Chapter-2
Market Area in Kuoh
"Thank you for your patronage, customer." The cashier thanked Akane on her way out. The shop's automatic door closed behind her back, leaving her outside with a new cellphone in one hand, and a plastic bag in another.
It was evening time in Kuoh, and the market area was bustling with people. Akane happened to be one of them, shopping for groceries and other items she was going to need back at her apartment. She was about to wrap up her little shopping spree, only one thing was left on her list, she would get it and then she could head back.
All things considered, Akane couldn't have asked for a better apartment, she really needed to thank Ms. Yamada for that the next time she meets her. While small, the apartment suited her needs perfectly. At first, she was a little afraid about other occupants of the apartment complex, but none of them bothered her or even tried to welcome her in, it was great. The location was nearby Kuoh Academy something she guessed sold Ms. Yamada on renting it out for her, it was also conveniently suited to her current needs.
"Good evening, Miss. What can I do for you?" The shopkeeper of the flower shop greeted her when she entered.
"I want two bouquets made, one mixed with festive red poinsettias, white roses, and pinecones, and the other with bright white, pink and yellow daisies mixed in with some yellow daffodils." Akane gave the shopkeeper her order, behind the counter the shopkeeper immediately started preparing the bouquets for her with more energy than what could have been expected from an old lady like her.
As Akane busied herself with browsing through the shop, RING! RING! Her new cellphone went off making her stop in her tracks. She slowly pulled out her cellphone from her pocket. She didn't recognize the caller's number, of course, and besides, who could it possibly be calling her? She just got the number.
"Hello?" Akane said picking up the call, suspicion laced in her voice.
"So you finally left, huh…" the familiar charismatic voice of a certain fallen angel greeted her ,"Can't say I'm surprised, but you should have at least called me first." He added.
"What do you want Azazel?" Akane asked, not even bothering to ask how he got her number.
"Now now, I'm just… calling to check up on how you're doing? It must've been hard for you to leave your friends and colleagues behind for your pursuit for power." Azazel replied in an artificial sympathetic tone.
"Don't waste my time with your inane phoniness, Azazel. Get to the point." Akane asked, trying to ignore his snide remarks.
"I have a job for you." Azazel replied, after a brief moment of silence, it only made Akane laugh.
"I've not even been out of the church's sights for a few days, and you are already asking me for favors Azazel." Akane said in amusement, "Be honest, are you really mad at me for leaving?"
"Miss, should I add a greeting card to the bouquets," the shopkeeper asked, she looked like she was mostly done. Akane waved her hand and mouthed a silent no.
"Well, now I have to jump through fewer hoops to get in contact with you, so that's kind of less annoying. But I am not asking you to do me a favor, it is a job, for which you will be paid handsomely."
"Money is of little use to me, Azazel. I thought you knew that by now." Akane replied, hoping her tone annoyed the Governor General, "If you want me to do the job you already know my price," She smiled ,hearing a low annoyed growl from the other side.
"Fine, I'll have them moved to your apartment once the job is done. Deal?" Azazel asked.
"Deal." She replied while paying with her credit card, "So what's the job Azazel?" She asked as she received both the receipt and the bouquets. A thank you and a small bow and she was out of the shop.
"Well, your job is to keep an eye on a few fallen angels I have sent to Kuoh." Azazel informed.
"Azazel..." Akane groaned dreading the mission already, "Please tell me you're not asking me to babysit your fallen angels."
"No, no, no, anybody could have done the job if that was the case. No, this job requires your, ah, peculiar expertise." Azazel said in a dubious tone, it caught her off guard.
"My peculiar expertise? An assassination contract then." Akane thought to herself."…Go on," She told him, her apartment building drawing near.
"Not on the phone, get back to your apartment a package will be waiting for you in your mailbox." And with that Azazel ended the call, leaving Akane alone to wonder what kind of job Azazel had for her that required that many precautionary measures.
She got back to her apartment within the next ten minutes. After locking all the doors and shutting down all the curtains present in her apartment. She sat on her living room sofa; the black box laying on the tea table in front of her. No buttons, no switches, no way to open it from any side.
"Godammit, Azazel, what am I supposed to do here? Do all of your inventions have to be so god damn complicated?" Akane growled in frustration and placed the box back on the table, not being able to find a way to activate it.
"Voice recognition confirmed: -Subject- 03071998 Akane Orimura." A voice spoke from the box before its top started to move in a circular motion outward, an orb started to rise from inside and slowly stopped in mid-air.
"You're here, good." A tall man, appearing to be in his twenties with an average build, black hair, golden bangs and black goatee dressed in a knee-length dark blue blazer with a light blue dress shirt, a black waistcoat, and a red tie. He wore faded-purple slacks and black dress shoes appeared by the side of Akane's sofa, he looked like he was present in the room but a few flickers in his image made it clear that it was a hologram.
"So, tell me, what's so important about this job that you have to do all this nonsense," Akane asked him, picking a soft drink can out of the plastic bag she had brought home.
Azazel sighed, "In the last few months dead bodies of potential sacred gear users have been found all around the world, all of them have one thing in common, all of them were being followed by fallen angels." He informed her, while pulling up full-body scans of the dead bodies, making them appear before her. All of them were around the age of seventeen to twenty-three, with no visible signs of trauma.
"Cause of death?" She took a sip of her drink while scrolling through the dead bodies.
"Well some of them have GSWs and some died from stab wounds," Azazel said as the case files started to separate into three categories. Akane took out a body of a stab victim and placed the hologram next to the other body she was going through.
