The aftermath of certain 'Events'.
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1. Rotten Casket - After the interrogation:
After answering the questions needed for Priest and Maguire, Dangreek and Paris were taken back to their respective cells and locked up.
"We had no choice, Paris. I am not ready to die!" Dangreek yelled from his cell, so Paris can hear.
"You made a mistake..."
"What? A little louder—"
"You made a mistake! Fucker! What makes you think, he will spare us?"
"Well... for that, he needs to be here or we need to be out... I don't think either of it will happen... We can deal with the assassins, though. He is a busy man, he will send assassins… We can deal with it." Paris assured him but got no reply back. "Hey?... Are you there? Why are you silent?"
Paris answered nothing. Concerned, Dangreek yelled to the guards.
Since none of the prison cells were directly opposite to each other, nobody could see what happened, actually.
But few of them noticed blood splashes in the corners of the wall.
The guards arrived. Dangreek broke down on hearing the news. The entire level 4 was shocked.
One week later, the answers of both Dangreek and Paris were sent to Maguire's office, along with the report of that incident.
'Prisoner in Level-4 named Paris, aged 25 was found dead in his cell with his head blown into pieces.
No explosives were found at the crime scene. Hence the cause of death remains unknown.
Current status of the case - UNSOLVED.'
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2. After Alina's Rescue - Rishi's Decision.
"Sir, your daughter's fine," Maguire informed Rishi who was outside the hospital room, where her daughter was resting.
"How many girls are unlucky?" Rishi cut to the chase. Maguire sighed saying nothing.
Looking at Maguire's face, Rishi realizes that the news was not light-hearted.
"Don't say anything, if it is confidential and sharing it with a janitor like me—"
"Sir, please... There were twenty other girls and few teenage boys found in the place... Nearly eleven of them were already in a critical state when we rescued them..."
"I heard the place had a very poor ventilation—"
"Lack of oxygen. Luckily, your daughter was exposed to an adequate amount of oxygen during that little car chase... But others weren't lucky. All the eleven were dead. Pretty much, most of them were minors—"
"The Devil! It is him, right?" Rishi asked, pointing out at Priest playing with the kids in the little playground outside.
"Yeah... it is him," Maguire answered while cursing himself internally.
'Why the hell him? And why now? Can't he find a better place to play?'
"I've heard only the rumors. The black suit, katana... but not this..."
"Not what, sir?" Maguire asked, confused by Rishi's cryptic question.
"I mean... look at him. If he is gonna eat those children, then it makes sense... But that doesn't seem to be the case... Smiling, laughing... those are cancer kids if you don't know. My daughter used to spend some time with them, before her breakup and spiraling to depression... I don't get it. He doesn't match with anything our government says to us..." Rishi sighed.
"Not ours, sir. It's the Cults. Our government actually never disclosed his identity. Pretty much for half of the Seventh Gate, he is nothing but a myth... A scary myth."
"Then why that myth didn't save those children. Oxygen! They would have got it too, right? Why did he choose to save one life when he could have saved the other nineteen lives? I am still grateful to him for going after my daughter though, but why?"
Maguire's mind spiraled into infinite questions. He wondered about that too, but in a rush to save Alina, he didn't dig deeper. Now, the questions arose once again inside him. Why the Priest or in a more apt way, the Devil didn't save the other kids?
"I have decided something..." Rishi's words alarmed Maguire from his spiraling thoughts.
"Is the operation... about these kidnappers?" Rishi asked.
"Yes, sir. And it's just not kidnapping... We have murder cases too... Actually, our officer Rakul—"
"I'll come back... Let's put together a team. I'll select them... I'll train them. These psychopaths need to pay!"
Maguire nodded with a very wide grin and bowed to his mentor.
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3. First Gate - Meet the Cults
It was a sunny morning in the First Gate. Unlike the Seventh Gate, there was no acidic rain and no flooding. People walked wearing costly clothes, rode on expensive cars, and ate food that could never reach the taste buds of people belonging to poor Gates.
The Cult chairmen got together for a meeting in the Cult Supreme's chamber, the top floor in the C-Scraper, which was the highest skyscraper in the First Gate.
"Welcome fellow Cult members! the food will arrive in a few minutes... Please, take your respective seats," the Cult Supreme, welcomed the other five with a gentle smile.
The five sat on their chairs at the round table, waiting for the food as well as for what Supreme has to say.
"Well, miss Supreme... what forced you to summon us here?" Third rank Cult member, Mr. JL asked.
"Mr. JL! Can't you wait for a few minutes? The Supreme knows when to speak up... Don't dare to insult her!" Second rank Cult member, Mr. I warned JL.
"Haa... Waving your tail, as usual, Mr.JL," Miss. W in a fake sexy accent jumped into the conversation, mocking Mr. JL.
"It's about our dear Devil... who won a fucking global war for us, so we could speak irrelevant nonsense here," Supreme silenced the three.
"What about him? We are shelling out lots of money on a weekly basis just for the media to continuously paint him as the bad guy." fourth-ranked member, Mr. BJ clarified.
"We fucking crashed a ship carrying foods for them, so the stakes will get impossibly higher, and the Devil will fail... but no. He dodged that bullet too." Miss. O said.
"The thing is... 'The Ritual murders' issue is attracting people all over the world. Seventh Gate is not the only one affected by these murders. It's happening all over the world and I don't want them to point fingers at us." Supreme made herself clear.
"We burned the copies of 'History Lesson' and deliberately left some pages unscathed, so people could assume that Devil is the evilest of evil who led humanity to its greatest fall... We should promote this topic more aggressively. Divert all these to the Devil. Connect the dots and make it look like the Devil is one of the reasons for the murders. It won't make any sense, but the words... they play the trick and some enthusiastic decoding g-tubers, will dig it, bury it again and repeat... It just won't die. We want him gone soon. But let us give him some time too..."
"What do you want us to do?" Mr. BJ asked.
Supreme smiled and cracked her knuckles.
"Solve the Ritual murders and use the help of the Devil. That idiot won't say no. And after resolving the problems, blame him for everything."
"Everything?" Miss. W asked chilled by Supreme's words.
Supreme grinned hard.
"Yeah, every fucking thing. Let's see how his stupid immortal spine gonna carry all these..."