Pokemon: The Spy and the Idol

Takeda's office was spacious and impeccably organized. He gestured Hiroshi to sit at a small meeting table by the window. "Tea or coffee, Kobayashi-kun?" he asked as he himself poured tea from a ceramic pot. The Director's hospitality was textbook, but his eyes were probing over his wire-rim glasses.

"Tea, thank you," Hiroshi replied, folding his hands to hide a slight tremor. He accepted the cup, taking a careful sip. There was a silent pause as Takeda sat opposite, steam curling between them. The Tokyo skyline glinted outside.

"I wanted a quick chat to get to know you," Takeda began evenly. "We don't often get someone of your… unique background in an Assistant Director position. Frankly, it's unprecedented." He smiled, but the words were pointed. "You can imagine there's some curiosity among the staff."

Hiroshi nodded vigorously. "Of course. To be honest, sir, no one is more surprised than me. I fully expected to start as a junior analyst or something. When I got the call that I was being promoted straight here… well," he chuckled as if self-deprecating, "I thought it was a prank." That part wasn't far from true – he had been shocked when Makima told him.

Takeda studied him, tapping one finger on the table thoughtfully. "But you did have overseas experience, yes? With PSIA's scholarship program, I was told."

"Y-yes," Hiroshi lied blithely, since Makima's cover file said so. "Finished top of my class at Tokyo Uni, did a year at Oxford. My focus was security studies. Then I was doing research work in Europe attached to an embassy… nothing field-related." He gave an embarrassed shrug. "I suppose someone upstairs thought bringing in a fresh perspective might help with… with everything that's happened." He lowered his eyes, feigning discomfort at referencing the troubles.

Takeda's teacup paused mid-air. "Everything that's happened," he echoed quietly. His jaw tightened a fraction. "Yes. The lab incident, the leaks… a dark time for us." His face was a mask of professionalism, but Kirlia's empathic signal to Hiroshi was subtle alarm – Takeda's emotional state had flickered through guilt or fear at that moment. It was like a whiff of smoke that vanished immediately. Takeda sipped his tea, then gave a paternal smile. "I will be candid, Kobayashi-kun. There are many agendas at play in HQ now. You have Makima's backing and someone in the cabinet – that gives you clout. But I'd advise you to tread carefully, learn the lay of the land. Some of the old guard might be… resistant to sudden changes, even if you have good ideas."

Hiroshi put on an earnest, slightly wide-eyed expression. "I appreciate the advice, Director. I have no intention of making waves. Honestly, I'm just grateful for the opportunity and I want to do well. My family name… carries expectations." He laughed nervously to sell it. "I'd rather not embarrass my uncle or Makima-san."

Takeda seemed to relax a bit and even chuckled. "Understandable. Just remember that here in PSIA, loyalty is earned through service. Do your job diligently and people will accept you in time." He then leaned forward, voice lowering conspiratorially. "If I may, one more thing… You'll hear rumors – this branch went through a witch hunt after the lab betrayal. Some junior folks were accused, careers ruined on suspicion. Makima meant well, but it created a lot of resentment internally. Morale is fragile." He clasped his hands. "Be mindful of that. If you go digging into every corner right away, some will bristle. I'd hate for you to face hostility out of misunderstanding."

There it was – a gentle warning. Or was it a threat? Hiroshi couldn't be sure. Takeda was essentially telling him: Don't snoop where you shouldn't, kid. The traitors among us (if Takeda was one) would prefer he keep his nose out of the shadows. Hiroshi maintained a thankful expression. "I see. I will definitely be careful. The last thing I want is to disrupt the work being done. Thank you, Director Takeda, truly." He bowed his head. In his mind, he thought ironically, Don't worry, I'll only dig under the cover of darkness.

Daisy sent a soft pulse of approval to him – she'd caught enough of Takeda's subtext by reading his mind from afar now. He's wary of you, she confirmed silently. He's wondering if you're Makima's watchdog. Good, let him wonder – but not conclude.

After a bit more small talk, Takeda dismissed Hiroshi with a courteous pat on the shoulder. "Now, I'm sure you have plenty of settling in to do. My secretary will help you with anything, and we'll see you at the end-of-day debrief." (The branch had short director-level stand-ups near 5 pm, apparently – a perfect chance for spies to spy on spies all over again.)

Hiroshi returned to his own office feeling like he'd walked a tightrope. The moment his door closed, Kirlia Akemi hopped off the chair and hurried to him, concern evident on her face. He crouched and gave her a quick scratch behind the rounded horns on her head. "I'm okay," he whispered. She had sensed his stress, no doubt.

