Sector 12 [20:23]
Arisa and Aku walked down a small grassy path. Aku walked several paces behind with her arms crossed, growing more and more impatient. Aku put Arisa in charge of the mission. It was up to her to lead them and carry out the collections they were conducting. What could have been a quick in and out, had Aku just done the mission alone, was quickly becoming a lengthy task. And with the small buzzes she felt from her phone she was starting to feel pressed.
Arisa was fumbling with the omni-book’s projected map and mumbled to herself, “Is it here? It should be this way….it should be a residential district so why are we in a forest?.....” she looked nervously back at Aku and saw her annoyed face, “Ahhh I’m sure it’s this way….”
Aku was staring at the map through her eyes on the nerve-connection. They were most definitely headed in the wrong direction. But even with Aku’s gentle redirections and questions along the way...they were already 40 minutes behind schedule, “00-”
Arisa’s spine shivered at Aku’s cold voice, “Oh 014 don’t worry I’m sure that it’s just right-”
Aku stopped walking and pointed back the way they had come, “It’s that way.”
Arisa froze in place and then pouted, “But the map-”
Aku looked at Arisa’s map on her omni-book and sighed, “This isn’t oriented correctly. And you shouldn’t be using it like this-” Aku clicked the button on the side of the watch and three prongs pushed into Arisa’s wrist. She shrieked in pain, “You have to get used to the nerve connection.”
Arisa sniffed the tears from her eyes, “But it hurts so much,” as she blinked, the nerve connection allowed the once projected map to be displayed in her line of vision.
Aku shrugged, “You could just leave the nerve connection permanently in like 013.”
“That doesn’t sound better.”
Aku heard the crunching of footsteps on leaves on the path downhill from them. She grabbed Arisa and pulled her into the bushes, motioning her to stay silent. Carefully, she peered through the leaves and made out two STAM agents patrolling. She watched and listened carefully, motioning for Arisa to remain silent.
---
Kenji was walking a few paces behind Kyoushirou, one hand thumbing through the handbook on the dog tags and one hand dragging his staff through the ground behind him, “So...white mazoku are babies and then they are classified into a range of colors based on their combat abilities with the highest being blue mazoku which are agents of a mazoku organization?” he rambled in frustration, “They’re organized??”
Without turning around Kyou responded, “For several years STAM has been facing mazoku with structure, intel, and uniforms. We don’t know what their organization is called but we know their HQ is in the Dead Sector or ‘the 27th Sector’ as the mazoku call it. ”
“Hmm…” he swiped up on the tags to see 2 pictured mazoku labeled under a black heading, “What are these black agents then?”
“The top 2 agents of the mazoku. With white to red mazoku we contain first, blue mazoku we tend to dispose of because of their high level, but the black agents….we try to contain them so that we can study them.They have unique mazoku abilities and cary out solo missions while blue mazoku tend to work in pairs.”
Kenji turned off the dog tag display and nodded, “Right...right….what’s containing mean?”
Kyou turned to look at him shocked, “Are you serious?”
Kenji smiled and scratched his neck.
Kyou groaned, “STAM is made up of officers and agents. We 6 are agents and we take the most dangerous missions that involve capturing and controlling illegal mazoku activity,” he paused to make sure Kenji was following along and sighed again, “We agents are broken up into 3 teams, those teams have 1 container, me, and 1 disposer, you. Containers lead the team and contain the mazoku, disposers are to dispose of the mazoku if anything happens to me- the container. Make sense?”
Kenji nodded slowly, “So that makes us a killing team ey???”
Kyou could see the dark grin covering Kenji’s face, “Our job is to keep humans safe,” he felt a throbbing from his head, “If you don’t even know that, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh? I thought I was “adequate”.”
“Adequate?” Kyou spat, “You don’t even know about your own role on this team and you think you’re adequate? You’re pathetic-”
Kenji stepped forward to grab Kyou at the insult, but Kyou knocked away his arm and pulled it behind Kenji’s back, stopping him from moving.
“Let me let you in on a little secret partner. You don’t get to move a fucking muscle unless I give you the go ahead. And if you even think about stepping out of line I can have you sent back to that hirad town you call home. Understand?”
Kenji didn’t struggle against the hold. He was nearly grinning at the rise he had gotten out of him, “Yes.”
Kyou let him go and led the way in front. Kenji followed silently.
From their perch just above, Arisa slowly let out her breath. She could feel her cheeks flush from just looking at him, Kawamiya Kyoushirou...you’re upset about having a disposer on your team?...could it be…
Akumako didn’t move until her ears could no longer hear their steps.
“And that 00, is why we try to avoid the evacuation routes for travel. STAM plans their patrols along those routes. But let’s get a move on before they come back through,” Akumako stood and brushed off the dirt from her leg. Once again she felt the small buzz from her phone, “The right way this time.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Later 21:35
“I think that’s all of them!” Arisa grinned as they walked away from the last house. She now carried a bag filled with prescription bottles of MS.
“We’re lucky none of them really needed it...I’d hate to have to fight a mazoku for a reason like this,” Aku sighed.
Arisa nodded, “It’s really sad that-”
Aku jumped suddenly, interrupting Ari. The buzzing from her phone had come in nearly back to back. She looked down at the screen and shoved the phone back in her pocket, “Let’s hurry back to MRPA,” she grabbed Arisa’s wrist and without warning pulled her into a shadow.
Sector 27: MRPA Stairwell
When Arisa came out on the other side she suddenly coughed and fell to her knees.
“Sorry 00- I should have warned you...” before Arisa could respond she continued, “Will you turn in the MS? I have to go.” she quickly jumped back into the shadow they had entered through.
