Chiharu found herself having to help them more than she expected.  She took it for granted how much she was used to gearing up that she didn’t count on it being too difficult.  Though she at least allotted extra time.

Taking up about three hours of their time, everyone looked geared and ready.  She pulled out some wireless comms and handed them over to each of them.  “In case anyone gets separated, use this to communicate, but otherwise remain silent on the line.”  Chiharu showed them how to turn the comms on if something happened.  “Voice check.  You hear me?”

“Yup!”  A myriad of similar replies came all answering Chiharu.

“Good, let’s go over the mission once more and formation before we move out.”

“What?  Again?”

“I don’t want mistakes out in the field, Kenta.  If you feel that it’s boring, then I expect perfection out of your movements.”

“Hey, wait a minute!  I didn’t say anything like that!  Give me a damn break!”

“This is the first mission for you.  I think you’d want it to go smoothly.  Or are you eager for a fight?”

“Wh-what?  No, of course!  Like you said, fighting is a last resort when the mission fails.”

“Good, now let’s begin…”

Chapter 629 - Tested Under Moonlight

Midnight arrived for the strike team.  About an hour of pounding in last minute practice to the group, Chiharu confirmed the time on her watch.  She looked back to the others and motioned to them.  “It’s time.  Gather around.”  While they were moving towards her, she began to focus on her shadow power.

“What’s this going to be like boss lady?”  She paused in her work to look a little back at Kenta.  “What, prefer kid still?”

“Just boss if you must.”

“‘Kay, boss!”

It sounded really weird in her mind to hear.  Chiharu became accustomed to being addressed as Lady Chiharu, Leader or just Chiharu, never boss or boss lady, the latter of which sounded condescending.  “You’ll be surrounded in a deep abyss unable to move.”

“So like in a sleeping bag with the lights out.”

“If that helps you.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

She went back to focusing on her power.  While she had been practicing and experimenting with her power and successfully used the teleport finally, there remained but one thing that she didn’t tell them.  It had only ever been done on herself.  Teleporting four others with her had never been done, even allowing people into her dimension so deep hadn’t been something she did.

Chiharu really didn’t know what would happen or the success of it.  Even learning how to harness the power was something that she only managed to control recently.  It was all a new field for her and a larger risk than they knew.  While she doubted that they had blind faith in her and her abilities, they trusted her when she said she could do it.

‘Time to put practice into action…’  A black and purple colored ring began to form around them slowly building into a thick circle.  Chiharu felt some resistance back from her power as she forced it open wider than normal.  In practice, she had only made it large enough for herself.  Even that took time as she could only create it originally within her dimension, as she had done the first time.

The ring flickered a little with the fluctuation of her power, though nothing that they seemed to pick up on.  Being this was all new to them, they didn’t know its presentation.  But Chiharu found the stabilization point and forced herself to lock in the reach.  Once she had it fixed, the stress lowered within her mind and body, but now felt like a twisted bundle of twine.  It had to stay, which in itself would be easy, but even a moment to relax and it would all fall apart.

“This is the last moment before we start.  Nothing forgotten?”

They all looked around at each other shaking their heads after thinking about it.  It did seem a little late if there was something, but everyone seemed to have what they needed.  “Very well.  Remember everything that I’ve taught you.  Stay calm and focused, you’re all capable and skilled.  So don’t listen to the doubts of your minds in what you can’t do.  Believe that you can and it will happen.  Stick together and see the mission through.”

With that little bit of inspirational speech, they focused on Chiharu and the ring which had the concrete floor beneath before disappeared.  The black and purple mass shot into the center like a gravity well and the solid surface rippled.

First in was Chiharu leading them, accepting the strange sinkhole.  Ayano and the rest found the whole situation unnerving and new, not really knowing what they were supposed to do.  Kenta just had the idea that it would eat him up, while Nao figured it was just like the movies and happened instantly.  As for Yuichi, he just found it all confusing and didn’t know if he was meant to do something or if it was all in Chiharu’s control.

After a few moments of standing still and staring at each other, they lifted up their feet almost like it was water.  The thought seemed to be it was like water and the ocean.  All that seemed to do was make puffs of purple orbs bubble up into the air with their feet and not produce the needed result.

