Chapter 7: First Test

August 7 walked down a street holding a glass bottle in the middle of the night. As he walked by a certain house, he tapped the window with the bottle he had, then looked inside for a moment. It was too dark inside to see anything, but he walked away after 8 seconds as if satisfied, and held the bottle up so he could look at it.

After a moment, a surveillance specter appeared on the bottle, which only Contractors could see. The specter was July's, who was who August had tried to get. "Hey, July, I got a message for you from Happy Ending." August said to the specter, so only July could hear him. "It's been a month since BK-201 got here, so the lot of you are probably getting restless, wondering when the guy that got them all here is going to do something. Well, he says before the climax, BK-201 and his friends will need to go through some trials. So for that extent, he's let word, 'slip', that the Black Reaper is back in town to most all Contractors in Tokyo." August told July, who had no way of conveying back to August what he thought of this plan. "Also there's a bit of a price on his head, but it's not like he doesn't already have some enemies amongst Contractors in the first place so that's really just oil on the fire.

"So Contractors will start hunting you all down. Each battle will become more and more difficult, then when he feels it's time, he will reveal himself. Happy Ending wants you to tell the others only that word of BK-201's return has spread, BK-201 will be suspicious of you if he knows you've had contact with 'the man pulling the strings' and he can't have that. Also, Happy Ending wants me to tell you to duck in about 5 seconds." August said, then threw the bottle in his hand behind him, letting it break on the road.

July stopped using his specter and then bent down so his head wasn't in view of the window anymore, and just as he did, something small shot through the window and into the ground just about a foot from July. Rather than breaking the window when it went through like a bullet would, but just made a small hole without even cracking the surrounding glass. When July checked what had been shot, he found it was a pencil eraser, even though, with the power that had been applied to it, if July hadn't ducked down it would have easily pierced his skull and killed him.

July then started to run toward the stairs, and some more pencil erasers began shooting through the window, trying to hit July, but they all missed because of his running.

"Damn it, how'd he now we were here!?" The woman who had shot the pencil erasers cursed through her teeth. "There's no glass close enough to us he could have used as his medium."

The woman was African and had her black hair tied back behind her head. She was wearing a commando vest and camouflage cargo pants one would expect to see on an army soldier; she also had several pouches on her waist. Behind her was a Caucasian man in matching attire and sunglasses that would only impair his vision, especially at night. He had a displeased frown on his face and shortcut blonde hair.

"Well there is my glasses but I definitely would have seen the specter if he had done that." The man noted

"I don't understand how you see anything with those things on. Just whatever, let's get on with this." The woman said and broke one of the tiles on the roof of the house the two stood on with her fist before they both jumped off and ran for the house BK-201 was. "Go around the back, I'll go on ahead." The woman told her ally and he did as instructed.

The woman kicked in the door and ran for the stairs. She saw light coming from around the corner and knew that was where she'd find her target. She turned at the corner and was about to run into the open room when she was suddenly met with a knife flying toward her head. In a split second she managed to duck below the knife and then rolled into the room pulling an eraser from one of the pouches on her waist and aiming it for the one she knew as BK-201.

She looked around and saw four people; one was of course BK-201, another was the doll she failed to kill. Then there were two girls, one appeared to be a young Contractor while the other was probably a doll.

"So you're the legendary 'Black Reaper'." The woman noted. She held her eraser up as BK-201 held another knife at ready. "I've heard a lot about you. You've made quite a few enemies haven't you?"

"Who sent you?" BK-201 asked.

"Can't you guess? What group would want you dead the most?" She asked, almost sounding rhetorical, but when no answer came, she told him. "The Syndicate, duh! Or at least what's left of it; after all the grief you caused our group and forcing us to go even further underground then we already were to where people actually thought we were gone; once it sneaked out you were back, they sent us to deal with you."

"'Us'?" Hei repeated the woman's choice of words just as the window behind him was broken in by an invisible force and the woman's partner jumped into the room. The moment he was in the room his eyes glowed red and he gained a blue aura, signifying the use of his ability. He put his right hand up and an invisible force pushed Hei's hand back and knocked his knife away from him.

In that moment of confusion, the woman used her chance to use her ability and fired off the eraser off at Hei at an incredible speed. But Hei managed to get out of the way by flipping backward and the eraser shoot through the brick wall behind him.

Hei grabbed his knife before it hit the ground and threw it immediately at the female Contractor, who reacted swiftly and threw herself to the side and it lodged itself into the wall.

