Kasai reaches his dorm room with Theo’s printed pages still in hand. The corridor empties behind him before Hazel follows, closing the door without asking permission.
His room holds the stale trace of cigarette smoke and the orderly clutter of controlled information. Hazel crosses to the desk and selects one page from the stack.
Hazel Forrest
Your father’s private airline did more than transport wealthy clients. One of its flights brought you here after you decided Hyakkaou was worth buying your way into.
She places the page face-up. The article contains no flight records, only a blank space where a source should be, as though someone removed the most valuable paragraph.
Hazel Forrest
I am not threatening you, Kasai. Threats are so crude. I am showing you that your family history can become public without passing through your club.
Hazel rests two fingers on the paper, her expression gentle enough for an audience that is no longer there. Her certainty leaves the purpose deliberately obscured.
Hazel Forrest
Perhaps you want the missing paragraph. Perhaps you would prefer it remain missing. Either way, I thought you deserved to know who else has been reading.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find out who else has been reading Kasai’s family history
“I feel a twinge of annoyance at the mention of my parents, "My family history is clean, so who cares if anyone reads about it. It's not uncommon for student's to pay their way into this academy." He appears unfazed by the whole ordeal. In actuality, He's going to tighten his security after this conversation.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Deception, rolled +1)
Kasai Minoru
My family history is clean, so who cares if anyone reads about it? It is not uncommon for students to pay their way into this academy.
Kasai delivers the answer evenly, his expression unchanged. Only a faint tightening around his eyes acknowledges the mention of his parents before his composure settles again.
Hazel Forrest
How comforting. You make corruption sound ordinary, which is often the easiest way to make people stop asking questions.
Hazel lifts the page and folds it once, hiding the blank space beneath the crease. Her gentle smile returns, but her attention remains fixed on every controlled detail of his face.
Hazel Forrest
I will leave your history untouched for now. Whether that remains true depends on how much attention you attract.
After Hazel leaves, Kasai secures the dorm door, checks the room for anything disturbed, and removes the loose article from circulation. He tightens access to the club's records and authorization trails.
Kasai Minoru
The missing paragraph is the point of pressure.
“I analyze the article’s wording for clues about its missing source.”
SUCCESS (Great Investigation, rolled +1)
Kasai retrieves the loose article from beneath the locked records drawer, where he placed it after Hazel left. The paper bears his pencil marks and a faint crease across the blank source field.
Kasai Minoru
The missing paragraph is not removed randomly. The surrounding wording preserves its shape.
He rereads the sentences before and after the gap, comparing tense, punctuation, and the sudden shift from family history to the flight's destination. The prose changes register there.
The earlier lines use polished, public language about wealth and admission. After the blank, the phrasing becomes clipped and logistical, using a private itinerary's likely terminology rather than gossip.
A repeated choice of the word "arrival" instead of "enrollment" reveals the missing source was probably not a school record. It was someone familiar with the flight itself.
The article also preserves an unusual reference to a landing window that never appears in public biographies. That detail points toward an airline-side document or an employee who saw the manifest.
Kasai now has the clue: Hazel's reader accessed a private travel record, or a firsthand account copied from one. The blank conceals a name, not merely an accusation.
“I decide there's not much more I can get from the article itself, and decide to observe Hazel during the next Student council meeting. I want to know everything she knows on me, I will not be her little puppet.”
SUCCESS (Great Investigation, rolled +1)
At the next Student Council meeting, Kasai sits where he can watch Hazel without appearing to study her. Red blazers gather around the polished table, papers arranged with deliberate precision.
Hazel opens with routine reports, but her questions repeatedly return to publication access, airline records, and who could authenticate a private manifest. She never says Kasai’s name.
Ritsu Dokusai
The source remains compartmentalized. Only the reader, the editor, and the person who supplied the record should know the complete sequence.
Hazel’s attention flicks toward Ritsu for less than a second. Her fingers then cover a margin note listing an arrival date, a staff code, and the phrase “family exception.”
Kasai Minoru
She knows the route, the access channel, and that my admission was handled as an exception.
Hazel Forrest
Some information is dangerous because it is true. Other information is dangerous because the right person can make it sound true.
By the meeting’s close, Kasai has the shape of Hazel’s knowledge: she has seen an airline-side record, knows someone inside the authorization chain, and is testing whether he can identify the leak.
Quest Complete
Find out what Hazel knows about Kasai
Skill Upgrade: Investigation Great→Superb