So, I wasn't going to update this until I had some reviews to read,
but then I looked at the prologue and.Gawd, it's short. So I figured, why
not? Here's chapter one.
Chapter One
The four assassins of the Weiß Kreuz group sprawled, sat, or stood in various places around the main room of their headquarters, waiting for their boss to give them their latest mission. Manx was standing at the back near the door, watching each of the guys and trying to decide which of them would accept the latest mission. As always, she knew what it was before they did, and the only thing they were waiting for was Persia to identify the targets. She smiled; the guys probably would all accept this mission, at least Yohji would. It gave him the excuse to go sniffing around a mansion.
Suddenly the wall-screen lit up and the silhouette of Persia appeared as it always did in a large office of some sort. For a moment there was silence in the room as the office vanished and was replaced by the image of a large building with the picture of an elderly man in the corner. The four guys leaned forward simultaneously to get a better look, and Yohji whistled his appreciation at the size of the mansion that was displayed before them. A second later, Persia spoke up and his rich voice filled the room.
"This is Ringo Starr." The boss had to pause while Yohji laughed. "No Balinese, he is not a Beatle, he is merely a very rich man who is a fan of their music. Now, I have it on good authority that he is the new benefactor for a group of assassins that just showed up in Tokyo. To my knowledge there are three of them, and I must warn you that they are very good at what they do. Already they have pulled several jobs and have not left a single trace as to their identity, not even a single video camera tape." There was another pause as the image of the house shifted into a building plan. "I want you to go in and do some reconnaissance; figure out exactly how many of these assassins there are and what their agenda is. They are supposedly out of the house tonight but if you find any do not kill any of them, as they may be future allies to our cause. I leave the assignments to you Manx." The screen clicked off and the lights flicked on.
"This is degrading." Aya muttered, folding his arms across his chest. "We're assassins not messenger boys, and we don't do reconnaissance work."
"You are allowed to think that, but I need to know if you're in or out." Manx said, looking around at the group. "I do have to add though that Mr. Starr is an extremely wealthy man, maybe he could give some stock tips if we end up being allies." Aya frowned for a moment before sighing faintly.
"I'm in." he growled, and the rest of the guys nodded as well. Yohji grinned and spoke up.
"Wouldn't it be great if they were chicks?"
"No." Aya replied simply.
"That's enough you two. All right, I want Omi working the security systems a block away from the mansion. Aya, you keep watch out on the lawn to make sure they don't come home while we're in there. Ken and Yohji, you go inside and see what you can find, all right?" When the guys had nodded she went around and began handing them copies of the building plans. "These will help you figure out where to go, and Omi, all of the security systems have been indicated on the blue prints so you can figure out a way to knock them out." Again they all nodded.
"We'd better get going." Ken informed the others. They all stood up and headed for the door, nodding to Manx on their way. When they were all loading into the van, Yohji smiled widely and jumped into his seat.
"Lets get this party started." With that they slammed the doors and began the drive to the warehouse where Omi would be working on his computer. It was 10:00 p.m.
***
Yohji strolled through the enormous interior corridors of the mansion, trying not to whistle at the magnificent architecture all around him. When they had arrived at the warehouse Omi had immediately set up the equipment and went to work. By the time he finished breaking the security codes the others were all ready to go. They had walked the rest of the way to the mansion, leaving Aya outside on the lawn to watch for the occupants of the house. Upon entering, Ken had taken the opposite direction, leaving Yohji to walk away from the living area and towards the recreation part of the house. So far he was pretty impressed.
He came to a large set of double doors on one side of the hall that looked like they led to a rather large room. Curious, Yohji pushed the door open and walked inside. When he flicked the light switch he found himself standing in one corner of an enormous gym, complete with an indoor track and several work out machines. Finally allowing himself a single whistle, he moved through the room and began examining the equipment.
The memory boards on the treadmills and bicycles stated very clearly that these people kept in good shape, a handful running at least five miles at each visit to the gym area. A locker cabinet in the corner told him that they had very good work out clothes, of the highest quality with padding galore for fencing and other activities. Unfortunately the clothing was asexual and instead of names had initials on the back. From what he could tell there were perhaps ten people living here, a helluva lot more than Persia had thought.
