He smiled sadly as he turned his head back slightly to give the stationary Shun Yin a glance.

"That's one of the things Angelica wanted to change. We wanted to change. To improve the Porter clan, get rid of their arrogance and traditionalistic views, and progress along with the times. Just like the Stuart clan."

Shun Yin nodded. From what he had heard, the Stuart family was pretty progressive and open-minded, not caring about bloodlines, lineages and family background. They were more practical and only cared about results. That did make them a little…callous and ruthless, but it was sometimes better than looking down on everyone else because they were "commoners."

"Well, good luck. Maybe we might stand a better chance of finding Angelica if we use several different methods."

With that, Michael was gone. Shun Yin pondered over his last words, and picked up the hint. While Michael would be employing the more traditional methods of searching when working in the Porter clan, he was free to experiment with radical search methods and explore avenues the Porter clan might otherwise not conceive of.

"I'll do my best," he vowed before he turned and headed for the Miyamoto dojo.

*

"…there's nothing here."

"Why are you following me?"

Shun Yin glared at Glen before he returned his attention back to the seemingly deserted warehouse at the outskirts of Vermillion City. He tried to ignore his friend's complaints as he studied the edge of the walls for any sign of tracks.

"Someone has to keep an eye on you, you know? The Porter clan still has their doubts regarding you. They know of your relations.h.i.+p with Angie…"

"I haven't seen her in nine years prior to the attack…except that one time when she visited me in the infirmary to check on my injuries. What kind of relations.h.i.+p can I possibly have with her?"

"Who knows?" Glen shrugged. "The adults knew that Angie continued to harbor affection for you. When her engagement with Charles was announced, she protested and resisted bitterly to the very end, even against her father. Said that she would rather marry you. Of course, the adults were having none of it, and wrote it off as a child's tantrum."

His expression then turned somber.

"Not much of a tantrum now, is it? n.o.body thought she would go as far as betraying the clan and vowing to destroy it. Can't blame her. They really pushed her over the edge. Placing that much pressure on her from such a young age, controlling every aspect of her life, to the point where they decided who she should love, who she should marry, how she should behave, what she should learn, where she should be. If anything, I'm surprised she didn't snap earlier."

Outwardly Shun Yin ignored Glen as he continued to search for more clues on the warehouse's walls. There were signs of battle here, with traces of mana left over from cast spells. He was looking for any sign of Angelica's fire spells and superheated mana and was disappointed not to find any. Not that he was surprised.

Inwardly, his chest ached. So while he was searching for ways to become stronger and training to become a hero, an ally of justice, the girl he loved was suffering from cruel injustice. He couldn't imagine what sort of ordeals Angelica suffered through – all alone – while he was busily occupying himself with his dreams to become a heroic ally of justice.

Compared to his childhood, Angelica had to endure through h.e.l.l – a h.e.l.l created by her own family, isolating her from everyone else while her so-called parents treated her like a puppet or tool to further the agenda of their great family. Michael was probably the only one who treated her decently, but he was often regarded by the family as an outcast, an eccentric who wasn't fit to succeed as the next head.

That was why they pa.s.sed over him to give the helm to Angelica. Angelica was deemed as someone with more potential, more talent than him. She was the once-in-lifetime genius, the person who could bring the Porter clan to greater heights. Compared to a prodigy like her, Michael seemed very average indeed, despite his very real achievements and all the work and contributions he had done for the family.

Reality was so unfair.

Cynically, Shun Yin wondered how the Porter clan was scrambling to declare Michael as the next head the moment Angelica turned her back on the family and betrayed them all. They put so much faith and invested so much in her, while holding no regard whatsoever for her psychological and emotional welfare, that the betrayal must be devastating and inconceivable. And now, their greatest weapon and tool had turned against them, almost guaranteeing their destruction. They had no choice but to turn to her still-loyal brother and pin their hopes on him instead.

Michael, being the valorous person he was, would certainly accept the role without complaint even though he had suffered quite the unfair mistreatment from them throughout these years. Not because he had any real attachment to the Porter clan, but because that was who he was. a responsible, heroic person who only selflessly cared about others without sparing a single thought for himself.

