Shizuka looked at the elderly man for a moment with an unreadable expression.
A momentary pause filled the hall of the borderline-abandoned castle.
"You're asking the wrong person," she eventually replied in a blunt voice. "I've been in this 'Settlement' of yours for less than an hour, and as such, no nothing of your inner politics."
Shizuka's eyes glanced down towards the piece of paper Edward now clutched in his hand like a lifeline.
Despite being upside-down, she was still able to read it quite clearly.
And as she did, her eyes narrowed in annoyance.
She had been under the assumption, given Muka's previous words, that she was merely here to pick up a device capable of playing the recordings on Sergeant Faye's thumb drive.
But now, it seemed that she would be bringing back a passenger with her.
Vampire Knight Edward's face hardened slightly.
He knew that this girl in front of him was completely correct.
He was a fool for asking some random Human about such an important matter.
He remained silent for a moment.
"Please, follow me," he replied, as he began walking down the hall.
Shizuka watched the retreating man for a moment.
'He's remarkably spry for someone of such an advanced age,' she thought, noticing how Edward seemed to walk with the movements of one half his age. 'I guess even at such an advanced age, a Vampire is still a Vampire.'
Shizuka followed Edward down the winding halls of the 10th Family Castle, eventually stopping outside of a specific door.
Edward reached into his robes, and pulled out a metal ring covered in numerous, antique-looking keys, the type you'd see in an old castle, which, in retrospect, kind of made sense, given Shizuka's current surroundings.
He began sifting through keys, until he stopped at a specific one.
Edward placed the key into the keyhole, and turned it clockwise.
An audible "click" was heard.
The elderly man placed his hand on the doorknob, but before he could starting turning the knob to open the door, he stopped.
He remained silent for a moment.
"You know," he replied in a low tone. "I haven't opened this door in centuries. This room…it is, or was, Vincent's personal workshop."
Edward looked down at the floor, grief on his face.
"Ever since Vincent…left…I haven't had the heart to open it."
Shizuka looked at the elderly man for a second.
He kind of reminded her about the way that her and Tsukuru's mother, Hikiko Reiju, had acted for the first few years after their father had left.
She had actively avoided every room in the house even tangentially related to him like it was a quarantine zone.
It was as if she thought that if she ignored it, she could on some level pretend that their father had never existed.
To the point that so much as uttering his name in her presence had become taboo in the house.
"This 'Vincent'," Shizuka finally replied. "He's the former Leader of this place? The one who…fled?"
Edward remained quiet for a moment.
"Yes," he replied in a low tone. "He was."
He pushed the door open, which created an audible "creak".
Inside, the room looked like an absolute wreck.
There was cobwebs and a thick layer of dust on just about everything, leading credence to Edward's earlier claim about him not having entered the room in a very long time.
However, despite everything being covered in a layer of dust, Shizuka could still see everything clearly.
The room was filled with all sorts of mechanical devices, as well as a wide assortment of various forms of weapons and armors.
Shizuka could feel the traces of Beast Energy emanating off of them, causing her to realize right away that they were all Beast Gear.
'This place looks…familar,' Shizuka thought to herself, as she couldn't help but compare it to how Logan's room in the Green Family Estate had looked whenever she had gone in to talk to him.
Looking around the room, Shizuka's eyes locked on to a particular table.
The table stood out quite clearly, as it had spots on it that weren't covered in dust, allowing the clean table underneath to be seen.
But, these "spots" didn't appear natural, they almost looked like outlines.
As if something had been sitting on them for years and had only just recently been removed, with the only evidence that they had ever been there being these outlines.
There was a set of three "outlines".
One was what appeared to be a pair of gauntlets, while the other was what looked like to Shizuka to be a rapier blade.
The table also had two objects on it, both covered in a layer of dust.
One was the same black "light ring" that Sergeant Faye had shown her when Shizuka asked how she remained unaffected by sunlight, and the other was what appeared to be some sort of a glass flask.
"My former Leader, Vincent, always seemed to have a certain…fascination with the technology that you Humans used," Edward explained as the two of them walked through the room.
Shizuka's eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, I know the type," she replied casually as she looked around. "My surrogate brother is the same way."
She found herself wondering on some level that if Logan and this "Vincent" person ever got to meet, which was highly unlikely, as this "Vincent" was most likely dead at this point, would they get along?
Shizuka's eyes then narrowed.
'Wait, if this 'Vincent' was so fascinated by our technology, then why is a bulk of the stuff in here Beast Gear?' she thought in confusion. 'Beast Gear is a relatively new commodity, all things considered. And Edward said that this 'Vincent' left centuries ago. We didn't even have Beast Gear back then…did we?'
Shizuka found herself thinking back to a conversation between herself and Logan that had occurred years ago, long before he and Tsukuru left for the military base.
It had been about that strange black box, that Logan claimed was a Teleporter, that the boy was hell-bent on cracking open.
Logan had told her that his grandparents had "found it" somewhere nearly sixty years ago.
At the time, Shizuka had dismissed the claim as being utterly ridiculous, as they had only just discovered Portals themselves.
And the Portals they had accessed to were all large and bulky.
A "compact" Teleporter like that black box was a piece of technology that was a least a few decades away.
The idea that something like that could have been discovered decades ago was a complete absurdity.
Shizuka's eyes tightened.
'Hmm…I wonder…' she thought.
She continued following Edward as he navigated through the large room, passing by table after table covered with machines and Beast Gear.
Eventually, he stopped at a specific spot.
"Ah," he replied, picking up an object. "Here it is."
He took in a deep breath, and blew out a strong exhale of air, blowing the thick layer of dust off.
Underneath, the pristine, silverish metal of the device was revealed.
Shizuka stared intently at the object that Edward was now holding in his hand.
It looked like a large, rounded cylinder, roughly the size of a small flash light.
It had what appeared to be a camera lens at the very front.
Shizuka raised her eyebrow in confusion.
'That's a…projector?' she thought.
It was unlike any form of projector that Shizuka had ever seen, and it was definitely different from the bulky, bricky projector that they had used during their numerous "meetings" back on the military base.
'It looks as though Sergeant Faye may have been telling the truth when she said that the technology of this 'Vampire Settlement' was more advanced than what we have access to.' she thought.
Shizuka stared at the small, slender device in Edward's hand for a moment.
"If this place really hasn't been touched in centuries, does the technology in here even still work?" she asked in a sceptical tone.
Edward turned back to her.
"Everything here is powered by Beast Crystals," he replied in an even tone. "Even if ten times as much time had passed, they would still be able to operate as perfectly as the day when Vincent first constructed them."
Shizuka's eyes tightened.
That sounded…suspiciously like exactly what Logan did with his creations.
'The more time I spend in this 'Settlement'...the more questions it raises,' she thought.
Edward slid the rounded cylinder into the pocket of his robes, the same one where he kept his key ring.
He turned back to Shizuka.
"Alright," he replied, snapping Shizuka out of her thoughts. "I've procured the device that Leader Muka has requested."
He held out his hand.
"Shall we be off, then?" he asked.