While Sayo and her team were setting up their plans to keep the princess safe, in Japan her family was disappointed that Sayo would not be home for a while. They felt that she left home far too often on her own, but it was something they had gotten used to. Her uncles and grandparents always wanted her over with them which kind of irked Akinari. 

Akimitsu, Nejire, and Michael were just as much family as Sayo was, but she was not the one who control her extended family. She just wished that they did not show so much favoritism. At the same time, she felt thier was something more with Sayo. She recently started to wear hoodies with sleeves on when it was summer. 

She never did that and she did it all the time. She did not even roll up her sleeves so she wondered if she was hiding something. In the end, she decided to talk to her husband as it was his direct family. She sat him down in their bedroom and asked him. 

"Akio, what is up with Sayo these days? Remember how she normally dresses? Sleeveless hoodies, out of nowhere she starts wearing full-sleeved hoodies in the middle of summer. Not to mention all the trips she goes on with her brothers and her grandparents. I called Kioko, but she said that they were going sightseeing in Britain." 

Akio sighed. 

"What can I say? My parents and brothers are not the ones to show favorites, but with Sayo, it is becoming so obvious that I think they are using this as an excuse."

Akinari sighed. 

"What do we do?" 

Akio laid down as he looked at the ceiling. 

"I will fly over to England next week to see how she is doing. If she returns to New York I will fly over to talk to my parents. However, about Sayo's hoodie issue, bring Michael. She started to do this after that day they went out." 

"Good idea." 

Sayo did not know her little secret was at risk of being caught. Michael would not snitch her out, but her parents might come to their own conclusions. 

--

5 days had passed since they had prepared for any threat that could threaten the princess. Today a heavy rain storm hit London and it had been raining like crazy for the past three days. They were all powerful people with a massive stamina pool so they could stay awake for days on end. However, they still slept in shifts to make sure they were full rested.

At the moment Sayo was walking with Dimitri and Eliza as they were walking through the palace. They had to take Eliza to her private school, but today was a weekend which was even better. Sayo hated being stuck with guarding the princess on those shifts as it was just annoying. At the moment it was her shift to stick with Dimitri and the princess. 

"Miss Sayo, could you answer my question?"

She looked at Eliza and nodded.

"Ask."

"My question is why you would become a mercenary instead of a hero. The same goes for you, Mr. Dimitri."

Sayo answered right away as she did not need to hide it.

"Simple, I kind of don't like them as I feel they are a bunch of hypocrites. Plus. I am only 16 so I can't be one anyway." 

Dimitri was next and it was nothing grand either.

"I was once a member of Spetsnaz, but I didn't want to simply be a soldier, so I deserted and joined the Black Hand. Of course, I am considered a criminal but with the Black Hand behind me they don't dare try anything."

Sayo found one thing wrong with that.

"What about crusher woman? Wouldn't she come after you for desertion?"

He shook his head.

"She follows the orders of the president of Russia,  but the Russian government knows about our super experts vs their one. As such they have deemed me not worth wasting recourses to kill or capture."

As they were walking Sophi spoke up she while her suit was in stealth mode. 

"Most of the soldiers are clean, however a few I could not track well. I say we keep our eyes open. The rain was an excuse to keep the princess in the castle after all." 

Eliza just realized that it was a great thing that it had happened. However, she could not stay at the castle forever as she had to go out to some of the meetings of the royal family. She also liked to go out with her friends and go to school, but her friends were complaining about her scary bodyguards. She wished that she was not weak, but it was just her age. 

As long as she got older she would live up to her father, but as a young girl, she wanted to be like him. Sayo glanced down at Elize's shadow with a smile.

"Your break is almost here."

Nyx the tigress could go a long time without eating when she stayed in shadow form. However, she often left the shadows as she disliked being stationary for so long. This was why Sayo wanted a break time for Nyx which was agreed on. Either way, Sayo and  Dimitri talked more about measures and ignored Eliza. They treated her like a burden as she could not fight at all. She realized that and she did not want to be treated as useless. 

While Sayo and Dimitri kept an eye on Eliza, Anastasia was on the roof of the castle. She grabbed her sword and held it in front of her spreading her senses. Her Spatial Severence quirk gave her a great perception of space and her surroundings. This made her their best first deference just from how her quirk worked. 

She looked at any people who passed by, soldiers in the castle, and she found Sophi who was running around the castle following sketchy guards. Dimitri, and Sayo Eliza as they made sure to not let her go alone. Stephan was with Maximus, as he was not good at surveillance, so he was talking to the guards to increase patrols.

His quirk was an attack-based one as he could not use it to survey the castle. He might have killed someone if he tried to do that. He had great control over his quirk, but some quirks were better than others. Jenny walked with Koba and she began to talk to the bear a bit. He would prefer to return to Sayo, but he did answer her the best a bear could. 

