Chapter 46

'So the question is…' Kamina stared hard at item in his hands, furrowing his eyebrows in intense concentration and screwing up his lip. The other two watched him with bated breath as he continued to ponder, unmoving, and Jaye finally cleared his throat.

'Kamina, you've gotta make a choice.' He said, and the fox boy waved a hand in defiance.

'You can't rush me! It's an extremely important decision and one wrong step could cost me!'

'You're going to have to pick something eventually. Maybe you should just pick one at random.' Indigo said, and Kamina stared at her, horrified.

'How could you even suggest that?' He gasped, his eyes wide as dinner plates. 'You can't put me on the spot like that! This is a matter of life and death!'

'Dude, it's just dinner.'

The three were currently back in the inn's dining floor, and though Jaye and Indigo had already long decide what they were going to get, Mire cuisine really was delicious, Kamina was still undecided about his fate.

'Both beef and chicken look good, but so does pork. But do I feel like stew or rice, that's the question.' He pondered, poking his chin with a claw, and Jaye rolled his eyes in as wide a circle as he could manage.

'Hurry up shithead I want to eat and get my apple pie. They're going to be done in forty-five minutes, which gives me forty-five minutes to order and finish eating so I can get a fresh slice of pie.'

'You can't pressure me when I'm making important decisions! What if I screw up? Then we're all doomed!'

'…I'm calling the waiter.'

Kamina made a few sounds of protest, looking horrified as a waiter immediately noticed them for the first time and proceeded over to take their order. Jaye thanked the waiter, handing her the menus and stretching his arms out above his back. Kamina placed his sobbing face down on the table, bemoaning his inability to have both chicken and beef on the same plate and cursing the world for Mire cuisine customarily using different sauces for chicken and beef, thus preventing them from being combined into a single dish. Indigo drummed her nails into the table.

'It's been two days since we've been here.' She whispered, staring at her nails with a bored look on her face, talking out of the side of her lips. 'I think we can afford one more before we leave. Mister and Miss Stalker have made no progress, and neither have we in finding out anything more about Salem than we already know.'

'I'm surprised there's so little intel about her.' Kamina said, spinning his finger along the mouth of his water glass. 'At this point, the only people who might know anything about her is probably the people that are working directly underneath her. That means we might be looking at interrogating Damian if we get the chance.'

'We can try for the other flunkies she had with her.' Jaye interjected. 'Mercury, Emerald, Cinder, and maybe Torchwick might know a thing or two we don't. If we come across their locations, it might be prudent to pay them a visit.'

'Fair enough.' Kamina crossed his arms, smiling at the waitress as she made her way over with a few steaming bowls of soup. 'But first we've yet to deal with the two glaringly obvious problems we have in front of us.'

Despite agreeing to deal with their stalkers when they first arrived in Mire, the three had almost consistently done everything they could to do everything except deal with the two siblings. Between meeting up with contacts and scouting out potential ships that could take them to Mistral, they'd managed to fill up all their free time with other things to do that involved ditching the two for the day, then catching back up with them in the evenings. It was particularly amusing how bad they were at tailing people who didn't want to be followed, and it became clear that throwing them off their trail was going to just as easily done as said. That had led to a degree of complacency from the three, they had to admit that much at least, and they immediately took to any excuse they had not to deal with them. Chalk it up to general reluctance to confront two kids, but the three had clearly gone soft.

'Well it's not like they've come by to assassinate us in the middle of the night.' Jaye pointed out, tapping his finger on his chin and staring out the window. 'All we've had are the occasional furry ears stick up from beneath our window. And half the time they're Kamina's.'

'Hey, the window's faster depending on which side of the road you're coming in from.' He defended, leaning against said windowsill. 'But all things considered, we should at least find out what they want before we head on down to Mistral. There's still a small chance that they're working for someone, and we can't afford to lead them to little red when they could potentially have a very large target painted across their backs.'

'Alright.' Jaye dropped across his bed, undoing the laces of his boots and throwing his scroll onto the bedside table. 'If they come to kill us, we'll capture them. If not, we'll get em tomorrow.'