After the gym he moved on to find a weight room with one hundred pound weights and fifty pout weights stacked around bench presses and arm exercise contraptions, as well as leg weights for up to three hundred pounds. Considering what he knew about women, they generally had stronger legs than arms, and the weight numbers suggested that these were indeed female assassins. Though, these weights were a lot heavier than most women should have been able to lift. A desk in the corner had various weight- plans with initials placed across the top. As he glanced across them he realized that these people spent more than seventy percent of their free time working out. He gulped slightly and moved on.
The next rooms in the hall were mostly game rooms with pool tables, pinball machines, and large televisions surrounded by beanbags and pillows. Considering the fact that men preferred lounge chairs to such things, he was finding more and more evidence to suggest these people were women. On the arcade machines such as pinball and Pac-Man he found long lists of high scores with the initials IM on them, suggesting that at least one of the residents was a game freak. A chess table in the corner had a game set up on it with the black on the winning end, and a flat table near the window had card counters and poker chips. He smiled as he looked around a final time before heading to the next room.
In the second to last room in the hall he found an enormous library filled from top to bottom with books and had several comfortable chairs set around the room. Lamps were set around the chairs and there were soft rugs placed around the room as well. A fireplace was located on one wall with five chairs around it and small tables for drinks and snacks. Finally there were a few desks in a small alcove towards the back with various college books stacked on them, and a laptop set up on each one. He still found no names on anything, but he did find a collection of poems and stories stashed in two of the desk drawers. As he read them he thought 'definitely women'.
He finally came to the last room in the hall that had a large clouded screen door separating it from the hall. When he slid it open he found himself standing on a cement patio that surrounded an indoor pool. The room was dark save the lights that were set in the pool walls to light the water, and he could see someone swimming. Realizing he was about to be caught, Yohji tried to move back towards the door but tripped over a lounge chair and fell backwards into a potted plant. A splash sounded and he struggled to stand as a female figure slid out of the pool.
"What are you doing in here?" there was definite anger in the voice, and as the girl came nearer Yohji couldn't help but stare at her slim figure. He swallowed heavily and stumbled out the door, running as he heard the girl yell and begin to come after him.
Had he not been an assassin and a detective before that, she'd have caught him before he got out of the recreational rooms and into the hall. Luckily, when you kill people for a living, you tend to be in pretty good shape. He stumbled into the hall, but the girl was gaining. He quickly realized that he conveniently forgot his map and couldn't find the front door.
"Get your ass back here!" The girl shouted, somehow getting a burst of speed. He squeaked, opened a door, hopped inside, closed the door and leaned against it heavily.
Luckily for him, it had a lock. Unluckily for him, it was a bedroom.and it was occupied. The blob sleeping in the bed mumbled something incoherent and flopped over. Yohji held his breath and waited until the person's breathing evened out before sighing, quietly. It didn't last long however, when the girl outside began pounding on the door and shouting.
He didn't want to put up with two pissed off girls, so he braced himself against the door and flung it open, slamming the girl into the wall and dazing her. He took off down the hall, while she regained her senses. By the time she rounded the last corner he'd turned, he was gone. A scream from the other side of the building turned her attention elsewhere, and she went to see what was going on.
***
The cause of the scream was rather humorous. One of the occupants of the house had come into the kitchen for a late night snack. Ken had been in the kitchen studying the food. The granola bars and massive amounts of vegetables as opposed to meats lead him to think girls were the primary occupants of the house. Unfortunately, in hearing the hungry occupant coming through the hallway, he jumped into a rather large cupboard and hid.
The occupant of the house, a small blond girl of around sixteen or seventeen, went straight for his hiding place. Her favorite type of granola bar was stashed away in there somewhere, and she was hungry. It was a great shock to her when she opened the door and there sat Ken, all grins and lame attempts to explain. The blond girl screamed, and Ken ran.
He remembered his map, unlike his blond-haired accomplice. Luckily for Yohji, the two met up in the hallway, and Ken led them out. They arrived in the foyer, only to notice the girl from the pool running behind them. They made it out, grabbed Aya, who was a bit confused and very angry, and ran.
"What the hell is going on?" He demanded.
"Well, they were sorta.home." Yohji explained. They arrived at the warehouse and found Omi.
"What are you three doing back here so fast?" He asked, a genuinely confused look on his face.
"We need a change of plans. They were home, and it's possible that up to ten or more people live in that house." Yohji explained.
