"...I didn’t actually think about that part," Aren admitted honestly.
Emily let out a quiet laugh, though it was soft enough that it almost sounded like she was simply exhaling.
Aren rubbed the back of his neck slightly.
"Well," he said after a mont, "na your conditions first. I’ll see if I can match them."
She stared at him for a while before snorting softly and waving a hand dismissively.
"I’m kidding."
Aren frowned slightly. "You are?"
She leaned back in her chair again, taking another calm sip of her coffee.
"I’m in."
Daniel blinked.
"...That was fast."
"You sure?" Aren tilted his head slightly. "The operation could be dangerous, and it’s connected to a pretty large company."
"So asking for compensation would make sense."
Emily pushed her glasses up again, the faintest hint of amusent still in her expression.
"That’s true."
She paused for a mont before continuing. "But you already helped ."
Aren blinked.
"...I did?"
Emily nodded once.
"The Orientation Exchange."
Emily rested her chin lightly against her hand.
"My second Elent is actually Lightning, so I was considering changing over to the Lightning Departnt."
"However, they have a long history of losing the Exchange, which ant their funding was always low."
"So I was worried my cultivation might stall."
"But lo and behold," she said with a small smile, "a freshman suddenly shows up and wins the Exchange for us."
"I didn’t really think of it like that," Aren shrugged slightly. "I was mostly in it so Professor Sterling would get off my back."
"Well, whatever the case was...You still did it," Emily’s lips curved slightly. "So consider this my way of returning the favor."
Aren nodded and had already started picturing the plan in his head. But the more he thought about it, the less comfortable the idea felt.
He frowned slightly.
"...Hold on."
Daniel glanced at him. "What?"
Aren tapped the edge of the table absentmindedly.
"This concert tonight..." he sighed. "It’s Miu’s first show back after the Lorianne Incident."
Emily remained quiet, but her eyes shifted between the two of them.
Aren leaned back slightly in his chair.
"She’s been gone for a year," he continued. "And this is basically her coback."
Daniel’s expression slowly changed as the thought sank in.
"...Yeah," he muttered.
"If we cause a big enough commotion outside the venue to pull Argent Shield away..."
He shrugged faintly. "There’s a good chance the concert gets cancelled."
Aren ran a hand through his hair, rembering what she said the night before.
"If I sang loud enough, the stars would notice and finally peek through the smog."
Daniel let out a quiet sigh before realizing what Aren was implying. "...That would pretty much ruin her coback."
"Yeah," Aren admitted. "Probably would."
He weighed the dilemma in his head. To go through with the plan and shatter her hopes? Or to finish his own commission and get it over with?
The plan that had seed straightforward just minutes ago now felt far more complicated. After a mont of silence, Aren finally ended up with a decision.
More than his client, Miu was...soone that he related to. Soone who struggled just as much as he did to get where she was today.
"We won’t go through with the plan then," Aren sighed softly.
Daniel leaned forward again, resting his elbows on the table.
"So," he said.
"What do we do instead?"
For a mont, the only other sounds that filled the space was the background chatter of the café. Aren had just opened his mouth to respond when a sharp electronic beep suddenly cut through.
Emily was already reaching for the small laptop sitting beside her coffee.
"Hold on."
Her fingers moved quickly across the keyboard as another sound echoed from the device.
"...Well," she muttered under her breath. "We seem to have a solution."
Emily tilted the screen slightly so the two of them could see.
"Before coming here, I helped Daniel install a small relay node inside the Imperial Auditorium," she said calmly. "Just a small wiretap piggybacking off the venue’s internal network."
She handed both Aren and Daniel an extra pair of earbuds. They both put it in hastily and listened.
Then a voice ca through.
"...—seriously don’t get why we need this many guys for a damn concert."
Another man snorted. "Orders are orders. You want to complain, go take it up with Han."
"Yeah right," the first voice muttered. "Like the director would even look at us."
For a few seconds, there was nothing but static background noise. Then a third voice entered the channel.
"Enough chatter."
The other two imdiately quieted. "What’s the status of the equipnt?" the commanding voice asked.
"Running fine, sir," one of the grunts replied quickly. "The tech team finished calibrating it earlier."
"...And the harvest?" the voice asked.
"It’s going smoothly," the grunt answered. "We’ll be able to extract from the crowd normally. Just like the research division predicted."
Emily’s fingers froze above the keyboard.
A second grunt spoke up, curiosity creeping into his tone.
"Hey...sir?"
"What."
"Do we need to keep doing this again?" the man asked hesitantly. "I an...these operations."
There was a brief pause, then the commanding voice replied calmly.
"No."
"This will be our last use for Miu Harmonia."
Both Daniel and Aren froze at the ntion of her na.
"Last use?"
"We’ll extract everything we can tonight," the man continued evenly. "Once the concert ends, the ’cleaners’ will move in."
"And the idol?" the grunt asked.
A soft chuckle echoed faintly through the transmission.
"We’ll pin the incident on her and them."
Aren’s hand slowly clenched on the edge of the table.
"By the ti anyone figures out what happened..."
"...We’ll already be gone," the voice said sharply. "We’ll have a full tank, and by then we’ll be able to start the process once more."
The line fell silent. For a mont, there was only the dull hiss of static lingering in their ears.
"...That was from the guards," Daniel said finally, his voice lower than before.
Aren leaned back slightly in his chair, his brows furrowed.
"Harvest..." he repeated quietly. "What the hell do they even an by that?"
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yeah... I caught that too."
He looked between the two of them. "They’re collecting sothing."
Emily’s fingers hovered over the laptop, replaying the last few lines of the recording in her mind.
"’Last use for Miu Harmonia,’" she murmured.
Outside the café window, a giant digital billboard flickered to life across the street.
Miu’s smiling face filled the screen, bright lights and glittering text announcing tonight’s coback concert.
Daniel scratched the back of his head.
"So..."
He glanced between the two of them.
"...they were already planning sothing for tonight."
Aren nodded but his eyes were fixed onto the static laptop screen.
"Whatever it is..."
"They were planning to get rid of her from the start."
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