Issei's mixed voice sent shivers through everyone's soul.
Issei: did you guys find anything in the videos?
Grayfia: afraid not. We're sorry.
Issei: don't apologize. We keep looking. I'll show you one more video, this was meant for me specifically but in there's a single frame that might help. Issei played it and jumped straight to the frame, the same one in which Kuroka went from happy to scared and back to happy all in an instant.
Ajuka: no matter how I look at it I can't seem to figure out what she's going through.
Issei: damn it. She's scared right now and in pain, let's look at the videos again but this time let's check frame by frame, I don't care how long it takes.
Kiba: let's do it. We'll watch the videos in order as a start.
Gasper: everyone should pay attention to one or two aspects per frame in each video, this way there's a significantly less chance that we'll miss something.
Issei smiles with pride.
Issei: Gasper, I'm proud of you. I truly am.
Gasper gets a bit flustered.
Gasper: well.. I am a head of a vampire clan and ...I'm just.. keeping my promise.
Issei: glad you're still the same old Gasper I got to know back in Kuoh but now you're quite the clever guy. That idea if yours will be the key to finding her.
Gasper: thanks big bro.
Issei: so how's Valerie?
Gasper: happy. I left her in charge back in Romania. I trust her.
Rias and everyone looked at the tall, powerful and manly Gasper before their eyes who used to be just small shy little guy who was afraid of just about everything but no more. Among everyone in the large room, he grew up the most.
Akeno: so let's start right away, let's not keep her waiting and longer than we have to.
Azazel: right.
Everyone looks at the first video frame by frame, all 22 videos took quite some time, Issei focused on the expressions in her face, her words and keep tone. Azazel, Grayfia, Vali, Sirzechs and a few others focused on the backgrounds which was different in each video, the others focused on any other details that might be out of the ordinary. Evelyn smiled the whole time, she got to see her mom the whole time. Everyone took notes about what they found but someone of the videos didn't have anything that stood out in the way they expected but did so in another way. They were videos of her being the perfect mom to Evelyn to the best of her abilities given the situation. This is the woman she is and everyone got to see the real Kuroka, the one that Issei loved and mourned for about 15 years, the woman who had the loving warmth of a mother that brought peace to her child everytime she missed her. The last video was the most recent of Evelyn reaching out to her just as she faded away before Evelyn could hug her. Evelyn cried silently in Koneko's lap, it brought her comfort since Koneko is her aunt.
Rias: Issei......I now truly see why you miss her, she's the perfect woman and mother to Evelyn.
Issei smiled and had tears in his eyes.
Issei: and so much more.
Asia: you guys have the purest kind of love.
Issei: love? What we have is greater than some human word.
Arthur: that may be the most poetic thing you've ever said.
Everyone laughs in agreement including Issei.
Irina: well so far we got a bunch of numbers and alphabets. We just need to figure out the order.
Issei: why don't you all go get some rest? We have been at this for about..
He checks his phone.
Issei: 2 DAYS?
Cao Cao: it's been 2 days? We barely noticed.
Azazel: get some sleep everyone, we can figure this riddle out once we feel a little more refreshed.
Koneko: Evelyn here is already asleep. I'll take her to bed.
Issei: thanks Koneko.
Koneko: oh and Issei, why didn't you tell me that you married my sister?
Issei: I'm a mercenary and she's an assassin and her skills made her a spy as well. We couldn't risk anything and believe me when I say that we both wanted to tell you, all of you but 20 years or so of everything we went through proved that we need stealth and secrecy.
Koneko: well....can't argue with that.
Issei still felt guilty, he carried this burden all on his own but little by little it was being lifted.
Xenovia: alright I'm going to take a power nap.
Everyone: same here.
Grayfia: I'm going to make something to eat first.
Issei: I'll help.
Grayfia: no need, rest up. I can handle it. You're tired too.
Issei: if you say so.
Issei knows by now that he should argue with the strongest queen of the underworld. As Grayfia walks off Issei looks at the random numbers and alphabets.
Issei: I just know that these aren't random, could it be longitude and latitude? No there aren't enough digits for those. But what about the alphabets? A name of someone or something? A, r, e, s,i,m,g,t,u,m,d,u,c,l.
What do these mean? You sure know how to make a brain teaser love.
Issei goes through the frames which the others marked, some of them had a window in the background and through it Issei saw a grey..no silver figure.
Issei: who are you?
He teased a hint of his aura. Grayfia was the only one who noticed since she was still awake. She shows up.
Grayfia: Issei take a breath. I can see the bloodlust on you.
Issei: oh sorry.
He calms down but stares at the frames. She follows his line if sight.
Grayfia: who or what is that?
Issei: not sure. It's just a blurry silver figure.
Grayfia: and these alphabets?
Issei: not sure, Kuroka was pretty good at making such puzzles, it took me forever to figure them out.
She looks at the paper and grabs a pen and starts to rearrange the letters. He looks on. She wrote Agares stadium. His eyes went wide.
Issei: you got that with one glance. No surprise there.
Grayfia smiles.
Grayfia: I don't know what the other alphabets mean so let's try the numbers.
Issei: it's not longitude and latitude because there aren't enough digits. Maybe it's a date?
Grayfia: but which one? The numbers are 50213502.
Issei: maybe we have to think about some specific dates. Certain points in history that might leave clues. Longitude and latitude don't matter unless the digits aren't in some order so that only leaves time, no matter what order these numbers are in, they were, are and will be a certain point in time.