With all the confusion the small room turned into a battlefield. Yin and July backed up to the walls, as they wouldn't help much being Dolls. Suou however took advantage of all the confusion and tackled the man just as he readied another invisible blast with his Contractor ability, knocking him over.

Hei side-stepped as the woman shot another eraser at him, and then pulled two more knifes from his pockets and threw them at her one after the other. At that moment the woman pulled out another 3 erasers and fired them all at once with her thumb. Two of them went in between the two blades of each knife and struck them at the base, stopping them in mid-air before reaching her. The third one went past the two knifes at strait for Hei's forehead, but he shifted his head away to the side and avoided it by a centimeter.

Then Suou gave out a yell as the man used his ability to push her back into a wall and knock her unconscious. "Suou," Hei looked over to her and the man was readying another blast to finish her off. But Hei took the metal cord strapped to his belt and threw it toward him, circling it around his neck and starting to choke him.

Hei pulled him away from Suou and readied his own ability to electrocute him. But then the woman noticed it and opened a different one of her pouches and pulled out a small nick of metal and used her ability to shot it strait though Hei's cord to set her partner free, who threw aside the remaining cord.

The three came to a stand-still. Hei had another knife at ready to throw at either of them while the woman had another eraser ready to shot and the man had his hand up for another blast. "So is this all you have? I must say I'm disappointed. I thought you would be more of a challenge. How's this though, I'll give you a choice. Come with us quietly back to the Syndicate and the boss might feel merciful and settle at putting you through the ME. It's a pretty good deal if you ask me, and a logical decision at that." The woman told Hei, as Contractors are supposed to be very logical beings.

Hei looked as if considering the offer for a moment, then replied. "The logical decision huh? In that case… I refuse." Hei said, and before either of his opponents could react surprised, the man was suddenly knocked out and flung to the ground.

When the woman looked at what had happened, she saw Suou behind him holding up an anti-tank rifle. But before she could even curse her for having done so, Hei threw his knife into her shoulder and knocked her off balance, also dropping her eraser and then Hei ran up to her, clasping one hand on her face and using the other to restrain one arm while restraining her other with his knee.

"Now its your turn." Hei said. "You can either die right now, or you can tell me how the Syndicate found out I was back and I'll settle at tying you up and giving you over to the police."

The female Contractor, seeing no way out of this like in Hei's case, decided on the logical choice. "I don't know the specifics. Some guy who apparently introduced himself as 'Happy Ending', which sounds like some kind of sick joke to me, arranged for a meeting with the boss and told him everything we needed to know about your location. When asked what the catch was he said there was none, he just wanted us to do our best to try and take you out."

"Do you know anything about this, 'Happy Ending'?" Hei asked.

"Nope, he was completely aloof. No one ever saw his face and spoke with the boss via phone. That's all I got, now can you let us perform our Obeisance before you book us. I need to break something and he needs something bright shined in his eyes." The woman said.

Hei nodded to Suou and July. Suou went and grabbed a glass cup and put it underneath the woman's hand, which she brought down and smashed the cup to pieces. July took a flashlight and opened the man's eyes to shine the light into them, which also made him wake up with a start. He put his arm over his eyes and used his other hand to find his sunglasses, which he put back before surveying the area. Suou picked up her anti-tank gun and pointed it at him ready to fire if he tried anything. They didn't know it, but that was an empty threat, Suou was still abiding by her and Hei's promise not to shoot in exchange for him not drinking anymore.

"So that's how it is huh?" He stated, almost sounding happy about the situation.

July and Yin got some rope and tied up the two Contractors, afterward dropping them near the police station covertly, as not to be discovered themselves, after which they returned to the house.

"…So there you have it. It's all going well so far." December said to August beside him. The two of them were in the bar they seemed to frequent so much, and December had just given August the latest on his novel.

"I like how this is going, and not that I'm not happy about being kept in the loop but… why are you?" August asked.

"You are my very important right-hand character. I need you for a number of things to work out properly. Besides, of all those I worked with at the MI-6, you are the one I considered most my friend. I want to keep you in the loop as much as I can." December answered.

August laughed and took another sip of his drink. "You know, I considered you the same way up until you left. Now I just… I'm never sure what's going on in your head, which I find disappointing since we are really so alike."

"Just another reason I'm keeping you in the loop." December said, taking a sip of his drink. "I want to rebuild the trust I lost from you." He said, and he and August stared at each other for a moment, as if waiting for the other do something stupid. "Well, I've got to get to work on the next chapter, so if you'll excuse me." December told August and stood up and left the bar.