Chapter Text
The moon shined high above, illuminating across the nearby ocean and dappling along the metal roof of the house. Next to a curved window was a figure, shrouded in shadow with two slender swords behind their back. They peaked through the window before carefully picking open the latch from the outside. In the room was a bed, with a man sleeping peacefully inside. The mysterious figure unsheathed their swords and quickly lunged at the person. Blood splashed from the man's throat, but before he could scream his neck was snapped. Just as quickly as they arrived, the murderer leaped through the open window and left, reclosing the window behind them. They reached into their pocket, pulled out their flip phone, and dialed a number.
“Target 274 eliminated,” A feminine voice informed with a neutral tone, “I expect my payment by tomorrow, no exceptions.”
“We knew we could count on you, Assassin Chiori. The payment will be delivered to you at 12 tomorrow. In the meantime, we have another target for you from someone who requested your services,” A voice on the other end of the line said.
“Talk.” Chiori walked through a vast open field on the way back, by this point the moon was lower in the sky and the sun would be coming up soon.
“The target is a 23 year old female named Lan Yan who lives in Chenyu Vale Liyue, however she travels quite a bit. She is capable of fighting back so it will take more than brute force. Do you accept this mission?” They explained the details and Chiori sighed before asking what the pay was as if it was the most obvious information. “95,000 Mora”
“100,000.” She replied firmly, negotiating. “What?” “You heard me, 100,000 Mora.” “..Fine, 100,000 for the mission” “Accepted. The target will be eliminated by Friday. Bye.” She closed the phone satisfied and put it back in her pocket. She was nearing the entrance to Fontaine city.
“Lan Yan huh? I suppose I should track down her location tomorrow.” She spoke to herself as she took off her assassin cloak and walked down to the light flowing river. She took out her swords, put them into the water one at a time, then delicately washed the blood off of them until they looked brand new. The sun started to rise along the distant ocean line, and Chiori took this as a sign to make her way back to her house and get some sleep.
She ended up waking up at 11am the next morning and got ready to head to the boutique. It took 2 hours in total to style her hair, do her makeup, and pick out an outfit. Finally at 1pm she arrived at her shop and stepped inside. She took out all her sewing supplies and worked on her most recent outfit design silently. It didn't look like it at a first glance, but Chiori enjoyed working on outfits just as much as she enjoyed her assassin work. She mostly used the assassin job to make money so she could go all out with the clothing business. Of course nobody knew this. Majority of her friends were of high status and could easily get her thrown in jail. Suddenly she remembered Chevreuse was supposed to stop by today, and almost on cue the door opened. Chiori looked up from her work with the same uninviting expression she always had, the friendly special patrol captain was used to this though and spoke to her anyway,
“Hi Chiori, how are you today?” Chevreuse walked inside with a smile, and didn't seem too serious. Chiori relaxed slightly, realizing her friend likely wasn't here for work related reasons. She never could be sure since Chevreuse asked her for favors with cases quite often.
“Hello, Chevreuse. What brings you here?” She returned to sewing details onto the outfit, talking and working was effective multitasking in her opinion.
“I know this is last minute but i was wondering if you wanted to go get lunch perhaps? Unless you're busy today.” Oh, well i suppose that would be nice, we haven't hung out outside of work in a while
“Sure, where?” We made plans to go out to lunch at 2 o'clock. A bit later we arrived at a smaller restaurant, and made some normal conversation. Well, Chevreuse was doing most of the talking while I made the occasional ‘Oh wow’ or ‘Mhm?’ to show I was still interested. She talked about a mystery novel for a bit about assassins or something, all I could think the entire time was how inaccurate the situation was. Two assassins being assigned to kill each other? No way that could happen. Eventually the conversation led to Chevreuse discussing recent cases at her job,
“Most recent case was a murder that happened last night, a man was found dead in his room, throat sliced open and neck snapped. Surprisingly, we haven't found any leads yet, whoever the murderer was must have known what they were doing” Chiori was secretly proud of herself at that comment, but made sure to choose her words carefully to not allow the officer to get any ideas.
“Oh? That certainly is out of character for the special patrol, I wish you luck with uncovering the murderer,” She took a sip of her tea.
“Thanks, I’ll let you know if we find anything.” Chevreuse then changed the subject to something else. Around 10 minutes later, they both went their separate ways.
Chiori walked to her house and took out her phone, deciding to start the process of tracking where the target was. After a long process of contacting different colleagues and friends with insider information, she eventually discovered that the girl was scheduled to be coming to the city of Fontaine on a trip tomorrow. Oddly convenient, but Chiori brushed it off as a lucky coincidence. The requester did say that the target traveled a lot. She just had to prepare a strategy to eliminate her before she left the nation.