Celine receives a formal invitation on December twenty-sixth to a New Year's Eve Press Conference hosted by the Initiative, and of course she immediately RSVPs. She, like the entire world, has seen the Whiddy Island coverage and she's honestly not sure how she feels about it. The media is definitely doing some sensationalizing, but it's not like Celine wasn't aware that a war had happened in the wizarding world - it's not too far a leap to think that there may have been Muggle casualties that were never admitted to by the witches and wizards. Though considering the timing, it seems that anger wasn't just slipping out during the war. How many family out there lost loved ones and have been forced to wait for answers - answers that were being hidden by a world they didn't even know about?

The whole thing makes Celine a bit sick to think on, so she mostly doesn't in the few days she has leading up to the press conference. But the day of it's all she can think about.

She arrives at the Ministry fifteen minutes early as instructed, and has to present her invitation to the Atrium greeter before he allows her further into the building. That alone catches her attention, but even if it hadn't her arrival on the seventh floor would be a major tip-off that this isn't a standard Press Conference.

For one thing, there is no formal stage set up, just a collection of chairs arranged to face the line of individual offices across from the lifts. For another, there are maybe twelve people present total, and while Celine knows there were a few people behind her it's a shockingly low number considering how many papers are printed in London alone.

She takes a seat near the front, scanning the other attendees as she walks past them. At her count, there are maybe four other Muggle papers represented here, which is another red flag, especially as Celine recognizes that each of the other four have generally offered positive coverage on the Initiative. This whole thing feels slimy, something she's definitely not used to when dealing with the Initiative. Though now she's wondering if she just didn't want to see it.

She settles in her chosen seat and looks around for Veena and Miles, spotting the former after a moment and giving her a hesitant wave. Veena catches the movement and starts walking towards her.

"Hey, glad you could make it. A surprising number of people turned down the invite and said they'd come to the main conference on the seventh." She says once she's in earshot, taking the seat next to Celine as she does.

Celine shifts nervously. "Main conference?" She asks, and Veena raises an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah. This is a smaller affair, invite only. We wanted to get a response out as quickly as possible without messing with the holidays too much more." She explains. "We tried to get an even number of magical and Muggle papers too, but again, a surprising number said no."

Celine nods, but honestly isn't sure if she believes Veena or not, and that uncertainty somewhat scares her. She knows these people - she shouldn't be second-guessing them. But at the same time, she has to retain her integrity as a reporter, and with the new information it seems that she may have failed on that front.

"Where's Miles?" She asks, instead of voicing any of her thoughts, and Veena shakes her head.

"He's not running this one - Mrs. Weasley is. She's the most intimately familiar with war casualties here, so she's handling the initial response."

Celine frowns. "War casualties? The war was in 1997 and 1998." She says, slowly, and Veena glances over with a sympathetic look.

"The second one was." She confirms. "But the first one was from 1970 to 1981 - that's when the Whiddy Island Disaster happened. And a few others too, but I'll let Mrs. Weasley explain. Again, she's the expert here."

Celine blinks slowly as Veena gets up and heads back over to where Mrs. Weasley is standing stock-still, watching each newcomer like a hawk sizing up it's prey. There were two wars. Celine hadn't known there were two - and the first lasted eleven years?

She's thinking her mother and uncle may have sheltered her even more than she'd already suspected.

It's another ten minutes before Mrs. Wealsey turns away from the lift doors and strides to the front of the room, Veena trotting close behind her. Celine expects Mrs. Weasley to immediately begin her explanation, so is surprised when Veena steps forward instead,

"Hello everyone, and thank you for taking time out of your holiday schedules to be here. We promise to try and keep this as short and to the point as possible." She takes a steady breath. "We all know about the news - the Whiddy Island Disaster. I grew up Muggle until I was eleven, I remember studying it in grade school, and trust me I was as horrified as anyone else to realize that there was magic involved in that explosion. However, it was not a random act of aggression against Muggles. I defer now to the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic and leader of the Initiative Audrey Weasley to explain the situation further. Mrs. Weasley?"

