Nozaki sealed the envelope with a satisfied sigh. It had taken all night, but with the assistants Mikorin had found, he managed to finish this week's chapter of Let's Fall In Love on time.
"Thank you all for your help," he said. "I don't know what I'd have done without you."
"No problem," one of the guys said. "But how the hell did you get so far behind?"
"My normal assistants went missing," Nozaki said. "Speaking of which, where were you, Mikoto?"
Mikorin bit his lip. "Um, I was kinda recruited. So were the others."
Nozaki narrowed his eyes. "Recruited? By who? Is some other author trying to poach my assistants?"
"No, no, no, by the ABB. A bunch of people with guns and bombs showed up at my apartment and told me I had to work for them. Which is...kinda why we came over here originally?"
"Oh." Nozaki considered that. "I guess that explains why most of them aren't very artistic. Especially the girl in the gas mask."
Everyone else in the room flinched as the gas mask girl glared at Nozaki. "Excuse me?"
"You kept inking outside the lines. It ruined six pages." Nozaki shrugged. "Not everyone's suited to being an artist."
The gas mask girl strode forward. "You know, I should kill you for that. I've had people killed for less. But I might spare your life under one condition."
Nozaki took a step backwards. "What's that?"
She pulled a volume from her vest pocket. "I want your autograph."