Natsumi looked at Aisha, unsure if she could trust her eyes. She thought Yuki would know better than to trust a being such as this, not to mention that she had left major details out of her explanation of that days events. While Yuki did mention a Djinn to her, the exact circumstances were never mentioned.
"A djinn, huh… Not buying it. Though, I guess I don't really know anything about them, so I can't say for certain if that woman is one. What about you, Natsumi?"
"Djinns are… Much like demons, naturally evil and dangerous beings. But unlike demons, who live in a violent and deceitful world that formed them into what they are ever since they came to be, Djinns gained their traits out of pure boredom. Known to grant wishes, less known is that they see this as a privilege and only grant them to those that earn their respect. But even then, they try and twist things as they please. Even resulting to things such as "well, in another culture, peace and happiness is only achieved in the afterlife", and similar trickery just to rob you of any sense of gain. The only time they do grant wishes as intended is if it's one they never heard before. But even then, the third wish always ends the same. With the death of the one making the wish, and a smile on the Djinn's face."
"Wow, I didn't know that… Creepy… And you sure know a neat piece of trivia there. To think someone like that could stand right in front of us on a stage and be applauded by hundreds if not thousands of people…"
"…I'm not feeling very well… I'm going to step outside and get some air."
"I will come with you."
"No, you should stay here. Tell me about anything you see that you find suspicious. It would be a great help to me for finding the passage."
"…Okay. Be careful though."
"I will, thank you."
Natsumi looked back at Clara who remained in her seat, feeling bad about having told another half-truth for the sake of her disguise. While she was feeling unwell, it was more worry and such, which she was feeling the entire time since they arrived. But now separated from Natsumi, she was able to act much more freely. She could also now just say she snuck behind the stage on her way back, because she noticed something suspicious and found the passage there. Clara would be none the wiser and Natsumi would have done just as she was expected. But for that, she would need to stay outside for a while. While she was here however, she might as well go ask a certain someone about something. Flying up to the Sphere, she found Yamato as expected, and thankfully without Yuki present.
"Can I help you?"
"What was that weird and cryptic message about!?"
"Oh, you mean the one I asked Lucy to pass along to you?"
"What other message would I mean!?"
"I found its intention quite straightforward. What exactly confused you about it?"
"Like, "I am genuinely curious to see if your kindness can surpass my current strategy,…", what was that about? We are not in an open conflict, as far as I'm aware! And what do you mean you will adapt to it? There is no way you'd continue while adapting my ideals, because if you did, they would tell you to stop! And don't tell people to pat my head, while we are at it!"
"…Are you done?"
"No! But I want to hear your response to that bit first!"
"Well, I think we are in quite the open opposition. Even if publicly that's no longer the case thanks to our little deal…"
"You still haven't done as promised, by the way!"
"You throw rocks in my path every chance you get… Naturally, it's going to take a bit longer if you keep this up."
"Keep what up?"
"Thinking I'm in the wrong."
"You are in the—!"
Natsumi cut off as part of the wall turned and Yuki, with wet hair and only a towel wrapped around herself entered barefoot. She took a sip out of a glass of water, before walking over to Yamato's desk and sitting down right next to the papers he was working on, her legs crossed over and placed sideways over his lap as she turned her head towards Natsumi.
"Sister, what a surprise! If I had known you were coming over I would've prepared something!"
She took her glass and placed it in front of Yamato, titling it in a way so the place where her lips touched the glass would be where he would drink from as well if he grabbed it normally. Which of course happened just like expected by her once he took a sip as well. Though there seemed to be something else Yuki was enjoying about it as her eyes narrowed and her smile slightly widened while observing him. Though he just resumed his work and put the glass down again. Meanwhile Natsumi tried to ignore this and focus on Yuki's odd remark.
"W-what do you mean, I live here too, y'know? Why would you give me something for visiting?"
Yuki turned towards Natsumi again, her smile disappearing and her playfully narrowed eyes sharpening.