Grayfia: interesting.
Issei: a part of history involving someone with silver figure.
She gets serious.
Grayfia: or silver hair.
Issei: what do you mean?
Grayfia: only my family has silver hair in the underworld.
Issei: wait...aren't you and your family members all on the same side of peace?
Grayfia: all but one and we lost him during the war.
She looks at the remaining alphabets.
Grayfia: I hope I'm wrong.
She starts to rearrange the remaining alphabets. It spells a name she hasn't heard since the great war. Euclid.
She drops the pen and her hands starts shaking. Her eyes are full of fear, her biggest fear.
Issei: hey what's wrong? The commotion alerted the others. Sirzechs felt his wife going into a state of panic. His speed but Kiba to shame.
Sirzechs: what happened?
Issei: she wrote this name and then this happened.
He looked at the name and went pale.
Sirzechs: no.no.no..no NO. NOT HIM. WHY HIM?
Rias are you talking about?
He looks at her and then everyone else while trying to comfort Grayfia.
Sirzechs: Euclid is Grayfia's brother. He sided with the old devil faction during the war while we were on the other side. We were cursed to fight him and during all the fighting........I hit him with a powerful attack and....I thought I killed him. I though I killed someone whom I was hoping to call my brother since Grayfia and I fell for each other during that time. After I thought he was dead.....I couldn't look Grayfia in the eye or talk to her.
Grayfia looked her him and saw him trying to hold his tears back but he was struggling, even the former devil king still felt guilty.
Sirzechs: of all the enemies I killed during the war, he was the one I didn't want to kill. I just wanted to stop him.
La Fey: but it was an accident.
Sirzechs: regardless, he still fell by my hand.
Cao Cao: what if he's a victim like Kuroka?
Grayfia: no, don't do that, don't give me hope.
They look at her.
Grayfia: I know my brother or so I though I did until the war. He's a brilliant tactician, powerful and cunning. He was like those who sided with the old Satan factions, our entire family tried to convince him but he wouldn't even consider it. He may be my brother but not the one I used to know. He hasn't been the kind loving brother I grew up with. To me he's dead the day he betrayed our family and chose the side of chaos.
Sirzechs takes her to a room and stays with her to rest.
Akeno: that must have been difficult to say.
Asia: so what now?
Issei: we find my wife and see if Euclid is the cause of her going missing or is he just another victim.
Rias: how so think that he's not behind this? He's a member of the chaos brigade.
Issei: so were some of the people in this room, maybe he's changed during that time.
Bikou: you hope for the best don't you?
Azazel: but are you prepared for the worst?
Issei: about that..... Everyone keep this quiet. I have a plan.
Rias: do tell.
Issei: if he's the one who hurt her then I'll kill him myself. Don't let Grayfia know about this. She hates herself for not trying harder to convince him or stop him. She's hurting and she's angry. If she doesn't take that anger out on something other than herself then it'll be too much for her. If she fights him then all those bottled up emotions will come fourth and he might kill her she's not composed.
Ddraig: he's right. As a dragon I know a lot about rage and pent up emotions. Euclid will take full advantage of her emotional state to either fight along side him or he'll use it to take her down in an attempt to harm all of you.
Issei: just like how he might be using Kuroka against me.
The thought of his soul mate being used like that made him growl and made his eyes glow green.
Azazel and Vali look at the numbers and tried common methods to decode them. They tried rearranging the numbers to future dates since the past was figured out moments ago. They came with a combination.
Vali: guys... I think we figured it out. It's a date. 05-12-2035.
They check the date. They all say the same thing. The room is tense.
Irina: but that's today.
Issei: oh no. EVELYN.
He ran straight to her room where she and Koneko were in. He enters the room and find Koneko knocked out and sees a figure holding his sleeping daughter.
Issei froze. The others followed and saw the masked figure holding Evelyn but the figure wasn't moving from her spot. Her hands were shaking slightly and the look in her golden eyes was that of fear and sorrow.
Issei: K.. Kuroka?
Everyone looked at her with wide eyes as she begun to take shallow quick breaths. She was about to drop Evelyn but Issei managed to move and caught her from falling, once he did that he looked to the figure whom he assumed was Kuroka is now gone.
Asia checked on Koneko. Vali checked to see if Issei and Evelyn were okay, to his surprise he saw Issei smiling.
Vali: what are smiling about? Evelyn nearly got kidnapped.
Issei: Vali...it was her...that was Kuroka.
None could believe what he said.
Rossweisse: how can you tell?
Issei: her eyes, the same golden I stared into even though they now looked like she was struggling and the biggest give away was the way she held Evelyn, she laid her head on her shoulder and used one arm for support while she used the other arm to play with hair and pet her ears, it always helped Evelyn fall asleep. That's why Evelyn was so relaxed in her arms, she knew even in her sleep that her mother was holding her. She didn't hurt her or attack her, hell I don't think she even wanted to take her away.
He held Evelyn tight.
Baraqiel: I wish to know why her presence felt so different as compared to before.
Ajuka: and how did she find us? We put up multiple powerful barriers.
Issei chuckled.
Issei: as do I but then again she's a master of stealth after all. She could have been here the whole time and none of us even thought about it let alone notice it.
Evelyn wakes up.
Evelyn: papa....was..she here ....I thought I felt her presence.
Issei: yes sweetie....she was here a moment ago but don't worry. You'll see her soon.