A/N: Thank you for the very warm welcome!
A special thank to the previous chapter's reviewers: Boldnbright, nellwyn924, Ary, Rosyrose1345, Padfoot Starfyre, J nds and every single guests. You are admirable souls, and an infinite source of encouragement!
I really like to read and write, it's just that I never thought of publishing anything on this website before, I'm sorry if that was misleading :)
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Chapter One
Fall, 2010, London, United Kingdom.
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One enclosed room and no windows, it is barren of all personal insets. Even the walls seem to be made out of metal-plated concrete, enhancing the bleak interior.
One computer screen gleams in the dark, the somber glow from the color inversed system the only remote source of light in the cold room.
Working for intelligence services comes with its occasional perks. The benefit is materialistic, and yet, it can reach a wide array of purpose, ranging from virtual currency to the rawest and substantial diamond found in South Africa.
Namely, a plastic card.
Also known as American Express' Centurion credit card.
The lean and blonde man chuckles haughtily, his persona jaded from the numerous years taking away his innocence and naivety. The society is easily led on, thinking that the richest individuals in the world would flaunt their asset through aloof exposure.
The Forbes' billionaire list is only a small sliver of all the currency flowing right under the State's lawful nose.
Those figuring are only the numerous fools who couldn't flee the tremendous taxes and hefty contribution they now have to carry upon their thin shoulders.
With one lazy hand skimming the keyboard of the computer, he proceeds to make a black window fills the screen up, displaying the numerous Stock Exchanges weaving the financial world together.
He could shut them down with a flick of his fingers.
But he doesn't.
After all, no one asked him to.
Yet.
Usui Takumi works for the Intelligence Service of Great Britain. Undeniably an advantage to the Agency, as he had been since his thirteen's years old, he had managed to climb up the social ladder instead of forever being used as a state-dog.
Nevertheless, he's still a Britain's puppet at the height of his twenty-fourth's living years.
At least, he's a royal puppet, he surmises, one hand raking his blonde locks away from his face. That was more title-worthy than being in the moldy palms of his despicable step-mother. That woman knew nothing about using his potential.
She'd been unproductive.
Plain stupid.
She could have won billion if she'd known how to use him properly.
In the meantime, the man had grown into sharp edges over a lean build. Compare it to the past years, where he had only been a sickly vulnerable child, and the difference would only appear as starker. He was simply that unrecognizable.
The eyes that used to be the same shade than a luscious forest is now a distilled tone of emerald; dark and intense. No longer sun kissed, his messy hair is of a dirty-gold quality, edging on the color of gritty sand that didn't have yet the time to smoothen into silky sprinkles.
And his heart...
Well, the humanity in it ceased to exist a long time ago.
Only an unhealthy rush of hate remains, seated in its core, and that, along with an obsession he has yet to satiate.
Hate is not only a vice, for it has faded the weak belief of candor and credulity he happened to bask in. Takumi was only thankful to the hatred he harbored, as it served as a irrevocable wake-up call.
After all, ruling the world is certainly easier when no emotions are in the mix.
But with all the resources at arm reach, he still pondered on one vital question. One question he'd wake up at night with, and fall asleep in daylight from the lack of answer.
Why was finding her so hard?
He had found the island data ages ago. Palmyra Atoll. An ex-USA Navy unit island in the nineties. Despite having hired multiple agents to check it up, combing the forest in utmost secrecy...
The endgame had been the same every year.
Nothing.
Nothing to report.
No ambers, no salvage girl.
"Ayuzawa," he murmurs, his voice soft and low. Even her name served him little. Names were meaningless in this era. The trace they left were like footprints on the seashore; they were altered way too quickly by the rushing waves for anyone to successfully pry.
If only he had known that, soon enough, they'd cross way again, he'd have been able to brace himself for the fleeting moment.
But until then, he would drown in his own bitter sweetness.
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Providing that aerial view was possible, looking down at the area of a city as affluent as London quarters would remind of confusing mazes and unpredictable runs of blurry lines across an eloquent canvas. Zoom into the area, and they'd sharpen into flecks of living individual. Moving. Always moving.
Nothing remains immobile in this world, and the faintest breath has the power to change one's life irrevocably.
And in the sunset of a city that never knew respite, their crossing shouldn't have been that noticeable.
And it's not.
It happens just like any typical encounter; fast and meaningless if left without unprecedented actions.
A brick stone backstreet spilling out to the main avenue.
The sun declining.
Red hues.
One brush of a shoulder, coarse and impersonal.
Nothing's muttered; no apologies ensue for they are a hassle.
The hem of his dark trench coat lingers at the soft impact.
She simply nods in acknowledgment.
He shrugs back, losing no time.
A flash of ambers glints.
A black baseball cap is pulled back down.
Emeralds widen.
Steps echo, regular and unstopping.
She's moving away from him, but he's stuck to his feet, as if gravity's pulling his weight down to prevent any disaster from occurring.
When he manages to turn around...
She had already disappeared.
Crows caw above, and the sky is of a crimson red.
Red like the blood coating his hands had been.
Red.
Thickly, the hard and deafening rhythm of his heart beating keeps pounding away, echoes dispersing in each layers of his limbs.
It had been years since he ever felt so alive.
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She's on the run. Eyes are always watching, but she knows how to sink past the guard of londonners.
Any shadow would be susceptible to protect her anyway. She's no eye-catcher, silent as any intelligence agent are supposed to be. But she has a secret that makes her world apart from her peers.
Something no one should know.
Swiftly pushing herself up some wooden crates in the narrow and dark alley, she continues up until she's crouching on the highest box, feet from the ground. Without a sound, her clothes slide from her skin, her pupils narrowing and her senses magnified the second she's all sleek and feline stretches.
Alike to a dwarf leopard, she is much smaller in size than any glorious and famed wildcat people usually appreciate. Salvage elegance compacted in less than a meter long, her tawny fur is lined with dark brown and irregular shaped spots and stripes. These are edged with black and dusky white, giving the feline a most distinctive appearance, along with the delicate rounded ears perking on her head.
One of the said ear flicks in rapt attention, having caught a sound in the irregular whistle of the dusky breeze.
Someone is coming, the wind whispers to her innate senses.
Snatching her discarded clothes in her clear-cut jaw, the feline braces itself for the long jump up the cresting balcony of an adjacent dwelling; a rundown lodging of several floors' height.
And in his pulsing heartbeat and harsh breathing, all he sees is a shadow moving, lean and precise.
If the sight seems as familiar as foreign could be to a traveler, he still can't put his finger onto what he's just witnessed.
His mind is working on it, though.
Fervidly so.
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A/N: 25/06/2016
I have an unhealthy obsession with ocelots.
Do you like it so far? It's a very different setting from the prologue so I'm kind of scared of the feedback ^^'
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