Neo smiled at her target disarmingly. He would probably go over to her table, smile at her, then find her blade in his throat. One of the benefits of working in Junior's club is he didn't care if she murdered someone there, as long as he didn't get the authorities hearing about it.
Neo's target meandered over to her spot at the end of the bar. He grinned, like she expected. For some reason, everyone loved to smile at the ice cream girl.
"Heya there. Looks like you need a drink, amiright?" The man smelled like alcohol, making Neo cringe visibly. She looked at him in disgust as her umbrella was discarded, leaving a sabre a yard long.
Before she stabbed him, Neo looked at his expression of shock, the one every target wore when she unsheathed her deadly weapon. It would have made her laugh if it wasn't for the fact she was a mute.
She grabbed the body and carried it like a caring niece would, carrying home her unconscious uncle. She had an ID made for this type of job, a scroll she updated to be a new person for each catch. She nodded to Junior on the way out, letting him know she had finished her task.
Neo carefully polished her sword, cleaning it of all the blood she had gotten on it from her kill. Although the metal was infused with dust, it was still possible for the blade to rust, a quality Neo despised. She set the oil soaked rag back in her weapon maintenance kit and closed it, ensuring the precious oil wouldn't leach out. Since the Grimm appeared in overwhelming numbers, Hunters had been using it up so fast with all the fighting Grimm that the price was skyrocketing.
The blade gleamed in the candlelight of her apartment, and Neo admired it for a while before sheathing it into her parasol. Another thump echoed on the roof of her apartment as the night Grimm attacked. Night made the monstrous creatures even more aggressive, forcing her to keep her weapon handy.
She'd holed up in a ruined apartment that acted as her safe house and a place where her deals could be made in secrecy. It was dingy and mostly destroyed by the Grimm, but it suited Neo's purposes. The previous owners hadn't left much, other than the bed frame and torn mattress. The Grimm had also destroyed most of the windows, and when she had first found the place, she'd been forced to hastily board them all up before nighttime.
Being on the top floor also made it safer from the land dwelling Grimm, but the Griffons and Nevermores were more likely to attack. Though she had never been very afraid of them, since she had flown through the air on her umbrella, with them hounding her, she had been fearful of them almost every night and day.
Neo startled as another screech echoed through the poorly barricaded windows. A corner of the curtain had fallen low, and the candlelight was drawing the active Grimm. Neo got up and pulled the curtain into place again. She looped a loose thread around a small hook to keep it from falling, though it would fall many times again during the night.
She could easily fight off one or two Grimm, a horde would overwhelm her. The Grimm invasion hadn't been hard on her, but it had been easier when Roman was alive. We were good at watching each other's backs. Neo thought bitterly, again wishing that he was there with her. They had been best of friends, oddly enough, considering the fact that he had talked too much and she hadn't talked at all.
Neo shook her head to clear it of the memories clinging to her like cobwebs. She leaned against the wall, brushing away a silent tear. She went to the slanting door to ensure that it was locked,feeling the loss of her partner keenly. The candle flame puffed out of existence as she blew on it, then lay down on the mattress to sleep.
Everyone in the ruined city hurried to do their business, almost like they thought a Grimm would appear out of nowhere. Well, that's technically a possibility, Neo thought as she unlocked the door to her apartment for that day's business, but a very small possibility.
Most surprising was the fact that business is booming for me right now, considering that we all live in a Grimm apocalypse. It's true, continuous business was hard to come by for me, and the money's scarcely good enough to live off of, but it has sustained me for longer than I had thought it would.
Neo was startled from her reverie as a pair of feet climb the rickety stairs, presumably the client returning with money for her kill. To her surprise, it was Junior.
"Neo, there's been a slight problem." Junior said.
She pulled out her scroll, typing a reply. "What kind of problem?"
A/N: I'll probably continue working on the chapters for a while as a side project, until they're reasonably O.K. or until I can't improve them any more.