"Ten?" Ken shouted, his hothead nature rearing its ugly head yet again. "They had a lot of food, but TEN?"
"They had a huge gym area with fencing equipment. They all had initials and there were ten different sets of equipment. Everything had initials: memory boards on the workout machines, training plans, games.no dead giveaways. One of the more prominent initials around was IM, though. And, the weights were more geared toward the legs. I think women lived there. They had a huge library, too. There was some original poetry, and it was all mushy and romantic." Yohji explained.
"I found the kitchen. They had a lot of vegetables and an insane amount of granola bars. I swear, they could feed a frickin' army on those damn granola bars." Ken muttered. "Some little blond chick found me poking around in her granola bars, and I don't think she was too happy about it. Who was that girl chasing you?"
"I dunno.I walked in on her swimming. Nice body." He flicked out a cigarette and started to light it. Omi grabbed it and threw it out a window, glaring.
"Anything else?" He asked coolly.
"Yeah.I got trapped in a bedroom briefly. I couldn't see the person very well, but she had an insane amount of stuffed animals, so I'm thinking it was a girl."
"Aya, did you notice anything unusual from your post?"
"No. I spent most of my time admiring their garden. One of them knows a thing or two about flowers. If they were men, they wouldn't really care, probably."
"So.all we know is that there are at least three women in the house, probably more." Omi quickly summarized what the others had said in a Word document and sighed. "That's not much. We'll need some way to get into the house while people are around without them getting suspicious. Some way to get names." He scrunched his brow in concentration.
"You could pose as a Boy Scout selling whatever it is Boy Scouts sell." Yohji suggested. "With so many people, one of them must like whatever you're trying to sell."
The other three assassins stared at Yohji. He was by no means stupid, far from it actually. But he wasn't one to come up with plans. He just did what he was supposed to. Now, all of a sudden, he came up with a basic plan design without hurting his brain. That was usually Omi's forte.
"What?"
"Nothing.that would actually work. By the way, Boy Scouts primarily sell popcorn and Christmas wreaths." Aya said. "Omi, can you come up with the supplies?"
"Sure. It shouldn't be too hard." Omi frowned. "If there are a bunch of people there, though, we'll only be getting one name."
"But then you can do some digging. There's bound to be school records, and I'm sure some of them are involved in something. They must have some connection to their targets. But, for now, can you do anything with those initials?" Aya suggested.
"Do you have ANY idea how many people in Japan could be named something along the lines of IM?" Omi asked, giving Aya a look that said 'I thought you'd know better.'
"Well, you can limit it to women, and for now, just look for any that stand out. She'd have to be in good physical condition and between about fifteen and thirty, living in this area of Tokyo. That should limit it somewhat. It's a start, if nothing else. We have no guarantee that this IM girl will want any popcorn or Christmas wreaths." Omi moaned and smacked his head into a nearby wall. "We should get back home and sleep on it."
"First, while I was waiting for you to finish, I looked through those records of the jobs they've pulled. Most of them aren't very major.just small-time murders and rapists, but some of this stuff is crazy. Just a week ago, they knocked off the head of a huge corporation who'd led a secret life making millions in child pornography on the Internet. And over the last few months, they've been killing off his underlings. Them being women is making more sense. Over eighty percent of their targets have abused women in some way." Omi explained.
"So our new rival/allies are a bunch of feminist extremists?" Ken raised an eyebrow. "I hope they don't meet Yohji before we can explain him."
"Hey." Yohji growled and punched Ken in the shoulder. "I don't abuse women. And anyway, I like Aya's idea of sleeping on it."
***
They guys did sleep on it.except for Omi. He was up until God knows when trying to find any IM worth looking at. He was pretty much unsuccessful in narrowing the list down, and the next day at school, he fell asleep in math. Luckily, he wasn't caught, and didn't get a detention. When he got back to Koneko no Sumu Ie, Manx was just arriving, apparently to collect their information. He was wrong, surprisingly.
"We have a new mission already?" Ken practically shouted. "W e haven't even finished the one you gave us yesterday."
"Be that as it may, there is something more worth your attention for now." She ignored Ken's protests and went into the basement. The guys followed her, all grumbling except Aya.
Manx pushed the videotape into the VCR and went to stand at the back of the room until Persia was done speaking. Weiß listened to Persia, each growing angry with the three who led the 'Riot' ring, Yohji most of all. They all accepted, and surprisingly, Yohji offered to head up the mission. Manx gave them all the information Kritiker was able to come up with and left the boys to their own planning.