"Oh really… Yet I hear you being in some other town all of the sudden, without notifying anyone or asking for permission. What's up with that, I wonder…"
"W-well, it was just a small trip to learn about the different cultures of this world. And I don't need your permission to leave town! It's not like you gave me work to do or anything which would tie me down here!"
Yuki's eyes felt like they pierced through her words right away, even though Natsumi had not told a lie just yet, and had a perfectly reasonable explanation as well.
"I guess… It's not like a particularly care what you do in your free time. Just felt like mentioning it… What did you want here again?"
"Nothing, I was just leaving."
"Mhm, where you~?"
Despite talking to Natsumi, her eyes had already wandered back to Yamato and remained on him alone. A wide smirk appeared as well while she was lifting the glass back up against his lips, already having registered Natsumi as "basically out the door already".
"Drink up, boo~ I made this special water just for you…"
For once unsure about what she meant by that, Yamato drank it anyway, noticing Yuki's clearly erotic intentions with her passionate eye contact. Whatever made the water special, he could not taste. She then uncrossed her legs and wiggled her feet, satisfied with him drinking everything and now wanting him to rub her feet. Since he only needed one hand to work on the papers, and her feet were conveniently placed against his left hand anyway, as if aiming for this eventually from the start, he went along and began rubbing her feet. Surprisingly, even with scenes like these being a regular occurrence between them, Yamato was still the one who was on average more often on the receiving end when it came to intimate gestures. Even though he never said no when she wanted something. But having her sit across from him with just a towel on had its own charm, so in a way, thes were both mutually giving to each other right now.
Natusmi had left at some point during this, for obvious reasons not wanting to watch them any longer. Instead, she flew back down and changed back into her leather clothes, as well as dyed her hair again back to brown. On the ground, she spotted Clara waiting at the entrance, which ruined her plan of pretending to come out from behind the stage a bit. But it was nothing she could not work around, since meeting Yamato somehow always annoyed her just enough to increase her deception skills. A fact that she herself was completely unaware of.
"Hey, Clara, sorry did you have to wait long?"
"Not really, but I thought you were just getting a bit air? Seems like you also walked around for a bit… Are you at least feeling better after all of that?"
"Ah, yes, of course! But more importantly, I identified the passage, so we can return right away!"
"Really? How did you do that, you were not even inside the Cube."
"Well, you see, I told you about my neat and diverse magic, right? Just so happens one of them was one allowing me to see through walls! So I walked around the Cube and found the way up easily like that. I didn't mention it before because I wasn't sure if it would work on the walls of the Absolute Citadel, but turns out they did. Lucky us, haha!"
"I guess, lucky us… Well, that was faster than expected then. We should return right away to inform the others of our success."
"Yes, let's do that!"
That concluded their short but successful trip, with Natsumi continuing to avoid detection, though she was unsure how bad it would truly be if they found out.
However that thought was interrupted by the realization that this now meant she had less time to consider whether she was actually going to pull through with helping this group or not, and she had not made a decision on that even remotely. She had actually somewhat forgotten about having to still decide upon that, so at least now she had it back in the radar.
Arriving back at Ponca, she explained the passage out of her memory as best she could, mentioning the locks and difficulties to get there unseen, but she was only met with optimism, which was somewhat ironic she noticed. However, it seemed Leo and the rest had even better news to share. Apparently, there had been a town wide search for a book by the Absolute Church, saying it contained dangerous and harmful materials. Believing this to be propaganda and cover up for something of value having gone missing, Leo and Fred went on an extensive search, and through sheer luck, managed to find it before the search party of the Absolute Church, by pretending to be part of it in a library. What it contained they for some reason refused to share with the group, because it was important as few people as possible knew about it in case someone was captured and had their mind read. While Natsumi believed it to be a bit paranoid, she understood where they were coming from as she pictured Yuki doing far worse to get information out of a group of what she would now define as DB's. She did make the suggestion to tell everyone the location of the book, in an attempt to compromise, so then they at least would not lose the information in case both Leo and Fred were compromised, which was met with approval.