Sunday did not particularly care whether Sora's journey ended quickly.
If anything, given the choice, he would rather that man never appear anywhere near his sister again.
But he understood that was nothing more than wishful thinking.
After all, when Robin heard that Sunday was about to leave, she had actually looked surprised.
Which meant that all this time, his little sister had not spared so much as a thought for her own brother.
"Haah... Once a little sister grows up, you just can't keep her close."
Sunday sighed wistfully.
Once upon a time, Robin would cling to him from behind and sweetly call him "Big Brother~".
Now, from morning till night, practically everything out of her mouth was about another man.
Granted, a large part of that was because the man was currently missing.
Even so, the shift in their respective positions still left Sunday feeling melancholy.
And Sora, whom Robin searched for every day, wasn't Sunday's only source of helplessness.
There was also his guard.
"Whiskers? May I call you that?"
Sunday looked down at the little creature who, even standing upright, barely reached his knee.
"That's right! That's my name. Mr. Sunday can call me whatever he likes!"
Whiskers thumped his fluffy little paws against his chest as he spoke, apparently trying to prove how dependable he was.
But the harder he tried, the less reassured Sunday felt.
After all, Sunday had never believed this little fellow was suited to serving as his guard in the first place.
Sunday was not going sightseeing.
Based on the messages transmitted before contact was lost, he would be traveling through all manner of dangerous regions.
A system with a dying red giant. Meteorite fields where gravity had gone haywire. Even places the Swarm had passed through...
It was fair to say that danger would be a frequent companion throughout the journey.
"Your life may even be at risk. Think carefully before you decide."
Sunday gave him one last warning before departure.
He had no desire to see this little fellow throw his life away for nothing.
"The clan head himself said I'm the first pioneer to spread the spirit of Longzhang."
Whiskers showed no sign of backing down in the face of Sunday's concern.
"So my first shot's gotta be loud enough and bright enough! There's no way I'm misfirin' before I've even fired!"
"Aren't you coming with me as my guard?"
Sunday looked thoroughly helpless.
He had not gone to the Bai Ze clan so they could spread this mysterious "spirit of Longzhang."
He had gone there for protection.
Why did it feel as though this fellow had already relegated protecting him—the most important part of the job—to second place?
"Huh? Is that what I'm supposed to be doing?"
To Sunday's disbelief, Whiskers really did seem to have come along solely to spread this so-called "Longzhang culture."
He had apparently given no thought whatsoever to the guarding part.
"I..."
Sunday almost failed to catch his breath.
Fortunately, he recovered in time.
Otherwise, he might have become the first AEON in the universe to die of sheer frustration.
"Haah..."
Once he had recovered, Sunday could no longer be bothered to argue.
Fortunately, he had not expected much to begin with.
Otherwise, that exchange really might have angered an AEON to death.
"Forget it. The places I'm going are dangerous enough already. There's no point troubling anyone else. If you really want to come, then come along."
Sunday was too tired to stop him.
Nor did he intend to.
Or perhaps he had simply stopped caring.
Regardless of everything else, this was a journey he had to make.
And the dangerous regions along the way could easily cost someone their life if anything went wrong.
It would therefore be better for him to go alone.
After all, even if the ship were destroyed, Sunday himself could still wander through space and survive on his own.
"I said I'm goin' with you, so I'm goin' with you!"
Since Whiskers still refused to back down, Sunday tacitly accepted his company.
And so, one man and one guard were about to embark on a journey into the cosmos.
...
Even though Robin had spent all this time searching nonstop for news of Sora, she still made time to see her brother off when she heard he was leaving.
Sunday was in an excellent mood when he saw her come.
As expected. My sister still cares about me.
"Brother, since you're going out anyway, could you help me ask around about Sora?"
The instant Robin opened her mouth, Sunday's expression froze.
"We still haven't been able to contact him. According to the IPC, he should currently be outside the coverage of the interstellar communications network."
The IPC's communications network covered almost every corner of the galaxy.
Only certain unusual regions lay beyond its reach.
And those were precisely the areas Sunday would be traveling through this time, so Robin hoped he could investigate while he was there.
She had even compared his route against the available information and listed several unusual regions that lay either directly along his path or some distance off it.
"I hope you can take a look when you pass through those areas, Brother."
Maybe he would be able to find some trace of Sora.
"I-I understand..."
Sunday's voice trembled.