***
While Yohji went off to do his own thing, Aya and Ken went over the mission records from this new assassin group. Omi, having practically memorized them, got back on his computer to look for IM. He'd narrowed the list down to about.two thousand people. Finally getting sick of the daunting task, he hacked back into the mansion's security system, intent on finding something. It took about half an hour, but finally, a grin found his face.
"I am a genius." He told himself out loud, beaming at his work.
"What'd you do?" Ken asked, rolling his chair over to look at Omi's computer.
"I was messing around in their security system. It's almost flawless, but I found a way to transfer any images their cameras pick up and save them to my hard drive. Anything they see, we see." Just to prove his point, he clicked an icon on his screen, and an image popped up on the screen. It was a movie clip of what they assumed was the library Yohji had found. There was one person in the room. A figure, a bit fuzzy but probably female, was curled up in a chair with a rather large book. Every once in a while, she'd flip a page. Other than that, there was no movement in the room.
Unfortunately, disaster struck. The image disappeared, and the screen went black. A minute later, an animated face appeared on the screen. It was round, yellow, and had its tongue sticking out at them. Omi frantically started typing, but nothing would make the image change.
"What the hell is that?" Aya asked, a scowl on his face.
"I don't know. It came out of nowhere." Omi had a terrified look on his face. The image disappeared, and, somehow, the computer shut itself down. "What the." Omi pushed the power button, and the computer re-booted itself. At the main screen, Omi entered a password, and the typical Windows screen popped up. However, all of the icons were missing.
"Is it supposed to look like that?" Ken asked, sensing Omi's angst.
"Everything's been deleted. Mission reports, the stuff I hacked, my school work, my journal.everything's gone." Omi let out an exasperated moan and smacked his forehead on the keyboard.
"It just disappeared? How the hell does everything on your computer just disappear?" Ken demanded.
"I think I got hacked." Omi admitted, seeming rather ashamed of the thought. He'd prided himself on keeping his computer hack-proof. Obviously, he'd been overconfident.either that, or the person they were up against was a pro. Or both.
"Weren't you bragging just last week that your computer was hack proof?" Aya growled.
"Shut up." Omi banged his head on the keyboard again, multiple times. Finally, after he committed what he deemed sufficient self-mutilation, he shut the computer down and turned to Ken and Aya. "I think they copied everything from my computer over to theirs, and then deleted my computer's memory. I hope not, but it's possible. If they did, they know everything we know about Weiß and Kritiker, and the flower shop, too."
Ken glared at Omi. Finally, he let out a growl and stormed upstairs. Apparently, he was too angry to yell. For Ken, that was a miracle. Aya didn't say anything. He just went back to the records and continued to look for clues. Omi went to get some coffee before coming back to rewrite all of his stuff. When he got back, there was one Word document on the screen. He opened it, confused. It read:
Dear Weiß;
Noble as your intentions are, we must ask you to keep your nose out of our business. We have no intention of harming you, unless you give us reason to do so. We hope you feel the same about us. Your files will be returned to your computer after we have read through them. You may not think this is fair, but you are the ones hacking into our system. The information you've given us will be kept confidential. Only our benefactor and we will see them. Good luck on your mission.
Harpy
"Um.Aya.come read this." Omi said, the worried tone in his voice blatantly obvious.
Aya quickly finished the page he was reading and stood. By the time he'd reached the computer, he'd already gotten the main gist of the note and growled. "Harpy? What the hell..." He said, attempting to remain calm. "Is there anything you can do?"
"No. If I hacked them, they'd probably get pissed and come after us. For now, I don't think they'll try to do anything. We'd probably better keep a low profile, and we should tell Manx."
"How much did you have about our mission to find out about them?" Aya asked.
"Only the descriptions given to me by Ken and Yohji, and some of the stuff Manx told us. I didn't have anything about the Boy Scout idea written up yet. I was too busy trying to find IM. I don't think we should go to the house ourselves anymore. We'll have to hire someone." Omi sighed.
