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The sun beat down punishingly on the chaotic urban vista of Yokohama city, causing stuffiness in the air of the crowded streets and heating cars and metal bars alike until they were hot to the touch.
Among the bustle of sweating residents, one young girl stood stock still, big blue eyes fixed up on one of the many high-rise buildings gleaming in the cruel sun. Not one that could be considered particularly unique in any way, especially by a fourteen-year-old, and yet the child watched it with a contemplative gaze.
Kyouka Izumi was of average height for her age, with a round face and dark hair tied in two long ponytails. She wore a simple red kimono and a flip phone with a little bunny ornament hung around her neck like a necklace. She looked like a normal kid, except for the fact that she was trying not to let the horrified anticipation show on her face. Kyouka had recently been assigned the task of breaking into the building and assassinating two people for the Port Mafia.
That anticipation had been eating at her for quite a while now, ever since she had been called into the office of the boss, Ougai Mori, three days ago. That first painful shiver of expectancy had been for nothing. While Kyouka had heard rumours of Mori’s interest in young girls, she had never been informed of the details, and dread clouded her thought process for most of the meeting. Nothing happened, though. Kyouka wished she had been informed ahead of time that she was too old for his tastes, although she couldn’t help but feel guilty for being so relieved by that.
Being entirely professional, though, only meant that Kyouka had her first job, and here she was. Three days of horror gnawing away at her insides as she trained hard had led her to this. She waited in silence, a bead of sweat tickling the side of her face irritatingly as it descended slowly. Her outfit was entirely too warm for the weather.
The kimono was a practical choice. Bloodstains wouldn’t show, there were plenty of folds with hidden weapons and tools, and it offered a look of innocence, which was really all an assassin needed. Still, something lighter would have been nice. Kyouka couldn’t help but think that the emergency bomb strapped to her chest was unnecessary, anyways.
The contraption was remotely activated, either by her or by her mentor, who would be listening in on the mission as it happened. Only to be used to avoid capture, destroy evidence, or as a last resort for an assassination. It pressed against Kyouka, constricting her breathing. Now that her thoughts had drifted there, she doubted that she would be able to forget about the bomb until it was off of her and far, far away, and even then, she had a feeling the sensation would linger.
A soft buzzing makes her twitch violently. She hadn’t moved an inch before that point, and the jolt of movement made her uncomfortably aware of just how long she had been standing there. Her feet had already started hurting. She ignored the sensation in favour of fumbling with the flip phone and trying to calm her beating heart.
Finally, the ringtone stopped.
“Kyouka, have you arrived yet?” Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the girl’s mentor in the Mafia, asked, as direct as ever.
“Yeah, I’m at the address,” Kyouka responded. She could almost be proud of the steadiness in her voice, but, when she considered the circumstances, it would have been more admirable to have gotten here kicking and screaming, if at all. She was too complacent with her captors, but she wasn’t sure if now was too late to back off.
“Good. As you know, your targets will be on the fifth floor in the room with a plate saying ‘Yokohama Industrial Management Solutions Ltd’ up until around 13:15 when their one-on-one meeting will end and they will leave the building to continue it over a meal, as they know each other personally. Have them killed before then. You do not need to be discreet or avoid collateral, but you should let nobody who sees your ability live. Civilians will not be allowed into the building without the proper documentation, so you’ll have to find your own way in. Understood?”
‘Have them killed’. Kyouka could only assume that the phrase was all too common in the Port Mafia, but it echoed in her mind nonetheless. A chill ran up her spine, but offered no relief from the sweltering heat.
“Understood.”
Kyouka lowered the phone back against her chest, but didn’t hang up. Akutagawa needed to be on the other end of the line, ready to command a killing strike from Demon Snow at any moment.
Being Kyouka’s first mission, she had never taken a life before. Not willingly at least, when Demon Snow had a mind of its own and wouldn’t listen to her instructions. She was a natural assassin, apparently. Quick and stealthy, with an ability that could be controlled. She had finally found something she was good at, and it was shameful. She felt like she was suffocating from humidity, from the bomb pressed against her chest, from the knowledge of what was to come.
Kyouka jolted into motion, walking swiftly to try and alleviate the aches in her limbs and create a breeze to cool her even slightly. She circled the building, searching for a discreet way in. Finally, as she ducked into a shady alleyway behind the building, a backdoor caught her attention. It was a dingy, out-of-the-way entrance, far less grand than the ones at the front. A peeling sign on the door read ‘STAFF ONLY’, but Kyouka couldn’t hear any signs of life from inside, even when she pressed an ear against it. She spotted no cameras or witnesses when she scanned the alley a second time, or a third, and so she turned back to the door.