For some inexplicable reason, he suddenly felt like crying.
He did not know where the sadness spreading through his heart had come from, nor how to soothe the sour sting at the tip of his nose.
Somehow, Sunday felt as though rain had begun to fall around him.
The loneliness within that rain matched his current mood perfectly.
Perhaps this was simply part of growing up...
"Oh, right, Brother. I prepared this charm especially for you."
Robin handed Sunday a tassel formed from two feathers.
"May you have a safe journey."
The instant Sunday saw the tassel, it felt as though the storm clouds had parted and sunlight was shining down on him.
His bright mood immediately came flooding back.
Of course his sister cared about her brother!
He had simply been overthinking things earlier.
Sunday promptly took the tassel Robin had prepared, almost as though he were afraid she might change her mind.
"My dear sister, I have received your heartfelt wish!"
With Robin's protective charm in hand, Sunday was certain he would find the ship that had been missing for so long.
This was his sister's blessing!
And with that done, the time had finally come for them to part.
For the two siblings, saying goodbye was something they had long since grown accustomed to.
Neither of them became overly sentimental.
The universe might be vast beyond measure, but they both believed they would meet again someday.
"This is the bond between her and me."
Sunday stood before the sealed hatch of the ship and spoke with conviction.
Then the very first message Robin sent him after they parted immediately darkened his expression.
"Brother, please don't forget to look for Sora."
Bond, my ass!
No matter how he looked at it, Robin was clearly using him to find someone!
...
Robin was indeed trying to use him to find Sora.
Nor was Sunday the only one.
Practically every connection available to the people around Sora had been put to use.
The Federation of Hope, the Xianzhou Alliance, the Intelligentsia Guild—even contacts within the IPC had been approached.
"Oh? Him?!"
The moment Jade saw Sora's portrait, she immediately remembered the man and everything that had happened back then.
They had only met once, yet he had still left an extraordinarily deep impression on her.
To this day, she had not forgotten the sight of him berating the IPC before the Swarm that filled the cosmos.
As an IPC employee, she knew those words had undoubtedly had a very serious impact on the IPC.
But as an individual, she admired his willingness to say them at that particular time and place.
What she had never expected was to encounter him again like this.
"What crime did he commit? Or who did he offend?"
Why else would the Federation of Hope, an emerging power in the cosmos, go to such lengths to search for him?
The IPC employee Jade questioned glanced at the case file before answering.
"Apparently, it has something to do with one of the leaders of the Federation of Hope. That's why they're investing so much effort into this."
One of the Federation of Hope's leaders?!
Jade was surprised.
The Federation of Hope was said to have two leaders, and both of their identities were highly mysterious.
No one had ever heard of them before, and even the IPC—home to the largest repository of information in the universe—had no clues about their origins.
It was almost as though the two had simply appeared out of thin air.
For that very reason, the IPC had always wanted information about them.
The only person who knew even a little of the truth, Diamond, had classified the relevant information as "SSS"-level confidential.
And information at that level was inaccessible to anyone except him.
Naturally, such secrecy only made everyone else within the IPC even more curious.
People were curious by nature.
The more tightly something was concealed, the more they wanted to know what was hidden underneath.
Now that someone Jade recognized had somehow become connected to one of the Federation of Hope's leaders, her curiosity was inevitably piqued.
She took the file from the employee and began reading it carefully.
According to the report, one of the Federation's leaders had made an important statement concerning Sora.
She stated that the matter was extremely minor, that there was no need to devote excessive resources to it, and that the Federation of Hope did not need to search for this man.
She stated that the matter was extremely serious and, if not handled properly, could threaten the continued existence of the Federation!
"So I don't care which one of you does it—if you have a way, hurry up and find him for me. Otherwise this is going to get way too boring."
After Sora disappeared, his account had stopped updating as well.
That had clearly left Titania in an extreme state of boredom.
Therefore, Sora had to be found.
His importance was nothing less than a matter of the Federation's continued existence!
Jade was stunned after reading that section.
"Did this man somehow offend the Federation of Hope again without anyone noticing?!"
Judging from the Federation leader's statement, she seemed to bear Sora a grudge.
Sora had clearly done something major.
Otherwise, why would she claim that his situation threatened the Federation's very existence?
"If that really is the case, perhaps I should give him a warning."
Relations between the IPC and the Federation could hardly be described as friendly.
