Sector 19: Purple Hat [22:41]

“Ulrich, I’m here live in front of the dance club Purple Hat in the aftermath of the mazoku attack that took place just hours ago,” Amelia reported, “As you can see, STAM officers have blocked off this location and moments ago a forensic team entered. The club was owned by a man known as Durim who is now known to be a mazoku and the presumed mastermind of this attack-” her head jerked to the side as something caught her attention and she jumped out of frame, “Rank 2!” she called and the camera settled with her and Seiji in frame. Seiji’s face moves from serious to a broad smile, “Can you give us a statement of what happened here and Rank 2’s involvement?”

“We received a notice of mazoku activity here and followed a suspect into this club. Upon attempting to arrest the mazoku inside, we were attacked and unfortunately the mazoku were able to escape.”

“Can you comment on the rumors about humans being poisoned?”

Seiji sighed, “We are waiting on the official reports before we make any speculative comments-” with that, he turned to re-enter the building.

Amelia turned back to face the camera and continued, “Eye witnesses report the snake monster Durim breaking through the building and taking several unconscious humans with him-”

Seiji rolled his eyes as he passed through the police barricade. Where the fuck do they even come up with some of this nonsense?

STAM’s forensic team had swarmed the club. The humans left in the VIP lounge had been immediately taken to STAM’s hospital for surveillance. Shou was sitting on the now empty couch overseeing the investigation by the many officers sweeping the place. He took a display from an officer and read through the evidence report, “hair and skin samples, prescription bottles-” he looked up at the officer, “can I see those before they’re taken?” he continued reading the list as the officer went to fetch the evidence, “single doses of mazoku drug, clothing, snake-like scales...” he grimaced at the last one, but tapped his dog tags to the display approving the evidence.

The officer returned holding out a bagged bright red bottle. Shou took it and examined the bottle through the clear bag, “Seiji look at this!” he called to Seiji who was recounting the fight and scene to another officer.

He came over and sat beside Shou, “What’s that?” he looked at the bottle.

“Prescription bottle...” Shou turned it to show the label, “but look at this,” he pointed to the insignia on the label: four water droplets spinning around a fixed point, “That’s the crest the black agents have on their uniforms...”

Seiji nodded, “So their organization is the main distributor?”

Shou peered closer, “60 doses of Mazoku Suppressant. Directions: Ingest 1 capsule every 24 hours to control the physical manifestation of the omega cell...”

“Oh you can still read Japanese?!” Seiji gasped.

Shou rolled his eyes, “You’re probably the only one who can’t read it after all those years we spent learning it. You should do better, the mazoku still use it, so we should too,” he handed the bottle back to the officer and leaned back on the couch.

Seiji sighed, “Yeah but they don’t use the easy characters. They still use the pre- WW3 treaty characters,” he whined, “There are so many!”

Shou closed his eyes and relaxed for a moment, “What do you think the elemental was doing here?” he paused to see if Seiji would respond before continuing, “She was pinning that snake mazoku to the ground with her boot...”

“How should I know?” Seiji’s voice was tense. He always tense when it came to the elemental, “You should have let me chase her. We almost had her!”

Shou sighed. He should have known better than to bring up the elemental: Seiji’s arch enemy since the day they had met her…

{2118: Sector 8- 23:00}

The young agents Shou and Seiji were walking through a thin forest with a solid cage following them. They were discussing the mission and how Seiji hoped they would meet one of the strong mazoku that the others had run into.

“Come on, I’ve been dying to try out our weapons against a mazoku that can put up a fight. Not one of these light ranked,” Seiji knocked on the cage.

“We are lucky we haven’t run into any of those…” Shou sighed, “Ryu and Hiro were in the hospital for days, remember?”

Seiji shadow punched the air in front of him, “Yeah but they’re a new partner team since Kyou went solo-” he nearly growled, “If we take out a strong mazoku then we can take rank 1 like we deserve!”

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“Don’t jinx us please. Just thinking about a run in with someone out of our league makes my stomach churn,” Shou saw a bright light from the corner of his eye and fell to the ground to dodge. The tree beside him was suddenly in flames.

“What the hell?!?!” Seiji was frozen in place.

“Show yourself!!” Shoutarou pushed his thumb on his dog tag and pulled out his pistol. He looked over his shoulder to see that Seiji had pulled out his daggers already as well.

From between the trees walked a girl with a cloak on. She pulled down her hood to reveal her bright red hair and a half grin, “I’m here for my mazoku friend.”

Seiji swallowed hard, “Shou it’s her! The one Ryu had seen- the fire wielder!”

She grinned, “Oh, you’ve heard of me?”

