That day was the first and only time in his relatively short life that Dirk Eberwein laughed out loud.
✦ ✦ ✦
The week after the championship match at the Lindvolus—and the wave of terrorist attacks that swept over Asterisk—was turbulent.
From the outcome alone, it seemed safe to say that the Golden Bough Alliance’s plans had been successfully thwarted.
Despite the scale of the destruction, the series of disturbances—which had since come to be known as the Golden Noontide in reference to the Jade Twilight Incident—had miraculously ended without a single fatality. This was due in large part to Stjarnagarm’s quick response and to the active efforts of students from the city’s six schools to bring the situation under control. By the evening of the championship match, all the puppets rampaging throughout the city had ceased functioning. Nonetheless, it had been a tragic affair—the number of injured was in excess of ten thousand, and several individuals were still missing, Madiath Mesa and Dirk Eberwein among them.
The fact that the Golden Noontide coincided with several other terrorist attacks taking place throughout the world also left a lasting impact on people’s memories. There had been several large-scale attacks, along with dozens of small- to medium-sized ones, which had unfortunately resulted in more than a few deaths.
While this information was withheld from the public, there was a strong possibility that those attacks had been instigated by the Varda-Vaos. The fact that they had continued to take place even after the Varda-Vaos’s destruction suggested that, just as the Orga Lux had said, once a train was set in motion, there was very little that could be done to stop it. Or perhaps there was something inside the terrorists themselves that spurred them on even after they were freed… That said, if the Orga Lux had survived, the number of attacks would surely have been several orders of magnitude higher—perhaps even several dozen orders of magnitude. Credit for preventing that lay with Claudia and her team, even if the matter had been handled in secret.
While Stjarnagarm had dealt with the incidents in the field, disclosure of information was ultimately the joint responsibility of the integrated enterprise foundations. For that reason, only the most general of outlines had been made public.
The instigators were a terrorist organization going by the name the Golden Bough Alliance, though their motives remained unclear, since no statement of responsibility had been issued either before or after. (There were several statements of dubious authenticity which surfaced, presumably hoping to take advantage of the situation, but there was little need to discuss them.)
However, it was difficult to believe that the incident in Asterisk was unrelated to the others taking place around the globe. So the public was left to assume that, like those, it had been a call for the liberation of Genestella and the expansion of their rights. The members of the Golden Bough Alliance were presently under investigation, with the likeliest suspects identified. Several had already been successfully neutralized. As such, there was little likelihood of further attacks… That was the gist of the information released by the integrated enterprise foundations. It was vague and lacking in substance, to put it mildly.
In reality, the integrated enterprise foundations had a fairly accurate picture of what the Golden Bough Alliance had been hoping to carry out. This was based on testimony from Orphelia, who had been responsible for executing their plan, and Ayato and the others, who had learned it directly from the individuals involved.
The only exception was the Varda-Vaos. Despite numerous testimonies, the existence of this unbelievable Orga Lux, possessed of its own free will and capable of hijacking people’s bodies and rewriting their personalities, had never been proven. In the end, there was no physical evidence. The integrated enterprise foundations could confirm that its victims had been subjected to brainwashing, and they were willing to acknowledge the existence of someone wielding such abilities, but that was as far as they would go. Galaxy, which had made its top priority the covert eradication of all records of the Varda-Vaos’s actions, must have been relieved by this outcome. Nonetheless, according to Claudia, the other integrated enterprise foundations were aware of the true situation, which was why she had taken care of the shattered remnants of the Orga Lux herself.
“This way, we have a hidden ace up our sleeves should we ever need it, don’t you think?” she had told the others.
It was true that they all knew too much. While Claudia had made a deal with Isabella to guarantee their safety, she was only one of the top executives, and there was no telling if the integrated enterprise foundations might end up changing their mind about Ayato and everyone else who knew the truth about the Varda-Vaos—just as they had already tried to eliminate Claudia once before. In that respect, the fact that Claudia was holding on to all the physical evidence should act as a decent deterrent.
But back to the topic at hand…
According to Claudia, the integrated enterprise foundations insisting on keeping things vague despite knowing the full truth was the result of what she called a “high-level political deal.” Madiath Mesa, one of the ringleaders, had been affiliated with Seidoukan; Dirk Eberwein, another ringleader, along with Orphelia Landlufen, who had been stopped in the act, had hailed from Le Wolfe; Ursula Svend, physically the third ringleader, though controlled by the Varda-Vaos, had been affiliated with Queenvale; Percival Gardner, an active perpetrator, though brainwashed, was a student at Gallardworth; while Ernesta Kühne, who provided the autonomous puppets that carried out the attacks, was from Allekant. A full five of Asterisk’s six schools and their parent integrated enterprise foundations were involved to one degree or another. Any attempt to hold the other organizations to account would quickly lead to finger-pointing. Of course, Galaxy and Solnage, from whom the masterminds hailed, were more to blame than the others, but that was only a matter of degree. And besides, the very fact of their involvement couldn’t be publicly revealed. So for the mutual benefit of all parties, it was agreed that details regarding the suspects and individuals involved would be withheld. The only party that held any real advantage was Jie Long, which had nothing to do with the Golden Bough Alliance—but if they were to oppose the decision, it would be five against one, and their protests would be easily quashed. From their perspective, it was better to put their competitors in their debt.
As a result, Ayato and the others, who had effectively thwarted the Golden Bough Alliance, received no praise for their achievements. But then again, they hadn’t done it for recognition. In fact, Isabella, Helga, and Haruka had each given them a sound scolding for taking action on their own.
On the other hand, there were benefits to handling everything with the utmost secrecy, and the fact that those involved in the Golden Bough Alliance hadn’t been publicly exposed meant that there was room for compromise. In particular, there was a strong sense that the two individuals most affected by the Varda-Vaos’s brainwashing—Ursula and Percival—were ultimately victims, and thanks to Claudia’s intercessions, their punishment was considerably lessened. Ayato and the others had to sign multiple nondisclosure agreements with the integrated enterprise foundations, but all in all, that was probably a small price to pay.