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A cool breeze is enough to calm the nerves of even the most agonizing of souls.
The life of a party was slowly dying out as a lone man walks out to the balcony with an envelope and bottle in hand. He wanted this calmness of the wind, desperately.
He did nothing more but stare at the letter in hand, leaning over the railing. The face of the envelope spoke of congratulations but the man could not reciprocate the celebration it was meant to portray.
Many of the guests were already taking their leave and the lights inside the house began to dim as the maids went around and cleared everything up for the owner. Yet he stood out there as if the means of this party was a burden upon him.
Was he not worthy of this reward? Was it too much for him? He will probably never try to find out, all he knows is that it is a fate, a responsibility that's he's expected to uplift. Expectations are the worst of growth, a haunting curse that force you down a path you never wanted.
A letter for congratulating him for his promotion, or better yet taking up owner ship of a corrupt company. A duty laid before him by his late father who had mysteriously passed.
The owner of the envelope sighed and wolfed down whatever was left in the bottle.
What a sad beginning to a story....
The door to the balcony opened as the white light of the interior shone on the mans back.
"Aaghh...When I told you to keep the guests away from me it also meant that you should leave me al--"
When he turned around to nag, a quiet zip was heard and a bullet made it's way right through the gap between his eyes.
The caliber and the wind of the outside being strong enough to cause the limping man to lean back and swing off the balcony.
....It's a shame I had to end it before it truly began.
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The police always take their sweet time to reach the crime scene. They arrive and locate the body while another team raids the owner's house. The maids were the ones to make the call but they never saw the culprit.
Well, they actually did.
I guess I'm just good with my words.
"You sure you're not too relaxed? You're still near the area and the cops are still on the search." The voice on my earpiece worries.
"Don't go questioning how I do my job. The one thing the police will be looking for is run aways. I'm just going to grab a coffee."
"I still don't understand how you managed to pull this off, you're dressed for the occasion but you only showed up to the party after it ended."
"Obviously..."
"...I wasn't invited after all."
With my coffee in hand, I idle along with the crowd nearby and watch them take away the body in an ambulance.
Making sure to examine my handy work, I blend back in when the police begin pushing people back from the scene.
"This guy really was a big deal, they're setting up jammers."
"Then get off my comms. I'll contact you when I'm out of the red."
An alleyway is probably the most obvious way to go about this but it's also the most reliable means of staying out of sight and moving quickly. Still a shame I'd be making a mess of this suit and all...
Footsteps.
The sound growing closer and closer by the second as a light of a torch shone along the way until it's rays entered the alley.
A patrol officer squinted into the murky area and panned his light around. Another one soon followed.
"What's up?"
"I could have sworn I saw a guy come down here..." He responded with a shrug before continuing down the street.
Reaching the roof tops was easier than it seemed. I can finally make it out of here without much of a run.
"Alright, I got the confirmation, job well done."
"I'm not listening to you for a pat on the back, tell me what I want to hear."
"Yeeesshh, is that anyway to talk to your year long employer? Whatever, money's been transferred already."
I check my phone and sure enough find the correct amount being sent to me. It was a proper sign and send off.
"This price is still cheaper than what it took to find someone like you, it cost me a fortune just to hire you, ya' know?"
"If you manage to learn anything about me then you become my target, unless you pay me for a job...but once you found me you never wanted to let go."
I chuckle, jumping across roofs and slipping through apartment after apartment. Eventually coming across a complex that was actually worth my time.
Out of all the rooms, there was always one that was brightly lit through the window. Just across the street, I kept a watchful eye and smiled.
"Still, I did promise this would be the last hit I'd ask of you...but you always seem to be looking for more. Just how much money do you need?"
"...it's never enough. And for your information, I don't just kill. If you read more about me I could gotten you some Intel too besides having me kill crime bosses around the country."
"You did give us Intel, and that Intel is used to get rid of these corrupt sleeze bags that deserve a bullet in their heads..."
"And you're sure this was the last guy?"
I watch as the lights of the apartment turn off, which in return dimmed the smile on my face.
"The guy you just killed was the last of The Family, if we left that man as the CEO of an Arms Industry, I'd just be a civil war after another."
"He didn't seem like he'd be much of a threat, when I killed the guy was already on the verge."
"That's because the guilt of killing his own father caught up to him. What was that you always told us at the bar?"
...
"Just because you realize your mistake doesn't mean you're forgiven."
"Atta' boy."
"Whatever, if there's nothing else then I'm going off for the night, I'll be dumping this phone in the lake tomorrow."
"Loud and clear. Pleasure doing business with ya Void."
After that, the night truly had remained silent from that moment on. A good night's rest is deserved but eventually I'll have to start looking for more ways to make a living to keep myself occupied.
The following morning...
