Following consultation with the Imperial Palace the RBC cannot verify the authenticity of the statements alleged to be made by the Empress in prior reporting. While information was transmitted to the RBC holding credentials it does not bear any verification from the Imperial Palace, which has stated it will be investigating the origins of the the message. It is expected that the Empress will make a statement on the matter in the coming hours, with the Imperial Palace presently stating that "the tone of the message relayed by the RBC is clearly out of step with how the Empress conducts herself. We appreciate the cooperation of the RBC on this matter as we move forward with our investigation."

We can verify that Cecelia Anselmo remains in port, with officials speaking off the record pointing fingers toward Kōketsu, an organisation recognized as a terrorist enterprise which last saw prominence in some manner of involvement of a Rokkenjiman ocean liner eight years ago.

Donna stood, "As merely the representative of the Empire here I can not order our navy to do anything, that is for the high command to determine. If you'll then excuse me I'll take your concerns to Empress Serena." With that she left her deputy to sit and listen should any further discussions begin while she was out the room while she headed down the corridor and had a quick chat with the Empress. She had been half expecting Donna to make the call and had half expected this kind of thing to become a point of contention. She did though have a plan that now she would adapt on the fly. "Having spoken to the Empress I have the following to say, this is not word for word her response but she will not mind the paraphrasing. The purpose of Aosta's actions was to ensure the Seaforth's control of Troyes ended and that the aims of the Reunion Party, who have dominated Troyes political landscape by calling for reunification with Marseille, were fulfilled. The Reunion Parties aims, along with those of the residents of Troyes was that their city is viewed, and treated as the territory of Marseille. While you have not agreed with our methods it is now true that for the first time ever we have a group of us willing to say the truth in public, Troyes is Marseille. With that in mind, so long as each of you stand by the words you have given here that Troyes is Marseille, the Empress will issue orders that in 24 hours time the Aostan ships will make their way to international waters. The Empress thanks each of you for recognising what Aosta has known for a long time, that Troyes and Marseille are parts of the same whole and that now the international community has no choice but to see it that way. Now we must focus our task on ensuring the illegal squatting of Troyes territory by Seaforth must be removed. With that in mind I believe we should, with immediate effect publish our Action Plan but stand ready to support further actions."

   Eikichi Hosokawa listened patiently as first Kayumi and then Donna spoke, reading and re-reading the proposals on the table as he waited for an opportunity to get a word in. It was, in a word, frustrating that the situation in Troyes had reached this point, not to mention how the actions of the Aostan military had risked further exacerbating it, but that was the past. They were, in his opinion, jumping the gun, so to speak; it would've been better to act as  a unified body rather than let it reach this point.
   "As far as I am permitted to say, these terms are acceptable for the Empire of Fusan." He said before continuing with "However, I feel must voice the objection of my government to the continued presence of Aostan naval vessels within Marsellais without their expressed consent. I would therefore urge that, until such a time as the government in Montaulon clarifies whether it views their presence as not amounting to a violation of their sovereign territory, Aosta withdraw its vessels to positions outside of their territorial waters as defined by the FSC."

The widow of Kyle Barren received the message and instantly wanted to throw it in the bin. The Rokkenjiman's, just like every other Helus-forsaken nation on Mundus could have easily brought her beloved Kingdom into existence but instead they had played the Morelanders game and branded her and her people as terrorists and criminals. She had no idea about what to respond with, at first she had considered ignoring it, then she wanted to spit venom at Lucinda, finally she went to see Giles Gedding.

"What was Kyle thinking" Giles said after reading the note, "Letting Rokkenjiman intelligence or whatever she is into the centre of Borland operations. We can't trust a word these Rokkenjimans say, they're not our way out of this and infact its clear they much prefer things in Northfort the way they are. I do not want you replying, I'll take care of this." Giles said as he slid the letter into his desk drawer. Beatrice was more than happy to allow that to happen, she just wanted to fade into the background now and watch after her sons interests and inheritance.

The next day Giles figured out a response.

"Lucinda. You'll know only too well we lived our lives together dedicating ourselves to trying to do right by the Borland Folk. We expanded that folk far beyond what people would imagine in our homeland. To have the person you love gunned down by criminals pretending to be heroes breaks my heart and I know I will never truly recover. You can be assured we will not forget him and his legacy will be built upon by generation after generation unready to be slaves to the illegitimate regime. For now my focus is on our son, the true King of Northfort. I hope that perhaps one day our paths, and his may cross on better terms."

---

Giles, had left instructions to his subordinate that he expected to be followed to the letter. The subordinate in this case was his nephew, Riley Meadows, a man in his mid twenties who was well versed as one of Giles' legitimate businesses "White Knight" hackers, testing cyber security for a fee. Today though he was up to no good. For the past few years under Giles instruction the group had run a neferious website known as the Valerian Bazaar on the Darknet. The concept was easy, sellers signed up and created digital wallets and utilised the sites "auto-encrypt" functions. Once a buyer had ordered their drugs, contraband, weapons or other nefarious items the buyer transferred digital currency from their regular wallet, to a Valerian one, then to the seller and then days later their goods turned up wherever they'd wanted them. The seller could then move their currency from their Valerian wallet to their digital one and then if they wanted into their bank account. Several tens of millions usually sat in these Valerian wallets any single time as sellers became buyers and vice versa. Today they were in for a nasty shock. No sooner would they have logged into their account to do business than a message appeared telling them the site was shut forever and that their Valerian Wallets were now the property of the Bazaar. While this loss of funds would be bad for most of the people using it the next message was even worse. It appeared the "auto-encrypt" hadn't exactly functioned the way people thought, nor had the feature of deleting personal messages after 72 hours. Every transaction, every transfer had been saved and while the exact identities would likely never be fully known there was a significant amount of data that would be interest to authorities. There was of course a way of the user avoiding this, a simple one of payment could be made ensuring your data never found its way online. Failure to make this payment, determined by how much money you'd transferred, would see everything leaked. "You have 7 days" was the final message before the site plunged the users screen into nothingness.

Donna Gianna smiled to herself and then glanced over at her friend from Abertone. "Each of us here then I believe is now on record as saying that Troyes is already the territory of Marseille. We will therefore agree that as and when the representatives of the Marseille government request us to leave their territorial waters we will naturally comply. I believe this is a fair compromise for us to reach in that regards. We are grateful for the support you have given here by stating that Troyes is already sovereign Marseille and therefore the Seaforthians are there essentially as squatters."