I think I might start updating this every day again. College is starting soon, so there may be a lull in stories for a few weeks and I wanted to make sure that you guys are getting the all the fics ya can.

Short chapter ahead! Next one is a bit more eventful. And then it gets interesting.

Enjoy :)


Yuma spun on his chair, a grin plastered across his face. "There they are."

We descended into the bunker with Flower in tow. My legs ached from our hike here, my shoulder felt like it was going to break under the weight of my bag, and I wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed. These plain white walls had never seemed so welcoming.

"How'd it go?" Kanon asked next to him. Anon peered her head out of the infirmary with a smile.

"No issues," Rin answered. "Money's in the bag. Just need to count it."

"How you feeling?" Yuma stood from his chair and clapped a hand on my shoulder.

"Tired," was all I could say. Rin cast me a brief glance. When she had asked the question, it had been much more genuine than Yuma was now.

Yuma frowned. "I thought you'd be up for a rematch," he said in mock disappointment. "See if you're any less of a wimp, now."

I chuckled. "Maybe later."

"And I thought we were shooting today," Flower chimed in with a sly smile.

"We still have to go over some stuff, too. I'm sure you saw a few more gadgets on your trip?" Kanon tapped her fingers against the table. "Gotta learn 'em."

"And more first aid!" Anon chirped from the infirmary, before finally emerging fully into the room.

I shook my head. Please, no training today. Please-

"Let him sleep," Rin said, setting her bag down on the table and zipping it open. "It's been a long few days."

I opened my mouth to express my unending gratitude but shut it as she turned to me.

"Go shower, and go sleep," she said. "You'll get back to the schedule tomorrow."

Though we couldn't tell from the bunker, the sun was setting. I had watched it as we hiked to the base. "Okay." She didn't need to tell me twice.

With my bag on my shoulder, I trudged to the living quarters.

I turned the handle to one of the showers first thing, letting it warm up. It took a while sometimes. Only when I set my bag on the ground and began to undress did I realize that I had nothing to change into. I was still in these jeans, and my uniform was filthy after our contract. Leaving the water running to continue heating up, I left the bathroom to fetch some clothes from my cubby.

As I passed the hall to the main room, I noticed with a hint of unease that it was completely silent. I cast a glance in the direction to see all five of them sitting at the table, each with grim expressions. Rin and Kanon counted the money from the stacks.

"We have to talk about LA eventually," Flower suddenly said. The others frowned at her words.

I moved back behind the wall. They hadn't noticed my eavesdropping. And, though I felt a bit guilty spying on them, I figured I might finally get some answered.

"What's there to talk about?" Rin asked. "This stack is good."

Yuma huffed. "There's plenty to talk about. What are we gonna do now?"

"We're gonna do what we did before. Keep looking for leads. We'll find Luka again."

There was a pause.

"...It- It took up a lot of resources. Not to mention time. We spent years-"

"I know how long it took," Rin snapped, cutting Anon's small voice off.

Kanon let out a sigh. "Are we really going to go through all that again?"

A bang resounded through the room. Rin smacked her hand on the table. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, maybe it's time to just let it go."

There was another pause.

"How could you say that?" Rin finally said. "Are you really gonna let her get away with…" she trailed off.

"You're not the only one who lost him, Rin." Yuma's voice was darker than I had ever heard before.

Rin didn't respond.

"And after LA, Luka's sure to be looking for us, too. We can't afford to go after her again. Not right now."

She remained silent.

"So, I'm just saying, maybe we should give it a break."

LA. No doubt talking about their mission I fucked up. Luka. I'd heard the name before. She must have been the one they were assassinating. But Rin had missed. Because of me. They had failed. Whoever this girl was, she seemed important.

The conversation had ceased and the room fell once again into an uncomfortable silence. Convinced I had heard enough, I quietly crossed the room to retrieve my clothes.

The shower is definitely the best place for thinking. And after witnessing that, I had a lot of it to do.

It wasn't hard to piece together what was going on. They had said that LA wasn't a contract. So they were trying to kill this girl, Luka, out of their own personal interest. There were six beds down here, and, before I arrived, only five of them. That had lost someone. Probably to this girl.

I ran my hands through my hair and let out a sigh. This… Helgi guy. Yuma said his name was Gumo. Not only had I taken his bed, taken his gear, and replaced him in every way possible, but I had fucked up their chance at avenging him. Wow. No wonder Rin didn't like me.

The general idea was there, but the details were yet to be filled in. How did he die? How long ago was this? And how does Luka play into all this? Who even is she?

These answers I had finally received led to only more questions.

They continued to eat at my brain throughout the week. Finally, as I pointed the barrel of an AR-50 sniper rifle down range, I decided to ask about it.

"Flower," I said once the blast from the bullet disappeared. This gun could only fit one bullet at a time, and, to my pleasure, didn't eject the bullet shells straight into my face. I had to remove them manually.

"What's up?" She leaned against the wall casually. There was little to be said now that we had gotten so far into our training. It was all a matter of practice for me. Therefore, she seemed surprised that I spoke up.

"Can I ask you something?" I pulled the shell out of the chamber, still able to feel the heat through my gloves. I threw it in a bucket next to me. It was nearly full of similar casings.

"Go for it."

"Who's Luka?"

She tensed, clearly unprepared for the question. "How do you-"

"I may have… um, overheard a conversation you guys were having when we came back," I admitted. The gun was unloaded. I gently set the back of it on the ground and looked up at her from the floor expectantly.

