 7 minutes and 32 seconds. Make sure to keep your speech short."
"Furthermore, it can be installed with other cell phones coming from Laplace. The rules are still the same. That's all."
X returned the cell phone to Madam Z and continued on his extra work - creating another signal to disable those from the jamming devices. Of course, he didn't forget to call his "colleague" over to help.
"69742077696C6C2074616B652061207768696C65."
Despite talking in hexadecimal code and working at the same time, the typing speed of John Titor wasn't inferior to X's at all.
"Tell me about your current situation and what you've found."
Hearing Madam Z's words, Vertin calmly summarized the unexpected events that her team had encountered in the last two days.
"In the morning of April 17th, we found traces of a mysterious ritual at a wedding scene in Taormina, in which a massacre had taken place on the afternoon of April 16th. The victims and culprits at the scene of the massacre were all humans."
"On the way back to Palermo, our team was followed and attacked by the local mafias. At the same time, we happened to meet Mrs. Francesca Mozzoni, who was the former Chief of Sicily's Office. She provided us with a lot of useful information about that mysterious ritual, which she had been investigating for a while."
"According to our member Necrologist, who has the most knowledge in the aspect about rituals, that ritual is just one of the preparations for a greater one."
Vertin lowered her voice a bit.
"An ancient ritual that is used to resurrect the deceased - the reincarnation ritual."
"Reincarnation ritual?"
Instantly, Madam Z told another staff member to search for "the reincarnation ritual" in the Foundation's database.
"There is no record of a successful case yet. The previous ones all ended up turning into a false ritual."
"Something terrible will be summoned as a result. The latest case more than 1000 years ago showed that a town of 5000 people was wiped out."
As soon as Vertin completed her sentence, the detailed result of the reincarnation ritual also appeared on the staff's computer. He immediately printed it and gave it to Madam Z.
Madam Z skimmed the papers, comparing the information with what the Timekeeper just said. The comparison result matched more than 70%.
The second part of their investigation was narrated by Sonetto because Vertin believed that her friend had synthesized the clues efficiently and would handle this part better than herself.
"About our mission, after collating the information gathered from the case's report with statements from the victim, the witnesses and one of the perpetrators, we found out that Mr. Federico Zanelli, the current Chief of Sicily's Office, had given us an incomplete report with the missing of several important details."
The orange-haired chief assistant coherently spoke.
"The missing information is about an arcanist called Federico De Luca, who participated in both the two crimes written in the report. He was also involved in the appearance of many similar rituals, which were mostly found in several feuds throughout Sicily."
"Those rituals are also the same kind of ritual that Timekeeper just mentioned before."
"Based on the statements of another culprit called Giovanni Ferrozas, who is also an arcanist, Federico De Luca may begin setting his plan in 1954 or even before that."
"His arcane skill was determined to make his body and any object he touched become invisible."
"He never showed his appearance to his co-conspirator, but he owned a white lupara that had an M letter embossed on the butt of the gun."
"Thank you, Sonetto. I got all of them."
Madam Z replied.
"We will begin investigating all of the individuals you and Timekeeper mentioned."
"Also, the reinforcement will take some time to reach Sicily, since the "TeLEPorT" floppy disk is unable to activate in both Italy and Sicily's range."
"We understand, Madam." Sonetto seriously said.
"X just reminded me that there was only 2 minutes and 42 seconds left. Do you need something else?" Madam Z asked.
"Actually, we need you to look up a name in the registered arcanist database."
Vertin had had a hunch since she heard about the story of Mozzoni, especially after Sonetto gave her points about the connection between three people named Federico.
"What's the full name of Francesca Mozzoni's deceased son? Moreover, what's his innate arcane skill?"
As soon as Vertin finished her questions, Sonetto looked at her in surprise. She never thought that the Vertin would take her speculations seriously.
Seeing her gaze, Vertin nodded at Sonetto with her trustworthy expression, as if telling that her speculations were worthwhile.
In less than one minute, the search yielded results. With a surprising tone, Madam Z gave them an answer that connected almost all the dots of the case.
"His name is Federico De Luca and his ability is called Invisible."
"The day of his death was April 18th, 1945. The cause was the instability of his arcane skill that created an explosion of arcanum in his body."
"It's also tomorrow." said Vertin, while knitting her eyebrows.
"He died in 1945... That means it will reach 10 years tomorrow."
Sonetto widened her eyes.
"Mrs. Mozzoni had told me about the cemetery's name before."
The girl in black who quietly listened to them from the beginning suddenly said.
"We can go there to check if Mr. Federico is the chosen soul."
While Vertin nodded in agreement, her cell phone also ran out of battery.
When the team were about to prepare for the next step, Balloon Party raised her head and announced in an emotionless voice.
"My friend's balloon is broken."
Her light gray eyes gradually changed to a bright red color.
"He had promised that he would never break my balloon, so the one who broke it was..."
She glared coldly to a distant place, as if staring at the culprit who dared to break her friend's balloon.
"...definitely a bad adult."
A slight smile appeared on the girl with black and white pigtails, but others could clearly sense the craziness from it.
"You meant Mr. Click is now in danger, right?"
Tennant narrowed her eyes.
"Mr. Pavia, please give us a ride."
Necrologist turned her sight to the man who was twirling his knife, waiting for something.
"Sure, Boss. I'm also bored as hell here."
As the light reflected from the blade shined on the eyes hidden behind those sunglasses, Pavia grinned excitingly.
---------
At the same time, in an abandoned warehouse
Click could clearly feel his existence slowly swallowed by an unknown force. This process was terribly slow because his soul was an abnormal one, based on Miss Lily's words when she first saw him.
Neither he couldn't get out of this hidden ritual nor do anything else. If no one came to break the ritual and save him, Click estimated that he would disappear in the next ray of sunshine.
The reason that led him to this unfortunate situation was ironically just an accident, as the true victim was actually Mrs. Mozzoni, who had already escaped with his help.
Luckily, before she left, she remembered to break the balloon tied on his wrist. Furthermore, he also succeeded in capturing the real face of Federico Zanelli.
"I knew that the problem wasn't from my camera or my films..."
He murmured without worrying much about his next death, which was also the real death.
After all, Click thought that he had completed his assigned task perfectly.