"The bank, a reflection of everything that is wrong and corrupted…" Elizabeth said solemnly as they entered into this establishment.

  "Eli-Eli, I got our turn!" All the while Rossie came running back from the machine that gave tickets, giving to Elizabeth the small piece of paper that symbolized how much time they would be tied here.

  "We are turn S-4D0W," Rossie said nodding at Elizabeth, what kind of joke was this?

  "It is missing an H," Elizabeth said, reading the thing again to make sure she had gotten it right.

  "They all are like that, the tickets all are weird jokes or puns that refer to shadows or the taint." Rossie said, showing the other two tickets, they had similar numbering and naming.

  What the hell was going on with this?

  Wasn't this supposed to be a hard topic to touch upon? And here they were making a joke out of it?

  "I think there is something more to it, too," Rossie said, showing her the tickets once again, "Look here,"

  And then pointing to one that she had kept, she let it fall into the floor, it wasn't even a second after touching the floor as the ticket turned into shadows and sank into the floor, Elizabeth followed the blip of shadow mana and noticed how it traveled back into the machine.

  "It seems like they have some type of magic or skills here to recyclate? I am not sure where it goes, but I assume you do?" Rossie said turning to Elizabeth.

  "Then..." Elizabeth said focusing her senses into the ticket, sure enough it was mostly shadow mana made, they turned what was a normal ticket into something infused with shadows. Why? "It goes back into the machine,"

  Elizabeth was not sure, she wasn't even sure it had a reason to be, it seemed like a pointless use of Mana if anything, at least Elizabeth saw no reason for doing this.

  Even so, she just took the ticket and the situation in stride, she could probably get an answer if she asked around, but she had gotten enough infodumps lately and she honestly, didn't need to know how it worked to move around here, so instead of worrying about that, she decided to just wait it out and keep her questions for later.

  The wait wasn't that long in the end either; perhaps not many people had a need for a bank nowadays? Elizabeth was aware that [Inventory] type skills were quite useful, and really. If one could carry their money in a safe space like an [Inventory] then why wouldn't they?

  She wasn't quite sure why this type of establishment still existed once that was put into question; surely the [System] was safer than a physical location?

  She could think of a way of stealing things from within her own [Garage], of course. Still, they all depended on having mastery over [Space Mana]. As far as she had seen, not many people had it, so while it could be possible, surely an establishment that dealt with these amounts of money could afford to pay someone to set up protections against these intrusions, and since she could think of ways to stealing the contents, she was well aware of how to protect them too.

  So, really, what was the issue at hand?

  Why set them up, and why do it like this, but Elizabeth had other problems to deal with, that is to say. Their turn was coming soon, it seemed that most people just spent less than a few seconds with their business here and left. How was even that possible? Wasn't a bank known for being a bureaucratic hell? At least Elizabeth thought it would be like that, but it seemed that it wasn't like that at all, perhaps it was some evidence left by the reign of terror from Echidna? Highly efficient bureaucrats.

  That would be quite fun in its own way.

  "Next person please," Came the voice from the speaker that had the numbers reading out, Elizabeth looked at her ticket and since she saw the numbers on it she stood up.

  "You aren't coming?" Elizabeth said turning to Rena and Rossie. She ignored Jenna and Lily since they didn't seem interested in them for the moment.

  "They only allow one person per account," Rossie said shaking her head, "Besides I wasn't sure what service you wanted so I asked for a consultation meeting."

  What service?

  Oh, right, what was Elizabeth supposed to ask them for? She wanted information on Echidna and where she was, so was she supposed to merely ask, 'Hello, I want to ask you where the former owner of this place went to', somehow she doubted that would work.

  "Okay," Elizabeth said nodding, "Then please wait for me, I'll try to not take too long."

  Both Rossie and Rena nodded at her and waved her away; Elizabeth decided to not think too much about how Rossie was hugging Rena and how one of her hands had disappeared under the other girl's blouse.

  Surely they wouldn't get handsy in a public environment like this...right? Not in front of Jenna and Lily...and god knows how many cameras...

  No wait...

  "Mordred...no, Reginald. Are those cameras active?" Elizabeth started first calling Mordred but thought better of it; she didn't want to risk her shadow dragons quite yet; she had confidence in keeping her authority over them, of course; at the very least, she was sure that those minions closer to her would be able to keep their link to her if worst came to worst.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  That being the thing, she didn't want to show her card quite just yet, not before confronting Echidna anyway, she still had to decide what she was going to do against her, shadow was out of the question, but would Thunder work as well against her?

