Chapter 260: Seeds of Decpetion

Yeah, anyone with eyes could tell that Ashwin wasn’t buying my words. “Aisha, tell me what happened, in detail, it’s safe here.”

“I-”

But before I could answer further, two other men - some people pretty high up on the food chain if their demeanour was any indication - forced their way into the room and separated Ashwin from me. Playing the role of the pitiful, distraught sister, I flinched when they approached and clutched my wounds inadvertently. 

The Anomaly frowned, but otherwise kept his composure. “Noam, Tyler, what are you doing in my personal room?”

“Procedures, sir,” the bigger of the two said, “Any foreign entity coming in’s to be screened. You know this.”

“But this is my sister,” he said forcibly. 

“And it is precisely because it is your sister that we have to be extra careful, sir. You know how important your position is. It’s why Ryan dispatched the two of us here.”

I saw Ashwin grit his teeth. “And did he see anything with his ability?”

The two enforcers glanced at me, then back at Ashwin, their intentions clear.

“Speak,” he said, “I will hide nothing from my sister. And if she compromised or an imposter as you fear, then it wouldn’t matter if she hears it either way.”

This time, the other man spoke up. “What if there’s surveillance placed on her? The precautions-”

“Damn the precautions!” Ashwin all but shouted, “I have worked for you and your guild master for too long to be insulted like this. It isn’t like Ryan’s powers are a secret! Any enemies that we have will know of them before long, so I will say this one last time. Speak plainly. Did Ryan see anything with his ability?”

Interesting, it seemed like Ashwin was a more trusting individual than I thought. That, or his relationship with his sister, was better than I thought, although as an only child myself, I wasn’t privy to how siblings interacted in the first place. Either way, it was good to know that I could be a little bolder in my approach. 

“No, sir. None of the futures indicate that her being here poses an immediate risk.”

Hm, immediate risk, eh? So my first guess was that his ability to peer into the future, in whatever manner that might be - was indeed limited. Now the question was how limited that really was. 

Ashwin nodded, his mood still growing sour. “And did he pay adequate attention over here?”

“As much as he could, sir,” the bigger man said, “But you know the current situation demands a lot of his attention.”

Ah, more limits. How nice of these people to tell me so much. That means that if I wanted to do anything sneaky in the future, it was best to overload Ryan’s precognitive abilities with as much bullshit as I could. Easy enough to do when I commanded a secret coven of mutated cultists. 

“But enough to know that she is not a threat, or a spy, yes?”

“Yes, sir…”

Now, the anger in Ashwin’s voice was undeniable. “Then why are you still here? Why are you scaring my sister after she has suffered so much already?”

“We still have to follow the-”

Ashwin grabbed the man and all but threw him out the door. “Fuck the procedures! Now get out of my sight before I make you. I will be the judge on whether or not my sister is compromised.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

And just like that, the two burly men scrambled out of the room as quickly as they could. Ashwin shut the door behind us and sighed. “I apologize, Aisha. That… that was not something you should have seen.”

I winced again, subtly shuddering as I slowly backed off from Ashwin. I could see the pain in his expression when he noticed, along with a whole heap of guilt. Holy crap, this guy was so easy to manipulate. 

“The Emotional Redux skill and your ample Charisma attribute will do that to people, my Host.”

Oh, come on, Noe! Some of that’s gotta be me as well.

“And your superb ability to act like a vulnerable teenage girl.”

… I’ll find and remove that stupid “nonexistent” Sarcasm shard one of these days, Noe.

“I wish you the best of luck.”

“Um…” Now Ashwin was looking very unsure about how to act. 

Not surprising; he wanted to comfort his sister, but clearly that would be an issue. Plus, there was a war waging on currently, so he was also pressed for time. Right, it was time to take the initiative and sow the first seeds of discourse.

Now, my plan going forward was easy enough. Since I knew that Ryan and the ability to peer into the future, it means that everything I do could be watched and monitored by Ryan. With that in mind, it meant that I couldn’t just tell my naive “brother” here that he was the one responsible for inflicting the wounds on my body, not even indirectly so. Plus, I doubt that Ashwin would even believe me if I said it like that. He had no real reason to suspect Ryan at the moment. 

No, what I had to do was more subtle. I had to lead Ashwin into making his own assumptions: he had to arrive at the conclusion that I wanted, seemingly all by himself. That way, it’d be much more convincing than having someone else tell him what to believe. And that’s not even the best part. Oh no, if he puts all the hints and clues together himself, then there was almost no way that Ryan could know what was happening. As far as I could tell, the rival guild leader couldn’t read minds.

Finally, if it all works out the way that I want, then Ryan would be facing someone who knows all of his abilities and secrets way better than I do. While I might not be confident in fighting a future-seeing Anomaly given the limitations I had, pitting him against another Anomaly was another thing entirely. I’d trust Ashwin fucking over anything Ryan tries to do, especially if he’s driven by revenge. 

“Sorry,” I said finally, Noe making my voice sound weak, “I- I’m fine, really.”

Ashwin sighed. “I’m not blind. Those wounds weren’t caused by the aliens or by those weird monsters outside. Who did this to you, Aisha? You can trust me.”