With their plans for the next day now settled, the three began the daily ritual of glorious single combat. Which actually meant that Jaye was once again forced into a losing match of rock-paper-scissors and had to wait an hour and a half for the other two to be done with their personal intricacies.

It was a gentle clack, only ever so slightly audible in the dead of night. It was louder than you'd expect, with the insects outside, and the noise of the breeze blowing past leaves and tall grass. The gentle click of the window lock was nearly masked by the breeze and, would easily have gone unnoticed to anyone who wasn't listening out for it. The windows slid open, nothing but a vaguely audible creak to give it away, and the telltale signs of a gentle shifting of weight brushed gently over their ears.

Amidst the rustling, the sound of cloth against skin was vaguely audible, but a trained ear could decipher the minute differences in sound. And trained ears they had; Kamina's fox ears twitched at the offending noises, making a show of rolling over in his sleep, and the rustling immediately stopped. After a few tense seconds, the rustling continued, and they were sure of it.

Someone else had entered the room.

Jaye relaxed his eyelids, allowing some light to peep through the cracks in them. His eyes adjusting to the darkness, he barely made out a humanoid shape in the corner, still and unmoving, nearly invisible if not for the moonlight streaming in through the open curtains. He had to admit; for all their failure at tailing them inconspicuously, they were nailing all the aspects of a good assassination. Their feet making no noise as they crossed the floor, the two figures paced ever so slowly around the beds, taking special care not to touch the frames, and he was impressed by the care they were taking in this assassination. Almost as if someone had trained them to do it.

And suddenly things didn't match up anymore. How could they be so bad at tailing, information gathering and various other basic aspects of being an assassin, but show clear competence in the actual assassination? Either their training was horrendously lopsided, or they had done everything prior on purpose to throw their targets off. He supposed it was likely the latter, and had they been anything other than trained assassins themselves this would have resulted in nothing but a quick silencing. He breathed slowly as a one of the two paused over him, withdrawing a blade with a gentle slide. He made sure to angle the blade out of the moonlight, shielding it with his body, and Jaye nearly smiled in appreciation. The figure threw back his hood, cat ears popping out in the moonlight, and he realized it was the girl standing over him. She gripped the blade with a shaking grip, preparing to cover his mouth with a hand.

'You know if you're going to stab me, you really should work on your speed.' Jaye said, opening his eyes. The girl practically jumped, letting out a soft "eep!", and stared back at him as if she didn't know how to react. 'The longer you spend in your targets' room, the more likely for something to go wrong or for you to get caught.'

On the other side of the room, Apollo clearly had come to his senses first and drove the blade down towards Indigo's chest. She grabbed his wrist as it descended, halting it just before the blade touched her skin, and made a face at the boy as he struggled in her grip.

'Too bad hunny-bun, not this time.' She teased, pushing him away from her bed and getting to her feet. The girl, Artemis, leapt away from the bed as Jaye got to his feet, stretching out his aching muscles.

'Well you two certainly took your time. I waited nearly three hours for you to even attempt an entry.' Jaye said, rubbing his shoulders. 'But then again, your assassination was top notch; hardly a sound, shielded your blades from the light, attention to your targets' states of sleep et cetera. You've been trained well.'

The twins glanced across each other, the uncertainty plastered across their faces, and Jaye raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

'Hey, we're all here already. Let's have a little chat shall we? For starters, you can tell me who you're working for.' He said, and the two raised their knives in response. 'No? Guess we're doing this the hard way.'

The twins charged, slashing with their knives as they did so. Jaye ducked the girl's hand, driving his shoulder into her stomach and knocking her back. She went back on the offensive, displaying an impressive feat of acrobatics as she flipped numerous times around the boy, slashing and striking with her knives and feet as she did so. Deflecting the blows with his gauntlets, Jaye interrupted her movements with a low kick, forcing her to launch high off her hands to avoid the blow, and flying straight into the spinning hook kick he threw right after. She crashed to the floor, gasping in pain, and Jaye glanced behind him to find Apollo doing no better. The boy was grimacing, breathing hard, as he continued to throw blow after blow only to be deflected each time with hardly a budge from Indigo. Her perfect vision clearly active, she twisted the blades out of his grasp, embedding them in the wall behind him, before seizing the boy in a death grip and wrapping her arms around him.

