1( ) Indicates German
// Indicates thoughts
Indicates telepathy
I watched the dining room and its occupants from where I had hidden myself impassively behind a secret passage in the room. What I could understand of what they were saying did not sound terribly important to me anyway. They were just talking about the new drug that Von Kropp had recently produced. I memorized the features of the two new men who sat across from the balding, blonde, overly obese man that I was forced to call "Master."
The elder man was called Reiji Takatori, he was the vice-prime minister of Japan, but that didn't matter much to me. What got me was that the man resembled an Australian animal one of Kropp's former guests had brought with him. I believed he had called it a "koala." He was slightly overweight, of course not as much as my master, his buttons straining around his stomach area. The sneer that had been present before he entered the dining room had not gone unnoticed by me, and I knew I would be taking care of him later this night. His voice was grating, and I hated hearing it. When I'm ordered to kill him tonight, I'll probably start with slitting his throat so he can't scream.
The younger man at the table was his son Masafumi Takatori, supposedly a great doctor. The man looked like some sort of rodent. His beady black eyes glinted maliciously from his pale, pinched face. He was the exact opposite of his father, being taller and appearing to have no meat on his bones at all. His mousy brown hair was parted in the middle and he carried himself the way most of my Kropp's scientists carried themselves, like they were treading with insects.
I turned my gaze from the men and sized up the eight people that stood behind them.
The four that stood behind the younger Takatori were women, and I immediately dismissed them as no threat, none had the scent of blood and fear marked deep into their being. The blood that was coming off of them smelled of the weak and foolish.
The one closest to Masafumi I guessed was the leader of the female team, simply by the posture she took and her dark blue business suit, I believe he had called her Hel. I didn't remember the other two behind her, the former model in the blood red whorish dress and the dead-eyed woman in her black suit, but I did remember the younger girl's name, Tot, simply because I had wanted to kill her the moment I saw her. She was too damn happy, I wanted to cause her ugly umbrella to burst into flames, actually I just wanted to cause her to burst into flames, but I kept my position, still mindful of the role I had yet to play.
I gazed at the four who stood behind Takatori and immediately thought killers. They didn't radiate danger, ambition and bloodlust. They were danger, ambition and bloodlust.
I was able to pick out the leader straight away by his white Armani business suit, complete with a white collared shirt and a white tie, which I recognized since Von Kropp had the same style, his confident posture and the way that the other three of the team were positioned around him. Dark, cold, calculating eyes bore out of a pale, well sculpted face from behind glasses. His dark hair was slicked back and only a few strands fell into his face.
The white haired, amber-eyed (actually I should say eye, singular, due to the fact that the he only had one) man on his right side had either been in a very large amount of battles or was a masochist judging by all the scars he wore on his arms and face. He wore a white sleeveless vest with a pair of white slacks. Bandages showed from where the V of the vest stayed open. He also had a set of bandages wrapped around his upper arms. Black, fingerless gloves adorned his hands, standing out from the blinding white he wore.
The young boy positioned almost behind the leader could have been no more than sixteen, but he to had the same aura as the two elder men, a true assassin. He also wore white clothing, though his came in the form of a Japanese school uniform with a black leather belt that could barely be seen under the shirt. His soft midnight blue eyes portrayed his boredom, and his dark brown hair shadowed his eyes a bit giving him an even more child-like look.
I felt goose bumps rise as I felt someone staring at me. I was drawn to the fourth member of the male team, standing of the left of the man in the business suit, and found him staring in my direction, smirking. His flaming red hair caught my attention first. His eyes, which were a light azure color, locked onto mine and he made a slight gesture with his hand, that went unnoticed by the men and women by the table, that could only be described as a wave.
He did know I was there...but how? I had hidden myself a good thirty minutes before any of them had come in and had made sure that no one would be able to see me.
I quickly averted my attention when I heard the doors open. I eyed each server that came through the door and the platters that each one held.
Then I saw them.
The last three men coming through the door.
By a normal person's standards they had done a very good job of hiding their weapons, the middle had a knife and the two on either side oh him had guns, but by an assassin's standard it was incredibly sloppy.