Now the Undersecretary steps forward, and immediately commands the attention of every person in the room almost effortlessly. "Thank you Mrs. Harris, and thank you all again for coming. As you all know, magical people are still people, and unfortunately people sometimes do terrible things. Twenty years ago a war broke out in the magical world - the Second Wizarding War. This conflict lasted a little under a year but saw mass casualties among the magical populace. Thankfully the conflict was kept almost entirely within the magical world. However, before I can speak to that war I have to speak of the First Wizarding War. I was only seven years old when it ended but it had a drastic and lasting impact on our society that directly led to the second war." Mrs. Wealsey pauses, and from anyone else Celine would call it posturing or needlessly dramatic, but Mrs. Weasley seems to genuinely need a moment to center herself before she continues.

"In 1970 a group calling themselves the Deatheaters rose up and began a reign of terror across magical England. They believed in what they called blood purity - the idea that some magical people were more pure than others, and they targeted anyone they saw as lesser, which was a majority of the magical population at the time. There were some attempts against Muggles, but for the most part the Deatheaters stayed within the bounds of the Statute, not least because there were groups working against them to keep people safe and, admittedly, oblivious to what was happening.

"In the first war the Ministry of Magic worked side-by-side with a group known as the Order of the Phoenix. The Ministry did its best to maintain calm and safety and informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the war's status, and the Order hunted down and arrested as many Deatheaters as they could. In fact, most of the casualties of the first war were members of the Order and Deatheaters. Most, but of course as we all know, not all." She takes another slow, steadying breath. "By the end of the war, the last three years, the Deatheaters were starting to win. The Order was being forced into hiding and corruption was beginning to infiltrate the Ministry. That was when the Whiddy Island Disaster happened - the Ministry couldn't get word to the Muggles in time to stop it. They managed to root out some of the corruption from that, but it wasn't enough."

How did you win then? Celine thinks, but doesn't dare to interrupt. The entire room is blanketed in tense silence, each person present hanging on to each word. Notes are being taken, but it's honestly the quietest scribbling Celine has ever encountered. Her own notepad is empty, and she quickly and quietly uncaps a pen to correct that oversight.

"The leader of the Deatheaters was a man by the name Tom Marvolo Riddle, but he called himself Voldemort. His reign of terror was such that to this day very few people are comfortable speaking his name." Another pause, another breath. "He was defeated by an infant. Or, more accurately he was defeated by his own arrogance and lack of empathy, leaving him unable to defend against a very powerful force that protected that infant." Mrs. Weasley stops again, but this time it doesn't seem to be to brace herself - rather, she's clearly searching for the best way to explain whatever she's going to say next.

"Magic... magic is a force that honestly even we don't understand after thousands of years of using it. But we do know it's very heavily influenced by emotion, and a charge of emotional magic destroyed Voldemort's body that night. The Deatheaters were left leaderless and unorganized, and the Order and Ministry together rounded them up. That was thought to be the end of it." She sighs. "It wasn't. Voldemort's body was gone, but he'd torn his soul into pieces and hidden them away, and they lived on, preserving his existence until he could be revived once again. That revival happened in 1995, and this time Voldemort worked smarter, not harder. He infiltrated the Ministry in just under two years, and then put in a new regime that began enforcing his blood purist ideals onto the general magical populace." This pause is definitely a bracing one, and if Celine's quick mental math is correct then Mrs. Weasely likely would have been old enough to be working at the Ministry during the second war. 

"There were two Muggle casualties total, both elderly men in the wrong place at the wrong time." She says quietly. "But honestly that's only because the Deatheater's first targets weren't Muggles - they were Muggleborns. Magical people with two Muggle parents."

Celine sees Veena wince slightly and recalls that the writer is a Muggleborn Witch.

"They were arrested en masse, dragged in front of a bogus court and accused of stealing their magic from true witches and wizards." She takes another shaky breath, and Celine figures it's pretty much confirmed she likely watched all this first hand. "And as it often is with tyrannical regimes that rule through fear, very few people were brave enough to stand up against it. The remnants of the Order and some new recruits attempted to fight back, but they had even less concrete success than they had in the first war. Muggleborns were going on the run to avoid being put into Azkaban. Once again, I think we only survived because we got lucky. The same infant that defeated Voldemort the first time went out, destroyed the pieces of his soul, and returned to kill him, mortal to mortal. Voldemort is gone. Unfortunately, as it often is with dictators, their organizations are Hydras. Cut off one head, two more spring up. In this case, his inner circle. But with the Ministry in Order control we managed a clean up within five years of nearly every prominent Voldemort sympathizer. Are there still blood purists out there, you might ask. I'd counter with a question for you: are there still anti-Semites?"