Then suddenly like an invisible hand grabbed each of them, they sank into the portal almost immediately.  A transition wipe of reality, they found themselves in an empty void completely without any hint of orientation beyond anyone else around them.  If not for the others around them, the black void would have felt like it lacked even color.

Kenta held his breath with his cheek puffed out a little bit as a reaction.  He got a little glance from Ayano who shook her head.  “What?”

“There’s air here…”

“Sorry, can’t help it, gut reaction.”  Letting out in a slow exhale, Kenta began to breathe normally with caution as he found it did have air.

With everyone settled into the deep pocket dimension, Chiharu focused on her destination.  A large apartment complex, the one that she saw before but never entered.  She knew where it fit in the city and her mind could visualize the location.  A five building interconnected compound of similar designed structures.  It had a more utilitarian design rectangular with balconies and tiers as it narrowed, rising upward.  Each tower stretched up for twenty to forty stories as the ground floors took up four whole city blocks.

Chiharu found public records of the floor plans for the apartment, giving her even more accuracy to her target.  She wanted something the furthest away from immediate trouble while still being populated.  The building had no basement for the public, just utility and equipment, not ideal for a setup for a weaponsmith as none of the plans showed enough room for a similar setup that she saw.  It had to be somewhere else, though in an apartment building the options were either too much or limited.

So she picked the safest while least likely place as their starting point.  Her goal was the top floor of the third tower, which had the most amount of floors to cover.  Chiharu knew it would be a lot of cover, but without better intel, she couldn’t make a good guess.  Thoroughness over guess work became her condition.

Once more Chiharu felt the pull on her core as she pushed her powers beyond what she had practiced.  All of her work each day to stress and continuously use her power stretched out what she could do and made pushes for the extreme possible.  The pay off for that work came now.  ‘If we have an emergency, will I be able to repeat this?’

She tried to keep focused on the goal and not what ifs that might never come to pass.  Entering into enemy territory as they were within moments, she had to have her head on straight.  Keeping her concentration, Chiharu founded the location and connected with the ground as she knew it.

Within moments, she completed her link and a portal opened in the hallway of the apartment.  Once she had everything, she reached through and opened the hole up pushing through out of the constraining space.  And almost like a horror villain, Chiharu surfaced head first slowly from a dark black void rising up until freed.

Immediately, she pulled the others out needing to keep the link together until they were through or risking whatever oblivion that might await them in her dimension.  Surrounding her, each of the four members of her team rose up, turning to look around as they arrived within an unknown location.

Finally freed, she cut the portal and immediately knelt down listening closely to any of the sounds through the hall and below.  Late at night, she believed there should only be guards about the floors and nothing more.  She looked back to Nao.

Without even a word needed, she closed her eyes and focused on her power.  Refined as it was now, she practiced with everyone to get better at identifying shapes from one another.  The displacement of air no longer felt like a vague hazy within her mind, but a clear silhouette through walls and floors.  Learning the shape and form of the structure, she could construct a mental image.  As she discovered through her training, it made for an excellent mapping of the unknown.

In moments of her concentrating, the layout she recalled from the floorplan with her power overlaid, she understood the entire floor layout and lower floors for at least fifty meters, even obstructed as she was.  With less walls or thinner ones in her way, she could see further.  The entire floor they were on was visible to her.

‘It’s like what was planned.  Anyone here is asleep, though only a few up here.  Not really noticing anyone else below that grabs my attention.’  She looked back at Chiharu and motioned out to the three rooms with occupants.

Opening up portals into the neighboring rooms, Chiharu examined each residence and marked off from the list as their woman.  She quietly moved down the hall motioning to them to follow.  Monitoring her team, they all so far held up their coordination and training well.  The question for her remained how long that would hold up.

It seemed counterproductive to doubt them, but they were teenagers and delinquents, but not trained ninja or even people committed to the goal.  Each of them was here against their will because the alternative would be worse.  While she saw changes in all of them over the month, it did not mean that she pounded out those rebellious roots.  She just waited for when they would make their play.

The uneasy alliance would be tested in its truest sense under the night and blood.  She could only hope that the outcome would be better than she predicted.  “We continue...stay on guard.”