Shoutarou gulped in the presence of one of the feared mazoku, he saw the 013 etched on her arm, “I’m Sh-”

“I don’t really care what your names are,” 013 she held her hand out, “So how about you give me my friend in the cage and you both can leave?”

At the absurd question, Seiji snapped out of his stupor, “Like hell we will! You can take him over my dead body!”

At the sound of Seiji resolve, Shou too gripped tighter on his pistol and immediately fired.

013 nodded and pulled off her cloak and dodged the first attack.

Shou squeezed the trigger again, but 013 had already dodged and was suddenly underneath him. She grabbed his arm and pushed her leg into his stomach as she threw him into a tree.

Shou lost his gun the moment his back made contact with the tree. His back slid down and he coughed to catch his breath, but he saw a bright light coming toward him. He jumped to the side as fast as he could and looked back to see the tree was now a lump of burning ash. He turned to see 013 with that same half smirk and a ball of fire in her hand.

Seiji attacked from behind but 013 knelt down and leg swept him to the ground. Shoutarou quickly scrambled for his gun and fired twice at the agent.

013 screamed at the impact and her arms fell limp by her side. Sensing danger she jumped away from the two boys and examined her arms, “Paralysis?”

Shoutarou made his way back to Seiji and helped him up, “That’s right. You’re lucky I missed your spine,”

“Come on Shou, we can take her,” Seiji held tight onto his daggers as he glared at the agent who swung her limp arms around.

“I wouldn’t be so sure around that,” 013 lunged forward again, attacking both of them with fire laced kicks. Seiji blocked a kick aimed at his head and quickly used his other dagger to stab her calf. Without stopping to scream of the pain, the agent swung her other leg around and kicked Seiji right in the side of his head and sent him flying into a tree.

“Seiji!!!” Shoutarou ran over to see that he was knocked out cold. He turned hesitantly back to the agent who was trying to figure out a way to pull the dagger out of her leg without her hands.

“That disposer is fine. He is just unconscious,” she grunted while studying the dagger in her calf.

She seemed to almost growl at him as she hopped a short ways over to the cage and propped her leg on it trying to somehow reach the dagger.

"I wouldn't if I-" Shou started but stopped short when he saw the small hand of the mazoku boy poke out between the cage bars. His eyes went wide.

The boy's hand grabbed onto the dagger.

013 smiled at the boy and nodded reassuringly, but before he could pull out the weapon, the cage's defense barrier went up and sliced clean through the boy's hand.

The boy didn't even scream, he just fell over in shock.

013 fell back startled. She couldnt believe what had just happened, "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"

Wide-eyed by what he just witnessed, Shou’s lined up a shot at her again. Even with two paralyzed arms and what was probably a sliced tendon in her calf, she still moved with such astounding speed. She slammed her foot into the ground and sent a burst of flames at Shou. He reeled back to protect himself, but through the flames she slammed her foot into the side of his face.

He was fading in and out of consciousness but saw 013 standing above him. Her face still slightly flushed she brought down her boot on the side of his face once more, knocking him out completely.

Shoutarou could feel a stinging pain on the side of his face as Seiji screamed at him to wake up, “Shou! Shou wake up!! The mazoku is gone! The fire wielderl and the one we caught earlier...”

Shoutarou slowly opened his eyes and groaned at the pain in his face.

“You look like shit Shou. What happened?” Seiji helped sit him up.

Shou groaned again and lifted his hand to the stinging in his face, “She kicked me and I knocked out….”

Seiji nodded, “Man she kicked you hard….” he picked up a small bloody piercing from the grass.

Shoutarou moaned, “Not my ring ...that thing was brand new too…..,”

[2121-VIP Lounge]

“Next time I swear I’ll kill her!”

The sound of Seiji’s exclamation pulled Shou from his memory. His hand softly touched the scar on his eyebrow where 013 had kicked him years ago. He sighed, “We are to capture the black agents remember?”

Seemingly ignoring him Seiji continued, “She’s mine! I won’t rest until I take Rank 1 after defeating her!”

Shou looked worryingly at Seiji. He wondered how long it would be before Seiji broke protocol. For now he still listens to Shou, but what would it take to push him over the edge?

They both looked at Shou’s phone as it started to ring- the ringtone he had assigned just for Shizune.

Shou cleared his throat before answering the call, “Rank 2 Container Shoutarou.”

“Report?” even on the phone her voice was lifeless as usual.

“The people in the lounge should be undergoing tox screenings at STAM. I’ve just approved the evidence collection. The officers and forensics are packing up the scene.”

She was silent for a moment, “Bring the results of the tests before retiring for the night.” She ended the call abruptly.

Shou groaned, “Seiji?”

“Hmm?”

“How long does the mazoku drug screening take?”

“The new one?” Seiji questioned, “No more than 24 hours.”

Shou cried, “So much for retiring early tonight...”