She lets that sit for a moment before continuing. "Things aren't perfect. Things will never be perfect. But to condemn an entire world on the actions of a small extremist group doesn't really help anyone. And for every Deatheater there were a dozen witches and wizards seeking to help wherever they could within the limits of the Statute of Secrecy, putting up defensive shields around Muggle towns and helping hide Muggleborns or even smuggle them out of the country in some cases. People are people, and at the end of the day I find that most people try to do good. The magical world is no different."

She takes another deep breath, this one not shaky or calculated, just tired. "Any questions?"

Pretty much every hand in the audience flies into the air, Celine's included. Honestly she loved the speech, and it definitely showcases why Mrs. Weasley is so highly respected in the Ministry, but she's still a reporter and she wants to make sure she has all the information to give her readers the best, most objective possible picture.

Mrs. Weasley calls on someone else first - a woman Celine recognizes as being from The Observer though she can't remember her name.

"You said that you got most of the Deatheater sympathizers? What happened to the rest?" The reporter asks, obviously somewhat nervous to hear the answer.

"Most of the ones we didn't arrest were already dead." Mrs. Weasley replies, flat and tired. "Despite being shorter the second war had nearly the same number of casualties - fifty in the final battle alone, not counting the deatheaters that didn't make it out. As things stand now there is one person at large, but we have teams searching for her every day, and have for the past twenty years. There's a non-zero chance she's also perished and we simply don't have a body."

Celine glances subconciously towards the Hunters' half of the room. She knows that in Finn's office sits a picture of a big-eyed, beautiful Japanese woman with the blood and sanity of dozens of people on her perfectly manicured hands. She saw it once, in passing, and had asked Landon about it, thinking maybe she was Finn's lover or something of the sort. When he'd told her Yurina's history - her private reign of terror in the Ministry halls, spilling blood without a thought and doing it all with a bright, gleeful smile - she had been horrified.

That's the one person still out there. The person who has a dedicated group trying to hunt her down, who has avoided every major magical police force in the world for twenty years. If Celine was horrified before, she's terrified now.

She swallows hard and raises her hand again when Mrs. Weasley asks for further questions. This time the man called on isn't someone Celine knows, and she assumes he's from a wizarding paper.

"You mentioned that 'some' people were smuggled across the border, but as I recall it was nearly two dozen Muggleborns that were found in safehouses on the main land? Rumor says an entire organization was created specifically to help out." He says, sounding a bit eager. Probably a gossip collumnist then - Celine recognizes the type of question he's asking as well as the tone he's asking it with.

Mrs. Weasley puts on a rather bland smile. "There has never been any evidence substantiating such claims Smith, and you know that better than anyone. Next question?"

Celine is rather surprised at how quickly the idea is shot down, though by the response it seems this 'Smith' has bothered the Undersecretary about this rumored group before. But if there really had been an organized group, that would actually look better for the magical world - something like that would need leadership and cooperation between multiple people, all of whom were risking their lives regularly just to help others. Mrs. Weasley probably could have left her response a bit more open-ended.

She shakes off her curiosity and puts her hand up again, and this time Mrs. Weasley nods to her.

"Ms. Yang, correct?"

"Yes ma'am, Daily Telegraph. I notice you mentioned that you had to work within the bounds of the Statute - if I may ask, could we get further elaboration on what that actually includes? Presumably all magical people are familiar with the Statute, but that's not the case for Muggles."

Mrs. Weasley smiles. "Fair point Ms. Yang. Well then, I'll try to give a short run down of the Statute, what it is and why it exists." She clears . "At it's simplest, the Statute of Secrecy requires that all witches and wizards hide their powers from anyone not already in-the-know about magic. Of course there are exceptions for Muggleborn students and their immediate family, but for the most part this rule is unbendable. Even magical people who date Muggles cannot tell their partner anything until marriage at the absolute earliest, and of course their in-laws are not allowed to know.

"All this must sound tyrannical." She says with a slight, tired smile. "But the fact is that the Statute was put into place to protect witches and wizards. I'd wager there isn't a person here who didn't learn about the witch trials, and the countless, pointless deaths they caused. The world was very solidly against magic users in the past, and the Statute was erected to keep us safe. That said, I'll be the first to admit that it may have been overdue to be phased out, but when you've settled into a comfortable rhythm, especially after events like twenty years ago throw things so completely into chaos, change seems particularly daunting. Does that answer your question, Ms. Yang?"