Well they would pay for that wouldn't they.
I silently sent the signal to Kropp informing him that I had spotted the fools that the rebels had sent. He looked at me out of the corner of his dark piggy eyes and nodded. I readied myself and waited for his signal.
I kept my eyes trained on the three as they positioned themselves in three different sections of the room.
I watched as the men tensed and prepared to pounce. I sent Kropp the next signal and was surprised when he signaled to me with his fat ring decorated fingers to kill two. I felt a feeling of confusion rise in my stomach but knew better than to ask questions.
As the two men with guns began to draw them I was given the signal, stepped out from where I had been hiding and set them both aflame.
Their dying screams were music to my ears.
I watched as their skin darkened and crackled as they were slowly burnt alive, their body fat causing the flames to grow higher. The destructive force eating away at their bodies made me shiver in delight as I watched the flames dance to their own unspoken tune. The way their clothing slowly melted onto their flesh was like a masterpiece.
The horror-struck faces of the two Takatoris and the group of women made the feeling of satisfaction increase.
The group of men didn't even blink an eye.
The man with the knife, seeing that his plan had horribly backfired quickly ran out of the room and I prepared to go after them, but Kropp stopped me.
("Give him a head start...") I nodded and waited patiently, like a hunting dog.
I hated myself.
("Now go! Bring me his head. No weapons besides those you were born with,") He ordered after a good ten minutes, knowing that the man had escaped into the forest.
"(Yes, Master)" I flew out the door after the man, knowing what Kropp wanted me to do.
I quickly picked up on the man's trail out in the woods. Truth be told it would have been hard not to. The branches that he had broken running were making it to easy to follow him.
I could tell he was heading towards the village, and knew exactly which path he was taking, so I decided I would cut him off before he could get to the village on the other side of the woods.
As I rushed through the forest I noticed how quiet it truly was. Not even the familiar chirping of insects could be heard. The silence put me on the edge, something was horribly wrong. I stopped in my tracks and jumped into one of the nearby trees. One of the rules that I had learned long ago was that men rarely ever look up, never expecting an attack from above.
I tensed as I heard some of the fallen branches beneath me crack under someone's foot steps. As I heard the person come down right beneath me I swung down from the branch and wrapped one of my hands around the person's neck, digging my fingers into the soft flesh of the figure's throat, knowing that I had gained a proper grip by the way it yielded to my harsh grasp.
The high-pitched whimper that came to my ears made me stop and I lit a ball of fire in my other to see just who I had caught. The young, light haired, girl I had in my grasp struggled trying to peel my fingers off her throat. Instinctively I tightened my grip watching as the girl strained to gain air.
("Devil!") I turned around as I heard a yell from behind me and recognized the man that had escaped from my Master's castle. I narrowed my eyes at him and increased the tightness of my grip. He froze where he stood and I locked gazes with the man. I saw the fear in his eyes and it gave me the opportunity I needed. I dropped the girl and moved with lightning speed towards him. I heated up the body temperature of my arm until it was hot enough to melt metal and brought my arm in a slicing motion, cutting off his head with my bare arm.
I grabbed the head of the man, getting no blood on my clothes due to the face that the heat of my arm had already clotted it. The man's expression was still plastered upon the severed head. Shock was etched his features, showing that the he had felt no pain before his death.
I set the corpse on fire, controlling the flames so that they didn't spread farther than the body. I turned to go when I heard a soft sobbing behind me. I turned around, still holding the head and gazed at the girl who was staring at me, her light brown eyes wide in fear, her pupils dilated, as if I was the devil incarnate.
In a small part of my mind I laughed at the assumption since I was already so close to hell. I turned away from the child and walked away, then caused the flames of the corpse to jump onto the girl.
One of the most important rules an assassin learned was that you could leave no witnesses.
Her terrified and pained screams echoed in my ears, even as I neared the castle, more than 500 feet away. I strode through the servants entrance obtaining a platter and covering. I placed the head on the platter and covered it up, then went back to the room where Kropp waited.