Still, since the Federation had commissioned them, the IPC would naturally carry out the request as usual.
Jade, however, could make some special arrangements in the public notices to ensure Sora understood the Federation's attitude.
"Maybe that'll help him."
That was the most she could do for Sora in a personal capacity.
Compared with the IPC, which used proper media channels to spread the word, the Xianzhou Alliance's approach was considerably simpler.
All they did was send a missing-person notice to every ship departing from a Xianzhou.
But considering the number of ships and starskiffs passing through each Xianzhou every day, the method might actually prove even more effective.
...
"Though I don't think anything could possibly have happened to that guy."
Fu Xuan lightly tapped a fingernail as she spoke, sounding as though she did not care.
"Well, well. The Master Diviner has come here today not to discuss official business, but to gossip about the latest rumors?"
Jing Yuan looked genuinely amazed.
Whenever Fu Xuan came to see him, it was either to discuss official business...
Or to discuss official business.
So why had she specifically come over today just to talk about the missing-person notices they had recently distributed?
"I'm merely worried that menace has gone off to plague some other planet. Do you understand?"
Fu Xuan practically ground the words through her teeth.
"As they say, the good die young, while pests like him live forever. Given how awful that man is, there's no way anything could happen to him."
At that, Jing Yuan smiled faintly.
"I know nothing will happen to him either."
During the battle to utterly eradicate Shuhu, when Jing Yuan manifested the Lightning-Lord...
In that fleeting instant, he had seen the form Sora revealed within the cosmos.
That figure had looked extraordinarily familiar to Jing Yuan.
It was the same figure he had once glimpsed from behind when he received the Lightning-Lord.
It had only been a fleeting glimpse.
They had only passed one another for an instant.
But Jing Yuan would never mistake that figure.
After all, that was...
"The Reignbow Arbiter."
So as far as Jing Yuan was concerned, the probability of anything truly happening to Sora was negligible.
He was more inclined to believe that Sora had simply been swept up in some situation, much as Jing Yuan himself had been swept into the Luofu's political whirlpool.
"Haah. We're both men burdened by fate..."
Jing Yuan poured himself another cup of tea.
He was far too restless today.
Clearly, it was an inauspicious day for work.
Perhaps it was time to find the Dragon Lady and have her write him a sick note.
So when Fu Xuan finally finished her analysis and prepared to ask Jing Yuan for his opinion, she discovered...
"Jing Yuan, where did you go?!"
Where he had been reclining moments earlier, there was now nothing but his desk and the stacks of documents resting quietly upon it.
The Divine Foresight General himself had long since vanished.
Presumably, he had gone off to "seek treatment."
...
Jing Yuan had gone to seek treatment.
Sora, meanwhile, felt as though he himself was about to become ill.
And the reason was none other than Sheila's civics-and-ethics lessons.
"I don't understand. We already agreed that when we go out, you have to pay attention to other people's privacy..."
"Right."
Sheila nodded.
"Then tell me—how does 'paying attention to other people's privacy' turn into staring at every move they make?!"
Wasn't that violating their privacy?
Wasn't that the complete opposite of what he meant?
"But I really am 'paying attention' to their privacy."
Sheila answered with complete seriousness.
From a certain perspective, she really was paying attention to other people's privacy.
Except what Sheila meant by "pay attention" and what Sora was trying to teach her were very clearly two different things!
"How did you even manage to understand it that way?!"
Sora could not comprehend it.
His answer came in the form of Sheila staring fixedly at him.
Right.
Sora understood now.
So the problem still came back to him!
"Haahhh..."
For the first time, Sora regretted one of his own decisions.
He had never regretted facing an AEON.
He had never backed down before an Emanator either...
And yet now, he genuinely regretted what he had done.
"What possessed me to come up with this idea?"
Sora could not help turning toward the wall to reflect on his mistakes.
Whenever his spirits sank, the autonomous robots aboard the ship would thoughtfully come over to distract him from his worries.
Of course, it was entirely possible that Sheila was simply using them as an excuse to take advantage of him.
Ever since Sora learned that many of the ship's programs were extensions of Sheila herself, he had found it increasingly difficult to view them normally.
But he could not be bothered worrying about any of that right now.
He only wanted to figure out where exactly things had gone wrong.
"Was my approach wrong from the very beginning?"
Perhaps special cases really did call for special measures.
At that thought, Sora glanced toward Sheila, who was currently tangled up with Rappa.