She shook her head. "Little eavesdropper, huh?" I knew out of everyone, she was the most likely source of a real answer.

I shrugged but said nothing.

The gears in her head began turning as if she were selecting her words carefully. "Luka's another prominent member of the… underground business world," she explained.

"Which means…" I egged her on.

She sighed. "She's a huge drug lord, basically."

Of all the things I had imagined, that had not been one of them.

"Then… then why-"

"Why were we trying to kill her?" She finished the question for me.

I nodded slowly.

She crossed her arms, looking through the glass behind us. Her eyes scanned the room as if looking for the others. Even if they had been out there, it was impossible to hear anything on the other end of the wall.

With a deep breath, she began.

"Look, I'm only telling you this because you're one of us now. The others might not agree with me. So don't, like, go blabbing to them about this or anything, okay? Especially Rin."

I nodded again. I hadn't planned on it anyway.

"Okay. So, we've never really had any problem with Luka. I mean, yeah, she deals drugs to basically the entire world, but we kill people, so there's really no difference in morals with us. We'd heard of her, we'd never met her, we'd never had any interaction with her or anything. So, fast forward to a couple of years ago, all… all six of us are hanging out in our bunker." She paused. "Our old one. Our US base used to be deep in the Rocky Mountains. We all settled down for bed, turned off the generator and everything. And then, out of nowhere, a bunch of Luka's guys just storm the place."

"How'd they find you guys?" I asked.

"We have no idea. But they did. And we fought. There were just too many of them. And they..." she looked over her shoulder again, her expression faltering slightly. "They killed Gumo. In front of us. And then they took him."

Although I had already figured most of this out, I was still in shock. "Fuck," I responded.

"Yeah. They trashed the entire place, and we had to leave. That's why we made this place."

I didn't know what to say. It made perfect sense, now, why this was such a touchy subject.

"So we came here, and we've been hunting Luka for years to get our payback. And we found her, in LA." She shrugged. "You know the rest."

Something just didn't make sense to me. "If you guys tolerated each other, why did she attack you?"

She sighed. "We've been trying to figure out the answer to that question for years. We still have no idea. Yuma thinks she was scared we'd come after her eventually, which makes no sense to me because we had no intention to until she attacked us. We've tossed around the idea that she's trying to monopolize the market, forming an assassin team of her own. But that doesn't make sense either, really. She's probably the richest woman in the world, and has no reason to take on more stress than she already has."

I furrowed my brow in thought. "You said you guys were asleep when it happened."

"Yeah."

"Did… did you guys sleep in the same bed you do now?"

She sighed. "Yup. Gumo was in the back."

"So they passed all of you guys to get to him?"

"Yeah." Her eyes glanced over the room once more. "They targeted him. But that is a bit easier to explain."

I stared at her, completely engrossed in the story.

"Gumo was… he was good at what he did. Like, freakishly good. Every detail of every mission was planned perfectly, nothing ever went wrong, nothing ever took him off guard… It makes sense that, out of all of us, they would want him gone. We just don't know why."

"But why would you guys give up?" I could see Rin's side here.

Flower chuckled. "Even you must know it's not easy to track down the most wanted woman in the world. Years of searching, looking for her old clients, trying to trace the shipments she set out, everything was covered expertly. Which we expected, obviously. We still have no idea where she lives, if she even has one place. We only discovered her trip to LA by accident. A very lucky accident. And now that that's… done, she's sure to be on even higher alert. Because now she knows we're after her."

Her words made sense, but I couldn't help but feel that same wish for vengeance. And I didn't even know the guy. I just stole his stuff.

"It could be another several years before we catch even a trace of her. The expenses we have to take only to reach dead ends, the resources we have to give up… It's just too much."

"But-"

"He's gone," Flower concluded. "We all have to accept that." Her eyes traveled downrange. "Keep going."

My questions were answered, but unease still gnawed at me as I hesitantly pushed another bullet into the chamber, and closed the bolt.


One day, as I was sorting through a few new additions to my bag with Kanon, Flower waltzed down the stairs. Rin was watching us as Kanon explained the devices one more time, Yuma digging through the cabinets in the kitchen, and Anon running in the gym.

"You two," Flower said, having just returned from the public world. She pointed to Rin and I. "Meiko has a contract for you. She wants to meet you in Toronto in a few days."

"Toronto?" I asked, the question of our passports rising up. Even when I was still alive according to the world, I had never even applied for one.

"She's based somewhere in Canada," Flower explained. "She prefers to meet there."

"Who is she?"

"Basically the phone operator of the Black Market. People who don't know how to contact us directly, or people who don't want their identity revealed, go through her."

Rin clapped her hands together. "That means it's a big one."

Flower shrugged. "She didn't elaborate any details. She said it was important, though."

"When's our flight?" Rin asked, clearly excited.

"Tomorrow morning. Early."

She jumped from her chair. "Let's get packing!" With a grin, she disappeared from the room.

"Are you guys coming with us?" I asked Flower once she was gone.

She shook her head. "You guys will receive the contract yourselves, then come back here for a few days to plan. From there, we'll see if it's necessary for us to come with you two."

I nodded. "Okay."

"So finish this up, and then go get ready. Tomorrow," she put her hands in her pockets, smiling smugly. "You'll be in Canada."


Ooooooh we get to meet Meiko in the next chapter!

Thanks for reading! :)