After setting aside her luggage, Serafall came down and saw that tea and some snacks were already prepared for her. Although not explicitly for her, Ophis also started attacking those snacks but Akeno didn't oppose her actions.
Akeno, ignoring Ophis' actions, was fiddling with her smartphone with furrowed brows. While she was busy, Serafall sat in front of her, "Got the news now?"
Akeno stayed silent for a few seconds before putting down her phone and looked towards Serafall, "Are you fine with this, Serafall-sama?"
Serafall answered after taking a sip from her tea, "It's fine. I realized that I shouldn't go about it the way I've been doing it and without any evidence, I can't prove Ki-tan's innocence even if there are people who would believe my words. This way, although I don't have many options to take, I have a lot more freedom."
Akeno nodded in understanding and stayed silent for a moment before asking what she had been curious about, "Uhmm... Where is Urahara-san?"
Serafall furrowed her brows and glared at Akeno after hearing her question.
Immediately shaking her head and putting both of her hands up, Akeno hurriedly defended herself, "N-no! Please don't misunderstand! I also believe that he's innocent, despite his poor track of record of messing with others. I'm just curious as to where he is!" Akeno, however, couldn't honestly tell her that she felt something inside her disappeared along with him and that the real reason she hanged out in the shop waiting for his return, was to further understand this feeling.
After seeing her reaction, Serafall suddenly grinned, "Don't worry~. I'm just messing with you. You wouldn't be taking care of Ophis-chan silently if you thought otherwise."
With a twitching mouth, Akeno replied, "Please don't do these kinds of jokes. It's really bad for my heart."
Serafall chuckled, lightening the mood a little bit because she noticed that Akeno was getting tense and she didn't want to start their talk with her mind not working properly, "Returning to your question, I don't know where Ki-tan, Sona-chan, and the rest of the missing people who're connected to him are."
Akeno looked down and bit her lips, "I see... So you also have no idea where Koneko-chan might be."
"But you don't have to worry. They're fine." Serafall started helping herself with the snacks on the table.
"Hmm? What do you mean?"
"Remember what happened after two weeks of his initial disappearance?"
Akeno nodded, "Yes. That's the last time that Urahara-san's aura was felt... It's also the day that Koneko and Aika Kiryuu disappeared somewhere and the momentary clash between two very strong entities." She then peeked towards Ophis who was still silently eating her snacks.
Serafall then confirmed Akeno's thoughts, "It's as you've guessed. The clash that happened that day is between Ophis-chan and the only other entity that can match her, the Great Red."
"What does it have to do with Koneko-chan's disappearance?"
"I've guessed that Koneko-chan and Aika-chan have some ways to contact Kisuke. Although I don't know why they only did so after two weeks have passed, I know for sure that they're with him right now because that day, I received a note from Ki-tan that they'll be going somewhere far away and with him are Yoruichi-chan, Aika-chan, and Koneko-chan."
Akeno sighed in slight relief but along with it was a pang of jealousy. Shaking her head out of these thoughts, she continued to ask, "Then why haven't they contacted any of us? It's been a week since then."
Serafall shook her head, "I don't know. But instead of going somewhere, I think they have been whisked away to some unknown place."
"...Why do you think that's the case?"
Instead of answering Akeno's question, Serafall faced Ophis and asked, "Ophis-chan, do you really not know where they are?"
Ophis momentarily stopped her snacking and shook her head.
Serafall then returned her attention to Akeno, "And there you have it. The whole Dimensional Gap is her domain and for her not being able to find Ki-tan and the fact that he hasn't contacted anyone since then, their group might have been trapped in a strange space."
"...What should we do?"
"For now, how about you tell me what you're doing here?"
Akeno nodded and started her story.
Ever since the incident three weeks ago, Akeno was tasked to look out and investigate Kisuke's mother's, Sakura Urahara, whereabouts and well being along with making sure no one would needlessly approach Aika's parents before that duty was taken off her by the Sitri House.
Needless to say, Akeno wasn't able to gather even a bit of information regarding Sakura. It was as if she suddenly disappeared into thin air.
It was also around this time that Azazel became the advisor of the Research Occult Club so that he could help everyone from the Rias Gremory Peerage become stronger. However, Akeno thought he did it to monitor their group as they had an extensive connection with Kisuke Urahara prior to this incident, because, at one time, he tried to sound them out about their knowledge of the basement where the corpses of the Devils were found.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened in the first two weeks as Sirzechs and Azazel were keeping others away from them. But when Aika and Koneko suddenly disappeared along with the resurfacing of Kisuke's aura and that strange clash, everyone became hectic again but the Azazel's first move was to cover up their disappearance so that they wouldn't be suspected.
With Sirzechs private squad, led by Grayfia and Azazel's men, they secretly tried to find the whereabouts of the two girls, and this time, they were able to find something which made them happy for a moment.
They discovered some traces of teleportation magic in one of Kuoh Academy's empty classrooms, along with Koneko's lingering aura and two others. Grayfia,with the help of top experts of the Fallen Angels, including Azazel, was able to bring out the magic circle they used to teleport and from there it should have been easy to reverse engineer it and get its destination.
However, it almost made them lose their minds, because each time they would analyze the magic circle, it would point them to a certain location but after analyzing it a second time to check the results, they would discover another location. After a week of analyzing, they discovered over 100 locations and confirmed that none of them was the real destination.
Realizing the scale of the magic circle, everyone investigating calculated that the resulting magic wave should have alerted everyone in the Kuoh Academy that time but they knew for sure that the girls disappeared silently as there was always someone monitoring the school. They thought that this magic circle was just a distraction and the girls used some other way to leave.
It was only after taking their attention off the magic circle that Azazel discovered something wrong with the classroom itself. After investigating it, Azazel uncovered the etching of a formation that concealed every magic activity in the room. Akeno could still remember Azazel's words that day, "We've been had... Kisuke had already created an escape route for the girls long before this incident happened."
Editors:
28th00
Garan
Ashe Candy
Alexander