Xaviers!

Seeing the opening to escape, Kiwa left the three together to go sit down at the table and start up the electric kettle to make something warm to drink and try to wake up.

"You know it!" he grinned, hopping into place beside her.

Chisaki noticed Colette and then looked at Diego.

"Kiki, will you show him?

I will come back and play with you after I talk to Colette, I promise."

Colette was still gripping the wall when she heard her name, drawn back into reality for a brief period. Even though she'd follow Chisaki most willingly, the whole time she would find herself craning her neck to try and look back in the direction that Edmond had left.

Kiwa sighed and got up from her spot.

"Alright kid, pay attention. And pick a song."

"Colette-senpai, would you come with me?" She asked, reaching out to help her steady herself.

"Ehn? Oh yes, of course." Colette took Chisaki's hand and followed willingly, even if she wasn't looking where she was going.

Chisaki took Colette into a side room which seemed to be storage, based off the fact everything seemed to have something protecting it. Covered furniture, and cardboard boxes littered the room. Chisaki sat down on a covered chair.

"Colette.. I am sorry. I should have told you, but.... Also, I could not. If I did, it is likely that Basil would have been in trouble that much sooner."

Colette absently poked around at some of the items in the shelves, many of the items in their original boxes were in a language she couldn't read, so she had to try and piece together what they were from the pictures alone. It took her a moment before she fully processed what Chisaki had said.

"It... must have been difficult for you, to have be away from here for so long. You seem very happy here." If her tone and actions sounded apathetic it wasn't intentional, her mind still muddled from Bas-, er, Edmond's gaze.

Luckily enough for Colette, Chisaki already knew why Colette was speaking as if half in a dream.

It would pass soon enough.

"I do enjoy it here... it is... probably the closest thing I have to a home.

But that is not really the matter at hand.

Diego thinks I should return with you all to help the investigation. Kiwa does not. Edmond thinks I should do as I please.

What do you think?"

Colette closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. It didn't actually assist her in any way, but it was a mannerism she had witnessed countless times in her life and become associated with thinking about difficult topics.

"Zere... is much about all of zis zat I do not understand. But of ze zree options, I zink zat I agree wiz B-...Edmond ze most. I believe zat if you knew zat you could aid in our search, you would wish to return wiz us. And if you zought zat you could be of no help, you would choose to remain. I would not ask you to travel back to England and be separated from your fam... zose zat make you happy, unless you truly wished to."

"If I did not go back to the school, it is likely I would end up back at my parents hotel eventually, which I am not a fan of that idea."

"I do not zink in ze entire time I have known you, you have ever mentioned your parents before."

"My parents...." She paused thinking on the subject.

"I do not suspect you know much of the Watanabe family.

Originally, we branched off from the Minamoto clan.... samurais. And like all families of noble profession, our ancestors were incredibly...." She paused again to find the right word in their shared tongue.

"-Prolific.

There are many of us now in every walk of life.

My parents are mutants. They own a love hotel. I grew up in Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku." This seemed to pain her somehow to admit.

"They.... do not understand me, though unlike many of our kind it is not because of genetics that they do not understand me. Just common, mundane issues such as not understanding why I do not wish to take over the family business, and why I am so.... different.

It was Kiwa's enrollment at the institute that convinced them I should also go.

And when I made it clear to them I refused to follow in their footsteps professionally, Kiwa promised them she would find me fitting work for my skills and my personality."

She paused again, thinking.

"I cannot return home, or I will be drawn back into their dead end. I will be renting rooms to strange people and curious foreigners for the rest of my life. I will waste."

Colette only understood the context of half of what Chisaki said, it was unlikely that she actually understood what a love hotel actually was.

"Stagnation... is a slow death." She said in a tone that sounded as though she were still half-tranced, or at least a little bit out of it. "Zough it is not a bad zing to have as a fallback plan. I do not know how big zis business is, but one could always hire a manager, and use ze capital to fund ozer endeavours...

"But zat is beside ze point. If you are doing somezing zat makes you happy, zen you are doing ze right zing."

"I do not know what I am doing at this point, to be honest....

That is why I pulled you in here." She sighed as she sat down on an open spot on the floor.

"I do not know if I am ze best source of advice." Colette admitted. "I am inexperienced in almost everyzing. But..."

Colette joined Chisaki in sitting on the floor, not having to worry about things like bones and pulled muscles made finding a comfortable position rather easy.

"When you zink of what your ideal future looks like, five years from now, or ten... what do you see?"

"I have no idea. I was thinking more short term for now.

Namely, Benson-san."

"Would you feel better if you came to help us? Zere is nozing forcing you to remain in England after we are done, you can always come back here." That of course assumed that there was an end to their search - they might never find Basil.

"Only if you want me to. I do not wish to be a burden or make things worse on you."

"You do not need to worry yourself about such zings. To be a burden is my contribution, not yours. As it has been for quite some time."

"I... do not understand what you mean." She admitted.