'You're so cute!' She squealed, cuddling the boy, and he turned a bright red under the moonlight as she smothered him. Jaye rolled his eyes, disarming his attacker.

'Indigo can you not? He might have hidden weapons on him.' He called, and the girl proceeded to bind his hands together behind his back with a hidden wrist lock. The boy, finally realizing what was going on, began to struggle in vain as she bound his ankles as well. Now immobilized, she continued to smother him unabashed, and Jaye slapped a hand to his face. Returning his attention to the girl currently trying to kill him, he gripped her by the wrist, blinking in surprise as she flipped out of his grasp. He seized her again, only for her to once more escape in the same manner, and he made a sound of annoyance as she now kept her distance from him. He deflected a few tentative blows, making a sound of infuriation as she once more avoided his grip. He saw her glance across the room at her brother, clearly trying to figure out a way to rescue him and escape, and Jaye prepared to launch himself at the girl.

Sneaking up from behind, Indigo pounced on the faunus, making a sound of victory as she bound the girl's wrists and ankles, then proceeded to smother her and play with her ears. The girl made sounds of protest and terror as Indigo continued to cuddle her, and Jaye had honestly forgotten how much Indigo loved kids. Ignoring the two girls, he turned his attention to the now disregarded boy attempting to wrench his way out of his bindings, pacing quietly towards him. The boy gave him a look of defiance as he approached, his lips curling up in a sneer, and Jaye squat down beside him. He stared at the boy for a moment, picking at his nails.

'So… where you from?' He asked, sitting casually down on the floor beside the boy. Apollo refused to meet his gaze, staring instead at everything else around them, his eyes going constantly back and forth between his daggers embedded in the wall. Sighing to himself, Jaye got to his feet and retrieved the daggers, spinning them in his hands as he sat back down beside the boy. Placing them just out of his reach, he turned his gaze back to the immobilized boy, and Apollo glared back with a fury.

'Look kid, I don't want to hurt you. I really don't.' He scratched his head sheepishly, not used to talking to interrogation targets in such a manner. 'But I will if I have to.'

'You can shove it for all I care.' The boy spat, attempting to kick his captor with his bound feet, and Jaye just sort of stared at him, unimpressed. 'You're not getting a thing from me.'

'Look this isn't going to end well for either of you if this keeps up. Don't forget, you messed with us first. And look where that got you.' Jaye pushed himself off the floor, grabbing Indigo by the collar and dragging her off the faunus girl who was on the verge of tears. He dragged the two twins side by side with each other, propping them up against the wall and placing their weapons well out of their reach. Indigo made a sound of protest, finally resigning to dropping across her bed, and Jaye paused for a moment as he noticed Kamina still under the covers. He heard a gentle snore come out from under there and balked as he realized the fox boy had fallen asleep in spite of the tussle that had occurred. In fact, he might not ever have been awake to begin with. He kicked the faunus out of the bed, grumbling to himself, and watched as he continued to sleep on the floor. Giving up, Jaye sat back down on his own bed, raising an eyebrow at the twins staring defiantly back at him. He noticed, for the first time, that they were staring at him, and only him, with a measure of contempt in their eyes, and he made a mental note to keep that in consideration when hearing their answers.

'Alright. You'd better start talking or–' Jaye stared, but was cut off by a snarl.

'Or what? You'll kill us?' The boy swore audibly, spitting at Jaye's feet. 'Do your worst. There's nothing you can do that you haven't already done to us.'

'Is that so?' Jaye got up slowly from his seat. Cryptic response aside, the boy's body language was not just one of defiance, but also protection. He'd placed himself slightly in front of his sister, spitting at his feet and everything to clearly draw attention to himself for the time being, most likely until they could somehow find a way to escape. Most others would get pissed off and take their anger out on the boy rather than Artemis, effectively diverting their attention to protect her or allow her to carry out an escape. But Jaye understood this tactic very well; he'd used it to get himself dragged into a one-on-one with a boss when he and Indigo had let themselves get captured for a job. Ignoring the jabs at him, he shoved the boy aside, seizing the girl by the collar and yanking her to her feet. Retrieving one of their knives from the bed stand, he dropped the girl onto his lap, staring pointedly at her brother.

