In any case, it definitely had to be Itsuki’s imagination. This was Kizuna’s world, after all. The worlds hadn’t been connected by the waves, so I couldn’t see any way he could possibly be here. All of those guys had been missing since they manipulated Itsuki in Zeltoble, anyway.

Thinking about it now, they had sided with Witch and yet hadn’t been with Takt. It was far more likely they were still in that world, up to no good. But I also couldn’t really imagine Itsuki lying in his current state.

“Maybe it was just, you know, someone who sounded like him,” I said.

“Yes. I think that has to be it,” Itsuki agreed. I understood why he wouldn’t like it to be him. He did nothing but cause trouble.

“Okay. We’ve collected quite a lot of information. Now we have to decide what to do with it,” I said. There were all sorts of ways to run away, but getting in there was going to be a lot harder. Raphtalia’s and Raph-chan’s instincts suggested that we’d still be spotted even if we used magic and concealment skills. That said, there was a limit to what we could do by just creeping along and hiding.

“The sun is setting. Not a bad time for some sneaking,” I said. If we could use the cover of darkness to sneak into the secret facility where Kizuna was being held, steal her back, and then immediately portal away, that would be that. If things went smoothly, we could also “discuss” the matter of Kizuna’s abduction with the vassal weapon holder. And if we didn’t like what we heard, well, we’d take care of him too.

I hoped it would all work out . . . but we couldn’t just stand here wringing our hands either. Ideally we would find a safe route and take back Kizuna without them even spotting us. The biggest threat was having the musical instrument vassal weapon holder spot us and take Kizuna hostage. If he brought her out in front of us, like Takt had done, then all sorts of problems to save her presented themselves. It was better not to presume he would be that stupid. That was definitely something to avoid.

I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a trap here we just weren’t seeing. But I also felt that, whatever the trap was, we could break through it using Liberation Aura X. If these vanguards of the waves were all like Takt, unable to bring out the full power of their vassal weapons, then however hard they tried, we would still have the advantage.