  She would see soon enough, of course.

  "...Mistress please don't do that, Mordred is now annoyed at me," Reginald spoke within her mind, "What do you require of this humble servant?"

  What did she want? Oh right, that.

  "Are the cameras recording Rena and Rossie?" Elizabeth asked, that had been the reason why she had called after all.

  "Negative; Lady Rossie has mastery over empty spots in the surveillance system, so she picked the right spot to make sure they wouldn't be recorded." Reginald answered, then sent the information of said blind spots, "If that wasn't enough she has passive spells that function as recognition inhibition, not full inhibition, but one that focuses on certain acts, in this case anyone that sees Lady Rena and Lady Rossie will only see a pair of girl playing around while they wait."

  ...Well they were sure as hell 'Playing around' if Elizabeth was to trust her imagination about what Rossie and Rena were doing, so that was how she got away with that huh?

  Clever girl.

  With that out of the way, Elizabeth now had more things to worry, important things, like what the hell was she going to ask, how does one go about it?

  "Would that be all Mistress?" Reginald asked inside her mind.

  "Yes, do you have any suggestions about how to deal with this?" Elizabeth decided to ask Reginald, he was, after all, one of her older minions...Even if he was also among the ones that had been with her the least amount of time.

  "Be direct. You have nothing to lose and everything to win; negotiation is for those with things to lose. Getting help from this institution is pointless; there is no power within Zaanam that can steal anything from you without us noticing."Reginald spoke within her mind feeding her the measures they had against intrussion and the results from any intrussion that worked in the first place.

  Elizabeth understood and was sure the data was correct, for starters the real identity of her [Garage] skill was merely a way to pull and store things within the Shadow HAven's vaults. A place that was connected to the central spire within the Shadow Haven. The most safe place within her Domain.

  "Alice Ashcroft?" A voice asked for her Name, Elizabeth nodded, "I'll be needing an identification of some kind."

  Elizabeth shrugged and pulled the ID that [Hydra's Fang] had given her before, she still had some of the papers that identified her as Alice from the MPI of course. But she decided that they weren't needed quite yet.

  "....I have confirmed your identity, what do you need?" The woman asked.

  "A name would be good for starters," Elizabeth said shrugging, she didn't need it of course, she could probably get it by merely using [Identify] after all.

  "I am Margareth Blackthorn," The woman said nodding at Elizabeth, "Apologies, what can we do to help you Miss Ashcroft?"

  Blackthorn? That was one weird Name, probably some type of shadow plant-based power? Elizabeth wasn't sure what to get from that name.

  "I have a couple of questions. I have been away from society for a couple of years." Elizabeth said shrugging, "For starters last time I was around there wasn't a bank here, I used to work here after all."

  "....Interesting." Margareth said looking up and down Elizabeth, "We have been the sole owners of this place for the last decade, we did rent it away some time, but our former renter moved away."

  ...Rented?

  "Can you tell me where the previous tenant went?" Elizabeth asked, not that she believed that they indeed had been renting to Echidna, that was such a weird statement that surely couldn't be true.

  "That we don't know," Margareth answered, "The only reason I am speaking to you is because of your name."

  What?

  What did that have anything to do?

  "You are not aware?" Margareth asked, bringing a piece of paper and passing it to Elizabeth, "Echidna has been searching for someone with that Name, well...Not your Name, but the last Name."

  The piece of paper had some vague descriptions that matched Elizabeth...or well, that matched her shift as Alice Ashcroft, the last name was there, but she asked for information about Chloe Ashcroft.

  So Echidna also remembered? What the hell was with that family.

  Or was this the love of a mother? No, Echidna was many things, but a loving mother was definitely not one of them.

  "I see...Sorry, but my name is Alice, not Chloe, as you can see." Elizabeth said, shrugging, "I wouldn't mind if you confirmed it with a system skill such as [Identify] or [Apraisal]. But that is the degree I will accept."

  Elizabeth knew that there were more skills besides them, but she was not willing to test the might of her Layered safeguard against a powerhouse in infosec skills.

  She trusted that they would hold since they had been enough to deceive the Galaxidae (Rossie's mom) to some degree, but she didn't want to test her luck here.