A quick tug and a push revealed that the door was locked, and so Kyouka reached into the folds of her kimono, searching for a lockpick. Her hand twitched like it had touched something boiling hot when it brushed lightly against the remote for the bomb. She really wouldn’t be forgetting about that anytime soon.
After carefully extracting the lockpick, she twisted and worked for about a minute before she heard a click and the weight she leaned on the door suddenly became too much for it to take. She stepped back as the door opened a crack. Nobody, as she thought.
The indoors was barely less dingy than the alleyway, but certainly cooler, even with the shade offered from the back street. She sighed slightly as she entered, shutting the door behind her as she surveyed the room. No cameras in here, either. This seemed too easy.
Still, Kyouka got lucky as she looked through the supplies in there. A cleaning trolley seemed to be paired with a strange plastic shawl, probably for cleaning big messes, but it could also help her conceal her identity quite effectively. She picked it up and took a closer look at it. It seemed slightly dirty, which she didn’t think was ideal for a janitor, but that wasn’t her problem. She had far bigger things to worry about.
“Remember, fifth floor, Kyouka,” one of these things chimed in from her phone quietly.
Kyouka nodded, although she knew Akutagawa couldn’t see her. She quickly threw the shawl over her shoulders and put her head down. She left the room brusquely, the cold sterility of the rest of the building coming as a shock against the grubbiness of the out-of-bounds areas. Her pace didn’t falter as she found herself in a more crowded place and she prayed. She prayed that she wouldn’t be caught. She prayed that she would be. She had to stop. She wanted to stop so badly. Her feet kept moving in such a robotic motion that it felt like stopping would take more energy than continuing on. Not for a second did she falter. How shameful.
It occurred to Kyouka that she should probably have done something about the grime covering the cart and her clothes. Still, nobody cast her a second glance until she turned a corner that seemed to be on the way to the lift, and a jostled looking man, seemingly in his late twenties, rammed hard into the side of her cart.
“Oh, sorry, Emi!” he said distractedly. “I’m really in such a rush. Mr. Takahashi wants to see me immediately about that media issue. It’s really quite a hassle, I don’t know what I can do about what he said besides asking him to make a public apology. Oh, it’s all so annoying. I’ll see you later.”
It took Kyouka a minute or two to relax her muscles and slow her heart a little, but the man had rushed off without realising that she wasn’t this ‘Emi’ girl, so she wasn’t complaining. A sigh escaped from her lips a few seconds after he rounded the corner. She righted the cart and wriggled slightly to try and get comfortable despite the bomb still constricting her chest. The coolness of the indoors chilled Kyouka slightly, and she allowed herself a shudder before she continued on her way.
She made a beeline for the elevator, which was, indeed, around that corner. The ride was slow and agonising. She couldn’t talk to Akutagawa, because she was surrounded by other people in the elevator. At this point, she didn’t need to worry about witnesses, since she was inside the building, and no matter what was done, she would still be on camera now. The cold pressed in on her almost as badly as the heat, but definitely not as badly as the bomb, which was still strapped tightly to her chest. Her legs felt like they would give out beneath her. She balanced precariously as though on stilts. A cool, feminine voice announced that they had reached the fifth floor.
Unlike the ground level, the fifth floor was so quiet it was practically deserted. Nobody but Kyouka got off at that level. She took one step, and then another, something either very cowardly or very brave willing her forward. She scanned the plates on every door as she passed. Yokohama Industrial Management Solutions Ltd… Yokohama Industrial Management Solutions Ltd…
Yokohama Industrial Management Solutions Ltd. The sign was right there. In the moment, Kyouka forgot herself, and was entirely laser-focused on doing her job. She left the cleaning cart by the door, and knew that the shawl wouldn’t help with cameras thanks to Eyes of God. It had mainly been to avoid drawing attention to herself in the moment, anyways.
Kyouka leaned in to listen at the door like she did earlier. It was all quiet. The silence spoke to her like a death sentence. Her job was to get to them before they left, and here she was. She was so dead she couldn’t even care that the people she had been assigned to kill were alive.
“I can’t hear them,” she reported, her soft voice breaking through the silence like a knife.