Celine scribbles out one last sentence, and then look up with a smile.

"Yes ma'am, I would say it does."

The rest of the Conference goes well, and Celine leaves feeling more confident than ever that the Initiative is doing the right thing and is being led by the best people for the job. She flips through her notes on the Tube ride back to her apartment, mentally beginning to write her new article. She wants to complete the feature tonight so she can send it to the editors and it can be posted to the website tomorrow, then printed in the first edition of 2019 on the fifth. It will be a late night, but it's not like she was going to bed before midnight anyway. It is New Year's Eve, after all.

Writing the article doesn't take all that much time, so Celine saves it and decides to walk away and edit in a few hours. She treats herself to a long, relaxing bubble bath before returning to her laptop wrapped up in her warmest bathrobe. She flicks on the television for background noise, keeping one ear on the reports so if there are any new accusations she can address them in her edits.

Nothing new comes up, so she sends the article off and goes to turn off the television, just a a breaking report lights up the screen.

"This just in, the President of the United States will be making an announcement today concerning the future movement of his country with the newly revealed magical world. This is coming at a time of particular unrest between the two worlds. We will be reporting live momentarily from the White House."

Celine blinks, and sets the remote down with a wry look.

"Of course this happens when the article is already sent off." She muses aloud, settling down on the couch to watch the report. Normally she ignores the US news, since these days it's usually just chaos and spewed hatred, but this is directly relevant to her work.

Thankfully it isn't actually the President speaking, just his new Press Secretary who while not super fun to listen to at least isn't actively painful to sit through.

She blathers on about the magical world and how secretive and awful it is, before making an announcement that Celine genuinely wasn't expecting.

"Which is why we are happy to say that we are working with a great witch to make sure everything goes well for our great country! Everyone please welcome Ms. Nina Yamaa!"

The Press Secretary steps back, clapping, as a figure Celine hadn't noticed before steps out from the shadows beside the stage and onto the podium. She's wearing a warm smile, and her large, dark eyes are clever and inviting. She gestures with one small hand to calm down the reporters who had begun shouting questions on her approach.

"I'm very happy to be here, and honestly I'm still a bit amazed that I am. For several decades I have sought to tear down the wall between our two worlds, but met with nothing but resistance from my fellow witches and wizards. We all should be one community, one people, and yet for so long there has been resistance that I have never understood. Now we stand at the precipice of something new - something amazing. I reach out my hand to my fellow Americans and ask that you accept. Together we can make this country great for all its inhabitants. I look forward to working with you." She gives another bright, honest smile before asking for questions.

Celine doesn't really hear anything else, her brain going into shut down as her heart races. The name is unfamiliar, and the voice is perfectly accented American which it shouldn't be based on the information she has, but she knows that face - she fears that face.

Nina Yamaa is Yurina Nakayashi, and she obviously just put the next phase of her plan into action.

Petra hadn't known until she got back to work on the fourth that Nina wasn't who she said she was, and the reveal was both startling and deeply upsetting - Petra had liked Nina. The woman was clever and kind and answered every question she was asked with an apparent honesty that had made Petra hopeful the Muggle world might start warming up to the Integration. Coming into work and seeing Nina and Yurina's pictures placed side by side, projected over the Hunters' half of the office, had been a gut punch.

"So this is a bad thing then." She said mournfully to Veena as she'd dropped into her desk chair. "How bad are the comments?"

"Not great." Veena confirms with a sigh. "Miles and I have another series of news interviews today otherwise we'd stay to help. You'll be alright?"

Petra grins weakly and pulls her noise-cancelling headphones out of her bag, holding them up towards Veena. "I'll manage." She says, and wills herself to believe it.

Veena gives her a pat on the shoulder before standing up to meet Miles as he hops out of the lift, somehow retaining his enthusiasm and energy despite the situation. The open Press Conference is coming up in three days, and she knows the leaders have been heavily prepping her two fellow Media specialists, cutting into their holiday break, so she has no idea where Miles' energy could even be coming from.

With a sigh she pulls on her headphones (Noah really is the sweetest guy), turns them on, and powers up the laptop.

Mrs. Morgan was nice enough to handle the social media pages over the holiday break, so Petra hasn't been on Facebook in a week and a half and is vaguely terrified of what it will be like. It takes about ten minutes for her to figure out that it's bad - possibly as bad as after Miles' and Desmond's drunken outing. Possibly worse.