"Is this really feasible?"
"It's your fault for vacuuming talents into the industry everywhere you go." A woman with short raven hair and glasses huffed as she dropped a file on the man's desk. "I can't believe I have to say this but because of all these new recruits we have no room in our headquarters anymore, and we can't just book apartments for all our 'talents' without proper observation."
"Calm down, A-chan. You were the one who came here to give me a solution to this problem." The man intertwined his fingers and leaned onto his desk.
The secretary before him sighed.
"Right. We managed to get our hands in a fairly new built mansion in America. Due to it's vacancy and...well, overall size, I thought it'd be a good idea to move one of the English groups there. More specifically, Myth."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Just them? Better yet, why them specifically?"
"Given the fact that they're our oldest or rather the first group in our English branch, most of the facilities here in HQ are filled with their studios, rooms, theme specified streaming studios...the list goes on. While all the newer talents are confident to a single room at minimum." A-chan tapped a pen at the file then pushed it to him. "Though this is a concern that should be handled in long term, it's best to start with the group that will benefit from this the most."
The man opened the file and looked through it's contents.
"But it all comes back to one issue." A-chan sighed.
"This would be the first time we've housed our talents outside our observation, ultimately putting them at risk or the world if their nature were to be found out."
The secretary nodded. "Though they do a good job at concealing it themselves, it's part of their contract."
"But it becomes a matter of taking risk. We don't do that. Despite a contract I also promised these girls safety and freedom of enjoying who they are and how they want to express themselves." The man suddenly stood up from his chair and examined the file more thoroughly.
"Right..."
He then closed it and handed the file back to A-chan. When turning to delve deeper into his thoughts, his eyes glide over today's newspaper.
He snatched it from the desk and began reading through it as he walked towards the windowed walls.
The top headline reading the alert of an Infamous Mafia family coming to an end as the last son was assassinated. The large picture below the headline showed the towering abode of said son with nothing of note but there was something alluring about this area that made the man examine it more deeply even though there wasn't anything special about it.
"Well." He suddenly clasped the paper shut. "We waste time with thinking of the what ifs. Go share this information with the girls and if they agree, the moving can begin within the coming week."
"W-wait...go now? What about your work? You have a schedule to follow and I need to be there." A-chan worried.
"The schedules follow me A-chan. Don't be such a worrywart. I'm only heading out for a walk." The man smiled.
"Everytime you do that you go and end up recruiting someone..."
This got a laugh out of the man.
"Have some faith in me, will you?"
A-chan went on and exited the room. As she walked out, she pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed out with a smile.
"Among all the supernatural entities here...Yagoo remains the biggest mystery to me." She shook her head and continued on with a confident stride.
"Right, just need to inform the girls, it's simple. Who wouldn't jump at the announcement that..."
°°°°°
"We're moving!" A loud squeal. "We're moving we're moving we're moving!!"
A short girl in blue jumped around the halls then barged into a large room that was a group streaming studio. Many others were already present there.
"Aaahh!! Gura! The light!!" A blond hissed.
"Guys guys guys!!! We're moving to our very own place!!" Ignoring the remark the girl continued expressing her excitement.
"What? Who huh what when?" A pink head poked her head up from behind her monitor.
"You said what twice." Soon followed the voice of a girl that kept braiding down her tentacles as if they had a mind of their own.
"A-chan just met me down the hall! We're going to have our very own HQ somewhere else!"
"I didn't say that." A-chan walked into the room herself and grinded her knuckle on Gura's head.
"After some discussions with Yagoo, we came to the agreement of moving Myth to The United States."
"Wait, seriously?! We're getting our own house?" A girl with vibrant orange and turquoise hued hair got up from the floor. She was unnoticeable due to her doing nothing but laying and staring at the ceiling.
"It's a three storey mansion, to be exact."
"A MANSION!?" The blonde yelled.
"Ame, inside voice, iinnnnside voice."
"Wait that's cool and all but why exactly are we moving?" The pink haired girl raised the question.
"I will not sugar coat it. As of late, our headquarters has been getting.... overcrowded. It wasn't an expansion that we anticipated for the long run and it's becoming increasingly difficult to house all our talents." A-chan explained. "Out of everyone, you 5 seemed to fit the requirement."
"Oh what, just because I asked for one studio for daytime and one for night, that's too much?"
"You can have 4 in the mansion from what the catalogue says, Calli."
"Cool, great, awesome, so when are we going?" The reaper had a sudden shift in her mood.
"Whenever you'd like, given our tendency to make fast developments, a move won't be something difficult to do."
"So you're just gonna use one of the livers to transport all our stuff for us, huh?" Amelia hummed.
"I'm talking about our capabilities." A-chan puffed her cheeks. "If you leave it to us, your new home will be ready in just a day!"