"Go tell Ken. I'm going to get ready for this Riot thing." Omi didn't bother to ask why Aya needed to get ready for the attack. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what his fellow assassin was talking about.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, what do you think? Good, bad, ugly? I'll probably go over it and change stuff and update it again, later, but for now, I think it's readable. Let me know what you think. ^_^
Chapter One
The four assassins of the Weiß Kreuz group sprawled, sat, or stood in various places around the main room of their headquarters, waiting for their boss to give them their latest mission. Manx was standing at the back near the door, watching each of the guys and trying to decide which of them would accept the latest mission. As always, she knew what it was before they did, and the only thing they were waiting for was Persia to identify the targets. She smiled; the guys probably would all accept this mission, at least Yohji would. It gave him the excuse to go sniffing around a mansion.
Suddenly the wall-screen lit up and the silhouette of Persia appeared as it always did in a large office of some sort. For a moment there was silence in the room as the office vanished and was replaced by the image of a large building with the picture of an elderly man in the corner. The four guys leaned forward simultaneously to get a better look, and Yohji whistled his appreciation at the size of the mansion that was displayed before them. A second later, Persia spoke up and his rich voice filled the room.
"This is Ringo Starr." The boss had to pause while Yohji laughed. "No Balinese, he is not a Beatle, he is merely a very rich man who is a fan of their music. Now, I have it on good authority that he is the new benefactor for a group of assassins that just showed up in Tokyo. To my knowledge there are three of them, and I must warn you that they are very good at what they do. Already they have pulled several jobs and have not left a single trace as to their identity, not even a single video camera tape." There was another pause as the image of the house shifted into a building plan. "I want you to go in and do some reconnaissance; figure out exactly how many of these assassins there are and what their agenda is. They are supposedly out of the house tonight but if you find any do not kill any of them, as they may be future allies to our cause. I leave the assignments to you Manx." The screen clicked off and the lights flicked on.
"This is degrading." Aya muttered, folding his arms across his chest. "We're assassins not messenger boys, and we don't do reconnaissance work."
"You are allowed to think that, but I need to know if you're in or out." Manx said, looking around at the group. "I do have to add though that Mr. Starr is an extremely wealthy man, maybe he could give some stock tips if we end up being allies." Aya frowned for a moment before sighing faintly.
"I'm in." he growled, and the rest of the guys nodded as well. Yohji grinned and spoke up.
"Wouldn't it be great if they were chicks?"
"No." Aya replied simply.
"That's enough you two. All right, I want Omi working the security systems a block away from the mansion. Aya, you keep watch out on the lawn to make sure they don't come home while we're in there. Ken and Yohji, you go inside and see what you can find, all right?" When the guys had nodded she went around and began handing them copies of the building plans. "These will help you figure out where to go, and Omi, all of the security systems have been indicated on the blue prints so you can figure out a way to knock them out." Again they all nodded.
"We'd better get going." Ken informed the others. They all stood up and headed for the door, nodding to Manx on their way. When they were all loading into the van, Yohji smiled widely and jumped into his seat.
"Lets get this party started." With that they slammed the doors and began the drive to the warehouse where Omi would be working on his computer. It was 10:00 p.m.
***
Yohji strolled through the enormous interior corridors of the mansion, trying not to whistle at the magnificent architecture all around him. When they had arrived at the warehouse Omi had immediately set up the equipment and went to work. By the time he finished breaking the security codes the others were all ready to go. They had walked the rest of the way to the mansion, leaving Aya outside on the lawn to watch for the occupants of the house. Upon entering, Ken had taken the opposite direction, leaving Yohji to walk away from the living area and towards the recreation part of the house. So far he was pretty impressed.
He came to a large set of double doors on one side of the hall that looked like they led to a rather large room. Curious, Yohji pushed the door open and walked inside. When he flicked the light switch he found himself standing in one corner of an enormous gym, complete with an indoor track and several work out machines. Finally allowing himself a single whistle, he moved through the room and began examining the equipment.
The memory boards on the treadmills and bicycles stated very clearly that these people kept in good shape, a handful running at least five miles at each visit to the gym area. A locker cabinet in the corner told him that they had very good work out clothes, of the highest quality with padding galore for fencing and other activities. Unfortunately the clothing was asexual and instead of names had initials on the back. From what he could tell there were perhaps ten people living here, a helluva lot more than Persia had thought.
