Covered Court

Chapter 1: "Departure"

In the middle of a pitch dark place stood a young man whose name was Kurogane Rei. He couldn't see anything because there wasn't any presence of light.

"Hey... Heeeey!!" he called out as his body was trembling in fear. All he heard were slow but emphasized footsteps. Since it was dark, he had no idea whom those footsteps were. The longer Rei stood there, the louder the sound of the footsteps became. A few moments later, however, the presence of a vivid bright light suddenly came visible.

Within that presence of bright light was a silhouette of a woman. Judging from the veil present in her clothing, Rei assumed that she was wearing a wedding dress.

"Kurogane Rei..." she spoke with a gentle voice. Since she was a silhouette, her face couldn't be seen, and Rei couldn't recognize her voice either. However, as her face was slowly revealed, Rei was sucked in by an unknown powerful force. The irritatingly chiming sound of the alarm clock woke him up from that dream.

He rose from his messy bed looking all tired and drowsy, and then yawned as he reached for the buzzing analog alarm clock to silence it.

"What was that?" he asked. Wondering what the dream was about, the only details he could remember was the silhouette in a wedding dress. Looking at the time, which was past six in the morning, he remembered an appointment he was supposed to have with his boss  scheduled at eight.

Setting aside the dream he just had, Rei rushed in preparation to the said appointment. After taking the bathroom rituals, he grabbed one of his black suit sets in his dresser. It included black slacks and a black tie. To complete his detective-like outfit, he pulled out one of his favorite black fedora hats with a silver-imprinted mark on the side. After everything was set, he went out from his messy apartment and drove off in his shiny black Lamborghini Gallardo.

Rei worked as an IT Consultant for the Schwartz Corporation located at Paris, France. Despite his job description, he is more focused on strengthening the security measures for the corporation's confidential and legal documents stored in several protected databases. As he arrived at the main headquarters of the corporation, he then entrusted his car to a parking usher and immediately rushed inside the premises to make it inside the elevator.

"What does this blondie want from me now?" he thought. The blondie he was referring to was the Executive Leader for the IT Department, his boss, Isabelle Schwartz. She is one of the CEO's grandchildren, who was rumored to become the successor of their corporation.

As soon as Rei got off from the elevator, he walked towards the front of Isabelle's office, reached for the door knob, and twisted it open. Before he could get in, he felt a vicious aura coming from inside.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Rei?" asked Isabelle in a deceivingly sweet voice. He felt the chills ran to his spine, but still maintained composure. As he fully opened the door, a book came in flying to his face. With his fast reflexes, however, he managed to get a hold of the book before it could hit him.

"Sneaky as usual, eh blondie? You have to do better than..."

Before he could finish talking, a chair came in flying and hit his head, and got knocked down.

"Well, you do know that I'm the type of person who doesn't fail the second time around, Rei!"

Isabelle giggled hysterically. Despite her refined looks: having curled gold hair, a remarkable body figure, and silky white skin, the way she acted was the exact opposite. Good thing for Rei was that he's already used to her sadistic doings, getting hit by a chair was just a scratch.

Kidding aside, he picked up the chair and placed it back in front of Isabelle's desk. He sat down on it and asked her what the talk was about. She took out her iPad, placed it tilted over her desktop, and showed him a video presentation about a university from his homeland, Japan. It particularly focused on hiring skilled and professional instructors.