Chapter 43

Home Stretch

Taka entered Kisara's apartment, catching the attention of all of her lackeys and the assassins who were across the room. His eyes immediately shifted to Miyako who stood there with her face mask dangling from her pocket, rather than over her face. Taka was skeptical on letting her go without it, but he supposed it was better for her to look natural and less conspicuous as an assassin, so he simply shook it off.

It felt strange, seeing his sister look so leaderly, rather than Ruby. He couldn't see his sister as an assassin. He usually saw her as his sister, and a martial artist, but not an assassin.

He looked across the room at Hidaka who still sat in the same spot, without moving. He was clearly in deep thought, but nonetheless Taka took a confident stride across the room. He could feel the stares of everyone in the room.

As he reached the gathering of chairs, he waved to Hidaka who looked up. "Hidaka." He said, sitting down on Hidaka's left side where Ruby once sat, who now sat to Kisara's left. "We need to get to thinking about those places."

"We don't have much to go on." He replied sitting up in the chair.

"What do we have?" Taka asked, leaning over in his chair. "Start with the candy shop. Why the hell do they need that?"

"Income mostly." Hidaka replied. "The initiate who brought in that information told me that the place sits just down the street from a school for small children. He also said there was a rumor that the owner was accused of pedophilia, but got off due to some very convenient alibis. That man may be worth looking into."

"Agreed." Taka nodded then waved his hand. "What about the restaurant?"

"Ragnarok only owns one restaurant, and this particular restaurant is located in one of the most wealthy districts in the city. So their income from there is pretty high." Hidaka replied. "The information we got on the owners is that they are a husband and wife, direct members of Ragnarok. They are responsible for not only upholding Ragnarok's income, but also using the restaurant to meet wealthy lawyers and city officials in order to give Ragnarok a legal edge."

"So bribery, basically?" Taka shrugged. Hidaka nodded at that, and Taka nodded back. "Interesting. What about the bakery?"

"Torture grounds, basically." He explained, leaning back in the chair. "Ragnarok uses that place when they capture one of their enemies from a rival gang. Lately it's been getting a lot of attention from the local mafia. Their place is across the street."

"Hmm." He hummed to himself, thinking of the possibilities of the mission.

"Can I make a suggestion?" Kisara called from her chair and leaned over her knees.

"Go right ahead." Taka nodded, looking back to Kisara while Miyako stepped out of her way.

"The place across the street has been trying to get them to leave for years." She explained. "They've tried fights, vandalism, even spreading wild rumors, but so far nothing has worked. If you can get inside and cause a really bad accident to happen, then they'll have to shut the place down."

"Hurt an innocent person?" Taka raised a brow and shook his head. "We can't do that."

"Why not hide something inside of one of their orders?" Hidaka suggested. "One of us places an order at the front counter while someone else sneaks in the back and hides a razor blade in that same order. When you get your order, you look inside and find the blade and call the police. After that, the place will be shut down for good."

"Hmm." Taka thought about it, before nodding to himself. "Good plan."

"I'll place the order." Renka replied, tapping Taka on the shoulder.

"And I'll sabotage the order." Hidaka nodded to her before leaning back in the chair. "That only leaves the junkyard. As Shiji said, it's used to initiate new recruits. They throw in two recruits and have them fight each other to see who's the better fighter. Occasionally one of the seven fists go there, but lately, due to their depleted numbers, they've not been seen there very much."

"That seems pretty straight forward." Taka nodded then looked up to his sister. "You're coming with me for that one, Ruby."

The red clad girl turned and gave a cocky grin underneath her hood, saluting him. "You got it."

"Shiji." Taka looked across the chairs at the man he was once suspicious of. "I'll need you to help me find out more about the guy who owns the candy shop. If the rumors about him are true. If they are, then we'll have a pretty straight forward way to get that place closed down."

The tan hood looked off into space upon hearing that, but he instantly understood and nodded his head. "I understand."

"I'll take the restaurant alone." He replied with a nod. "That place is too crowded for two people to sneak into."

"Why don't you take her with you, Tsute?" Miyako looked over her shoulder and pointed at Kisara who's eyes widened at the girl who volunteered her for a job.

"What?!" Kisara shrieked then shook her head. "No way. I'll just get us both caught."

"No you won't." Miyako shook her head, turning her body with her arms folded and looked over at the plainly dressed assassin. "Hidaka where do the owners live?"

"They live a few blocks away in their own town home." He replied, leaning back in the chair. "They have quite the security for themselves. When they're away, they've got a maid watching over the house, but he's hardly a maid. A giant of a man who they hired all the way from mexico. Outside they have two guard dogs, one in the front, one in the back. And you can't get inside without the key code, otherwise you'll trip the alarm system."

