Chapter 143: Double Games
Paris stretched out before them like a luminous beast, pulsating and unaware of the two shadows from another world observing it. Modern skyscrapers, with their glass facades reflecting the last rays of twilight, stood proudly alongside century-old Haussmannian buildings. On the boulevards, car headlights paraded like hurried fireflies, tracing ephemeral lines of fire in the growing darkness.
In a narrow, damp alley in the 14th arrondissement, hidden between two decrepit buildings, Ygdrasyle looked up at the Parisian sky. He studied the position of the moon, barely visible behind a veil of low clouds, before pulling on the sleeve of his black coat, a mechanical gesture betraying an inner tension he was struggling to control.
- "Our first mission is clear," he murmured in a low but intense voice, each syllable carried by an icy determination. "To operate in this world, we need a legal identity. Papers. Something to exist in their records... Something to become ghosts among the living."
Mordred, leaning against a worn brick wall covered with faded graffiti, slowly nodded. The light from a dying streetlamp filtered through the night mist, casting an orange glow on his severe features, sculpting his shadows like invisible scars.
- "Yes," he replied, his voice like a distant echo. "And for that, we need to know where these papers are made."
In his eyes shone knowledge that should not have been his. Behind his gaze, Isaac’s memories struggled like fish caught in the meshes of a net pulled too tight.
Ygdrasyle nodded, his thin lips stretching into a barely perceptible smile. "I’ve spotted several buildings with a strong administrative concentration. One of them bears the name ’Bureau des Chasseurs’ (Hunters’ Office). If they’re the ones handling anomalies like us, that’s probably where we should look."
Mordred imperceptibly lowered his eyes, hiding a flash of knowledge behind his half-closed eyelids. Of course, he knew it wasn’t there. He knew everything: the buildings, the procedures, the administrative circuits... Every fragment of knowledge that Isaac had accumulated during his human life, he now carried within himself like a second skin, both familiar and foreign.
- "Good," he said, straightening up, his shoulders tense like those of a predator about to pounce. "Let’s go fishing for information."
The night enveloped them in its inky cloak as they separated, each slipping into the darkness like the very essence of shadows.
Dawn tinted Paris with a pale light, revealing a city awakening in the morning mist. True to their plan, they separated for the day.