People might call him stupid, but that was exactly what Shun Yin admired Michael for, and why he aspired to become like him. To Shun Yin, the purity of that ideal, the n.o.ble sacrifice of himself to save others…that was beautiful. He had seen the reception of the people who were saved by Michael, the adoration he basked in, and while that was a secondary concern, he had to admit that he didn't hate that feeling.

Shun Yin hoped Michael was all right. It had been two weeks since he last saw him, when he received that letter from Angelica. He wondered how Michael was coping.

"So what did you find?"

Shun Yin snapped out of his thoughts when Glen's inquiry broke into his mind. He shook his head, partially to shake himself out of a daze.

"Nothing much. There was a battle here…seems like Michael was here."

"Eh? Cousin Mike? What was he…oh, never mind. If he was here, then it means that we were on the right track. But it also means we're too late and Angie and the shady organization she's working with have already moved out."

Shun Yin nodded distractedly, and then moved to the front door to enter the warehouse. There wasn't much stuff inside the warehouse – the interior was completely blackened, as if someone had incinerated the inside completely.

No doubt it was Michael.

"…this…"

Shun Yin knelt down next to a pile of ashes, instantly recognizing from the traces of mana that it had once been a person. An a.s.sa.s.sin, from the shadowy mana that stubbornly clung to his or her remnants.

"Michael fought a.s.sa.s.sins in here. Killed them all."

"Seems like it," Glen remarked dryly as he stared around at the scorched walls and floor. "We're late to the party. He didn't leave anything for us."

"That might not be true."

Shun Yin proceeded toward a singed computer terminal, which was covered in soot. Wiping off the ash and dust from it, he activated it and watched as a ma.s.sive hologram was projected above it, displaying a map.

"He left this for us." Shun Yin studied the holographic map and moved his fingers over the graphic overlay, thinking hard. "He even marked out several locations he thought we might want to check. Left a message saying we might want to make a copy of this before the Porter clan arrives to take everything."

"Hey, I'm from the Porter clan too!" Glen complained, but he glanced outside the door to keep watch while Shun Yin downloaded a copy of the map. "Or I'm supposed to be, but sometimes I think they regard me and my dad as outsiders. They're not going to listen to me if I try to tell them that we're helping with the investigation."

"Their pride is off the charts," Shun Yin agreed. "They will never accept help from anyone outside the Porter clan. And now that their future leader and heiress has betrayed them, I think they kind of suffered some sort of psychological blow and might become more paranoid. If your father wasn't around to help out, I think they would have rounded all the non-Porter and non-affiliated students in Vermillion High and lock them up in a concentration camp for interrogation."

"Ha ha, you're exaggerating. They wouldn't go that far. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they detain a few of the students and torture them for information. You'll probably be the top one in their list." Glen grimaced, and then glanced outside. "You done? I think they're here."

"Yeah." Shun Yin pulled out the micro flash drive and stuffed it into his pocket. "Let's go before they find us here."

The two high school students leaped up into a scorched and half-melted gantry on what seemed to be the second level of the warehouse. Carefully pus.h.i.+ng open a burned window, they vaulted out of the warehouse on the opposite side of the main entrance, and began moving quickly.

In the distance, they could hear the screeching of tires as the convoy of Porter clan cars and vehicles pulled up at the front of the warehouse, followed by the stampede of footsteps as Porter clan staff in suits and sungla.s.ses disembarked to conduct their own investigation of the warehouse.

"So where to next?" Glen asked as the duo continued to jog into the urban district.

Shun Yin paused for a moment, recalling what he saw in the map. One of the locations stood out particularly to him.

"Azure Aquarium."

"Huh?! Why the aquarium?!" Glen gasped in shock, totally not expecting the answer.

"That's one of the locations that Michael marked out in the map I just downloaded. And…" Shun Yin narrowed his eyes. "A possible place where they are conducting experiments."

"What kind of experiments? More spirit weapons? Why would they build spirit weapons in an aquarium of all places?" Glen was gaping at him.

"No, not spirit weapons. According to the data that Michael unearthed…the a.s.sa.s.sins' data in that computer terminal we found…" Shun Yin turned his head to stare at Glen gravely. "They aren't satisfied with spirit weapons alone. They want to summon an actual spirit into our dimension."