"You, I zink, have more experience and training in defending ozers and righting what is wrong. For a year now I have been in your way when it came to your duty toward Basil. I am sorry if I have been a frustration or an inconvenience." Colette clarified in a melancholy tone.

"No. if anything, you helped.

If he was with you on campus I knew I did not have to worry who he was with, or where he was going. I did not have to call on Howard or Harold to report what he was doing and request a trail, or disguise myself to follow after the pair of you.

There was not a problem until the two of you moved out."

"Does zis mean zat... it was real? You were not simply putting up wiz me for ze sake of Basil?" Colette asked in the same sad voice, before something that Chisaki said struck her curiosity.

"Zat day at ze ice cream parlor, zat was you, was it not? Out in ze street, watching us?"

"I would be lying to say we definitely would have been friends without his influence, but not in the way you think.

I simply would not have had time to make friends with you, or Diego, if he had not taken an interest in you. I would have been too busy looking over him and potentially attempting to frighten off whatever psychotic woman he would have likely chosen instead.

But that does not mean I would not have liked you."

Chisaki nodded at her question.

"Hugo Ealdwine is Howard and Harold's younger brother. They would have been spotted immediately."

Colette teared up just a little bit, sniffling as she wiped her eyes. "I... zank you. As difficult as it has been for you, I am zankful to have you as my friend."

She considered Chisaki's last statement with a finger on her chin. "Before I zought perhaps zis mystery peeper was linked to Basil's disappearance. But knowing ze truz... that just further casts doubt on any possibility zat ze Spencers have somezing to do wiz zis."

"Not necessarily.

I do not understand the inner workings of The Board or Members of Management fully, but I know that Kiwa, Howard and Harold are all in direct contact with one another. Hugo however is not in that circle. And the only reason I am is I was looking after Basil, who is directly linked to Edmond via genetics.

What this suggests to me is that while the ones you spoke with may be above suspicion, as a whole they are not. Otherwise, why would they be hiding information from Hugo?"

Colette furrowed her brow a bit. "Zat... is peculiar, you are correct. Why would zey omit information zat may help Hugo perform his duties?"

"Everything I know about the Spencers is a sort of...."Chisaki searched for an appropriate word in English, but failed to find one." - itameru of publicly available information from the internet, What little Kiki is allowed to tell me, and what little Eddie-kun feels comfortable discussing.

The Spencers used to be three families, but now they are two. They have trouble producing male heirs, so one of the family lines died due to this. A first born child like Basil being male is exceptionally rare in their familial line. Ancestral charts available online show that Basil's grandfather-Edmond's father- first had a daughter named Beanina, and then a son, lord Dinis. So the previous Lord Spencer had a boy easy enough, two in fact.

But Basil has six Spencer cousins, and five of them are girls.

It is my current theory that this has lead to competition between the males in the family. Edmond has never said as much, but I do know he was treated as an unwanted thing before it was discovered he was a mutant, because he was an accidental child. That is why he is so much younger than his brother.

Actually, I think perhaps had he been better accepted, what he was capable of would have been discovered well before adulthood.

But that does not matter. The point I am making here is the hostility between the brothers is what is leading to the distrust. And I do not know how valid it is, but I do know it is heated enough between them that anyone associated to his brother is also not trusted. It is not meant as hatred for everyone, it is just that he does not trust Lord Dinis to have anything but hostile motives towards himself or Basil, and that providing anyone in his circles with information could be harmful to them.

And I also know that Edmond trusts very easily. If he did not, none of you would be here right now. So if Edmond does not trust him, I cannot either. And so I will not rule him or any of his children out as suspects until I know for certain. "

"But... Basil is not interested in any sort of inheritance. He has no need or want of such zings as titles. If zey truly considered him some sort of zreat, he would have renounced whatever claim zey believed he had. If any of zem had talked to him about such a zing, zey would know zat." Colette seemed quite sure of herself in this regard, even with the family history explained in such detail.

"Perhaps.

but then again, Edmond did not give up his position on the board even as he ignored all of his responsibilities. So given that their only example of how Basil might respond was a younger Eddie-kun..."

"Basil did not grow up in the same environment as Monsieur Spencer." Colette said, perhaps a little defensively, as if arguing her case with Chisaki would get her message across to the Board. "I do not know everyzing about Basil's home life and how he was raised, but I do not zink he shares many similarities wiz his fazer ozer zan genetics."

"We may know that, but there is no reason they would. Especially since Edmond seemed to still be around during Basil's earlier years." Chisaki points out, but doesn't argue further.

"Oooh, zis is right. I believe Basil had mentioned zat to me once before. I suppose zat zis is a point we will have to make when we speak wiz ze ozer Spencers."

"If.... we are going to make contact with the other Spencers, we must be careful."

"It went well before, zough zis was before Basil had gone missing... do you zink zey may know of our trip to Japan?"

"I would not rule anything out."

"... have we placed Monsieur Spencer in danger?" Colette asked with a hint of apprehension.

"Perhaps, but it was a danger he was ready for, and one Kiki is equipped to handle."