She is seeing now what Yurina's plan actually is - dozens of people are accusing the Initiative of BSing their claims in order to try and retroactively cover up their refusal to integrate sooner.

"'overdue to be phased out' my ." One comment reads, "They're just trying to cover their because Nina exposed them for blocking her from having done this years ago. All this pain could have been avoided but no. Selfish s."

Another replies, "I'm glad Nina managed to find someone to give her a platform - we're getting the real story now!"

Petra does her best to play defense - she gets to a point where she has the comment "The initial Press Conference being quoted here took place several hours prior to Nina's appearance on the news" saved into her clipboard so she doesn't have to keep typing it out over and over again. But Nina (and even now Petra has a hard time thinking of her as 'Yurina') has planted strong seeds of doubt and suspicion among the Muggle populace, disguised as care and concern. Even Petra had fallen for it, and she feels worse and worse about that with each new, angry comment she responds to.

Eventually she reaches a twenty line rant that she's not sure how to reply to, so she copies it down and goes to the leaders' office, honestly too tired to feel embarrassed about asking for help.

She knocks twice to announce her presence, then slowly pushes open the door.

"Mrs. Morgan? I could use some help."

The leader in question looks up with a tired but genuine smile. "I'm glad you felt you could ask. What seems to be the problem?"

Petra presents the rant, and together they work out a thoughtful, on-brand response that Petra carefully writes down and takes back to her laptop. The entire morning is spent going back and forth, until Mrs. Morgan has to leaves just before lunch.

"You can speak with Mrs. Weasley if you have further concerns." Mrs. Morgan assures her. "I'll be back tomorrow all day."

Petra bites her lip and agrees, but she knows she won't have the guts to ask Mrs. Weasley for help. As great a boss as the other woman is, she also scares Petra, who doesn't want to be seen as incompetent by the legendarily accomplished Senior Undersecretary.

So she goes to lunch and barely eats because the pit in her stomach is taking up most of the space in her guts.

She's one of the first to stumble back to the offices, and she plants herself back at her desk, bracing mentally for the next round of arguments she's going to have to get into.

"This seat taken?"

She startles and turns to face the newcomer, her noise-cancelling headphones already pulled out. Fergus is giving her his usual easygoing smile, and something in her unwinds ever so slightly.

"Um, no, Veena and Miles are out all day." She replies awkwardly. "Can I help you?"

Fergus shrugs and takes the seat. "Actually, I wanted to ask if I could help you - you looked like a woman walking to the noose." He says, lightly teasing. "I'm on hold at the moment while we wait for things to calm down again - no Muggles are really open to us messing with their fireplaces when they're all being scared and angry so. Thought I might offer my services here, if you don't mind."

Petra's smile is a lot less tired now. "I mean, I'm completely fine with it if you are - the comments aren't exactly fun right now."

"All the more reason to help then." Fergus replies easily. "A burden shared is a burden halved - isn't that what they say?"

Petra's afternoon ends up being a lot less stress-inducing than she'd initially feared it would be - Fergus is quite clever with his phrasing and he regularly makes jokes about the comments and their posters, enough that Petra is able to laugh even at the most vile and hate-filled posts. He even writes a few of the responses himself, once Petra shows him how to work the mouse and keyboard properly, and Petra always finds herself giggling when she reviews them.

"I never knew you were the dry humor type." She admits while they're taking what Fergus is calling a brief 'mental health break'. "You should let it out more often."

He shrugs easily. "To be fair we don't work together very often, so you just haven't had a chance to hear me joke yet."

Petra concedes the point, and they chat amicably about nothing in particular for a few minutes, and Petra is amazed how re-energized she feels from just a short pause. She'll have to schedule in her own mental health breaks in the future. "Back to the grind?" She sighs, and Fergus grins.

"Bring it."

Fergus ends up staying with her straight through to the end of the work day, and she thanks him profusely as she powers down the laptop.

"Today would have been entirely unbearable without you." She insists when he brushes off the thanks. "I really can't thank you enough."

"Well I'd love to help out again tomorrow, if you'll have me." He says, and she beams.

"Tomorrow then."