After the gym he moved on to find a weight room with one hundred pound weights and fifty pout weights stacked around bench presses and arm exercise contraptions, as well as leg weights for up to three hundred pounds. Considering what he knew about women, they generally had stronger legs than arms, and the weight numbers suggested that these were indeed female assassins. Though, these weights were a lot heavier than most women should have been able to lift. A desk in the corner had various weight- plans with initials placed across the top. As he glanced across them he realized that these people spent more than seventy percent of their free time working out. He gulped slightly and moved on.
The next rooms in the hall were mostly game rooms with pool tables, pinball machines, and large televisions surrounded by beanbags and pillows. Considering the fact that men preferred lounge chairs to such things, he was finding more and more evidence to suggest these people were women. On the arcade machines such as pinball and Pac-Man he found long lists of high scores with the initials IM on them, suggesting that at least one of the residents was a game freak. A chess table in the corner had a game set up on it with the black on the winning end, and a flat table near the window had card counters and poker chips. He smiled as he looked around a final time before heading to the next room.
In the second to last room in the hall he found an enormous library filled from top to bottom with books and had several comfortable chairs set around the room. Lamps were set around the chairs and there were soft rugs placed around the room as well. A fireplace was located on one wall with five chairs around it and small tables for drinks and snacks. Finally there were a few desks in a small alcove towards the back with various college books stacked on them, and a laptop set up on each one. He still found no names on anything, but he did find a collection of poems and stories stashed in two of the desk drawers. As he read them he thought 'definitely women'.
He finally came to the last room in the hall that had a large clouded screen door separating it from the hall. When he slid it open he found himself standing on a cement patio that surrounded an indoor pool. The room was dark save the lights that were set in the pool walls to light the water, and he could see someone swimming. Realizing he was about to be caught, Yohji tried to move back towards the door but tripped over a lounge chair and fell backwards into a potted plant. A splash sounded and he struggled to stand as a female figure slid out of the pool.
"What are you doing in here?" there was definite anger in the voice, and as the girl came nearer Yohji couldn't help but stare at her slim figure. He swallowed heavily and stumbled out the door, running as he heard the girl yell and begin to come after him.
Had he not been an assassin and a detective before that, she'd have caught him before he got out of the recreational rooms and into the hall. Luckily, when you kill people for a living, you tend to be in pretty good shape. He stumbled into the hall, but the girl was gaining. He quickly realized that he conveniently forgot his map and couldn't find the front door.
"Get your ass back here!" The girl shouted, somehow getting a burst of speed. He squeaked, opened a door, hopped inside, closed the door and leaned against it heavily.
Luckily for him, it had a lock. Unluckily for him, it was a bedroom.and it was occupied. The blob sleeping in the bed mumbled something incoherent and flopped over. Yohji held his breath and waited until the person's breathing evened out before sighing, quietly. It didn't last long however, when the girl outside began pounding on the door and shouting.
He didn't want to put up with two pissed off girls, so he braced himself against the door and flung it open, slamming the girl into the wall and dazing her. He took off down the hall, while she regained her senses. By the time she rounded the last corner he'd turned, he was gone. A scream from the other side of the building turned her attention elsewhere, and she went to see what was going on.
***
The cause of the scream was rather humorous. One of the occupants of the house had come into the kitchen for a late night snack. Ken had been in the kitchen studying the food. The granola bars and massive amounts of vegetables as opposed to meats lead him to think girls were the primary occupants of the house. Unfortunately, in hearing the hungry occupant coming through the hallway, he jumped into a rather large cupboard and hid.
The occupant of the house, a small blond girl of around sixteen or seventeen, went straight for his hiding place. Her favorite type of granola bar was stashed away in there somewhere, and she was hungry. It was a great shock to her when she opened the door and there sat Ken, all grins and lame attempts to explain. The blond girl screamed, and Ken ran.
He remembered his map, unlike his blond-haired accomplice. Luckily for Yohji, the two met up in the hallway, and Ken led them out. They arrived in the foyer, only to notice the girl from the pool running behind them. They made it out, grabbed Aya, who was a bit confused and very angry, and ran.
"What the hell is going on?" He demanded.
"Well, they were sorta.home." Yohji explained. They arrived at the warehouse and found Omi.
"What are you three doing back here so fast?" He asked, a genuinely confused look on his face.
"We need a change of plans. They were home, and it's possible that up to ten or more people live in that house." Yohji explained.
"Ten?" Ken shouted, his hothead nature rearing its ugly head yet again. "They had a lot of food, but TEN?"
