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She moved like quicksilver, slipping out of the shadows as easily as she slithered in.
Nobara watched in poised breath, observing the carefully orchestrated scene unfold in front of her. It seemed like she was departed from the frame, voyeur to her own life.
It was the way the woman had moved with the air, like a hollowed-bone bird; graceful and light in her steps like a ballerina en pointe. The slit in her green silk dress did nothing to hinder any mobility the lack of clothing would have lent a lesser vixen, a small leather holster poking out from her exposed thigh every so often; the almost inscrutable silver dagger hitching in the gaps of the fabric every time it caught the light from the ship’s pillars.
There were only a handful of people in the world who could move like that on demand, a lesser few on instinct. Nobara had been trained to be one with the fibre given her very specific skill set, had been drilled to never go against the grain but always to conform.
She now knew she wasn’t alone.
Nobara huffed, growing annoyed. The thin neck of the champagne glass she was holding unto made a slight cracking noise, her grip on it tightening at the realization.
No one had told her there would be others.
Beside her, she could feel Megumi on high alert. He clocked the woman just as soon as she had, maybe even sooner.
“Easy,” Megumi cooed, tone mild and betraying nothing of his growing apprehension. “We’re not here to intercept. It makes sense we’re not the only interested parties.”
Megumi held up his own glass, long fingers loose on the flute; as if to demonstrate exactly how it needed to be held under the scrutiny of the high-profile cruise gala they were scouting for the night. The crisp black suit he donned glinted under the hollowed light off the moon, the smell of salted sea permeating the air. He sipped gingerly, not letting his eyes leave the careful surveillance of the vibrant party unfolding.
“Eyes sharp, Kugisaki,” he reminded, not kindly. The strobing lights from the stage darkened his face into shades of blue, green, pink, white; before flecks of red cast an ominous glow all over the rooftop deck.
Megumi took this as his cue to leave.
Carefully, he placed his drink in the counter and dropped a hefty a bill – a single twenty, he was covering for her too – and leaned in close just before he was good as gone as the night.
“Don’t forget your mission.”
A woman like that, who seemed to be made of windsilk and moved with lithe grace, didn’t belong in a place like this.
It was the annual fundraiser for another one of those Fortune 500 companies, non-descript and self-important and hid under the guise of philanthropy to cover up all their side hustles. They’d been wanting to take Mahito, the sole heir of the multicorporation, down for quite some time. Only young as he was, he had a dynasty’s worth of protection and hush money. It was quite frankly far more dough than their own, government-backed organization and all. Double dealing under the table and money laundering were considered to be the most puritan on his growing ledger.
Evidently, they weren’t the only ones informed of his misdemeanours.
Nobara once again watched in awe as the woman made her way into the upper deck, expertly maneuvering through all the places they flagged as blind spots: the corner by the bathroom, the staircase leading to the ship’s control room, the hallway leading to the private quarters. Nobara noted with some chagrin that it was exactly the route she would have taken herself.
Not tonight, Nobara reminded herself, clutching her glass tighter. She downed her drink in one go and made for the balcony, hoping to get a better vantage point of where their unwelcome visitor had wandered off to.
The sky overhead was greying, adding a layer of chill to already frosty night air that had her regret to choose a backless slip-on. She feels the corners of her mouth tilt upward at the realization that Yuji, chivalrous as he was, would probably have offered her his jacket by now.
But he was still too new, too fresh, too made: to be unbroken and put together, as often as they were, in this line of work.
And for all his faults, Gojo never once made a mistake in deciding who was up for what. She was born ready, of course; her partner for the night just as tightly coiled as she was, easing her nerves just slightly at his famed competence in marking targets.
They were a well-oiled machine at this point.
But Megumi was currently off somewhere doing God knows what.
Nobara couldn’t blame him for not telling her, given the last-minute nature of this particular assignment. This was non-issue, the rare few stealth missions they did, having been accustomed to battle-heavy and armoured fights more often than not. She would rather barge down Mahito’s door and get it over with, guns locked and ready, but she knew this was a necessary part of the ‘taking down the bad guy’ process. Painfully mundane, but still important (Megumi disagreed, hence his more than usual irritable nature tonight).
Nobara fared exceptionally well with either a drink or a gun in her hand. She just preferred the latter.
It took Maki half an hour to notice them.
She can almost feel Yuuta’s manic laughter for when, not if, he found out. Getou had been called one too many names in their line of work: idealistic, tyrannical, often sadistic; but most of all, meticulous.
He’d want the full report from her by the end of the night. Only now with the sudden emergence of the other camp’s protegés famously trained by his own life-long nemesis—Maki knows he’d no sooner threaten the truth out of her faster than she can put down her knives.
It was Gojo’s brats, after all.
She knew the boy, tall and lean and made no effort whatsoever to conceal his presence at the party. He flittered through the dancing bodies with a sluggish pace, almost bored. He was Zen’in, like her, cut from the same cloth but had strayed too from the apple tree. The fact he was a dead ringer for Toji only solidified her theory. He’d have to ask Getou to expound that later.
She only felt the stares a full hour in, having chalked off most of it to muggle curiosity of what someone who looked as young as her was doing in a grown up party filled with grown up agendas. It wasn’t that they stared, so much as leered; grown men eyeing her up and down and not even bothering concealing the thoughts running amock behind their eyes. Disgusting.
It was the one deviance from that low-brow fantasizing that snagged her interest.
The girl tried to be subtle about it, too; making sure she ducked her head low just when she turned hers or took full liberty of curtaining her hair when she felt her cover blown.
The girl Fushiguro Megumi arrived with had an entirely different story behind her batted eyelashes.
It was the very same girl who was staring right at her, a steady arm holding onto a 10mm Beretta aimed forward.
The edges of her auburn hair slipped past the wind, wistful and whimsical all at once. Even under the dark panels of the control room, with the lights dimmed, she could feel her steady gaze boring into hers. She finally caught up with her, after nearly eternal the cat and mouse game they’d been edging towards all night.
“Took you long enough,” Maki said casually, noting the thumb drive she plugged into the main drive crawling into 53%. They had time. “I assume you’re new to this?”
There was a flash of something in the girl’s eyes that betrayed her veiled calmness, almost like she hit a nerve with her accusation. Maki trained with the same pistol before, knew it weighed almost as much as five textbooks stacked together if for the shell casings alone. The manicured hand grasping it with one hand did not waver, however.
“I could say the same to you,” Nobara spoke, the same steely edge in her eyes carrying over her levelled tone. “This isn’t my first rodeo, darlin’.”
The computer beeped in an alert. 100%. Well would you look at that, mission accomplished.
Maki capped the USB off and slithered the metal tube into the small holster wrapped discreetly over her thigh. Nobara’s eyes followed every movement, growing more alert by the second.
Turning to face her completely, Maki smirked. “Nor is it mine.”