My eyes darted around, but hovered just a little longer on the door. And as if recalling the earlier scene of the two men barging in, I shivered as well.

Ashwin didn’t miss the gesture. “Is it people like Noam and Tyler?”

I started to nod, as if subconsciously doing so, but then “accidentally” caught myself and shook my head instead. Once again, Ashwin’s superhuman reflexes and perception did not miss what I did.

“N-no. It was an accident… I fell.” I said, but I made it abundantly clear that I didn’t feel safe in this place. 

Ashwin didn’t believe that flimsy lie for a second, but he was considerate enough to not question it further. “I see…” 

I pulled myself closer, careful to avoid making eye contact with Ashwin.

“It’s okay, no one’s going to hurt you here. You’re safe.”

“Am I…?” I half whispered, so quietly that a normal human wouldn’t have been able to hear it. I deliberately made it sound like I was speaking to myself there. “They’ll find me again…”

Ashwin’s frown deepened, and he was smart enough to see that something wasn’t adding up. He knew that someone was targeting his sister, an Aspirant obviously, from the clues I’ve left, but he didn’t know which group that was yet. Of course, I wouldn’t tell him either, but I secretly smiled at myself for getting the first part of the plan rolling. He’d conduct some investigations on his own, which meant that it was time for my main body to act. 

But first, let’s point him in the right direction. 

“Please don’t leave me…” I said, “I-I’m not safe here.”

“Can you tell me more?” Ashwin said slowly, trying to ease more out of me. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

My eyes darted around again, paranoid that someone would overhear. 

As if noticing my reluctance, Ashwin pulled some kind of metal trinket out of his inventory and placed it on the door. He pushed a button on the thing, and a visible wave of force covered the room.

“There, Aisha,” he said confidently, “No one can hear us now. Trust me.”

“N-no, he can still see! He can see the fu-” I forced myself to stop. “Forget it. It’s nothing. I- I can’t tell you anything, Ashwin. I can’t.”

“That’s fine,” he said after a moment of contemplation. “I won’t ask you any more about that. But can you tell me how you got here first? Aren’t you supposed to be in the States?”

I pretended to think about it for a second before nodding. “Someone took me not long before those black things came through the sky. They knew I was your sister. They tried to… tried to…”

I shuddered again, curling into a ball.

“That’s fine,” Ashwin said hurriedly. “You don’t have to say any more. Someone took you, but you managed to escape here, right?”

I nodded. “W-when those cracks started to appear in the sky. One appeared close to where I was. I- I ran through one of those.”

Ashwin went wide-eyed for a second when he heard what I said and muttered something under his breath. “God must have helped you escape…”

Huh, god? Was he talking about a sponsor, or maybe even about the Trash Matrix or the Overseer? Hard to tell, but I was glad that I took the gamble of mentioning the cracks in space-time here. I didn’t have a good excuse about how Ashwin’s sister could have made it here, but if he filled in the blanks himself, then it was all well and good. Let him think it was the Trash Matrix of that idiot slimeball helping him out, all of that was to my favor. Plus, he wasn’t entirely wrong there. I was a god in this plane of existence, and it kind of was my fault that she got dragged here.

Still, I pretended not to know. “What was that?”

Ashwin shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just lucky that you made it here, where I was. Can you tell me anything else about the people who took you? I know you can’t speak about it openly, and I won’t force you, but any clue can help. Even something minor. I promise to protect you here, Aisha, but I can’t do that if I don’t know the enemy.”

“I…” I stopped, showing him just enough hesitation to make it appear as if I really was fighting the urge to say something, despite the risks.

“It’s okay, even something minor’s fine. Just give me something to work on, sis.”

Hm, it was about time to give little Ashwin here the first piece of the puzzle. I couldn’t give too much in fear of raising suspicion, but I couldn’t leave it all to luck either. I’ll give just enough to plant doubt in Ashwin’s mind.

Eventually, I gave a small nod and whispered. “They… they had the same uniforms as those two…”

Now that comment got his mind spinning. I don’t think he suspects his own forces quite yet, after all, it wouldn’t be impossible for any one of his foes to disguise themselves as members of Ryan’s guild, but it was enough to have him thinking. He’ll definitely investigate on his own now, which was exactly what I needed him to do. 

“Thank you, Aisha,” he said after some time, “I’ll… I’ll look into things.” He then took a small amulet out of his inventory and gave it to me. Wait a second, wasn’t this the same thing that Jae-Hyun gave to Yoona? Yeah, I was positive that it was. “Take that; you’ll be able to communicate with me if you wear it, and I can pinpoint your location as long as you have it with you. And don’t worry, I’ll know if it’s removed as well. I’ll rush back here if there’s even a hint of danger, so wear it and wait for me. Please.”

I took the offered necklace and put it around my neck. “I will… and thanks, Ashwin.”

“I’ll be back soon, I promise. There’s enough food and water here for a while, but you can ask Robert if you need anything else. You can trust him, I swear on it.” 

I nodded, and before I could say anything else, Ashwin left and shut the door behind him in a hurry. Well, guess it was time for my main body to do some work.