All in all, despite a genuinely awful start to the year, Petra is feeling rather optimistic as she takes the lifts back to the Atrium and heads for the Muggle exit. A positive work environment really does make all the difference - she'll have to get Fergus something special to say thank you. He'd really gone above and beyond today, even if he doesn't agree, and she's always thought it was important to let people know that you appreciate them. And she definitely appreciates Fergus today - and she's certain she'll appreciate him again tomorrow.

This latest scandal is going to be causing her headaches for quite some time, she can already tell. And with Yurina only egging things on, well. She's definitely glad she has the Initiative in her corner, helping her out.

Fergus gets back to his apartment feeling utterly spent. How Petra spends all day every day reading comments from idiots like that he'll never understand - he swears he lost brain cells in just the few hours he was working with her.

Then again, she's probably a bit more resilient than he is. Sighing, he unlocks his front door and kicks off his shoes, looking longingly towards his bedroom but knowing he still has some work to do before he can retire for the night.

He shrugs off his cloak as he walks farther into his flat, which his sister keeps telling him is far too large to house only him (a terribly unsubtle hint that he should start dating). He's somewhat inclined to agree with her on days like today, when his brain is too worn to send proper signals to his feet and he ends up stumbling around the large, empty rooms. He should really sell it and buy something a bit more logically sized for a bachelor.

He eventually makes it to his study (he should move his study so it's in the same room as his bedroom. Note to self: do that on his next free day) and drops into his desk chair, taking a moment to lean back and close his eyes,, mentally preparing and recentering as he does every evening. Taking a deep, slow breath he opens his eyes again and leans forward in his chair, tilting so he can pull open the bottom right drawer of his desk and retrieve the blank parchment he'd stored there the night before. It sits on his desk, unassuming, as he rifles through the same drawer to locate a quill. Muttering a quick charm, he pauses for about thirty seconds before he begins to write.

Status Report, Day 132

Comments by the Muggles have shifted drastically towards an increased antagonism towards the magical world since Nina Yamaa's appearance. The recent attempt by the Muggle Integration Initiative to respond to the information drop on the Whiddy Island Disaster was effectively counteracted by Ms. Yamaa, and most comments seem to be siding with her over the Initiative. The group will be hosting an open Press Conference this coming Monday and will likely repeat their original message but also address Nina as well.

The Hunters rather quickly determined that Ms. Yamaa is Yurina Nakayashi, but they are currently unable to make any moves. Due to Nina placing herself in a public position and rapidly endearing herself to the Muggle populace any move against her would only be detrimental to the Integration efforts.

He writes for nearly half an hour, detailing some of the more graphic comments, or ones he thinks might be helpful in fully illustrating his points. Days like today he rather hates his near-photographic memory (it's not perfect, but he remembers enough that it might as well be), but he's not the sort to not use everything at his disposal when doing a job, especially one as important as this.

When he's done, he gives his report a quick read-over before writing one last line (He speaks the truth), muttering another spell, and watching the words fade away. He does allow the smallest of smiles at that - he'll always be proud of having created this method of communication, even if it wasn't under the best circumstances.

Now is the worst part of the night - waiting for the response. Usually he just gets confirmation that his work has been received and he can go to bed, but with how crazy things are right now he's not certain he'll be so lucky tonight. So he sits in his chair, staring at his parchment and waiting for it to warm up to indicate a response has arrived.

It takes almost an hour, and Fergus has nearly fallen asleep on his desk when the message comes through.

He scrambles a bit blearily to grab his wand and mutter the reveal spell - and he sighs in relief when he sees the single sentence scrawl across the parchment.

A thing can be true and still be desperate folly.

Message received, no further instructions for tonight. Fergus can go to bed.

But as he hurries through his nightly routine he feels the ever-present chasm of guilt in his guts yawning wider and trying to creep up his throat. He swallows hard, but he can't quite shake the feeling.

"I have to do this." He reminds himself firmly. "I have to. I'll die if I don't."

The words do solidify his resolve, but a lingering seed of guilt remains, ready to sprout up the next time he's too tired to fight it back. He'd pretended for months, years really, that the person he was working for might not be in league with Yurina, but that desperate lie has firmly crumbled away now. The information he'd dropped off at BBC headquarters, the following fallout, and the appearance of Nina all clearly show he's been helping her with whatever plan she has going on. And he's powerless to do anything else.

Fergus refuses to die for a war that was supposed to be over.

Author's Note: >:) Thus ends Part One.