"Then let's go tomorrow!" Gura jumped.
Seeing the lack of response from the others made it seem as though they agree to this idea which made A-chan break a sweat.
"U-Uhh..! Right! We'll get started....Right now!" The woman dashed outside the room, slamming it shut.
"I think we wrongly motivated her."
"Eh...she's got something to keep her busy now. So! Guess we should start packing?"
The girls stood up and shrugged at each other as they looked around the mess of a room they're in.
"Sooooo what exactly are we supposed to pack? If management is handling our stuff."
"Only the essentials. We're lucky enough we don't have any scheduled streams this week" Calli scratched the back of her head.
"Aaahhhhhh! We're getting our own mansion!!! Can you guys believe this?!" The short girl jumped around as she began snatching anything she thought was hers and stuffed inside her hood to go and begin her packing.
Some days later....
The cities were never a quiet place, whether it be the dead of night or the crack of dawn, there'd always be a deafening sound of cars and human activities.
Most would hate to constantly be exposed to such environments, others will find it to be perfect and blend in well for their own advantage.
Such as is one man using it, his dark and dense sights gliding over the contents of the newspaper in hand but he wasn't actually reading anything.
He's been very cautious all day, putting on an act to stay out of sight and suspicion but it doesn't seem to shake off this feeling. It was a dire thing....
Because why would an assassin feel threatened over being stalked? The thought of someone like him being tailed isn't an outlandish claim but whatever this feeling is, is not like something of the police department or a secret faction.
Deep in his thought, he didn't notice the new visitor who took a seat next him on the bench of the bus stop. He did nothing but quietly look at the cars passing by. But our man knew that there was more to this stranger.
"
Catching a ride for somewhere?"
'His voice...the accent seems japanese...' The first thought that came to the assassin's mind when the man spoke.
"Not really, all I'm interested is trying to get away." He answered.
"So you don't have a direction."
"Do I need one? If moving alone gets me enough for food on the table then I don't need one."
"Ambitions give you more than a chance at survival. Given your choice of 'lifestyle' I'd say you disregard that ambition."
His emphasis was strong and obvious, he knows exactly who he's talking to. But why is he here, is this another client wanting someone dead? Did he already score another job?
"I'm not someone special, unless you want something that requires me to be special."
The man finally turned to him, a soft smile on his face.
"I'm someone who can sense uniqueness in a person, which is why I want to ask you, who do you think I am?"
"Motoaki Tanigo, CEO of the esteemed and highly successful agency known as Cover Corp."
"And how would you know that?"
"It's my job to know faces, and you're not exactly a secret to society either." He flapped the newspaper and folded it up. "I've never been one to see the appeal behind these Vtubers but it seems to be doing pretty well for you."
"Like I said, I can pick out hidden talent and help them make the best of it."
"What do you really want from me?"
"I have a proposition for you."
"Sorry, I'm not interested in the virtual world, my job is already pretty far off your market."
Yagoo laughs then stands to face the man fully.
"Oh please, our corporation isn't all vtubers you know." He pulled his phone out to see limitless texts from A-chan but glossed over them. "I would like to offer you a different job, one that will make use of your expertise while also making a living that's far worth the money you're usually given."
"Why do you know..."
"You aren't the only one who has a tendency to do research on their target." Yagoo said smugly as he then proceeded to pull out a stapled bunch of papers from the inside of his coat.
He handed it to the man but he didn't really take it.
"Hiring someone like me is bargaining more burdens than benefits, you know. There'll probably be legal matters on your shoulder that you wouldn't want when taking in someone of my line of work."
"That is partially why I sought you out." He looked down at the papers. "Take a look, the decision is only up to you in the end. If you make a choice, you can find me on the address mentioned here."
As Yagoo spoke, the man began looking through the contents of the papers in hand. This was a contract.
"What are you even doing here in America?" He asked.
"Other than finding an assassin who's existence is almost mythical, I had to see through a business escort. Heh, my secretary has been asking for me for some time now."
With that, he began walking away. Now picking up on the messages left by his mentioned secretary. But only a few steps away, he stopped and turned to his man of interest.
"And it may be controversial for me to ask something like this but uh...what is your name?"
It's true, having a name or any form of identity is already a death sentence in the life of a killer in the shadows but the circumstances this man has put himself in, he strangely found himself intrigued by this offer for a different job and so he thought I'd be appropriate to share, it's not like Yagoo wouldn't find him again even if he didn't.
It took a lot of digging and use of precious information for someone to even locate this deadly weapon of a man in order to hire him.
...
...
"Cyrus. That's really all you need to know."
"Hm! I look forward to your answer then, Mr. Cyrus."
That night, he went home with the most conflicted he's ever felt.
