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Carth merely gave Double Trouble a brief chuckle in response to their words. "Heh, well, I imagine someone like you understands it pretty well. When you're play with fire long enough, you learn a few tricks to give the game a little flair," he said with a self-satisfied smile, twirling his blaster like an old-fashioned cowboy before holstering it as the other United Universes agents began to move in and restrain Carver and his men, slapping electronic cuffs on them for good measure.

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"Y-Yes, I'm fine, thank you," Akane meanwhile responded to Toboe. "May have to take a day or two to shake off my nerves after that harrowing encounter, but you know how it is. It comes with the job, after all," she said with a sheepish mien.

As Carver and his cronies were escorted off the premises, Carth looked toward Umi as she posed the million credit question, his smile dissipating as his moment of glory passed. "It'll be a lot of paperwork, that's for sure. Someone that popular in the public eye, people are gonna talk. Not much we can do about that, but... well, that's something I let white collar worry about," he said with a resigned shrug.

"Yeah... T-That is true..." Akane murmured, somewhat downtrodden now as though the public fallout wasn't something she had considered. "Did we really do anything in the end? It was one thing that some of the things he was saying technically weren't false, and nothing can change that. In a way, even though things didn't entirely go the way Carver wanted, we still fell into his hands, didn't we? The fact that we practically stormed into the warehouse, the way he told everyone that we were threatening to shut him down, to censor him... and in the end, he did get arrested. People will talk about that..."

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"It is a bit of a bad look, no one can deny that," Ginoza nodded with a furrowed brow. His hard expression never changed once over the past few minutes, as though this had always remained at the front of his mind. "But we do have good reason for what we did. The charges will hold up from probable cause once we submit the evidence. His plans to assassinate us, one by one, in the name of the Revanchist."

"I'm not entirely sure facts are enough to save us from scrutiny this time. I mean, it's the context that this all happened under..." Akane shook her head in response to Ginoza. His way of thinking had always been too logical, as though he had no use for emotions.

Ginoza merely gave a wide, one-armed shrug in resignation. "Maybe so, but that's all we can give to the people we serve right now," he sighed. It was undeniable they were in a bad way following the Coalition Civil War, and the fact that this once private info had been made public didn't help matters, but... well, that was a matter for another time.

"Right, well... We can worry about that stuff later. Lighten up, will you, kids?" Carth clicked his tongue, as though most of their worries flew over his head. "We got the guy, and even if everyone else thinks it was under trumped up charges, at least we'll know to ourselves that we did the right thing."

Akane and Ginoza merely remained silent, as though unsure of how to respond, so the man simply continued from there.

"In any case... We should get outta here. I'll get some more men to snoop around the place, seal it down for further investigation if need be, all that yellow tape stuff. I imagine you guys just wanna get home already and put this behind you, so... I'll leave you to it," he nodded, and with that, began to saunter off. The night was still young for him, but it seemed for the rest of the group, they could breathe again.

With that, Ginoza finally felt inclined to speak again. "... The rest of you shouldn't have to worry about these matters. This is for myself and Ms. Tsunemori to worry about," he said, gesturing toward Akane. "I can only thank you for accompanying me on this matter. I'm not quite sure I could have done it without you. That said... we probably shouldn't stay here too long. Shall we?" He breathed, turning his back to the group and gesturing for them to follow as he began to walk.

As he did so, he maneuvered over to Double Trouble and spoke softly. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in a bonus payment in exchange for... keeping quiet about these affairs," he merely said, not even Akane being privy to his words.

@Jeremi @Yun Lee @Takumi @Lucky
 
Carth merely gave Double Trouble a brief chuckle in response to their words. "Heh, well, I imagine someone like you understands it pretty well. When you're play with fire long enough, you learn a few tricks to give the game a little flair," he said with a self-satisfied smile, twirling his blaster like an old-fashioned cowboy before holstering it as the other United Universes agents began to move in and restrain Carver and his men, slapping electronic cuffs on them for good measure.

View attachment 10604

"Y-Yes, I'm fine, thank you," Akane meanwhile responded to Toboe. "May have to take a day or two to shake off my nerves after that harrowing encounter, but you know how it is. It comes with the job, after all," she said with a sheepish mien.

