As Shizuka traveled across the Vampire Settlement using her "Earthen Travel" Skill unique to her Soul Weapon, and thus, unique to her, she took in the world around her.
While using the Skill, Shizuka could see the world around her from the perspective of a bird flying overhead, despite her traveling along the ground.
Tsukuru had once compared it to a "third-Person Vision" when she had explained it to him, stating how it was similar to when he was playing one of his "sandbox" style video games, where the player character was in the middle of the screen.
'Man, it really is like I went back in time,' Shizuka thought as she looked around. 'That 'Muka' guy wasn't kidding when he said that this 'Settlement' of theirs was isolated.'
In a way, the layout of the Vampire Settlement perfectly matched the "Victorian-Era" style that the 9th Family Castle had.
She also noticed that the streets of the Vampire Settlement were relatively empty, with Shizuka only noticing a small handful of people as she traveled across the ground as a sentient dirt trail.
On some level, her sense of curiosity urged her to deactivate her Earthen Travel Skill and pop up in the middle of the street, just to see if that Vampire had been correct, and the Vampires around her would have noticed her presence immediately the second her physical body manifested.
But the "disciplined soldier" part of her instantly pushed that part down into the deepest part of her psyche, telling her that no amount of growing curiosity was worth compromising her mission.
Eventually, Shizuka made her way to the 10th Family Castle.
"Standing", relatively speaking, in front of her, the place looked like an old abandoned castle.
The type of "haunted house" that kids would go exploring on a dare.
Additionally, the castle had a large "living area" on the outer edges, looking like a small town with the castle at the far back.
But, just like with the castle, these houses, too, looked abandoned.
'It's as if I just stumbled across a deserted Shelter on a Beast Planet,' Shizuka thought.
Reaching the castle itself, Shizuka stopped for a second, as she "looked up" using her Ability.
In the front of the castle, there was a large, arching door with some sort of…circular "combination lock" in the center.
Or, at least that's the vibe Shizuka got from looking at it.
'Wow,' she thought. '...Good thing that doors have never been a problem for me.'
With that, the pebbles and dirt clods making up her "Earthen Travel" Skill entered the castle, squeezing under the small space under the castle door.
Once inside, Shizuka continued to glide around along the floor.
'Huh,' she thought. 'You know, for the castle of a 'dead family' this place is in relatively good shape.'
There wasn't a single cobweb in sight, and both the floors and the walls looked as though they were wiped clean on a regular base.
'Whoever this castle has retained as its cleaning personnel, they clearly deserve a raise,' Shizuka thought.
Shizuka began to travel down winding hallway after winding hallway.
Honestly, to her, it felt as if she was walking blind through a complex labyrinth.
Eventually, after traveling down the fifth hallway, Shizuka came to a sudden stop.
There, in the center of the hall, she saw a man perfectly meeting Muka's description of this "Vampire Knight Edward".
She saw an elderly, bald-headed man in a red cloak cleaning a relatively large portrait on the wall.
Once the portrait was clean of dirt and grime, a smile of satisfaction appeared on the elderly man's face.
However, as he looked up into the visage of the blonde-haired man in the portrait, a somber look appeared on his face.
He let out a deep sigh.
'Vincent,' he thought to himself. 'Just why did you do it? What could convince you to kill another Leader?"
While the elderly man was deep in thought, Shizuka took the opportunity to sneak up behind him.
She began to deactivate her Earthen Travel Skill.
The small pebbles and dirt clumps began to build on top of each other, traveling upwards as if unaffected by gravity.
It was similar to how it looked when Tsukuru's System first created a new Summon, just being made out of earth instead of hard-light pixels.
Once Shizuka's shape had fully reconstituted itself, she lost the earthy color, returning to her natural ones.
The elderly man's eyes widened, as he saw a shadow being cast over the portrait.
A shadow that clearly wasn't his.
After all, how could he, an elderly bald man in a cape, cast the slender, curvy shadow indicative of a woman in her early twenties?
Then, the smell hit him.
'Human!' he thought.
He twisted his upper torso in a wide arc.
At the same time, he swung his arm out like a blade, his nails elongated and razor sharp.
His sharp nails cut cleanly into Shizuka's throat, forming a horizontal slit, but just like with that time when Sergeant Leo had attacked her, Shizuka had instinctively activated her Soul Weapon.
Rather than blood dripping down, loose dirt poured out of the "wound", looking as if a slit had been cut into a container filled with sand.
Additionally, her skin took on the same earthy tone around the point of the impact.
The elderly man's eyes widened in shock as he saw this.
'What?!' he thought.
Even as a member of the 10th Family, and all the craziness that entailed, he had never seen anything quite like this.
Shizuka looked at the man with a look of pure and utter boredom, as if his reaction was something that she had grown used to.
Activating her Earth Ability, she caused the horizontal cut to seal up.
Once it had, she deactivated her Soul Weapon.
"Vampire Knight Edward?" she asked.
The elderly man's fists clenched, him now clearly on edge.
He had no idea how this woman, a Human no less, had managed to get into this castle, let alone managed to sneak up on him.
On top of that, he had never heard of an Ability belonging to the Humans that would explain what he had just witnessed.
"Yes?" he asked in a tense, guarded tone.
Shizuka held out her right hand, which was still clutching the rolled-up letter.
"I was asked to deliver this to you," she asked in an all-business tone.
Edward's eyes narrowed, a look of suspicion appearing on his face.
"I see," he replied. "And may I ask from just whom this letter…originates from?"
He would be a fool to just accept a letter, especially from a person he had never meet.
After all, even before the disappearance of their former Leader, the 10th Family was not especially…well liked…by a majority of the other families.
"A figure clad in a full suit of black armor," she replied. "I believe he called himself 'Muka', and if I remember correctly, he's the Leader of the 9th Family."
Edward's eyes widened in shock.
While he only really attended council meetings when it had something to do with the 10th Family, which was exceedingly rare, he had conversed with Muka on more than one occasion.
He honestly couldn't really call Muka an "enemy" of the 10th Family, but the armored figure was renowned for being…difficult to read.
Due in part to the fact that nobody in the settlement had ever seen his face.
Additionally, seeing as how the 9th Family was the closest thing the Settlement had to a form of law enforcement, they were well known for being impartial to the Settlement's politics, and tended to remain neutral on a vast majority of its issues.
Edward looked down at the rolled-up piece of paper in the strange woman's hands for a moment, before he then reached out and grabbed it.
Shizuka watched as the man did that strange trick where he turned his fingernail into a makeshift dagger, using it like a letter opener to cut through the ribbon binding the letter.
'Is that another Vampire Skill?' she thought to herself.
As Edward opened the letter and began reading it, Shizuka watched as his eyes got progressively wider and wider as they went down the page.
When he was done, he held the letter in shaking hands.
He looked like a man whose whole world had just been thrown upside-down, and he was trying to make sense of his new reality.
Shizuka raised an eyebrow in confusion.
'Just what the hell did that 'Muka' write in that letter?' she thought.
Shizuka knew next to nothing about this whole '10th Family' business, as she had come into Sergeant Faye's and Muka's conversation relatively late due to Faye's bite knocking her unconscious.
All she really knew was that the 'Talen' boy that Tsukuru seemed to be relatively close to had something to do with them.
Vampire Knight Edward continued staring at the letter for another moment, before he then looked up at Shizuka with a look of pure bewilderment.
"Is…is this…true?!" he asked.