"Aye, young lady. To that much I shall acquiesce." Okira bowed before Ava. Drake wasn't sure if it was mockingly, but the old man did so with such reverence that it appeared, at least for the moment, to be genuine.

"Please continue," Drake pleaded, anxious that the story not digress from what he needed to know. He needed all the information he could get his hands on if he was ever going to be able to track Fala down. Part of him was disappointed. Here she was again, so far ahead of him. No matter how far ahead he got, he seemed to come to every checkpoint to find a beacon she had left, the note that always said, 'Fala was here'. All he did was follow lamely in her footsteps.

Okira nodded.

"Your sister was ahead of us by a significant margin. To this day, I know not how she managed to obtain the information she had, but we are grateful that she had elected to share it with us."

"Share?" There was an odd note of sarcasm in Ava's voice. "Do you not realize why it was that Fala gave something so important to the Utter Darkness?" Ava rose defiantly to her feet, her eyes glaring at the group before her. Drake found it strangely attractive that the young girl was standing up so much for what she believed in.

A sigh escaped from the old man, and he smiled at Ava. "Fala knew there was strength in numbers," Okira finished, his eyes once again downcast. "Aye, young lady, I know it well. We were used as insurance. In the event Fala was caught, there would be many to take up the fight after her. We are but pawns in this grand game cleverly orchestrated by Fala Riordan."

"And what are the stakes of the game?" Drake was also getting impatient. There were too many pieces to this tale. He needed to see the whole before he could look at the parts.

"Treaty 7745," the old man said simply. "I shall tell you know what your sister has uncovered, the significance of it all, and why the two of you are in danger for having come here." The old man had stopped pacing and was gently stroking his pointy beard. Straik had been watching them like a hawk, his gaze never leaving either of them for very long.

"Treaty 7745 is the government's code name for something called the Goddess Pact. This was something Amaterasu initiated on her own, long ago. She elected to give control of her powers to a human. To this day, no one knows why." Okira paused to see their reaction to the revelation.

"While that is significant in and of itself, what is more significant is that the rest of the Deities followed suit, granting their powers to other humans, called Vessels. The Vessels have the ability to call upon a Deity and channel that Deity's power. You are familiar with mediums, I suppose?"

Both Drake and Ava nodded. "The mediums could use the Goddess Essence, unaided by technology such as the Kurokyuu Orbs. Something akin to magic," Ava said.

"That is correct." The old man was silent again for a short time. "The Vessels were on a different level, however. Where the mediums can tap into the Goddess Essence, the Vessels could tap directly into the source energy, which is the Deities themselves."

"Are there Mediums of both light and dark?" Drake heard Ava ask the question. This was getting to be interesting.

"The young lady lady is very astute," Okira said smiling. Okira complimenting the Upper Platers? Drake found it amusing.

"Indeed, it has been said that there were Mediums of the both the Dark and the Light. In ancient times, both co-existed, with the mediums of the dark representing the forces of the Yami."

"The Shadows," Drake said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I see them. Almost every day, in my dreams. Wraithlike, a strange cackling sound. They torment me endlessly."

Okira started at this revelation. "You have seen the Shadows in your dream?" Okira glanced at the others. Everyone had a fearful look in their eyes. "It is said that the Shakryss reveal themselves only to those by whom they wish to be seen." Okira had started pacing again, his gray robes trailing the dirty, dusty floor of the Union Jack.

"There is more to the story." The old man started to speak in hushed tones. "The discovery of the existence of Treaty 7745 gave rise to something called Project Maiden. There was a prophecy, one that speaks about two Maidens, a Maiden of the Light and a Maiden of the Dark. One would be beholden to the Goddess, and another equally beholden to the Darkness, to the Nameless One."

Okira looked a little frightened, and appeared to be lost in memory. "Project Maiden was an initiative that the government started three hundred years ago, in order to locate both Maidens. To my knowledge, they have been unsuccessful."

"But whatever it was that your sister had stumbled upon, it must have been pretty significant. That she invoked Treaty 7745 with the words after that, I can only think of one thing. The legends are true, and that the Maidens exist."

"Your sister somehow connected the dots in this scenario. There is a relationship between Diskarma, the desert nation of Yin, and the attack of the Yami. She left us a cryptic message right before she disappeared. The message seems to connect with the line you have."

Okira lifted his communicator close to his and read out loud. "The darkness holds the key to the riddle of the ages."

"The Goddess waits where she is needed the most," Drake finished.

"The Vessel is among us." Okira nodded. "And with that, proof the Goddess remains, here on Kuro."

Drake nodded. "What must we do next?"

Okira nodded, stroking his beard as he did so. "The answer is easy, but what comes next isn't. We seek the Vessel. To find the Vessel is to find the Goddess."

"If we are to believe what Fala has sent me..." Drake began. "We will find the Vessel right here in the Utter Darkness, under the government's very noses."

Okira nodded. "Yes." He moved around, looking at the rows and rows of hackers, all heads turned in their direction.

"Unfortunately, Fala missed a vital piece of information, or I should say, she met misfortune before she had the chance to come across it..." Okira tensed up a little, bit, as if he was unsure of what to say next. "I am sorry...I did not mean to imply... "

Drake's response was curt, but grave. "Her partner Gustav Winzner was found dead somewhere around the Number Three Reactor. I am under no illusions."

Okira turned grave at that point. "If what you say is true, then we have lost our most important source for all of this information."

"What information was Fala missing?" Drake demanded again. He could not sit idly by, knowing now what his sister had discovered. He did not wish to accept that she might be dead. Not yet.

"The Vessel has been found," came Okira's simple reply.

Drake's eyes widened at this.

"There was an incident. A group of Marauders on a routine hunt found themselves exterminated at the hands of a girl who had the power to manifest the Sun." Okira paused for effect, smiling at the stunned faces of Drake and Ava.

"The government knows this," Okira continued. "They track the Vessel across the forest of Koroboku. She heads for Umi with her companions. Our guess is that they mean to cross the Great Darkness, past the Boundary of Light. We must find them before they can leave –"

Before Okira could finish, the lights in the room suddenly went dark all around. The hacker computers shut off in unison. Chaos ensued. Drake fumbled in the darkness, trying to find his bearings amidst the confusion. He heard the hackers angrily talking as the furor in the room grew louder.

Moments later, the lights came back, and the computers turned back on. As the screens came on and the connections resumed, it became evident the computers were behaving strangely. A repeating pattern of characters kept showing up on the screens. Every single computer in the Union Jack exhibited the strange pattern. Suddenly, they stopped and a message was displayed on them, too far to make out from where Drake was standing. Dumbfounded, he turned to Okira to see the old man laughing out loud. He gave Drake's shoulders a couple of hearty taps, all the while shaking his head.

"Well done, Fala Riordan," Okira exclaimed. "Well done."

Drake ran up to one of the screens, unable to contain himself. When he read the contents, he broke out into a giant grin and began laughing uncontrollably.

Hey Drakie - I knew you were the kid for the job! There was no way I could have gotten this virus past the security systems the government put in place from the embargo. I needed someone to hand-deliver it to the Utter Darkness. Lookie-lookie! You did just that! I've commandeered Okira's systems. Let's have fun!

Love,

Fala.