After a short moment Arisa managed to take a deep calm breath and properly orient herself, “MRPA...” she looked at the bag beside her, “...the MS...” she slapped her cheeks softly, “I’ve got to bring the MS to the pharmacy…” she stood slowly and brushed off her legs, “I wonder if she was upset with me about getting lost...I guess she had to be somewhere...”
Arisa walked with the bag through the stairwell and hallways that lead to the pharmacy team. Her thoughts drifted over her failure at the mission and she wondered if she would ever be able to go on solo missions like Kei and Aku could. As she turned the corner to the pharmacy desk she sighed off the heavy thoughts and knocked on the desk, “Excuse me!”
“Ohhh zero-chii!!” a woman in a short white coat greeted her. She had short dark hair that covered her right eye entirely and she had small skin-colored horns that poked through her hair around her head like a crown, “What a surprise to see you. What can I help you with?”
Arisa smiled, “Ms.Mary! Nice to see you again. I’m sure you must be busy but,” she held up the bag, “014 and I just came back from collecting some prescriptions.”
Ms.Mary smiled, “I can take those from you!” she took the bag, “You’re going on missions with 014 eh? Getting ready for your promotion evaluation?”
Arisa laughed nervously remembering how lost she had been earlier, “I’m trying I suppose. Honestly I just keep messing up…”
“Oh,” Ms. Mary said in disbelief as she began to sort through the MS into the trays on her table, “I’m sure that’s not true. Things went well today didn’t they?”
Arisa groaned and slumped over on the counter, “No… I had the map completely wrong. I couldn’t even read a map to get to people’s houses…” as she spoke her voice whimpered.
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Ms. Mary said thoughtfully as she moved capsules across the tray into different sections, “You had 014 with you right?”
“I guess… I might have annoyed her a bit I think,” she rested her head on her chin.
Ms. Mary opened her mouth to respond but stopped when Arisa jolted upright in shock.
She blinked and let out a sigh of relief, “Sorry, the omni-watch pinged me for the nursery. I have to go take care of that. Thanks Ms. Mary,” she smiled and waved.
Ms. Mary smiled, “See you next time Zero-chi!”
Sector 19: Ichigo’s VIP Lounge [20:20]
“Oh my god what’s happening here???” Seiji was pushing through the VIP door behind Shou. There was a big commotion in the club behind him and now people from the room were trying to escape.
Keiko cursed, Rank 2 huh? Did a drone spot me in the market?
“Shou are these all humans?” Seiji looked around the room at the people unable to escape. They were passed out laying across the floor and furniture.
Shou held his gun firmly in place, “Bigger things Seiji-”
Seiji turned his attention to Shou and gasped, “The elemental!!!”
“Yea so if you want to arrest her that would be very helpful,” Shou was clearly nervous. His knuckles were white from holding his gun steady and firm up to the elemental’s head.
“Right!” Seiji ran up to them pulling a pair of omega-blocking handcuffs from his dog tags.
“What fucking happened in here?” Shou asked
While the agents bantered, Keiko’s mind was racing. She had wanted to take Durim into MRPA custody after seeing him abuse his MS prescription this way, but now with STAM here, her objective was to protect Durim from being caught by them. Keiko looked down at Durim with just her eyes. Durim was staring back up at her and blinked once. Carefully, she lifted the pressure of her leg from Durims back.
Durim immediately snapped his tail into Seiji’s shins, knocking him over. Shou reeled in surprise. He had been so narrowed in on the elemental that he hadn’t even noticed the mazoku on the floor. In that moment Keiko propelled herself back with a gust of air into Shou slamming against him and into the wall.
Without hesitating Durim slammed his body through the back wall of the lounge that led outside.
“Durim!!” Keiko shouted after him.
“Good luck, elemental!!!” he ran off quickly.
Keiko cursed. She needed to give Durim enough time to escape, but she couldn’t engage Shou and Seiji here with all the humans laying around. She shoved Seiji back once more with another air gust and pushed herself forward through the hole in the wall. Betting that they’d follow her instead of chasing Durim, she ran.
Finding his footing quickly Seiji pulled a dagger from his dog tags and followed her through the hole, “SHOU she’s getting away!!!”
Shou weakly pushed himself from the wall and took shaky steps toward the hole. There was a long straight path from the back of Purple Hat’s. Shou knew that at the end of that path the elemental could turn down one of the streets on either side and be lost in the maze of buildings in a matter of moments. One of Seiji’s daggers struck her in the back of her leg. She fell forward, quickly ripped the dagger from her leg and continued running. He heard Seiji scream at him again.
“Yeah, yeah Seiji,” finally he took aim with his pistol and squeezed the trigger three times. Only one of the rounds hit her shoulder. She stumbled for a moment and held her now limp arm before disappearing around the corner. Shou sighed and looked at the still motionless people in the room and screamed out, “SEIJI! GET BACK HERE!”
Seiji screamed into his dog tags to make sure Shou could hear him,“She’s getting away!!! Come on we can-”
“She GOT away!” Shou interjected, “We have to do something about these people first! Come on!” from the hole in the wall Shou watched as Seiji threw his daggers into the ground, frustrated. He sighed and turned to the people left unconscious in the room, a serious worry settling into his face.
Sector 1: Bridge Party Head Office [21:58]-
The government building was dark and empty. By now, everyone had gone home for the day. It was in that emptiness that a man's feet swung slightly from the light fixture.
Aku walked past the man's desk. His name plate gleamed slightly from her phone's display: Bridge Party Representative Assistant- Gregory Mora. Aku sat on the edge of the desk and wrote a quick message: it’s done. She waited a moment and saw the message disappear- it had been read.
She shut off the phone and blinked to pull up the omni book display. 00 was still in Sector 27 and 013 looked to be in route. With a sigh and a blink to hide the map, she slipped down into the shadow of the desk.
Gregory Mora swayed softly for a few more moments, before his body fell still.