"They had a huge gym area with fencing equipment. They all had initials and there were ten different sets of equipment. Everything had initials: memory boards on the workout machines, training plans, games.no dead giveaways. One of the more prominent initials around was IM, though. And, the weights were more geared toward the legs. I think women lived there. They had a huge library, too. There was some original poetry, and it was all mushy and romantic." Yohji explained.
"I found the kitchen. They had a lot of vegetables and an insane amount of granola bars. I swear, they could feed a frickin' army on those damn granola bars." Ken muttered. "Some little blond chick found me poking around in her granola bars, and I don't think she was too happy about it. Who was that girl chasing you?"
"I dunno.I walked in on her swimming. Nice body." He flicked out a cigarette and started to light it. Omi grabbed it and threw it out a window, glaring.
"Anything else?" He asked coolly.
"Yeah.I got trapped in a bedroom briefly. I couldn't see the person very well, but she had an insane amount of stuffed animals, so I'm thinking it was a girl."
"Aya, did you notice anything unusual from your post?"
"No. I spent most of my time admiring their garden. One of them knows a thing or two about flowers. If they were men, they wouldn't really care, probably."
"So.all we know is that there are at least three women in the house, probably more." Omi quickly summarized what the others had said in a Word document and sighed. "That's not much. We'll need some way to get into the house while people are around without them getting suspicious. Some way to get names." He scrunched his brow in concentration.
"You could pose as a Boy Scout selling whatever it is Boy Scouts sell." Yohji suggested. "With so many people, one of them must like whatever you're trying to sell."
The other three assassins stared at Yohji. He was by no means stupid, far from it actually. But he wasn't one to come up with plans. He just did what he was supposed to. Now, all of a sudden, he came up with a basic plan design without hurting his brain. That was usually Omi's forte.
"What?"
"Nothing.that would actually work. By the way, Boy Scouts primarily sell popcorn and Christmas wreaths." Aya said. "Omi, can you come up with the supplies?"
"Sure. It shouldn't be too hard." Omi frowned. "If there are a bunch of people there, though, we'll only be getting one name."
"But then you can do some digging. There's bound to be school records, and I'm sure some of them are involved in something. They must have some connection to their targets. But, for now, can you do anything with those initials?" Aya suggested.
"Do you have ANY idea how many people in Japan could be named something along the lines of IM?" Omi asked, giving Aya a look that said 'I thought you'd know better.'
"Well, you can limit it to women, and for now, just look for any that stand out. She'd have to be in good physical condition and between about fifteen and thirty, living in this area of Tokyo. That should limit it somewhat. It's a start, if nothing else. We have no guarantee that this IM girl will want any popcorn or Christmas wreaths." Omi moaned and smacked his head into a nearby wall. "We should get back home and sleep on it."
"First, while I was waiting for you to finish, I looked through those records of the jobs they've pulled. Most of them aren't very major.just small-time murders and rapists, but some of this stuff is crazy. Just a week ago, they knocked off the head of a huge corporation who'd led a secret life making millions in child pornography on the Internet. And over the last few months, they've been killing off his underlings. Them being women is making more sense. Over eighty percent of their targets have abused women in some way." Omi explained.
"So our new rival/allies are a bunch of feminist extremists?" Ken raised an eyebrow. "I hope they don't meet Yohji before we can explain him."
"Hey." Yohji growled and punched Ken in the shoulder. "I don't abuse women. And anyway, I like Aya's idea of sleeping on it."
***
They guys did sleep on it.except for Omi. He was up until God knows when trying to find any IM worth looking at. He was pretty much unsuccessful in narrowing the list down, and the next day at school, he fell asleep in math. Luckily, he wasn't caught, and didn't get a detention. When he got back to Koneko no Sumu Ie, Manx was just arriving, apparently to collect their information. He was wrong, surprisingly.
"We have a new mission already?" Ken practically shouted. "W e haven't even finished the one you gave us yesterday."
"Be that as it may, there is something more worth your attention for now." She ignored Ken's protests and went into the basement. The guys followed her, all grumbling except Aya.
Manx pushed the videotape into the VCR and went to stand at the back of the room until Persia was done speaking. Weiß listened to Persia, each growing angry with the three who led the 'Riot' ring, Yohji most of all. They all accepted, and surprisingly, Yohji offered to head up the mission. Manx gave them all the information Kritiker was able to come up with and left the boys to their own planning.