“The meeting won’t start for five minutes, it’s only half an hour long. You arrived earlier than you should have,” Akutagawa informed her slightly annoyedly through the phone. From him, such an observation was high praise. Kyouka hated it.
“I’ll wait in the office to ambush them, then. You said I didn’t have to be discreet?”
“Indeed.”
That single-minded focus on the job returned as Kyouka pushed open the door to find a nondescript office. It had a window, a desk, a few shelves and a plasticky-looking potted plant, but not much more than that. The assassin took refuge behind the desk, reasoning that the duo would close the door for the meeting, and after that she wouldn’t need to stay hidden.
“Tell me when they arrive,” Akutagawa reminds her. She didn't react, but she heard him clearly.
Kyouka felt close to fainting. She had to jolt her body into alertness at one point, which made her wonder if Demon Snow would even be usable were she unconscious. She didn’t get so close to passing out again, though, so that opportunity was lost.
Several times, footsteps and voices became clearer and clearer as people approached the soon-to-be crime scene. Kyouka’s heart rate accelerated at every tease. She could barely distinguish between fear and some sick excitement. What is the distance between the two in the first place?
And, just like that, Kyouka’s fixed attention had drifted. She forced it back on track, but now she was uncomfortably aware of her awkward crouching position and of just what she was about to do; about to become.
Another pair of strangers approached the door. It swung open, and their muffled tones instantly became clearer. Kyouka waited with bated breath for the creak and bang of a closing door. And then several moments after that for good measure.
“They’re here,” Kyouka forced out through a desperate urge to keep it down . Her voice finally quivered.
Akutagawa’s didn’t. “Demon Snow,” he said calmly. “Kill.”
A ghostly, demonic entity appeared behind Kyouka. It was too big to be obscured by the desk. The conversation came to an abrupt stop. A beat. Then understanding dawned on the men. Before either could do anything, though, Demon Snow had sliced a long, curved arc, and something thumped against the floor. Then another, heavier thing thudded against the desk, behind which Kyouka was still crouched, hands over her mouth and blinking back mist in her eyes. The other guy sounded like he tried to start screaming, but the noise was cut off by a stab. He fell about five seconds later. The sound of his corpse’s impact with the ground was dull and unsatisfying. That was it.
Kyouka stayed behind the desk. She didn’t know for how long, but a shock into lucidity came in the form of the reminder that she didn’t want to be found here. Reluctantly, she stood and turned to look over the desk.
The colleagues lay in a heap on the floor. One had been beheaded, if you could even call it that when all of the neck and a bit of his left shoulder had gone with the head. The other man was in one piece, but barely. It looked like he had been stabbed through the stomach and then the blade had been dragged to the side slowly until his upper half was hanging off like a loose tooth. Blood was pooling rapidly around them and their looks of horror hadn’t faded even in death.
The hurried footfall of a single person approached. Blood was pooling. Kyouka watched it dazedly. Gross. Gross gross gross gross. She did that.
“Kyouka, I hear a witness,” the phone warned. “Kill it.”
The jolt back to reality accompanied a drop of Kyouka’s stomach and a chill through her spine. Her throat was dry.
“No!” Kyouka finally breaks. “I don’t want anyone to die if they don’t need to!”
“Then you should have made sure that nobody would be occupied near enough to block off your escape. Collateral is expected, especially for a first mission. It’s not the end of the world, but if it truly displeases you so, you should plan better on future assignments.”
“No.” Kyouka’s eyes stung. She shut them tight, because she was in the Port Mafia, and crying would only cause more pain. The black of her vision offered no solace, however. The deep, vibrant red still lingered in her vision. The horror and agony etched on the faces of her victims didn’t let up.
No, she didn’t want this. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t want to be in the Port Mafia. She didn’t want this stupid ability or to kill anyone, but here she was, and she was about to add another tally to her kill count. An entire human life extinguished and likened to a tally. How cruel.
She wanted none of this. And there was a way out.
Kyouka reached into a fold within her kimono, her hands wrapping around a concealed item. A little control with a red button. She stared at the object in the palm of her hand.
“No. I don’t want to kill anyone else,” she whispered, extracting the detonator. The door burst open and a man somewhere in his fifties watched the scene before him in horror. Vaguely, Kyouka realised that he would die if she blew herself up. Then again, he would either way; he was a witness and there was no going back now. This way, she could prevent so many deaths in the future. This way she’d be with her parents. If she even went in the same direction. She couldn’t picture herself in heaven.