"Well, this is not a light spear wound." Akane remarked, "Whoever killed this guy did a really sloppy job, something a fallen angel would never do. You tend to go for sweet spots like larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian artery, kidney or heart, you don't stab your victims repeatedly in the stomach like that, yeah it works, but it's sloppy."
"So, you're suspecting the bodies with no visible trauma present died because they got their sacred gears extracted," Akane asked him as she sat back.
"It would explain the cause of death." Azazel replied, stroking his goatee.
"So, why are you not tracking those sacred gears. There were rumors of you building a machine that could track down sacred gears for years now, this report just cements those rumors for me."
"You really need to learn about keeping your ears to yourself." Azazel said, his eyes twitching in annoyance, "the machine was made to track potential sacred gear users, not sacred gears themselves. Mostly because it's impossible to track down sacred gears individually, after being extracted from their fated user, they start to wither away until they're back in the Law of Cycles waiting for their new user." Azazel explained.
"How long does the withering process take?" she asked, throwing away the now empty soft drink can in the dustbin.
"By my estimates, a year, and a half, and that's what concerns me, all these murders were unnecessary, especially because gathering sacred gears is useless if you don't take their user with them. Yes, it's a slow process training them, but it wields long-lasting results later on. This, on the other hand, looks like a quick gathering of arms and ammunition." Azazel explained his concerns.
"Someone's preparing for a possible conflict, for a war." Akane theorized, getting a nod from Azazel.
"That's the same conclusion Baraqiel and I came to as well. Although, seeing the situation at hand ,a mutiny amongst the Fallen is much more likely." Azazel replied, making Akane massage her head as she tried to soothe the headache this job was already causing her.
"Do you have a suspect, a possible culprit?" Akane asked.
"The Fallen are a family both in figurative and literal ways. How can I suspect someone from my own family?" Azazel replied, his voice showing the pain suspecting someone from the Grigori caused him.
"Did you at least question the Fallen who have been involved in these cases?"
"We did, but it gave us nothing, none of them knew anything regarding the situation. Now, whether they were lying or not, only time will tell." He replied.
"So, what do you want me to do here, Azazel? From the looks of things, this is some serious Grigori business, and I'm an outsider here."
Azazel snapped his finger, and four profiles appeared in front of Akane ,"These four are coming to Kuoh tomorrow, all have been involved with the murdered in some capacity and while we do not suspect them we also haven't exonerated them yet." Azazel added.
"So, they're coming here to follow a sacred gear user right?" Akane asked, as she read through their leader's profile, a female fallen named Raynare.
"Not just any sacred gear, Longinus class sacred gear. They've been ordered to follow and get a feel of the guy, they're cleared to study and even recruit him if they find him suitable for the Grigori." Azazel informed her, "Your job is to follow them around without being noticed and see if they are following my orders, if they do, good, it narrows down our search, but if not, you're to tail them until you have enough evidence and capture them so Baraqiel and I can interrogate them in private, find out who is responsible for this mess." Azazel told her, a pair of glasses black-framed appeared from the side of the black box.
"Use those to gather evidence on the case, there's a button placed in the frame which will let you take photographs of anything you are seeing, don't worry about the lighting or focus just point and click and the glasses will do all that work for you. A copy of all the photos taken will be sent to me directly so you don't have to worry about dropping off the evidence either." She heard pride in his voice, sort of like a soccer mom talking about her little boy's newest field accomplishment ,"It's not all they can do, of course, play around with them ,see which settings work for you." The Governor-General of the Grigori continued to gush about his invention.
"Do you have any idea about where they will be staying?" She asked putting the glasses away.
"No, it's not a high-profile mission for them so I don't know where they will be staying. Though there is a high chance they will choose a place close to the Longinus user." Azazel answered.
"Okay, who is the Longinus user exactly and which Longinus he carries, if I know who they are and where they live, my job will be far easier ,don't you think?"
"How the hell would I know that? The machine doesn't tell me the user's identity, if I knew that I'd snatch them up before the pigeons or the bats would have the chance to lift a finger, oh and before the murderer would be able to act, that too. But no, it just lets me know that the user lives in Kuoh, and come on, it's a Longinus user you will know exactly who he is when you find him." Azazel replied.
"Yeah, about that machine, Azazel. You are going to destroy it as well as burn its plans after this is over right?"
"Hehehe, looks like that has been a popular opinion today, first Baraqiel, now you." Azazel said in an amused tone.
"Well, you creative sorts need someone to reign you in otherwise the Frankenstein's monster would become a reality." Akane replied sarcastically, "That machine is a disaster waiting to happen ,Azazel, you know what would happen if the machine falls into the wrong hands. Destroy it while it's in yours." Akane warned him.
"Yeah, nobody would like a re-run of Frankenstein, it breaks an inventor's heart to destroy his babies but I already decided to get rid of it beforehand, you've nothing to worry about Akane, anyway I gotta go so…, sleep tight ,don't let the bed bugs bite and all that jazz." She only nodded for goodbye before his hologram disappeared.
"The Black Box will self-destruct in five seconds." The message from the box made Akane chuckle. After the five-second countdown was over, the box disintegrated on the tea table leaving no trace of ever being there.
"He really needs to stop watching those Mission Impossible movies" She got up from the sofa to check what time it was.
"8:00 pm I guess I should get things done tonight. Don't know if I will get any free time after today." She muttered, taking the two bouquets with her she left the apartment.
Beta Readers: - Polkxe, Echoes19