In the privacy of the quiet office, Daisy finally shimmered into visibility, stepping out from behind a cabinet where she'd cloaked herself. Alakazam appeared as well with a brief psychokinetic flicker, having teleported directly inside once he knew it was clear. Hiroshi exhaled and allowed himself a tired grin to his psychic team. "Well done, all of you," he murmured. In response, Daisy inclined her head gracefully, and Alakazam gave a sage nod, twirling one spoon between his fingers.

Knock-knock. A gentle rapping at the door made Hiroshi straighten, and in an instant Daisy and Alakazam vanished again – back to hiding, swift as phantoms. Akemi plopped down by Hiroshi's feet, pretending to play with a paperclip on the carpet.

It was Aki who entered, carrying a stack of files. He wore a charcoal suit and the tiniest earbud – a standard comm device – which Hiroshi knew was patched into a secure channel for the team. "Sir," Aki said formally, a little loudly, "these are the quarterly personnel reports you asked for." He placed them on the desk, then, pretending to adjust the files, he spoke under his breath, too low for any bug to pick up (and Daisy was jamming any hidden mics anyway). "First impressions, Hiro?"

Hiroshi replied at normal volume, flipping open a folder as if reviewing it. "Thank you, Hayakawa. I'll review these this afternoon." Then, quieter, "We have a lot of maybes. Any issues on your end?"

Aki's face remained impassive for any potential onlookers through the window. He whispered, "Someone's definitely been tampering with records. I tried pulling the full list of employees who were at the lab on the day of the heist – found three entries with odd access-denial flags. Could be nothing… or someone scrubbed them." He cleared his throat and added louder, "Also, Director Takeda suggested focusing on section E's reports first." Then softer, "Himeno's working on those names directly with HR cover. We'll get them."

Hiroshi nodded, eyes on the papers. "Excellent. Please thank Director Takeda for his guidance." And in a mere breath, "Watch him." Aki's eyes flickered – he understood. With that, Aki excused himself.

As the day progressed, the team quietly set to work across the branch. Each of them blended into the background of their departments, becoming ears and eyes:

In the Analyst bullpen, Kobeni peered at her computer screen with feigned confusion. A senior analyst kindly came over to help the "new hire," giving Kobeni cover to ask innocent questions. As she stumbled through a data query, her sharp eyes caught a co-worker hastily closing a chat window whenever someone neared – a co-worker who, Kirlia sensed from afar, radiated anxiety whenever certain foreign intel codes came up. Kobeni noted his name with trembling fingers. Her heart pounded, but she recalled Himeno's gentle encouragement that morning: You've got this. She did not have Daisy or Akemi by her side, but she knew to trust her own wit. By lunchtime, she had already flagged an unusual pattern: one of the weekly intelligence summaries on the Director's desk had discrepancies compared to the raw field reports (something a mole in analysis might manipulate). It was subtle, but Kobeni's quick mind and fear-driven diligence caught it. She covertly messaged Madoka the details via the secure app: "Report 7 mismatched. Possible edit by X." And in her cubicle, she practiced breathing slowly so as not to look as terrified as she felt every time a supervisor walked by. I won't run away, she reminded herself, repeating the promise she'd made.

Down in Archives, Angel meandered through rows of file cabinets with an armful of documents and an expression of utter boredom. Anyone observing would think the poor guy was stuck with a newbie's most tedious chore – which was exactly what Angel wanted them to think. In truth, his keen eyes were scanning file labels at lightning speed. He cross-referenced dossiers Makima had given him about past political figures and incidents tied to the betrayal. If a file was missing or out of place, that itself was a clue. At one point, he "accidentally" spilled a stack of papers near a fellow archivist's desk and as they helped him gather them, he casually noted the open spreadsheet on their computer listing recent file access logs. A quick glance, a photographic memory snapshot – later, Angel would relay to Madoka which sensitive files had been accessed by unexpected personnel. Angel sighed and yawned often, even as his mind raced. When a pair of chatting employees wandered near, gossiping about the new Assistant Director, Angel leaned against a shelf, eavesdropping. "He looks like a deer in headlights," one man snickered. "Probably here to pad his resume, then bounce to politics." The other muttered, "Hmph, if the old man Takeda doesn't eat him alive first…" Angel suppressed a smirk. They had no clue the "deer" had fangs in the form of telepaths. Still, the reference to Takeda's temperament intrigued him – he made a note to mention it in the debrief. On his way out, Angel made sure to leave a few "misfiled" decoy folders for any prying traitor who might watch him – false leads suggesting Makima had him digging into outdated cases. Let the enemy chase ghosts, he mused.