As for Baek he was alone as he scanned the entire palace to keep Stephan informed.  As she focused she finally got what she was looking for. Outside the palace, a few sketchy people were walking around the palace trying to act normal. However, she knew better as the rain storm was still going strong and the only reason she was not drenched was her quirk. The people seemed to be only trying to see how they could get in.

'They are analyzing the palace to send the info back to whoever is the mastermind. Well, I will not let your job be easy.'

She grabbed her phone and called Stephan who picked up. 

"Stephan, I am on the roof and some sketchy people are around it. They seem to be getting information on the layout before an attack. I can kill them all from here if given the order."

"Do it capture one alive."

"Affirmative." 

She got her sword into a laido stance and took a deep breath. She felt her sword become part of her and she drew it at an insane speed and slashed it nearly 100 times in less than a second. When the sword returned to her sheath the people had their heads, hearts, and spines cut apart. However, she left one by cutting his lower spine leaving him crippled, but alive.

Baek who was watching with his special visor was impressed with her skill and quirk. She made that look easy which it was to her. Anastasia jumped off the roof and grabbed the spy by his hair. She was quite annoyed as he was screaming in agony. She hit him with the but of her sword, and dragged him inside. She called Sayo on her phone to get her to get rid of the bodies.

"Sayo I killed a few people outside the palace. Can you in getting Koba to burn them?"

"I got a better idea, Nyx can store them in her shadow until we can dispose of them." 

Sayo did not need to say anything as Nyx left the shadow of Elize and rushed outside. Nyx emerged from Anastacia's shadow which was quite a useful ability. 

"The bodies." 

Nyx absorbed the bodies and entered Anastacia's shadow to return to Elize's. It was best for Elize from figuring out that she now had around 10 courses in her shadow.  The guards had seen that happen, but they knew the Blackhand was known for its brutality. However, they were effective so they simply looked the other way.

The king had said that they were free to do what they thought was needed to keep his daughter safe. Anastacia returned with her new prisoner to Stefan. When he saw the state that the man was he was surprised. 

"What did you do?" 

"Severed his spine." 

Stephan saw blood coming from his lower back and lifted his shirt to see that his spinal cord was cleanly severed.

"He is crippled but alive. Well done, but now we just got the top part to torture. Give me a second." 

He called all of the members of the team to see who was best with torture.  Once Say admitted to being quite good at it he called her to integrate the guy. She was replaced by Baek Yoonho as she went to deal with the information gathering. When she entered the room with the prisoner Maximus rushed to her as he had missed her. 

She hugged her pet with a smile and rubbed his sides. 

"I missed you, buddy."

Stefan rolled his eyes. They were acting like they had been away from the other for years. 

"You act like you don't see him every day." 

Sayo ignored him, but Anastacia kicked the prisoner forward. 

"You are good at this right?' 

Sayo nodded. 

"100%. I can do it right now if you want."

Stefan ordered it. 

"Do it."

Sayo took a deep breath and remembered all those lessons Akira was taught by his father.  If you want something from someone trained not to speak was to cause as many inhuman levels of pain as possible. Sayo walked toward the passed-out man and placed her hand on his neck. More important a nerve cluster.  She used her vital energy to force activate all the nerves in his body to feel agonizing pain. 

The screams that came from his mouth were so blood-curdling that Stefan almost flinched. Anastacia's gaze went to Sayo's face whcih was neutral. 

"What did you do?"

Sayo smiled. 

"My vital energy can be used to forcibly cause all his nerves to fire with pain. What do you think?" 

The tortured man struggled hard. His arms fumbled as he tried to claw at Sayo. 

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" 

"Wrong." 

She grabbed his throat and once again caused his nerves to fire again. She even mapped the pain he was feeling which made him drool at the mouth while tears left his eyes.  She stopped before she caused any damage, but he already despaired at the thought of more. Stefan was quite impressed and decided to leave interrogations to Sayo from now on. 

"Alright, I want to know who hired you." Tell me and you die quick, try to be loyal and over 7 trillion nerves will all activate on the worst setting. I haven't even done the worst level." 

"FUCK YOU!"

She forced even more vital energy through his nervous system and made him feel pure agony. His screams were so blood-curdling that even the guards of the mansion tried their best to ignore them. His screams stopped, and Stefan thought he died. However, Sayo knew this was what she was after. Akira had done this so many times she could do it with her eyes closed.

"Who hired you?" 

"Aston. He gathered us up with the promise of big money." 

When Stefan heard that he walked forward. 

"Did you say, Aston?" 

The crippled man nodded. 

"Yes." 

Stefan cursed. 