  "I will do just that then," Margareth said pulling out a pair of glasses, "Don't mind me....[Identity Confirmation.]"

  The might of the skill was...weird, it felt more heavy than what Rossie's Mother did, but also more focused, she could feel the thing scour her [Name] from the status screen, but she was sure that it would be fine...

  This layer of her status was being enforced by her belief of who she was, right now she truly was Alice Ashcroft, this shift was based upon her identity as the daughter of Eleanor Windsor and Jack Ashcroft after all.

  The sole daughter of the mistress of Shadows and the American Crusader.

  "...I have confirmed your identity Miss Alice," The woman said removing the glasses, "As stipulated with Mistress Eleanore we will pass on this in that case."

  And snapping her fingers a box materialized in front of the woman, not from an [Inventory]-like skill, but quite literally the Mana left her body and formed into the box.

  "That...does not look like normal [Space] type [Inventory]." Elizabeth couldn't help but say that, it was closer to how Elizabeth pulled things from her Shadow Haven after all.

  "Correct, this is a required skill for all of us who work in the bank, with the [Advent] and the new skills. Simple [Space] aligned [Inventories] are no longer as trustful as before." Margareth said offering Elizabeth the contents of the security box she pulled. "There are many ways to invade the privacy of an [Inventory], all you need is enough mastery of [Space] type skills, and the new [System] helps greatly in that aspect, one only needs to use the skill once over again and again to get the proficiency after all."

  Elizabeth took the folder that was inside the security box and put it at the side, "These are how we dealt with that, skills that secure objects within our workers, like that all that is needed is to keep a worker secure, besides while there are skills to tamper with the mind and soul. There are no skills that can invade or extract the contents of another soul without breaking or destroying them."

  There weren't? But Elizabeth had done jsut that hadn't she?

  With Akira. She had pulled the [Gems of Sin] from his soul...Or was it that hard to do?

  "I see..." Elizabeth said, taking her attention back to the folder, "Is this all I can get then? No directions or anything else?"

  "That will be all we are allowed to provide you Miss Alice," Margareth said shaking her head, "Mistress Eleanore left these only in case you turned up and weren't Miss Chloe Ashcroft."

  With that Margareth stood and walked to the door, "You may remain here as long as you desire, if you don't have an [Inventory] type skill you may bring these to the front for storage in your own account, or destroy them as you wish."

  Elizabeth nodded and waited till Margareth left the room. When she was gone she turned to stare to her own shadow, "Mordred, Reginald...are we secure?" She asked there.

  "As secure as you can be, Mistress, no foreign entities have attempted to contact your Shadow after leaving the dinner; our defenses of the Shadow Haven remain strong as far as we can perceive." Mordred was the first to answer.

  "No foreign wavelengths have been detected, and all the electronic devices within that room seem to be working as normal. I would require more privileges to ensure full privacy. But as far as we can detect you are safe, no monitoring devices either." Reginald answered.

  "Well, then, time to see what Echidna left for us," Elizabeth said, turning to the folder and opening the thing. "...What the hell?"

  Was all she could say when she read the first phrase, "Is this a sick joke for you?" Elizabeth said as she felt her Mana boil and rage inside her, "Who do you think you are?!?!?!"

  Elizabeth said, raising her hand, and with a wave of it, she materialized a vicious-looking dagger that pulsated with red ominous veins on the edge of the weapon; she was half a mind of shoving it into the piece of paper and focusing all her Mana in an attempt to cast a curse that could track the Mana within the folder to the owner.

  Because Elizabeth could sense it, there was Mana inside the paper, the words at the top that stood there as if nothing also radiated a faint azure glow, just like how the golden letters her Mother left her in that room that now stood within her Domain.

  Only, unlike those words, she felt no warmth or care.

  No, these words taunted at her; was it indifference? Was it the expectation?

  Elizabeth was not sure what she was feeling from them, how could a single phrase cause so much damage?

  "Hello Daughter, we need to speak."

  "....Damned woman....you are telling that to the wrong person..." Elizabeth said in a whisper as she sat back and turned to look at the dagger, she had not thought about anything when pulling the weapon, but it was...similar to the ones that Alice had wielded in that alternate world where she was indeed the daughter of Echidna.

  Only broken and twisted by Elizabeth's anger.

  If this was only from the first phrase, Elizabeth was not sure what else to expect from the rest. This would be...hard.