Back in the bank, Eli and Maki were not having it well. The former was blocking every attack as there were just too many robbers against her at the moment. She knew her arms and wrists would definitely give in soon, and she would get punched. She needed to think of a way fast.
The latter wasn't having it any better. Her broom just got thrown away. She tried using the bucket to push through everyone, but some men carried her and threw her. She landed beside the counter, knocking her head onto it. As she made an attempt to get up, one of the robbers hurled the bucket at her, hitting her on the back. She groaned in pain as she dropped back onto the floor.
Maki wasn't in extreme pain, but it was enough to hold her down to the ground, not being able to move much. The robbers walked to her, ready to beat her up. She couldn't believe she was about to die on her first mission as a justice seeker. Man, she didn't have any regrets though. At least she tried.
The man that killed Menemis earlier kicked the door open, not sparing any time before firing at the hands and legs of the robbers with a machine gun. Almost immediately, they all fell onto the floor, shrieking in agony as they could only lie there and suffer.
The men who were ganging up on Eli now turned towards the new intruder, ignoring her as a result. As they began to sprint towards him, he smirked. However, before they could even lay a finger on him, his gun took aim and fired at them as they all went down like dominos. Eli and Maki looked at him with surprise as he walked towards a cowering robber and aimed the machine gun at his face.
"You'd better tell me where Ruby Kurosawa is going, or I'll blow your damn head off." He growled. The robber shook his head in fright, stating that he didn't know anything. Annoyed, the man shot up in the air, making the robber terrified.
"Let me ask you again." The man bellowed, "Where is Ruby Kurosawa heading to?" The robber cried out that he really didn't know anything, and that he was telling the truth. With a deep and long sigh, the man walked away to the entrance, where he grabbed the shotgun he left there. While all that was happening, Eli was helping Maki up.
"You two." He pointed at the two women, "Follow me. I don't want you to get caught by the police. Also, we got some talking to do." He then went off. Eli and Maki shrugged their shoulders before following him.
A few minutes later, numerous police cars arrived outside the bank because of some noise complaints from nearby residents. Zi Yang and Kanan got out of the former's Lexus and walked into the bank with a few other policemen, only to see the robbers all on the floor, injured. Some of the bank's windows and glasses have been broken, and money was splattered all over the floor. There was Menemis's dead body too, which the forensics picked up when they came over.
"What the hell happened here?" Kanan muttered. Zi Yang was equally as confused as her. He thought the robber was supposed to happen right now, but it seemed like it had already ended. He went to ask the bank tellers if they had lost any money. They shook their heads, stating two women and a man came to their rescue.
"Two women?" Zi Yang asked curiously. He had no idea who these females could be at all. He tried to think of every woman whom he knew except for those in the police force. However, none of them seemed to fit the condition. They didn't know anything about the robbery, nor could they fight at the very least.
Kanan went to him, "Very surprising. It seems like these two women and the man knew the robbery would happen earlier. In fact, I'm even more astounded by the fact that they knew it was going to take place."
"I am too, but not for the man." Zi Yang scoffed, "I definitely know the man, if I'm right about it. He's always against me in everything. He thinks he's such a smart Alec and a know-it-all man. He's not an intelligent human being."
Kanan just ignored him. She looked at the robbers getting handcuffed and pushed out by the policemen as they were complaining and whining about how their bodies were hurting.
Outside the bank, Kotori and the rest of the police officers were looking for any clues that could lead them to finding the woman involved in all the cases. Somehow, they couldn't find a single trace of her at all. There were surveillance cameras outside the bank, but that's about it.
As Kotori was walking around, she stepped onto something. She squatted down and picked it up. It was a white pearl bracelet. From the looks of it, she definitely knew who this belonged to. Kanan then called her out to come into the safe room to check the tapes that surveillance cameras have captured.
She, Zi Yang, and Kotori looked closely and carefully at the footage, which was recorded from twelve in the afternoon to six in the evening. At twelve, it showed Menemis smoking outside of a car.
"So that's where he went." Zi Yang grumbled, "We went to his house today and didn't find him. He was here all along."
Menemis went back into the car a few minutes later. At four, he went out of the car again and walked somewhere out of the range of the camera. Once again, he returned to the car at five. Around five thirty, a masked person was seen creeping towards the car. A few seconds later, it drove off, and Menemis pushed the person onto the floor. He then fell onto the floor and was groaning when a man stepped up to him and killed him. He talked with the woman for a while before the both of them went off.
"That was all the camera had recorded." The bank owner said. Zi Yang nodded his head in response before shaking his hand, thanking the owner for his cooperation.
"Sir," Kotori said to the bank owner, "May I take a closer look at one part of the footage?" He agreed, and she went forward to speed the video up. She then played it at a normal speed as soon as she reached the part she wanted to watch. As the masked person was getting up, she could see that they did, indeed, drop something.
"Did you see anything, Kotori?" Kanan questioned. Kotori shook her head, saying that she was just dreaming. She then thanked the bank owner. She was now certain that she knew who the owner of this bracelet was.
And she was not happy with it in the slightest.
In the basement of a secret house, the shotgun man sat down on a couch while Eli, Maki, and Umi stood in front of him, albeit a few meters apart. They took out their masks and left it on a table beside them. They stared at each other for a few minutes before he crossed his arms.
"Hello? Are you mannequins or something?" He asked in an annoyed tone, "Why are you staring at me and not saying anything? Do you have mouths? I didn't bring you here to be mutes. You'd better speak up or I'll shoot your heads off with my gun."
"We are just three normal civilians who wanted to seek justice for the cases that happened this past week." Eli said, "A lot of innocent lives have been taken away, and the murderers couldn't be found. We can't bear to see the families of those devastated, not knowing who killed their loved ones. We want to seek justice for them."