As Carver and his cronies were escorted off the premises, Carth looked toward Umi as she posed the million credit question, his smile dissipating as his moment of glory passed. "It'll be a lot of paperwork, that's for sure. Someone that popular in the public eye, people are gonna talk. Not much we can do about that, but... well, that's something I let white collar worry about," he said with a resigned shrug.

"Yeah... T-That is true..." Akane murmured, somewhat downtrodden now as though the public fallout wasn't something she had considered. "Did we really do anything in the end? It was one thing that some of the things he was saying technically weren't false, and nothing can change that. In a way, even though things didn't entirely go the way Carver wanted, we still fell into his hands, didn't we? The fact that we practically stormed into the warehouse, the way he told everyone that we were threatening to shut him down, to censor him... and in the end, he did get arrested. People will talk about that..."

View attachment 10605

"It is a bit of a bad look, no one can deny that," Ginoza nodded with a furrowed brow. His hard expression never changed once over the past few minutes, as though this had always remained at the front of his mind. "But we do have good reason for what we did. The charges will hold up from probable cause once we submit the evidence. His plans to assassinate us, one by one, in the name of the Revanchist."

"I'm not entirely sure facts are enough to save us from scrutiny this time. I mean, it's the context that this all happened under..." Akane shook her head in response to Ginoza. His way of thinking had always been too logical, as though he had no use for emotions.

Ginoza merely gave a wide, one-armed shrug in resignation. "Maybe so, but that's all we can give to the people we serve right now," he sighed. It was undeniable they were in a bad way following the Coalition Civil War, and the fact that this once private info had been made public didn't help matters, but... well, that was a matter for another time.

"Right, well... We can worry about that stuff later. Lighten up, will you, kids?" Carth clicked his tongue, as though most of their worries flew over his head. "We got the guy, and even if everyone else thinks it was under trumped up charges, at least we'll know to ourselves that we did the right thing."

Akane and Ginoza merely remained silent, as though unsure of how to respond, so the man simply continued from there.

"In any case... We should get outta here. I'll get some more men to snoop around the place, seal it down for further investigation if need be, all that yellow tape stuff. I imagine you guys just wanna get home already and put this behind you, so... I'll leave you to it," he nodded, and with that, began to saunter off. The night was still young for him, but it seemed for the rest of the group, they could breathe again.

With that, Ginoza finally felt inclined to speak again. "... The rest of you shouldn't have to worry about these matters. This is for myself and Ms. Tsunemori to worry about," he said, gesturing toward Akane. "I can only thank you for accompanying me on this matter. I'm not quite sure I could have done it without you. That said... we probably shouldn't stay here too long. Shall we?" He breathed, turning his back to the group and gesturing for them to follow as he began to walk.

As he did so, he maneuvered over to Double Trouble and spoke softly. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in a bonus payment in exchange for... keeping quiet about these affairs," he merely said, not even Akane being privy to his words.

@Jeremi @Yun Lee @Takumi @Lucky

"They can't ignore that he threatened to shoot us, right? Some of us were unarmed." Toboe huffed out with a slight pout as they spoke about the potential fallout of these events, before he perked up as both Akane and Umi reassured him they were alright. Though he then tilted his head a tick as Ginoza spoke quietly to Double Trouble. While he had very sensitive hearing he was a bit curious why there was a level of secrecy after all the group had been through recently.

Well, maybe it wasn't his business, but scratching the back of his head he thought about something the man had said a moment ago.

"Anyway, wouldn't it be only natural for us to worry at least a little bit if there's still gonna be trouble?" He asked. How the wolf boy saw it, whatever trouble came from the fallout affected the pack as a whole, even if they tried not to let it bug them too much, they should at least face whatever came at them together somehow. Be it wishful thinking or that he had that much faith in their group, and the United Nations as a whole, dealing with what came next with little problems now.

@Ver @Yun Lee @Lucky @Jeremi
 
While the others were fretting the repercussions of what they had done. Double Trouble had an important question. "As a free agent I don't have to do any paper work...right?" They better pay them too for that matter. This was no walk in the park after all.

