Fynn had never felt such an intense obsession even in people that have fallen too deep to ever be pulled out. And he'd met serial killers who didn't hesitate to commit brutal murders for the target of their obsession.
…and when you are comparing someone to a serial killer, well, that says something?
The only reassuring thing about this insanity was that he seemed to have no intentions to commit any kind of violence or crime, and his intentions towards Aris were anything but harmful. On the contrary, his intents were so "pink" that Fynn felt second-hand embarrassment. He had seen many people who were totally smitten with someone, but even their intents weren't THIS pink!
And what was that? Under that blinding pink, did he see a suppressed intent to tease and play with Aris in a not-platonic-at-all way?? Bloody hell, so he wanted to fuck Aris hard after all!! Should he feel comforted that the man, while wanting to fuck him, had no intention of raping the little fellow?!
Usually, as long as someone had no intention of harming Aris, Fynn wouldn't have thought about it much; after all, Aris had countless pursuers. However, this man's wedding with Aris's sister was just around the corner!!! And what was he doing?!? Apparently getting smitten with her little brother and trying hard not to think about fucking him?!?
What the hell, man?! Are you trying to collect a full Cordia family set?? Marry the sister, fuck the little brother on the side?? This man should be a perverted swine without any sense of shame, but if so, why, the bloody hell, were his intents so sugary sweet??
And how come he didn't sense a single intent about his wife-to-be?? Did he forget he was getting married?!? Or did the existence of this fiancé simply slip his mind?!
Fynn… felt mightily confused.
The only explanation that he could think of is that this Levi guy had brain damage…
Fynn shot Noah a look and immediately felt gutted because it seemed that Noah really considered this Levi guy as a brother and treated him as such. Fynn once again had to swallow down his righteous indignation, 'How could you betray the little guy's pure intentions like this??'
Levi's sharp instincts immediately caught onto the fact that this inspector Fynn seemed to have something against him. And his brain-damaged head could only come up with a single reason why that would be the case: the other party must be jealous that he, Levi, had the privilege of caressing the little guy's head while he could only watch in envy!
Wanting to get out of this room, filled with suffocating and very perplexing intents, asap, Fynn cut to the chase, "Alright, let's get the formalities over with. You know the drill."
As an Intenter, he had a lot of freedom of what he could divulge about the case, but he had to confirm first that there were no conflicts of interest.
"Were you or anyone you know involved in causing this incident in any way?" Fynn recited from memory.
"No," Noah responded as Aris usually did.
"No," Levi answered, as a peackeeper himself, he was aware of the standard procedure.
Trey seeing the other two reply, just followed suit, "No."
Feeling no deceit in their replies, Fynn nodded and relaxed his posture.
"So, here's what we have so far," Fynn started, "We don't know why the Blazer went berserk. We didn't detect any drugs in his system."
He turned to Noah, "You raised a suspicion of reverse soothing? We found no evidence of there being any other soothers present at the station but you." Fynn quickly added, "Don't get me wrong, no one is suspecting you were responsible for the incident, we are just finding reverse soothing unlikely at this point. According to the witnesses and the Blazer himself, his mental state had deteriorated far too quickly for it to be caused by a reverse soothing. Maybe an SS-ranked Soother like you could do it, but lower ranked Soothers can't cause a power rampage with such speed."
"The Blazer woke up? What did he say?" Noah's eyes lit up with hope, but Fynn shook his head.
"The man has no idea what is going on. He works as a performance artist - he does various gimmicks with flames to entertain the audience. He claimed, and we verified this to be true, that he received an email yesterday from a potential client. The man wanted to discuss hiring him to perform at a party, so they set up a meeting this morning at the Maglev station."
Noah frowned, "So the Blazer showed up for the meeting, and then what? Suddenly his power went wild?"
"He waited for a while - the client never showed up. Just as he was about to leave, his power started to rampage. We tried locating this client, but the email was sent from a disposable email account that was accessed through various proxies. We were unable to locate where and whom it came from."
Noah's eyes narrowed, "Suspicious."
"Yes, though one could also claim that the client was just running late. And then the person he was supposed to meet went berserk and started setting things on fire, what could he do but hightail it out of there?"
Fynn sighed in frustration, "We were unable to find any conclusive evidence of it being premeditated. Personally though, I think the incident is too suspicious to be an accident."
"What about the sniper?" Noah suddenly remembered.
"By the time we arrived at the scene, he was long gone. And to be honest, we aren't even sure whether he is directly related to this incident or just happened to be there for other purposes. The bullet was shot from a popular night bar that had just been emptied from last night's activities. It was filled with all kinds of different scents from countless people, and we cannot pinpoint the scent that belonged to the sniper. There was no evidence left on the scene, and going through all the fingerprints left in a night bar after a workday will be very time-consuming."
"What about the bullet?" Noah brought it up, feeling hopeful. Surely something useful could be gleaned from there?
"That's actually the only concrete piece of evidence we have about the sniper. The bullet has no traces of gunpowder nor any other traces that it had been fired by a gun. However, we did find traces of power usage on the bullet. A bit more digging, and we could identify the type of power used."
Noah stared at Fynn enraptured, waiting for the man to continue talking. Levi, too was interested in this matter, but he found himself greatly displeased at how much attention the little guy was giving to this fourth party. How come he never looked at him with such rapture?
"The sniper is a Shooter." Fynn declared, "And neither a well-known figure nor a previous offender, otherwise we would have had his power signature in our database."
Shooters had the power to move things with their minds. They were named Shooters because they found it hard to move things slowly and had trouble changing the direction of movement. Due to this, when they used their power to move things, it often resulted in those things shooting in a specific direction.
"The glint that you guys saw wasn't a sniper rifle scope but probably some kind of magnifying lens that would allow him to see you better. Such as binoculars or a telescopic lens of a camera."
After a brief silence, Fynn continued, "So the real question is, what was the sniper trying to do? Who was he aiming for? Your bodyguard? Or was he aiming for you but missed? Accurately hitting a target from that far of a distance is no easy feat."
Fynn turned towards Trey, "Did you offend anyone recently?"
Trey's face showed a strange expression at the question: 'Does Astar Levi count?'
But in the end, he shook his head. "Not that I know off, though all of the other guards must be feeling very jealous that I was chosen for the position of young master's personal guard."
Fynn continued, "Can you think of anyone who would want to kill you? For any reason?"
Trey shook his head. He was a mature and composed person who didn't often get into arguments with people, nor was he prone to offending people due to carelessness. His steady and reliable character didn't even need to be mentioned since the biggest proof of it was his power.
Getting the answer that he had already expected, Fynn turned back to Noah. "I figured as much. If he was aiming for a Shielder, the most likely scenario is that he wanted the shield gone. We also can't rule out the possibility that his real target was you, Aris."