"So what the hell are you three doing at the bank?" He questioned.
"We were there to stop the robbery from taking place and to find the woman that was allegedly involved in the other murder cases." She replied, "We also wanted to save the bank tellers from getting robbed." Maki facepalmed herself as if she didn't want to be there, while Umi looked down in embarrassment.
In an instant, the man started laughing hysterically. The three women were very bewildered. They didn't know how he would respond, but they also certainly didn't expect this kind of reaction from him. Gradually, he stopped laughing.
"You women are so comedic." He shook his head, "You want to save people with the shit you're wearing? You look more like the robbers than the actual robbers! You look like you are ready to rob the bank instead of saving it! Is this a joke?"
"I know our outfits look like ass, but it's the best I could find." Eli sighed, "I can swear to you though that we three really want to find the murderers and bring them to justice."
"We want to seek justice for the families of the victims." Umi added on, "We want to help people too, protect the vulnerable, and make this city safe."
"Justice, protect, city safe. Got it." The man stood up, "So, do you know who we're going against? Any idea?"
The trio looked at each other, as if they were expecting one another to come up with an answer. However, they don't even know anything about who their foes might be. They could only shrug their shoulders.
"You gotta be kidding me." The man groaned, "You are all about seeking justice for the victims, apprehending the criminals, and bringing peace to the city, but you don't even know your own enemy. You know what else you can do?"
He pointed towards the door, "You get out of here, be a normal civilian from now on, and forget that you've ever been a fighter for justice. Take it as today is your lucky day because I saved you girls. Don't act like a hero, and don't waste my time." He then turned around and went to a table, which has a laptop connected to a projector on it. He slammed the table and buried his face in his hands.
"You couldn't do this alone, can you?" Maki asked.
He looked back and glared at them, "I am doing just fine, thank you. Now, please, see yourself out. I don't have time to deal with your bullshit."
"No offence, but it's pretty easy to see through your lie." Maki retorted, "You seemed very stressed out, and there's no one by your side, so I assume you work alone. The 'don't waste my time' and "time to deal with your bullshit' shows that you wanna try and bring this 'enemy' down as quickly as possible, but you aren't able to because it is too hard and time-consuming. You seemed to know about this whole fiasco, and you came prepared, so you should've known it for a very long time. The problem is, doing all of these by yourself is a challenge to you."
He clenched his fists and scowled at her.
"Face it. You can't do it alone." Maki continued, "We can help you. We're not completely useless. We brought down some of those robbers. We all have the same aim too. Better to work together than to go against each other, am I right?"
Umi and Eli looked at her in shock, stunned by what their friend had just said. The man scratched his head in frustration. He can't believe she had hit the spot. He needed help. Lots of it. He also didn't have anyone who could assist him in any way.
With a displeased sigh, he nodded his head, "You three, come over here. I will show you the woman you're looking for." The trio quietly obeyed him and went to him. He typed a few words on his laptop before he hit the 'Enter' key. Immediately, a clear picture of the ruby-haired woman appeared on the projector.
"Ruby Kurosawa." He spoke, "She's the one overseeing the operations happening in Tokyo. Like the previous cases, she was in charge of making sure that those businesses were taken care of. She is one of the many people who were hired by the crime syndicate…"
"Wait, wait, wait." Umi interrupted him, "Operations in Tokyo? One of the many people? Crime syndicate? What the hell is all this?"
"Right." He uttered, "I forgot that you women don't know anything. I have to explain it in full detail. You'd better listen up, because this is extremely important." He took a deep breath and drank some water.
"This crime syndicate is a very big one in Japan." He explained, "These yakuzas do all sorts of illegal stuff such as robberies, money laundering, drug trafficking, and more. They do all of that...for money. They were the ones behind all the crimes that took place here. It's not just in Tokyo. It's the whole country."
"The whole country…" The newly-learned fact confounded Umi.
"Do we know who's the big boss of this crime syndicate?" Eli questioned, "And if so, do you know where we could find him or her?"
"I wouldn't be so frustrated if I knew the answers to both questions." He retorted, "However, my caretaker Mr Brocker introduced me to a man who is able to give me updates on the activities the crime syndicate is planning to do." Just as he stopped speaking, his phone rang. He smiled and picked it up before answering the call.
"Mr Esther, you finally called." He said.
"In twenty two hours, another robbery would be happening." The caller replied, "I'll send you the address later. Get it settled."
"Gotcha." He then ended the call. He turned to the trio, who were still a bit lost on the explanation he had given earlier.
"Esther." He uttered, "Nothing much is known about him except that he helps me in taking down the syndicate, and from my caretaker's description, he's bald but swift in his moments and actions. A man of gut. As you know what they say, he's so fast all his hair blows away with the wind."
"Couldn't we just ask him who this big boss is, since he knows what the crime syndicate is planning?" Maki asked, "Better yet, couldn't he just come down and help us here?"
"Good question, red-haired woman. He doesn't take in queries. He only calls me to tell me about the event and location and then hangs up. He's a really mysterious man."
"This just got a lot more confusing." Umi sighed. It was indeed a lot of information for the three women to take in at one go. What they thought was simple was now not.
"Take your time to understand." He told her, "It's not something easy to digest, but we still need to do it. You'll get it as we go along."
"By the way, what's your name?" Eli asked, "It wouldn't be good for us to not know your name since we're going to be working together."
"Jeff." He introduced himself, "Jeff Connor."
"I'm Eli, the blue-haired woman is Umi, and Maki's the red-haired woman."
With that, the four of them now became a team.