@Ver @Yun Lee @Lucky @Takumi
 
"The times may evolve, but cash will always be better when it comes to... sensitive matters, after all," Ginoza breathed, his wry words contrasting against his serious as ever exterior as he spoke to Double Trouble. It was an arrangement that benefitted both parties in that regard, especially if the former was expecting an inquiry once this matter inevitably became public, but that was something to think about for another time.

To Toboe, Akane could only shake her head. "No, I don't want to burden you all. I'm the Deputy Secretary-General, after all. I wouldn't be much of a second-in-command for the whole of the United Universes if I couldn't handle something like this," the woman said with a sheepish chuckle; for those around her, it might have been easy to forget that such a young and demure looking person was accustomed to this sort of thing, but Akane had always been more resilient than many others around her in one way or another.

As the group all walked together, Ginoza turned his head toward Akane's direction. "The boy is right though, Tsunemori. You shouldn't have to endure all this trouble, even if you are the Deputy Secretary-General," he spoke briskly, the concern in his voice overshadowed by his ever stiff expression.

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"Aah, well... It can't be helped, can it? Robin always has his hands full as the actual Secretary-General, so I suppose it's more on me to handle public relations..." Akane breathed, before blinking and giving a reassuring smile. "B-But like I said, you don't have to worry! It's nothing I can't handle. Now, come on. We should get a move on already," she continued, as though suddenly more eager to get out of this place now. Ginoza said nothing, knew not what to say, could only watch as the pain and the fatigue gradually build up on her face.

But there was nothing he could do. There was nothing more any of them could do tonight. All they could do was brace themselves for what was to come later...​
 
Epilogue - Tomorrow Will Arrive

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"..."

The next day came and went, and despite their fears, the world didn't end when the public found out. Of course, there wasn't anything the general populace could do about it if the government did something they disagreed with, lest they risk punishment of the legal kind, or even more than that. Even so, as Ginoza and Akane watched Carver be put away, he could sense the scorn, the doubt from the watching populace from afar. He could practically sense the seeds of doubt about the charges festering in the people's minds; whether or not it was all staged, how convenient it must have been to be able to arrest someone who was speaking against them anyway.

But it couldn't be helped. It couldn't be helped that the influential media mogul who used his platform to undermine the UN's reputation was, himself, working on behalf of the Revanchist's agenda, all culminating in a systematic string of assassination attempts that he would now never get to pull off.

As the night came, Ginoza remained in his office well after everyone else vacated to return home. Being the workaholic he was, Ginoza felt more at home at the office than his actual apartment. And tonight especially, there was a lot on his mind.

Letting a drawn out sigh, Ginoza could only sit back in his chair as his mind was plagued with thoughts of Carver and what he could have done if his platform had went unchallenged. It was one thing that Carver used his Tomorrow brand to reveal some of the UN's dirty secrets in the wake of the Coalition Civil War, but given how he had the public's attention right under his thumb, he could have started to tell outright lies at any moment he wanted, all in the name of further undermining the UN's reputation, perhaps even organize a coup with his eventual cult of personality by turning the people against the UN. And nothing would have been able to stop him at that point. After all, the truth was little more than clay in the hands of a media mogul, able to be manipulated and shaped as he saw fit.

Someone like Elliot Carver would always be able to control the facts and context as he saw fit. A power not even the government of this world held.

Perhaps that was what unnerved Ginoza more than anything else. What could have happened. For all the backlash the UN was getting now, and for all they were expecting to get later on, it all could have been so much worse, but that notion did little to assuage Ginoza's worries. If anything, it made him even more nervous. How easily just anyone could twist the truth into whatever they want as long as they had the means. It was a post-truth world they were all living in now, and Carver was the first to realize. If others caught wind of that as well... the UN would most certainly have to take measures to counter that.

But what could Ginoza do about that? What could he possibly do to mend the distortion of truth in this ever expanding information landscape? A system to preserve context, to protect the sanctity of truth. To control the flow of information, the way it should go. And maybe then, people like Akane wouldn't have to worry anymore, wouldn't have to be bothered by things like this anymore.

Pursing his lips, Ginoza found that his body practically moved on its own -- driven by resolve -- as he leaned forward in his seat, hands moving to open a blank word document, and typed in the first thing that came to mind.

Project V.

And with that, fate sealed itself once more.

Soon, everything was going to change.

 
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