A/N: This fanfiction is based on NinthFeather's Spy AU in Reset the World. Ayano is the founder of a spy organization, and the original Mekakushi Dan are her top agents.
Visions of better days danced in her head.
Ayano remembered when she met Tsubomi, Kousuke and Shuuya for the first time – how terrified they had been and how cheerful her attitude used to be. Life had been so simple before she found out her father had joined SNAKE, a top secret terrorist organization and scientific facility that performed gruesome and unethical experiments on human subjects. She remembered having a small laugh over how "SNAKE" seemed like an awfully similar name to "Hydra" and briefly wondered if she was a S.H.I.E.L.D agent living in the Marvel Universe. Of course, that joy died once Ayano realized the full extent of her father's experimentation.
The brunette shook her head out of her thoughts before focusing her dull brown gaze on the multitude of monitors before her, her eyes darting between the different camera angles as she soaked in the information displayed before her. This had been her daily life since she faked her death two years ago. Once again, Ayano shook herself out of her thoughts and forced herself to pay attention to her computer screens. Her "suicide" wasn't exactly pleasant to think about. Of course, Ayano's motivations as founder of the Mekakushi Organization were nothing but altruistic, but watching as everyone who knew her suffered and tortured themselves over her loss had been a horrible experience. Shintaro, her currently amnesiac sleeper agent who had walked into her cameras' line of vision, still hadn't seemed to have recovered. Her gaze followed him as he wandered into Marry's room, walking past the former SNAKE agent's sleeping form and moving to inspect a photograph sitting on her dresser.
"Ayano...?"
Ayano cringed as Shintaro collapsed onto the ground with a crash. Upon zooming in, she noticed that his eyes were brimming with tears, but this was far from the first time she had watched him cry over her. At first, she was tempted to contact him and let him know that she wasn't dead, but after two years of almost zero human interaction, acts like these didn't seem to faze her anymore.
The noise startled Marry out of her sleep, and she seemed equally surprised to find that Shintaro had already made it in her room. After all, according to the plan Ayano made before she fled off to her bunker, Shintaro's being in Marry's room – the heart of the organization's headquarters – meant that he had gained the trust of the Mekakushi Organization's members and that he was worthy of having his original memories restored to him. This meant that the recovery mission was now moving in full motion after two years of preparations. No pressure...
"Shintaro?" The former SNAKE agent called, trying to hide her nervousness.
The sleeper agent immediately sat up from his position on the floor, momentarily forgetting about his dead friend. "M-Marry? I, um, I wasn't being creepy, I was just..." He trailed off, refusing to look at anything but the floor. Shintaro swore he could feel eyes burning holes into his back.
Marry plopped down in front of Shintaro, watching him carefully and half noticing how pathetic he looked. She supposed she couldn't exactly blame him though, since she was the only one that knew that Ayano's death had been faked, but even Marry had no idea of Ayano's whereabouts. She was barely aware of the cameras Ayano had installed in every corner of the headquarters. "Shintaro, look at me."
The new recruit – or so he thought –, slowly turned his bloodshot gaze towards the seemingly younger girl.
"I want you to hold still. I'm going to give you your memories back," Marry produced two round electronic devices from her apron's pocket and stuck one on each side of Shintaro's head.
"Huh? Wait, whoa!" After staring at her with confused eyes, Shintaro finally processed that he did not want this machine to touch him and attempted to pull them off, but to no avail. "I haven't lost any memories – and what did you just stick on me?!" In fact, he remembered them more vividly than ever, much to his chagrin. Amazing how all it took was a photograph to trigger bright red memories of a warm smile...
"Oh, you designed these!" Marry grinned. It was weird to finally know more than the boy genius; she'd have to cherish this moment while it lasted. "You called it Invention 0707. I never really understood your explanation of how it worked, but you mentioned something about sending certain stimuli to the hippocampus in order to manipulate the creation of new memories. You used it because you said you'd be better at strategizing if you could remember every detail about everything," she paused, mentally verifying her explanation. "Oh, and you don't think you're amnesiac because we've replaced your missing memories. If I remember correctly, you think you went to school with Director Ayano, right? You think you met her when she changed desks in order to sit next to you. And, because she had bad grades, she made you tutor her. Right?"
"Yeah…?" Shintaro stared at Marry, almost frozen in shock. He invented that? Well, it was a genius idea he supposed, so it wasn't all that surprising. But, what happened to the adorable little fluff girl side of Marry? He knew they were secret agents and all, but now that seemed like a guise to hide her enormous depths of knowledge. "If that's not what happened, then what's your version of events?"
"I suppose you're about to find out," Marry flicked a switch on one of the devices stuck to his temple and turned some dials on the other. "Alright. I want you to close your eyes and think about everything you know about Director Ayano. You have to be able to visualize her for this to work properly."
"No problem..." Shintaro grumbled. As much as he hated it, he could picture his first friend in an instant; he had almost every single detail memorized, from the exact shade of her irises to the way her teeth would show through her goofy grins. Ugh. Why was he agreeing to this again?
"3... 2... 1..."
Shintaro stiffened, feeling the electricity buzzing through his head – okay, what was this, a Sci-Fi movie?! – and suddenly, he could picture her again, but in a completely different set of circumstances. Marry was right. That whole school scenario seemed way too romantic to be true, which likely stemmed from his closet adoration of shoujo manga. Oh no, exactly how much did Marry know about him...? She didn't know about his secret folders, did she? A sudden feeling of dread washed over him.
"Well?" Marry smiled, but it only unnerved him even more. "How did you really meet her?"
"I... She was in need of a strategist for her 'Mekakushi Organization'. I think she called me a Tactician or something. I never really understood the name, but she said it was a video game reference," Shintaro paused, remembering the gleeful look on her face. What was the game called? Emblem of Flames? The point was, this girl certainly didn't seem like a mob boss, or whatever her official title was. "We met through Kido, since she was a mutual contact between my sister and Ayano. I was in need of a job, and Ayano provided me with one." Their relationship was supposed to be strictly professional, but his boss treated all her employees like personal friends. It always bothered him, but he remembered warming up to her a little before she...
Marry removed the circular devices from his head with a pop and stored them back in her pocket. "So, now you should remember agreeing to be our sleeper agent in case anything happened to Director Ayano or the Mekakushi Organization, right?"
"Yeah, but why now? That something happened to Ayano two years ago."
Marry opened her mouth, unsure of how to phrase their mission without giving away Ayano's status, but in a stroke of pure luck, someone burst into the room, swiftly interrupting her.
"Where's Kido?!" A girl with her cerulean hair tied into asymmetrical pigtails peered around Marry's room, shooting her fellow agents a weird look upon discovering them sitting together on the ground. "Um..."
"I think Director Kido is debriefing Seto about a new weapon proposal. What's the matter, Ene?" Marry responded, standing up and dusting off her dress.
"I just found the coordinates of a secret SNAKE bunker!" Ene exclaimed, looking both excited and distressed. "It's almost scary how close it is to our headquarters, actually."
Marry's eyes widened, her mass of white hair seeming to twitch with anxiety. "Oh... Director Kido will want to know about this immediately. I think she's in the common room."
"Thanks!" Ene turned to leave but stopped and shot Shintaro a glare. "Don't try anything weird, you pervert."
"I wasn't–" Before he could finish though, Ene had vanished from sight. "I'm going to follow her. Kido will want to strategize with me," the black-haired boy announced, eager to get out of the hellhole that was Marry's room. What exactly was her relationship with Ayano?
He supposed it didn't matter, though. Ayano was dead.