In the Tech department, Madoka sat at a console, typing away with methodical calm. Around him, other IT personnel paid little heed – he was just the bespectacled new transfer running security diagnostics. Madoka's fingers, however, danced on a second keyboard under his desk – a secure laptop configured by Makima's best hackers. Through it, Madoka was quietly querying internal databases. Each search was carefully obfuscated to appear routine: pulling email archives related to benign keywords, then using a cipher to filter them for codewords the team suspected (like "Jackal", which Kishibe's intel had surfaced). Whenever someone passed behind him, Madoka smoothly Alt-tabbed to a network diagram on his main screen, the picture of a diligent IT auditor. He muttered complaints about "outdated firewall protocols" to add authenticity. At one point, his hidden scans triggered an alert – someone else in the network was running a high-level query on him. "Well now…" he whispered, adjusting his glasses. Instead of shutting it down, Madoka let it through while sandboxing his real data. The query traced back to an account in Internal Security. Perhaps Chief Hasegawa's people running a check on the new guy? Or a mole trying to see what this IT specialist was up to? Either way, it meant someone was nervous about new faces in Tech. He filed that tidbit and sent a coded ping to Aki: "Possible ISO watch on newbies." Meanwhile, Daisy occasionally fed him snippets of conversations from around the building relevant to his domain – like hearing two techs quietly complaining that "the analyst guys keep asking about the backup servers" which tipped Madoka off that a particular analyst (possibly one Kobeni noticed) might be snooping where they shouldn't. Piece by piece, Madoka wove the threads of data together.

In a subterranean firing range, Denji and Power made their loud debut. The two had been assigned a "familiarization training" session, supervised by a skeptical range officer. Denji blasted away with a standard-issue sidearm, hitting decent grouping on the target but grinning like he was at an amusement park. Power, meanwhile, kept up a stream of boasts that she didn't even need a gun to "annihilate enemies" and that this was a waste of time – until the range officer barked at her to focus, wiping the smirk off some nearby agents' faces who had been laughing at the brash redhead. In their apparent horseplay, the duo served an important function: drawing attention. A few agents gathered behind the firing line to watch the "reckless newbies," and Denji obligingly played the fool, overdramatically blowing the smoke from his pistol barrel and asking if he could shoot two guns at once. As a result, nobody noticed when Kishibe – present under pretense of evaluating their performance – slipped away for a few minutes into the facility's armor vault. There, the old hunter noted an inventory log on a clipboard: a recent requisition of tranquilizer darts and experimental suppression collars (the kind used on Pokémon). Odd for HQ to need those. Kishibe wasn't techy, so he simply memorized what he saw and would share it later. Returning to the range, he found Denji now engaged in a friendly spat with another young field agent about who could hit more bullseyes in one minute. Power cheered loudly for Denji, who whooped and started firing rapidly. In the commotion, Kishibe sidled up to a stern man in a tactical vest who'd been watching. "Your thoughts on the newcomers, Lieutenant?" Kishibe asked gruffly. The man shrugged, "They're raw, sir. Might shape up. The boy's got guts at least." Kishibe nodded, noticing the lieutenant's guarded stance. The veteran could smell a lie in the sweat – that soldier was hiding irritation or concern. About what, he wasn't sure. Perhaps the spectacle, or something else? Kishibe made a mental note and barked at Denji and Power to wrap it up, calling them "lunatics" with just enough affection that a few onlookers chuckled. As they exited, Denji whispered, "Did we do good, gramps?" and Kishibe gave him a quick pat on the shoulder: "You were ridiculous. Nice job."

Over in HR, Himeno sat in on a routine hiring panel interview, her role being to evaluate psychological suitability. It was mundane work that let her exercise her cover legitimately. During a break, she roamed the halls with a cup of tea, casually chatting up staff in the lounges. With her easy smile and approachable air, she soon had a small circle of employees from various sections talking freely – about their weekends, office gossip, and inevitably, the new Assistant Director. "He's adorable!" one younger woman from accounts giggled. "I expected someone…older." A bespectacled fellow from Internal Security frowned, "Adorable or not, I hope he's not here to lead another witch hunt. We can't go through that again." Himeno blew on her tea. "Witch hunt?" she echoed innocently. The man lowered his voice. "After the lab incident…Makima herself interrogated a lot of folks. Good people were treated like traitors. It hurt morale bad." A data clerk chimed in, "My friend in Analysis almost quit. They had her under a microscope just because she had an uncle in the States. It was crazy." Himeno nodded sympathetically, filing this insight: resentment toward Makima's purge tactics lingered – something traitors would surely exploit to hide among genuinely offended innocents. She made a point to reassure them, "I'm sure Kobayashi-kun isn't here for anything like that. He seems too mild, if you ask me." Internally, she smirked; if only they knew. As the others laughed and agreed that he looked "harmless," Himeno glanced at the Internal Security man. He was stirring his coffee rather hard. She caught his name from an ID badge: Tagawa. Kirlia wasn't nearby to sense him, but Daisy was monitoring through Himeno's earpiece. Later, Daisy confirmed to Hiroshi that Tagawa's name was connected to one of the flagged anomalies in security logs Madoka found. A link – one of many they were beginning to weave into a tapestry.