'I won't hurt you. I really won't.' He said, spinning the knife casually in his hand. 'But I never promised a thing about her.'

He glanced at the boy's face; in spite of his previous defiance, his lips were trembling now, and Jaye knew he was right. He tapped the knife to the girl's chin, and Apollo nearly lurched forwards if not for the obvious threat signs Jaye was throwing up. He brought the knife slowly down to her neck, trailing the point along her skin, pressing it into the soft part of her neck where he knew the carotid artery was, but not hard enough to draw blood.

'Either you talk, or I kill her.' He said simply, holding the knife steady at her neck. 'I think we both know I won't hesitate to do it. Either way I'm getting what I want; it's only a matter of whether one of you dies or not.'

'Don't tell him anything!' Artemis choked out, but Jaye realized all at once that she was just as terrified as he thought; her knees had given out long ago, and he could feel her trembling. He had to applaud her bravado though.

'First question. Who do you work for?' He tapped the knife against her neck, but the boy kept his mouth firmly closed, staring daggers at his captors. Indigo turned away, clearly not in the mood for this. Jaye narrowed his eyes at the defiant boy.

'Second question. Why are you trying to kill us?' He slid the flat edge of the knife along her skin, and the boy's face convulsed with anger. Jaye raised a sarcastic eyebrow as he continued to play with the girl's neck.

'Third question. Who is Salem?' A look of confusion passed the boy's face for a moment, and Jaye nearly groaned out loud. No leads on Salem again, but at least they could now lay this problem to rest. He stared at the boy, but he remained tight-lipped, glaring back at him with nothing but defiance in his eyes. Even still, he could see Apollo's resolve crumbling; one final push was all that was needed. He pressed the knife into her skin, drawing just a pinprick of blood at first, then pushing it deeper still as the boy remained silent. He drew a long line of blood along her neck, finally reaching her trachea, and Apollo lurched forward.

'Okay!' He choked, falling flat on his face and trying to push himself back up with his shoulders as he desperately inched towards his sister. 'I'll talk, I'll talk!'

Jaye let the knife fall away from her throat, and Apollo heaved a sigh of relief. Indigo grabbed him by the collar, pulling him back up and against the wall, and he sagged his head in defeat.

'We're not working for anyone. We're here to kill you ourselves.' He gushed, staring up earnestly at the boy. 'We don't know who this Salem is! No one hired us! We've been following you on our own accord!'

'For what purpose? Why do you want to kill us?' Indigo asked, leaning against her bedframe, and Apollo shook his head, glaring at the raven-haired boy.

'Ask him.' He spat vehemently, and Jaye raised a confused eyebrow. Indigo met his eyes, and he shrugged.

'I have no idea who they are.' He said flatly, raising the knife to the girl's throat once more. 'You'd better start talking some sense before I really make this knife hit home.'

'No!' Apollo lurched forward again, and this time Indigo grabbed him before he hit the floor. 'I've told you everything! I'm not lying! I swear on my life, just let her go!'

'Who are you to me?' Jaye questioned, knife still pressed to the quivering girl's throat. 'What did I do to you?'

'You killed our parents!' Artemis choked out, the knife to her throat suddenly didn't matter anymore as she began to writhe against him. Jaye relinquished his grip, pulling the knife away from her throat, and she collapsed to the floor in a tangle of limbs. She pushed herself up to her knees, glaring at the assassin as he raised his eyebrow even further. He felt a prod on the arm, turning to face the fox boy who was now yawning, seemingly having woken up just for that.

'Your eyebrow can't go past the confines of your face you know.' He echoed, and Jaye rolled his eyes, turning his gaze back to the two twins squatting on the floor before him.

'Doesn't mean I can't try.'

Cliffies! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'm a jackass I know. Yes thank you for noticing, I am in fact, a colossal douchelord. We're going to be looking back at Jaye's very first assassination in the next chapter; the deaths of Apollo and Artemis's parents. Don't worry, it's nothing super special.