"How do you know all this?" Taka replied with an amused smile.

"The doctor says I have a photographic memory. I can remember a lot of things from a long time ago." Hidaka nodded, staring off into space. "Such as the layout of my first hit."

Taka's eyes widened at that and he sat back in his chair. "Wow. I never knew that about you."

"There's a lot of things you don't know." he replied. "I'd prefer to keep it that way."

"Of course." Taka nodded wondering just how suspicious that Hidaka was about them.

He hummed to himself, thinking of all the places that they had to go to: The bakery, the junkyard, the mansion, and the candy shop. If they took one after another, they would most likely be alerted, but if they were all taken at once, it would be a surprise for each of them. The junkyard could wait for last, it didn't matter if they were alerted. Taking that place down would be a fairly simple task of just going in and fighting everyone.

Eventually Taka simply nodded and stood up. "Ruby's right, Kisara. You'll need an initiation somehow. So here's what we're going to do. Ruby's going to give you a crash course in our tactics, then I'll take you with me to take down the restaurant owners. Chan Juan will go with Hidaka and they'll take down the bakery. Shiji and Ruby can handle the candy shop. Then when everything's finished I'll take you and Ruby to deal with the Junkyard." He peered at this assassins one by one. "Does that sound good?"

"Very good." Renka beamed.

The others nodded after her and Taka nodded in response. "Good. Then we should get started right away." He waved his hand to Ruby. "Get her trained up, will you?"

Miyako nodded from under her hood and waved Kisara over as the pair of them left the room. Shiji and Hidaka rose from their seats. "So we're finally going to do this."

Taka nodded. "Before we were trying to make Ragnarok turn over a new leaf, but now's different. Now we're trying to dismantle them altogether. Enough is enough."

"I agree." Hidaka nodded from behind him, folding his arms. "I've had about enough of these stupid kids."

"Me too." Taka nodded with a grunt before looking to Shiji. "Start looking into the candyman. Watch him carefully, and figure out if these rumors about him are true. If they are then execute him."

"No warning?" Shiji raised a brow. "That's a little unlike you."

"The man is corrupt enough to be arrested and be contempt with getting away with what he did." Taka shook his head. "He's a sick man and occasionally, some men can just be downright evil."

"I understand." Shiji nodded then waved as he backed out of the room. "Then I will start studying him right away."

"Good." Taka nodded then waved to the rest of the assassins. "The rest of you, get ready for your missions."

"You got it!" Renka winked at him and left along with Hidaka.

Taka nodded and sighed, thinking about the information he had just gained on the restaurant folk. He wasn't sure how tough the mission was going to go. He wanted to think that they would be good fighters like every other Ragnarok member, but with a bodyguard and two guard dogs, he wasn't so sure that they were as good as he assumed. Still, it was a good idea bringing Kisara along just in case. It would give the girl a nice little crash course in how the assassins did things

Who cared. They were finally on the last stretch to taking down Ragnarok, and this called for some preparation training. So he left Kisara's hideout and headed straight back to Ryozanpaku. Surely Shigure had been growing tired of being unable to train her apprentice.

Once he returned to the dojo and snuck back into his room to get changed he emerged from it in his usual training gear and headed downstairs to find his weapons master. He was about to enter the training hall, but then he stopped himself and turned around to see Shigure hanging from the beams above him.

"You're... back." She said in her usual blank tone. Taka nodded and made his way toward the yard with his master following him. "Business... as usual?"

"Mmhm." He nodded back and folded his arms once he was in the middle of the yard. "We're just about ready to take down Ragnarok for good." He muttered under his breath.

"That's... good." She nodded back to him. "And afterwards... then what?"

He chuckled and shrugged. "What do you mean?"

This caused his master to put her hands on her hips and give him a very stern look he hadn't seen before. "I mean... What happens to your little group once you're done?... Do you expect to... do this forever?"

His eyes widened at Shigure's look and her question. It was something he really hadn't thought of before. Other than Ragnarok, he didn't see any groups that were as big of tyrants as Ragnarok.

"I don't know." He replied, trying to think of his next big target. "Maybe go after the mob?"

"You know." She continued with the same oddly stern look. "You're not one to decide who deserves to be punished... There's no other reason your group should... exist... other than to defeat... your enemies."

He looked down at his feet at the thought. Shigure was right. Despite seeming to not mind his dealings as much, she definitely cared about the path he was taking with his group. It certainly was a dark one. Would he just continue to dismantle criminal groups forever, being the judge, jury, and executioner?

It was definitely something to think about and the look on Taka's face made it very evident to the sword master, so she patted him on the shoulder and waved him toward her.

"Something... to think about." She replied drawing her sword. Taka readied his dual knives and faced his master.