***
While Yohji went off to do his own thing, Aya and Ken went over the mission records from this new assassin group. Omi, having practically memorized them, got back on his computer to look for IM. He'd narrowed the list down to about.two thousand people. Finally getting sick of the daunting task, he hacked back into the mansion's security system, intent on finding something. It took about half an hour, but finally, a grin found his face.
"I am a genius." He told himself out loud, beaming at his work.
"What'd you do?" Ken asked, rolling his chair over to look at Omi's computer.
"I was messing around in their security system. It's almost flawless, but I found a way to transfer any images their cameras pick up and save them to my hard drive. Anything they see, we see." Just to prove his point, he clicked an icon on his screen, and an image popped up on the screen. It was a movie clip of what they assumed was the library Yohji had found. There was one person in the room. A figure, a bit fuzzy but probably female, was curled up in a chair with a rather large book. Every once in a while, she'd flip a page. Other than that, there was no movement in the room.
Unfortunately, disaster struck. The image disappeared, and the screen went black. A minute later, an animated face appeared on the screen. It was round, yellow, and had its tongue sticking out at them. Omi frantically started typing, but nothing would make the image change.
"What the hell is that?" Aya asked, a scowl on his face.
"I don't know. It came out of nowhere." Omi had a terrified look on his face. The image disappeared, and, somehow, the computer shut itself down. "What the." Omi pushed the power button, and the computer re-booted itself. At the main screen, Omi entered a password, and the typical Windows screen popped up. However, all of the icons were missing.
"Is it supposed to look like that?" Ken asked, sensing Omi's angst.
"Everything's been deleted. Mission reports, the stuff I hacked, my school work, my journal.everything's gone." Omi let out an exasperated moan and smacked his forehead on the keyboard.
"It just disappeared? How the hell does everything on your computer just disappear?" Ken demanded.
"I think I got hacked." Omi admitted, seeming rather ashamed of the thought. He'd prided himself on keeping his computer hack-proof. Obviously, he'd been overconfident.either that, or the person they were up against was a pro. Or both.
"Weren't you bragging just last week that your computer was hack proof?" Aya growled.
"Shut up." Omi banged his head on the keyboard again, multiple times. Finally, after he committed what he deemed sufficient self-mutilation, he shut the computer down and turned to Ken and Aya. "I think they copied everything from my computer over to theirs, and then deleted my computer's memory. I hope not, but it's possible. If they did, they know everything we know about Weiß and Kritiker, and the flower shop, too."
Ken glared at Omi. Finally, he let out a growl and stormed upstairs. Apparently, he was too angry to yell. For Ken, that was a miracle. Aya didn't say anything. He just went back to the records and continued to look for clues. Omi went to get some coffee before coming back to rewrite all of his stuff. When he got back, there was one Word document on the screen. He opened it, confused. It read:
Dear Weiß;
Noble as your intentions are, we must ask you to keep your nose out of our business. We have no intention of harming you, unless you give us reason to do so. We hope you feel the same about us. Your files will be returned to your computer after we have read through them. You may not think this is fair, but you are the ones hacking into our system. The information you've given us will be kept confidential. Only our benefactor and we will see them. Good luck on your mission.
Harpy
"Um.Aya.come read this." Omi said, the worried tone in his voice blatantly obvious.
Aya quickly finished the page he was reading and stood. By the time he'd reached the computer, he'd already gotten the main gist of the note and growled. "Harpy? What the hell..." He said, attempting to remain calm. "Is there anything you can do?"
"No. If I hacked them, they'd probably get pissed and come after us. For now, I don't think they'll try to do anything. We'd probably better keep a low profile, and we should tell Manx."
"How much did you have about our mission to find out about them?" Aya asked.
"Only the descriptions given to me by Ken and Yohji, and some of the stuff Manx told us. I didn't have anything about the Boy Scout idea written up yet. I was too busy trying to find IM. I don't think we should go to the house ourselves anymore. We'll have to hire someone." Omi sighed.
"Go tell Ken. I'm going to get ready for this Riot thing." Omi didn't bother to ask why Aya needed to get ready for the attack. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what his fellow assassin was talking about.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, what do you think? Good, bad, ugly? I'll probably go over it and change stuff and update it again, later, but for now, I think it's readable. Let me know what you think. ^_^