Being questioned by Japanese police proved to be as equally boring and as equally a waste of time as being questioned by American police. Although it was a real pity that he ended up not making it in time for his interview at Kaneyama Tech, bumping into the bar master of his favorite bar Ama-no-Iwato was a stroke of luck. Having been gifted a premium bottle of Japanese rice wine, Agent Nicolas headed straight home, and proceeded to “treat” all the “stress” that he had suffered from the mess that he had gotten wrapped up in. In other words, he ended up breaking his sobriety vow of two months ago (which had actually been a record for him).
As he himself had caused a negative impression by not making it to the interview, Agent Nicolas had his subordinate infiltrate Kaneyama Tech in his stead. Of course, his subordinate reacted to the order with exasperation and a few choice words, but he still complied, albeit reluctantly. The exemplary CIA agents under Agent Nicolas had gotten used to having to deal with the troubles caused by their boss’ reprehensible drinking habit.
It wasn’t long until their dull and steady investigation saw a turning point: supernatural phenomena suddenly started appearing all over the world.
The intelligence agencies of each country first approached the news with suspicion and caution. Ever since the Super Water Sphere Incident, there had been no shortage of false alarms about UMAs and UFOs and espers and magicians and everything else imaginable. Therefore at first, the reports about these supernatural phenomena got buried among all the other reports and therefore did not draw much attention.
However, by the second day, confirmation regarding their veracity starting coming in, and the intelligence agencies all flew into an uproar. A gigantic tornado above Ayers Rock. Witness accounts from the Grand Canyon about a gigantic bird. Stonehenge mysteriously grew three times in scale overnight. Ghosts wandering around Angkor Wat. Moai statues moving about on Easter Island. In many of the most famous so-called “power spots” all over the world, inexplicable incidents started happening back to back. Thus in response, every country called back the agents that they had dispatched to Japan, or at least canceled all plans they previously had in the pipeline to send more personnel. Everybody’s attention tunneled toward what was happening within their own borders.
After all, investigating in someone else’s country was bound to come with a plethora of restrictions and red tape and whatnot. If there were supernatural phenomena inside one’s own country, then concentrating time and resources toward investigating that instead should prove much more effective.
The higher-ups in CIA also thought to divert personnel toward investigating the occurrences in the States, but Agent Nicolas put a brake on those plans. The reason was because he thought there was a high possibility that this was only a decoy.
According to the profiling that the FBI used, in a serial anything, be it serial murders or serial kidnappings, it’s always the first incident that is closest and most relevant to the criminal. For example, say there was a murder in Hokkaido, followed by more murders with the same modus operandi committed in Tokyo, Saitama, and then Chiba. An investigator looking at only the data would think, “3 out of the 4 incidents happened in and around the capital. Therefore, the criminal must be living in or around the capital.” However, to then conduct the investigation based on that inference would be to play exactly into the criminal’s plan. After all, the criminal is no idiot either. He (or she) would think and plot before committing the next murder. As with all things, with repetition comes proficiency. The criminal would learn and improve with each iteration, consequently employing more streamlined and refined methods in each successive incident.
Another way of putting this is that in most serial cases, it is the first incident where the criminal was the sloppiest and left the most clues. In the previous example of Hokkaido → Tokyo → Saitama → Chiba, then chances were high that the criminal’s base of operations still is in Hokkaido, or at least was for a period of time. After impulsively committing the first murder in Hokkaido, the criminal feared being found in Hokkaido, and therefore took the trouble of going far away to throw investigators off his trail.
Agent Nicolas thought that the same inference could be made of all the supernatural phenomena taking place in relation to the espers. After all, the espers were humans too. Probably. If they were actually non-human, then it was absolutely impossible to profile them through human conventions, and there would be no other choice but to just pack up and go home. So the assumption would be that these espers were human. And if they were human, then it meant that despite possessing powers that surpassed human limits, they were still bound to human-like thought patterns, and that they would use their powers in human-like ways. In other words, upon being chased by a large enemy, they would choose between making a stand, running away, or going into hiding. Although the way they run or hide would be through supernatural means, the main gist would still remain the same.