Sheila showed little interest in what Rappa was saying.
But the moment Sora looked at her, she immediately noticed and gave him a brilliant smile.
Just as she had said before—
She would always, always be watching Sora.
It seemed the time had finally come to resort to unconventional methods!
At the sight, Sora made up his mind to use the secret trick he had at his disposal.
And what exactly was that secret trick?!
Heh.
Excellent question.
Sora had no idea either.
All he knew was that ordinary methods had absolutely no effect on Sheila.
In that case, he had no choice but to make himself a little more unusual!
For example...
Maybe ordering a bowl of ink udon or something.
However, while Sora and Rappa were enjoying their food, Sheila suddenly seemed to notice something.
"There's something strange ahead of the ship."
Her sudden statement surprised both of them.
"Something strange?"
"There's a planet not far ahead, but what's happening on it is very unusual."
The unexpected warning immediately put Sora and Rappa on alert.
They quickly finished the food in front of them and went to investigate.
What appeared before them was an unusual planet.
"The ship's sensors couldn't detect any trace of this planet from a distance."
Only after entering the planet's gravitational range had they been able to detect it.
"Do we have any star-chart data for the planet?"
What Sora cared about most right now was still finding a way home.
"I don't know. I couldn't find any registration records for this planet."
Which meant this was most likely a wild planet.
A wild planet was a life-bearing planet that had never been registered or cataloged by the IPC.
And how could Sora be certain it was inhabited?
His extraordinarily acute sense of smell could pick up the scent even from here.
"There's blood in the air."
The smell of blood meant there was biological activity on the planet.
"Lord Red Flash, if we intend to disembark and investigate, we should proceed with caution."
Rappa spoke seriously.
"This place is not very far from Evil Ninja Osaru's dojo."
In other words, Dr. Primitive's followers from that space station might have left something behind here.
"If you're saying that, then we definitely have to go down and take a look."
The Galaxy Rangers' basic policy was to completely destroy anything those brainless followers left behind.
Some things, once they spread, could easily bring disaster to countless planets and civilizations.
That was why the data and equipment they left behind were generally destroyed.
If any research equipment or data belonging to those researchers remained here, then Sora and Rappa naturally had a duty to finish the job.
"Lord Red Flash speaks truly."
Rappa nodded.
As she spoke, she had already drawn an enormous, broad-bladed shuriken.
It was time to erase every trace Evil Ninja Osaru had left behind!
But just as the two were about to set out, Sheila spoke up.
"I'm coming too."
Her sudden declaration made Sora look at her helplessly.
"What are you coming along for, just to get in the way?"
He and Rappa were both skilled fighters. If anything happened, they could handle it.
Sheila, on the other hand, had previously served as little more than a server system used to store data.
She had virtually no combat ability.
Why would she need to follow them into danger?
"But if you take me with you, you won't have to search aimlessly."
Sheila revealed a second useful capability.
"I can sense and locate traces they left behind."
That was vastly better than having Sora and Rappa wander around searching blindly.
Since Sheila had put it that way, Sora thought for a moment before agreeing.
But if she was leaving the ship, he still had three rules for her.
"Listen to everything I say, follow my lead, and always stay behind me—"
"Yay! I finally get to go traveling with you!"
Sheila cheered and immediately fell in behind Sora.
Once their ship landed and the three confirmed that the planet's environment was suitable for them, they cautiously stepped outside.
"It doesn't seem like we attracted the attention of any native creatures."
Sheila kept scanning their surroundings as she spoke.
Sora merely shook his head helplessly.
"Sometimes your eyes can't see everything."
But the scents carried on the wind could tell him what his eyes couldn't.
"Come out. Doesn't hiding under the sand all this time get tiring?"
Sora's gaze locked firmly onto a patch of flat ground.
A faint, unusual scent was coming from beneath it.
That was enough for him to conclude that something was definitely hiding there.
"If you don't come out, I'll have to invite you out myself."
As he spoke, Sora placed a hand on the Battler Grip of his Driver.
Something hiding itself this carefully was unlikely to be friendly.
"Squeak squeak squeak! (Wait!)"
A burst of animal cries rang out, and sand suddenly billowed into the air before them.
When the dust finally settled, what appeared in front of Sora and the others was...
A rabbit wearing a crown?!
---
T/N: sheila........ i wonder how she looks what do u guys think sheila looks like maybe its this sheila?
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