The aura container was shaped like a bear and twinkled in its transparency, matching the dusk sky above. Kai watched waves of his aura sway and blink within it. If he was stronger, than this much would have dyed the container black.

His commander had sent the container along with a note, noting instructions of how to fill it and its effects. Kai had tried it with Chen, and his unitmate’s eyebrows raised from surprise from the fact that it worked—Kai’s aura felt stronger. But that was just an illusion. It was just a layering of auras to fool other angelics of his strength. His commander didn’t exactly explain why he would spend the extra effort and time to craft this for him, and Kai didn’t have the courage to write back with any of the questions that keep whispering in the back of his mind.

He let go of the chain, dropping the necklace into his pocket, and stared up at the stars above the small town of Izid. Since Minseok had a human party to attend, Kai was tasked to scope out the surrounding areas and provide backup if necessary. According to Chen’s texts though, Kai knew that he pretty much wasn’t needed. His unitmate would never admit it, but Kai knew that Chen was enjoying his and Minseok’s domestic time together at the hotel. He even got an accidental job as a bellhop, and Kai chuckled at the fact that he was complaining the whole time but stayed because he could use the money to legally buy a gift for Minseok, which he would only consider doing if he cared that Minseok would care about how he obtained an object.

Back at the mall, Kai had paid for his own gift too, tapping into the human bank account he had made fifty years ago. He had gone with Minseok to the ATM to withdraw some money, and the proxy’s eyeballs grew two times bigger at the numbers in his account. Apparently, he had saved a lot.

But he didn’t have an address, so Minseok let him use his house for the drop point. Now the crystalline alligator charm was tucked away in three layers of cloth and in Kai’s best tree. Thinking of Chen’s plan to buy a gift and looking at the translucent aura container reminded him of the red liquid that sloshed within the charm.

He told himself that he would give the charm to its intended wearer, but every time he took the bundle out, his body would shake and make him shove it back into the tree. Kai knew that nervousness popped in his aura, but no amount of self-encouragement had been able to help him overcome it. Maybe he could ask Chen or Minseok for some advice on how to give gifts without changing dimensions every two seconds.

Smiling to himself, he thought of his latest interactions with the earth demon. D.O hadn’t said it directly that day of their duo section, but Kai could tell that he was apologetic. Then when they just got to talk for a whole day at his favorite lake, and when D.O asked him to stay at his apartment—he sighed in absolute bliss. Now they texted quite often when they weren’t on a task. The earth demon was scoping Juzhou, so Kai wouldn’t cause any distractions, but that wouldn’t stop him from thinking of him.

He should probably do something productive though. As long as Minseok was still a proxy, Hayong could potentially target him. He had best secure the perimeter once more before scanning through the area. And the more he moved, the less time he would use wondering what to do about the aura container.

Getting to his feet, Kai teleported through the trees to the edge of Izid. The mountain range curled around three-fifths of the town, and the other two-fifths had one straight path to its neighbor city, Juzhou. Kai started from that path and moved counterclockwise so that he would end at the human road again and could return to his rest tree. From the forest, he saw a few buildings, mostly municipality services or small clusters of residential homes. Smells of firewood and cooking wafted through as he passed, and he took a short stop to inhale the vicarious deliciousness.

A force suddenly flickered, tugging at his being. Kai paused and felt himself sway west, towards the town. Was his aura reacting to another neutral again? If last time he was led to a cabin full of souls, some amount of power must’ve existed in this small town of Izid. There were no other reports of souls gathering in this area, but if Hayong supposedly needed souls…

Kai blipped through space until the trees opened into a field. Multiple massive grids splayed out across the grass, and several buildings stood to the side. Kai wasn’t an electric element, but even he could feel and hear the power running through the air.

Lights shone from the biggest building, and Kai hopped over to its roof, peering through the transparent paneling in the center. Machinery, tubing, and generators flanked the walls and gaps of a suspended bridge of metal, and a group of humans clustered at the bridge’s circular area. Ah, Minseok told him about the blessed one’s school outing to a powerplant—a field trip. Kai didn’t feel any blessed auras from inside, but maybe the blessed one had split from this group for a moment. In that cluster though, he felt the resonation in his being. Only one or two felt slightly demonic but barely, so what was strong enough to pull him?

The humans started to move down the bridge, and Kai followed with his eyes for as long as he could before slipping through space and into the shadows cast by the bulky machinery. Blending his aura and physicality, he dashed from shade spot to shade spot until he had caught up with the humans. The elder two were explaining some mechanisms and designs of the electric grid, and the younger ones listened and asked questions.

As he rotated around the group to feel the auras, he stepped with silence, dancing between them. And, knowing that they were ignorant of his existence, he allowed himself a deviance and leaned an ear in at the mentions of electricity properties, wondering if Chen worked with those same principles, modified with demonic aura. He snickered at the thought.

A head whipped towards him, and Kai stopped. It was this one—his aura flicked and leaned towards this human with silver hair and a true neutral soul, and Kai thought that a hint of surprise lit in their eyes. There was no way that a human could see him even with a true neutral disposition, but the human’s gaze locked onto his so accurately. Was it because of the aura container? The human blinked and tilted their head, silver hair falling to one side, and turned back to the older human speaking.

How interesting.

Kai backed up and tailed the group as they moved down the bridge. He scanned the layout, offhandedly listened to the explanations, but mostly, he watched the silver-haired. The boy was marked, so he would need to contact Chanyeol and Luna to confirm marks, but every so often, he would glance in Kai’s general direction, and that was what made him follow on this human tour.

“Alright! Let’s head outside and look at the fixed grid panels in action!”