The first thing he did when retiring to his apartment room was do more thorough research on this Yagoo character. Despite his all knowingness when they met he still couldn't see past his cover as a CEO. What power does this man hold? How did he find Cyrus so easily, he approached him like it were a morning jog.
Besides his relations and actions in Cover Corp there truly was nothing about this man to note.
Unless that's what's on the surface level.
Cyrus quickly made a few calls and used the guidance of a prime internet dweller and a few hackers to surf through the more darker side of the internet, or for better words, the less filtered side where there's more truth than paints of lies or excuses to hide them.
The contents he found were really something more than what he bargained for. Besides his laptop laid the contract Yagoo handed to him, he used it as reference to confirm the things he found on the site.
'Recruiter of supernatural entities....'
'Hiding powerful beings behind the face of Vtubers...'
The bizarre list goes on and on. At first he was convinced he accidentally landed on a hyper fan website that makes conspiracy theories about their favorite talent but all remarks he could take with a grain of salt matched perfectly with the contents of the contract.
He even found poor quality videos of two flashy dressed women, one with green hair with flowers and the other with red hair and round ears who seemingly open a portal through reality and step through it.
The later he spent the night looking through this, the more overwhelming this matter was becoming for him. If all of this was really going on in that corporation then why the hell would he actually accept this job?
What he was researching wasn't something that could constitute as illegal but he came across a strange finding.
The video that he had previously seen was belongings to an account of a certain group that acted as a cult to bring down an expose Cover Corp for what they are hiding from the world.
That was another rabbit hole is not ready for, and so he slammed his laptop shut and got up. Soon he fell backwards onto his bed and stared aimlessly at the ceiling.
"Thousands of files and Intel hidden behind the dark web and thick layers of firewalls only for it to be a case about fairytales and monster girls...?"
If this is fake then he really has no hope for the current state of the world, but if all of this is real then what is this contract meant to be for him?
'I need to actually read through this thing now...'
Most of what was within the contract was fairly normal and nothing out of the ordinary except for the deeper end of the pages that discussed the more truer side of the company that he'd be a part of if he were to join.
A personal bodyguard, assigned to a selected group of talents as instructed by the higher ups.
'A company this big should already have tight security already, why would they need me.' Infact, he thought. If he's to entertain this idea of all these talents having supposed super powers, why would they need such security at all?
Yagoo aimed for him because he seemingly understands the talents Cyrus has to offer but an exposure to such contents seems a bit too trusting of the man.
But then something happened.
Near the final ends of the contracts pages he found a section that made him jump back into a seated position.
His eyes darted wide open as he skimmed through the words on the page that finally slid down to the final words of "signature here:"
"And should you feel the doubt of admitting yourself into this new life, find it not intended for you, you can always find answers to a mystery that's been haunting your days since you were young. An answer that can finally bring peace to BOTH of you.
If you want such answers then you will find the source under stronger light."
Unlike the entire booklet that spelled every work ethic and job description so perfectly and professionally, this section of the contract was talking to him directly. The vagueness of these words would mean little to anyone, except him...Now he was agitated. They know way too much than they should and now he was determined to find out how and why....
And maybe, deep down, a part of him was eager to see if what this statement was saying could be true. He had to find out.
"Under light...stronger light..." He murmured as he paced around the room.
He finally managed to decipher what the instructions meant then shone his newly bought phone's light from the underside of the page and it was through there did more words appear.
It was an address. A different one from what Yagoo said he'll be meeting him at.
And with that, the contract rolled up in his hand, he ran out the room.
A While Later....
He finally arrived at the location. It was....a library.
It was already a worse case that he ran out here at a whopping 3 in the morning which likely would be an absurd time to meet anyone or find anything here, but he began to already speculate that this was a stick up and he was being fooled.
He kept on checking the address that he had typed out on his phone after memorizing it and it was no mistake. This library was a place randomly located at the heart of the city and it looked fairly old given the structure, not due to if looking run down, but rather it's architecture was seemingly giving off the theme.
When he approached the doors to try and take a peek by cupping his hands at the doors window, it pushed open from his weight. Sceptical as he was, he still thought it wouldn't hurt to check the place out, not like anyone could catch him even if he did set off an alarm or two.
He started wandering around the aisles and reading areas of the establishment, by the condition of everything inside it did seem like a very well kept and popular place.
Once he was about done surveying the place a voice erupted.
"You lost, handsome?"
On instinct, he flipped around and aimed his M9 Beretta that he seemingly slipped out from his inner pocket at blinking speeds.
He saw a woman sitting at one of the tables, a tall candle lit next to her and countless books scattered around here.
This didn't make sense, he just walked past the area she was sitting at, how is she here.
"Oooo, you are quick~" she hummed.
"Care to exchange some tips?"
To Be Continued