Following all of the above logic, placing the greatest focus on the Super Water Sphere Incident that started everything was still the best way to direct the investigation. All the other intelligence agencies were working off of the premise that “anything is possible when it comes to the supernatural, so throw away all preconceptions,” but Agent Nicolas disagreed with that approach. After all, if it was really possible to do absolutely anything, then those espers could pulverize the CIA with the blink of an eye or wipe the memory of the Super Water Sphere Incident from all humanity’s minds with a sneeze. The fact that nothing of the sort had happened could only mean that they weren’t feasible. QED, superpowers had limits too, and had their own boundaries for what could or could not be done.
Every time another report of a new supernatural phenomenon came in, Agent Nicolas further refined his profiling of the limits of these espers’ abilities. He believed that in so doing, one day all this accumulated data would help him chase down and corner them.
Roughly one week later, the supernatural phenomena occurring all over the world stopped as abruptly as they started. But just because the phenomena had stopped, it didn’t mean that the respective investigations would close up shop as well. Rather, Agent Nicolas expected that all the other intelligence agencies would remain largely occupied for at least a few more months. There were a total of 38 to 45 cases which had been confirmed beyond a certain threshold of credibility, although some were more certain than others. Among them, 7 had occurred in Japan and 8 had occurred in the UK. When considering that, together with the fact that it was also in these two countries that the two Super Water Spheres that started everything had appeared in, chances were that there was special significance to these two countries.
Of course, there was always the possibility that this, too, was also some sort of misdirection. However, if everything related to the supernatural was to be doubted, then there would be nothing left to work off of.
For the next four months after the slew of supernatural phenomena, there were no investigative breakthroughs whatsoever. The only thing worthy of note was the discovery and capture of a spy amongst the Super Water Sphere Incident investigation team. It was their faint hope that this could perhaps lead to the breakthrough they wanted so desperately.
The captured spy was a Japanese, but it was common sense that there was no point in inferring anything about a spy based on external appearance or proclaimed nationality. Nine out of ten, this was just an intelligence agent from another country that was also chasing the espers. Even the CIA had moles inside the English MI6 and Russian SVR. This was common practice within their trade.
However, even though spies were cryptic in general, there were two things about this spy that made him even at least one notch more perplexing than all the rest. First, it proved absolutely impossible to figure out the organization that the guy belonged to. And secondly, he wasn’t trying to steal information, but was feeding misinformation to the CIA team.
Regarding the first point, the guy had obviously received high-level training to be an agent, but the question of from who or where was completely blank. Upon injecting him with truth serum, the only facts learned from his confession was that he had studied under a woman whose face he didn’t know, and that he possessed immense loyalty toward that woman. Before the team managed to question him any further, they discovered that he had disappeared like smoke from a completely restrained state. As he had made his escape without leaving even a single clue or trace behind, there were no more details to be gleaned from that angle.
Chances were that the organization that the spy belonged to had caught wind of his capture, and thus broken him out. However, there always remained the possibility that it was Time Lady who had used her ability to help him escape.
As for the second point, trying to feed a rival intelligence agency false information seemed, at least on first glance, to make perfectly normal sense. The race to chase down the espers was in full swing among the numerous intelligence agencies of varying nationalities who had gathered in Tokyo. From that point of view, trying to make a rival organization waste time chasing after false leads while one’s own organization pulls ahead made sense.
The issue, however, was that doing so was significantly more troublesome than simply stealing information. It was much more effort than it was worth. Going to all that trouble just to feed someone else little bits of misinformation was just plain inefficient. If the aim was to gain an advantage in the information war, then this would be a terrible strategy to take.
Of course, it wasn’t like intelligence agencies backed up by a country were all immune to employing bad strategies. It would be safe to say that all of them do strike out every once in a while. Case in point, despite the CIA’s generally high competence, they were still keeping Agent Nicolas in their employ, in spite of his long history of mistakes. It wouldn’t be unnatural to assume that other countries also kept similar personnel on the payroll in their respective intelligence agencies.