"Fuck. Aston is a lone mercenary villain that pretty much wants to start his own version of the Black Hand. Of course less rules, and more villainous. I met him while I was going solo. He is bad news." 

Sayo looked up. 

"You know what his quirk is?" 

Stefan knew it quite well. 

"Yeah, he named it Virus Lord. As it sounds he can control, manipulate and change viruses. He was responsible for a big out break of his personal creation 20 years ago in Mexico. I met and fought with him a couple of years back.  I was immune to his quirk as I am smoke in solid form, but he does not fight head on. He sends out his creations. Mutated zombie things." 

Sayo and Anastacia looked at each other before Sayo spoke. 

"He makes mutated zombies?" 

Stefan nodded. 

"They are bad news, but lucky that he has to make them all by hand. However, if he can learn to make a self replicating zombie virus we are fucked." 

Anastacia held her katana tightly. 

"Should we inform John?" 

Stefan pulled out his phone. 

"I am already on it. Sayo, that everything you getting from him." 

She nodded. 

"You can kill him."

He aimed his hand at the guy from whcih a thick black smoke began to surge from. It entered the guy's ears, mouth, and nose and turned solid which killed him instantly.  Once he was dead Sayo tossed his corpse into the fireplace. Just as Stefan was going to call John the loud sound of Dimitri roaring was heard. His gun was on full auto which told them it was bad. 

 The four of them charged out as fast as they could to the location of the gunfire. Baek Yoonho, Dimitri, and Sophi were strong and they had Nyx with them so they had time.  Dimitri cursed in Russian as he, Baek Yoonho, and Sophi were in cover to avoid the quirk attacks. What had pissed him off was that the attackers had both a portal quirk and a defensive quirk.

He dropped his gun as it was not useful in this situation. A large suit of armor formed all over him which glowed dark blue. 

"Tiger, take the princess out of here." 

Nyx did not emerge, but she dragged Elize into her shadow and warped her away to a safe room. When the tigress entered she made sure that there was no one in the room beside her and emerged from the shadow. She looked at the princess and with a big paw pushed her to sit. 

"Are you telling me to stay?" 

Nyx grunted in agreement as her shadow warped into Sayo's shadow. 

Back with Dimitri, Sophi and Baek Yoonho the lion man was ready to charge out. 

"Equip your armor and let's go." 

Sophi and Baek Yoonho did just that as their nanomachines suits covered them. Sophi went invisible while Baek's was made to amplify his lasers. On the count of three, Dimitri charged first as he was the most physically able. Baek Yoonho followed right behind and launched bright white lasers from his hands and his eyes to give Dimtir some back. The lion man cursed in Russian as his claws extended which he used to slice apart 3 of the attackers.

There were almost 65, but most of them were just disposable grunts. So Baek Yoonho disintegrated several with his lazers. Sophi moved through the group slicing off the heads of the ones who looked troublesome. As for Dimitri charged at the biggest guy who did not seem interested in blocking or moving. This man was in full riot gear and he stood around 8 feet so he was around the same height as Dimitri. 

Dimitri's instinct warned him of danger so he did not attack him and let Baek Yoonho do it. This time the man dodged as he could not reflect energy attacks only physical ones. However just as he dodged those a giant purple wave emerged from behind Dimitri and Baek Yoonho. It hit several of the weaker guys and reduced them to bloody smithereens.

They did not look back as they knew it was Sayo. However, Dimitri grabbed two female attackers and smashed their skulls into each other. 

"Welcome to the fun girl." 

He did not say her name as he was no idiot. She lept into the air and covered her whole body in Vital Energy while her nanomachine suit covered her arms, legs, and face. 

"Would not miss it." 

'Chi You Halberd form, Dragon Rampage.' 

She spun mid-air and launched two massive waves of vital energy that slashed apart several attackers. Sophi ran next to Sayo as she did that as she was that fast. Maximus activated his quirk and began growing to massive size as he charged at the man that Dimitri had avoided.  The man charged right at Maximus and clashed with the dog in a contest of strength. 

Maximus hit him at the full force which the man reflected. However, he did suffer damage in exchange causing him to grunt. Maximus was stronger than he thought. He would need to be careful, but it just got worse. Koba charged out with Jenny on his back. 

"BEAR RIDDER!"

She lept off as Koba began to heat up as his body began to turn into magma. He ran next to Maximus as Jenny raised her hand to the sky and created many diamond weapons and even covered her body with diamonds.  Massive plumes of smoke rushed from Stephan's body which became solid just like Jenny.  Sayo looked at the attackers and noticed that most were disogrinized. 

There were about 10 of them who were running the show, but a clocked figure in the middle gave her the chills. 

'Must be one of Aston's zombies.'

Things were not going to be simple much longer.