Kai filed out the door with the humans and back outside to the field. The leader led them down a path, but as they made a turn, the silver-haired stopped, his head craning towards north, his eyes squinting in the distance. Kai observed as the human took a step forward.

Something awakened.

A piece of aura, weak but fast, sped towards them, and the trajectory—

Kai tackled the human down, wind slicing the back of his neck. The force spun around and shot towards them again, and Kai now recognized its shape. He nabbed it out of the air just before it would touch the head of the silver-haired and cursed at the familiar brown feather wriggling in his grasp.

“Sehun?”

Kai looked up to one of the older humans jogging back to them. The human under him, apparently Sehun, groaned and wriggled, and Kai hurried to jump off him.

“Sehun, what happened? Did you trip?”

“Uhm, yeah. Sorry, I fell behind.”

“Oh, don’t mind that. I saw that fall. Are you okay?”

Of course, he was, but Kai didn’t bother noting their conversation. As they walked back towards the group, the feather in his hand jerked and pushed against his hold, aura pulsing. Sehun glanced back at him with confusion but said nothing else. Kai could tell the human knew that he didn’t trip, but he maintained the false lead. Plus, he had pinpointed him with an inhuman precision. That… intrigued Kai. Whether the reason was because of this human’s peculiarity or because of the aura container, he wanted to know.

But the feather in his clutches heralded more urgent attention. The presence of an aura magnetism potion glowed from the feather. Of course, Kai had scoped all the significant forces in the surrounding area. However, the feather hadn’t reacted until the silver-haired walked outside and was separated from the rest of his mostly-neutral group. This feather had been waiting to attach to a specific disposition of neutral soul.

Pulling out his phone, Kai dialed for Chen. As much as he didn’t want to interrupt his unitmate and his secret plan for his prey, the mission came first, and with this they gained new information.

If another of Minerva’s feathers was racing to this true neutral human, then they knew what Hayong needed.

~~~~~

The feeling of eyes on the back of his neck hadn’t eased since midway into the tour of the powerplant, and Sehun was seriously considering checking into another hotel and sleeping there instead of going back to his apartment.

Calculating through his budget, he could stay for a night if he dipped into his emergency fund. He wanted to keep that for extreme emergencies though, and he wasn’t sure if this stalking feeling came from real threat or old habits.

He could go to the police, but he didn’t have evidence. He could try losing his tails in a busy place, but their bus breaking down in the middle of the road ate up two hours of their drive time, so it was already dark and the people sparse. He could go home and see if Vivi sensed anyone strange, but he also didn’t want her hurt if someone attacked.

Sehun frowned at the thought of his accidentally acquired, transparent, and cute doggie getting hurt and shook his head. He would handle this himself. Besides, he knew how, and he wasn’t allowed to make a scene.

He switched to the front-facing camera and pretended to fix his hair in the screen, but really, he looked at the road behind him. No one there, but the shadows seemed to squirm where the streetlight didn’t quite touch.

A chill slinked up his back, and Sehun shuffled his backpack closer, hurrying down the sidewalk. He decided to head to the local library first. If he couldn’t lose them or make them lose interest by their closing hours (although that might not have been possible since his tails had followed him from three cities over and back), then he would hide out in the twenty-four-hour convenience store near his apartment for as long as one ramen purchase allowed.

Making his way across the blocks, Sehun stayed away from the alleys, stayed behind or between other people when possible, and kept his gaze casual as he looked around. He made it into the library and headed deep into the empty reference section. No one would see him, but he would be able to see his tails or what they wanted if he caught them right.

Ducking through the bookcases, Sehun found a shelf where the books packed against each other and pulled out one of the middle tomes, subtly pushing the gap bigger at the same time. When he could see through to the other side, he pretended to read a section, took a picture to feign interest, replaced the book at an angle, and went out. Next, he made a small circle to look like he was trying to find a certain shelf, which he supposed he was but not for the books. He plucked out a random book from nearby and held it up to ‘read,’ his peripherals just in view of the shelf he had modified. He pretended to read for a good ten minutes, but no person or flicker of movement came.

So they weren’t interested in what he was studying.

Sehun gripped the book in his hands harder to keep his fingers from rapping against the cover. All the tails he ever had would spy on what he was studying in addition to him in general. If these tails were real stalkers—and not just ones sent by his family—then the danger amped up several levels.

There was nothing Sehun could offer unless it was ransom, and he didn’t trust his family to be speedy about any trade even if it was to keep the situation hushed.

Shoving the book back into the shelf, he checked the time and jogged out the library. Anyone looking at him would think that he was in a rush, but the ominousness picked up in speed too. Skin prickling, Sehun reminded himself over and over to not break into a run. He had long learned that letting his tails know that he was aware only invited harsher, more direct actions. So his jog stayed a jog, and his expression came from realizations of a forgetful college student and not from the panic rising in his lungs.

He would take the normal way into his apartment. There weren’t guards, but a key was required into the building. Just as Sehun rounded the corner of the convenience store, he slammed into something, toppling them both over. From the double groans, he knew that the other was a regular person and scrambled to get up, but limbs and the straps of his backpack tangled and tugged him back down, his fingers fumbling to get them loose.

“Sorry, I’m in a hurry!”

“Sehun?”

He froze. The throbbing in his hands from smacking against the cement fled his consciousness because staring back at him, rubbing his honey-glow eyes and golden hair shining under the florescent and LED lights of the convenience store, was his favorite professor.

“Ugh. Are you okay? Ow. I didn’t think I’d run into you here, literally and figuratively. It’s pretty late already. Oh, but I think Professor Lee texted me something about a bus