A week had passed since Simon started to refine his core. Its state was much brighter, but still in pieces. Inside his core, the miniature version of Simon jumped about happily.
Every Signator had this; it was a part of their Innate Ability. Only when a Signator made contracts with entities did they enter their core.
Other than this, it would just be their own Signature that resembled themselves. Simon's was considered unusual among these.
When it came to these replications of oneself, they often resembled the Signator's hair color.
So when it came to Simon's, it would make him stand out. He didn't know the meaning behind this himself, but people would suspect him of many things due to this.
The other self began to jump along the ropes that held onto the fragmented gem's structure. Due to Simon's refinement of them over a week, they were now like hemp instead of steel.
Although slightly, they sprang up and down as his other self jumped from one to the next. Simon ignored this for now and pushed a button to go to the eleventh floor of the building.
This was because Evelyn had told him to head there as soon as possible. Apparently, Evelyn had gotten in contact with Blossom Everhart. With Blossom being down in the replica world, she knew exactly how dangerous it was.
This led her to believe that with the added danger of other entities, they weren't going to live very long with their current advantages.
This was true. While they did have Silas, against entities as powerful as the royal, they had little to no chance. If they did somehow get their plan in action, there was no telling what his abilities would do to their Signatures.
With Simon's coin trick, the only information they got was that gravity didn't exist within his domain or worked differently. Other than this and the floor, they had no hints.
Therefore, it was useless to try. If the entity could directly attack from an entire dimension away, then what would anything other than an S-grade Signature do to it?
With this information, Blossom was trying to get permission from Rin to use some of her weapons. With Rin being the bureau's greatest asset, they would naturally give her anything and everything she asked for.
There was a weapon for every purpose. However, Rin had an entire collection that, for the most part, she did not use.
Ding!
As the elevator doors slid open, Simon told his other self to stop. It obeyed immediately, turning back into dice and circling his core like usual.
He had read as much information as he could about Blossom. With his methodical personality, he did not want to go meet her blindly with such important matters. Only a few things were gathered from this search.
The first was that she joined the bureau in 2019. Second, she was a part of Rin Sato's attack squad. What was unusual was that they were the only two people occupying this team. However, he didn't question this.
With his smarts, he had deduced they had pulled some strings to make it this way. That is why he stopped searching after realizing that most of their information was only on a surface level.
If they were hiding their information, then he would be digging a hole for himself. Inside the room, he found the rest of his squad members standing in front of Blossom.
Because of how crowded it was, he could not see Blossom, but he could hear her voice.
"Come on, Rin. You barely use most of them anyway."
"They have their uses. What if I fight an entity with pyrokinesis and need that water katana?"
"You haven't used that katana in two years!"
He did not have to guess that the person on the other side of the phone was Rin Sato. However, her voice was much deeper than he had expected.
"...Get me off speaker."
"Huh? Uhm, y-you're not on speaker."
"You only stutter when you lie. Turn it off."
Blossom was tugging at her hair as Simon walked up to the group, crowding the woman.
"Oh, Simon, you're here!" Evelyn's voice could barely be considered a whisper.
"Yeah. Wait, do you know Blossom?"
"A little. I was her intern for a while, I was still in the academy."
Simon nodded before turning back to her. Blossom's hair had become increasingly longer, now styled in bangs. One separated from the others, resting on her nose.
Additionally, it had become a grass green instead of jade. Simon shifted his gaze back to Blossom, and the room went silent for a moment.
"Blossom, last warning. Or else I'll tell whoever's listening about how—"
"Ahhhhh!! Okay! Okay! Okay!"
She accepted defeat before hurriedly taking the phone off speaker. As Blossom held it up to her hand, she listened intently to Rin's words.
Whatever they were conversing about, it marked confusion across everyone's face. Blossom's face showed an undeniable frown.
"Hehe."
It was as if a thought had suddenly popped into her head. Her gaze quickly turned mischievous, and she randomly blurted out.
"Knives!"
The group was even more confused, but the phone was hung up soon after.
"She said yes. Quick, you have ten minutes, pick whatever you like. The only rule is that you can't take anything from the 'scissors' section."
Simon couldn't help but feel intrigued by this. He pushed this aside; after all, he did not want to make Rin Sato his enemy. If she did become his enemy, she would kill him before he could say the word "scissors."
Blossom led them to a long corridor; at the end of it stood a vault. She told the others to look away. When Silas did not comply, she put a barrier between them.
[Lotus]
A wall of petals separated the group from Blossom, and clicks came from the other side.
Click. Click. Click.
Soon after, the door opened, and the wall of petals dropped. The door to the vault opened with the crisp sound of heavy metal falling into the ground,, and Blossom smiled.
"Don't get ahead of yourselves. I don't want Rin to kill you. Especially you, Evelyn. You're too cute to die."
"Hehe. Thank you!"
(...Scary.)