Kyouka’s thumb brushed over the button clumsily. She squeezed tight and heard a light click. Kyouka drew in a breath-
-and then exhaled, because the bomb hadn’t gone off.
“You tried to detonate the bomb, didn’t you Kyouka?” Akutagawa’s voice came from somewhere around the girl’s chest. “I expected as much. A suicide suit just in case is a good idea, but not for new recruits. So early in their careers in the Port Mafia, they wouldn’t die out of courage, to prevent secrets from getting out or to take out a large group of enemies. They would only die out of cowardice, to avoid the responsibilities that come from being a member of such a powerful organisation. You, especially, with an ability like yours, are liable to this.”
Kyouka didn’t move a muscle. Her eyes and the man’s were locked. Akutagawa’s words registered, though. The guy must have been so confused, if he could get past the horror of what he just stumbled upon. She was too busy formulating a response for Akutagawa for her brain to immediately register that the man just turned and ran . Once she realised it though, she yelled. Demon Snow had faltered and cancelled and now he was getting away. And jail scared Kyouka more than the demon.
“He’s getting away!”
Kyouka shot off in pursuit.
“I won’t activate Demon Snow once you reach him, Kyouka,” she heard through the static of the phone and the loud, thumping heartbeat in her ears. “As your mentor, I have a duty to teach you, and, in the Mafia, you can’t afford to panic at the thought of murder. You’re a natural assassin. This is what you were born to do. So, kill him.”
Kyouka killed him. She used her own blade to slice his spine once she got within reach, and then she slit his throat. Blood spattered all over her and the floor, and she escaped through the window onto the roof of a neighbouring building. Then she ran.
Kyouka didn’t follow the quickest path back to her meeting spot with Akutagawa. She just hung up and fled. She was under no delusion that she would be able to escape the Mafia, but at that moment, all she needed was to put as much distance between herself and everything involved with that .
She was involved with that . She could end things right there and it would probably prevent so much suffering, both her own and others’, but the adrenaline was wearing off, and Kyouka found herself panting, crouched behind a dumpster and with a bloody knife still half-concealed, and she couldn’t force it to pierce her throat, no matter how hard she willed her hands push it forward just a bit. Just enough to slice her skin.
Soon enough, she gave it up and, after puking up what little food she had managed to eat in anticipation of this day, she stood on shaky legs and made her way back to where she was supposed to meet with Akutagawa. The walk was long and her legs felt incapable of supporting her body, but even collapsing seemed like too much effort, so Kyouka put one foot in front of the other and thought.
Had Akutagawa been right? That wasn’t the first time she had heard him talk about power, but it hit harder when he was making her take a life for it.
Take a life… Take three lives. Kyouka had been in the Mafia for a month and, after one mission, three people were dead. She didn’t want that number to grow, but Akutagawa had taken precautions to prevent Kyouka from escaping through any means, and he had control of her ability. And probably a real detonator.
And he was right there. Dark hair and spotless black longcoat striking a stark contrast with the brightness of the rest of the city. Kyouka couldn’t help but think that he must have been painfully warm, especially given just how uncomfortable she was in her bright red outfit.
“I suppose that was satisfactory for a first try,” Akutagawa told her coldly. “I suppose you’ll go brag about it now.” Kyouka mentally translated this to ‘you did a good job and should be proud,’ but no, that didn’t seem right. Not when she had killed three people.
She wondered how many people Akutagawa had killed. He was one of the Port Mafia’s most efficient killers, nicknamed the ‘rabid dog’, and had one of the most powerful abilities in the organisation; perhaps even in the city, and had held this title for six years. How did he become so nonchalant about murder? Had he always been like this, or did his first mission go much like hers? Would she grow up to be the next ‘rabid dog’?
Was that already the course she was on? During the mission, she could hardly feel bad about how calm she had been. She could barely distinguish fear and excitement as she had waited in the office for her victims. She couldn’t even tell for sure what the difference was between braving death to save nameless and faceless future victims and pressing the button so that she wouldn’t have to kill them, even though, as an enemy to the Mafia, they would be dead soon anyways. Would it even matter if she was the one to do it?
The Mafia really didn’t distinguish between what was good or what was bad, and Kyouka didn’t seem to be able to, either. She truly was a natural at this.