“What? Don’t tell me you’re actually surprised; I’m your doctor. Remember during January we had that mission where you had internal damage and requested a leg?”

She smirked a bit as she remembered,

“Then the day after, we did a physical examination, and I noticed that your cells, heart rate, muscle density, and quirk intensity were three times as high as the day prior.”

‘Though that was because I had a thug run into me on my way home, for her to find out so quick.’

“Your reaction confirms some of my theories, but I won’t pry too much. Secrets are yours to bear, as long as you remember to keep the members of the group out of your hunt.”

Leaving him with those words, she walked up the stairs, leaving Ken with a beating heart, a clenched fist, and a mind racing over what this changes.

…

‘Was that revenge?’

Ken couldn’t help but think of her words as that; maybe she was getting back at him for breaking into her room.

Shiver

‘How scary.’

Thus, Ken strengthened his resolve to try not to get on the assassins' and associates' bad sides.

“Great of you to join us,” the boss said, welcoming Reiki with the absentminded Ken behind her.

Reiki, as always, took the bar stool seat.

Seneca was at the booth closest to the window, with a computer facing towards him.

Naia had finished with her duties and was talking with Ashnah at a booth that was diagonal to the bar where the boss was.

Ken walked and sat at the booth in between Seneca’s and the Twins.

As he sat down, Reiki turned her lethargic head and glared at the boss.

“Why send him in there?”

“Since you’re here, you should know that I needed everyone here for a meeting.”

Somehow, her glare got even more intense after he said that.

“You knew I wasn’t there; I was out.”

“I did? Ohhh–Yeah, now I remember… Yup, there’s your text. I must have forgotten.”

Ignoring her pensive stare, he continued.

“So, the reason you’re all here today is that we have a mission.”

The expected reaction Ehno thought would occur between his members didn’t; instead, he just got numerous gazes that said, ‘Go on.’

“Ahem—Seneca, take it away.”

Sigh

“I need overtime pay. Anyways, our supplier goes by the moniker of Minister; he’s requested that we do a retrieval mission.”

Turning around the computer, Seneca showed the screen of his computer; on it was an animated man in a black hood with a white jester-like mask, with only two small upward-slanted curves representing eyes and one upward curve representing a mouth.

“This man sent us an invitation about a big offer two weeks ago. Me and the boss left to attend; there we met with many individuals, constant battles, being chased by the police, and a lot more.”

The screen flashed with photos depicting all of those events.

“After we got to a hotel in Naruhata, he contacted us again; only this time it wasn’t in an encrypted email but a video call.”

The screen returned to the black-hooded man.

“The first thing we tried was to track him, but my quirk’s limit was reached for backtracking, meaning he was multiple districts away, and his computer skills prevented me from reverse locating him.”

Nodding to the boss, Ehno took over the discussion.

“He offered a proposition: we head to Akita district within two weeks, meet a Yakuza who’s been gaining fame these past few days, and get a vial of a drug for him; trigger, along with any others of a comparable level he may have, but trigger takes precedence.”

‘Isn’t that the drug that guy bought and was going to sell to some big syndicates?’

If it was that dangerous to garner so many people's attention, he should know about it. That was Ken's thought process as he spoke out.

“Trigger?”

“A new drug is on the streets. Apparently, it boosts your quirk at the expense of going mad. Not many know about it, but the guy said he wants to reverse deduce the formula and, as such, needs to acquire it.”

Ehno cut in, introducing the thing before handing the spotlight back to Seneca.

“Ehem—He did a little research on him and found out that their vice leader Chisaki will be in Akita to present his drug, an unveiling to introduce himself onto the big stages.”

Naia spoke when he finished.

“Though it’s a bit annoying, it doesn’t seem to be the kind of mission that needs all hands on deck, plus the profit cut we’ll have if we close shop for days on end, adding onto the possible linkage of Kihi (忌避) to us...”

Nodding, Seneca addressed her words.

“That’s been considered, but this buyer is paying quite well. 6 million yen in total.”

Waiting for everyone's eyes to get big, he continued.

“Yes, so you should realize the importance of this operation.” Ken subconsciously nodded, still getting hung up on that huge number.

He’d never seen anything more than 2 million yen in one sitting, though barely even a percentage went to him.

‘Everyone could get 1 million.’

He knew it wasn’t going to happen, but the fact that it could was enough for this mission to skyrocket on his Important Things list.

“We must not fail, meaning Reiki needs to be on standby, Ashnah should be ready for an extraction mission, the leader and Ken should be ready in case any fighting happens, I’m needed for communication and online threats, and Naia is for deterrence and information gathering.”

CLAP

“Okay, you have the details. In two weeks, we meet here at 7 AM, pack bags for long travel, and empty your schedule.”

Getting up after saying that, Ehno started walking to the downstairs door but turned around once his hands touched its handle.

“Seneca, is the water bill paid?”

“IT WAS ONE TIME! A GLITCH in the system.”

“A glitch caused us to be without water for weeks. Ken, you should’ve seen it. Washing anything without hot water is a pain in the ass. Ashnah turned three of his monitors into a huge broadsword, saying, If he can’t use his quirk right, then he should train that wimpy body of his, the looks when he didn't fully understand her quirk and thought the change was permanent.”

“~Hey, my body isn’t wimpy. I-It’s just a little lean.”

But Ehno wasn't finished with his story just yet,

“And NAIA! Seneca’s secrets about his guilty pleasures were the talk of the place for weeks. Every day someone came in laughing to themselves about his-”

“BOSS! Don’t you have anything else to do?”

“Alright—Alright, I’m going. Just remember,”

Then a flabby disk was held up in Ehno’s gruff hands, and Seneca’s face paled when he saw it.

“How the—No wait, boss, don’t…”

Their words trailed off as the two disappeared down the flight of stairs.

Ken looked up from his table and made contact with Naia, who simply smiled before talking with Ashnah about fashion.

Sigh

‘At least I can clock out.’

…

“That’s why you’ve been gone these past few days.”

Nodding his head, Ken pushed Himiko on the swings.

“Yup, a few weeks ago someone came over at the school during a design class, and after taking me as his apprentice, he got the school to allow me to attend fewer classes.”

“Can I see something you made?”

“S-Sure, when I get the chance, I’ll bring it over.”

‘Though that's not the whole truth, it's not like I can say that my Assassin friend paid off my junior high so that if I can pass the finals I’m given, they’ll forge my time in class and write off most of my missing time as “sick” days.’

Thinking back, Ken shook his head; he practically freaked out when he learned Seneca did that.

According to him, school conflicted with his work schedule, and his mission dates were too long.

Though most of his freaking out was due to his shock at how corrupt and bad this part of the town was,.

Sure, it was littered with criminals, but Ken expected that at least the schools would be free from them.

‘I guess anyone and everyone needs money.’

“That’s nice, j-just make sure to come over now and then.”

Seeing Ken raise his eyebrow, Himiko blushed and continued stammering,

“I-It’s just that…not many people want to hang out with me,”

Her tone got lower as her eyes bore holes into the ground,

“-or want to talk with me…s-so-s-SO I REALLY LIKE HANGING OUT WITH YOU!”

Her head whipped up, and he saw her golden, beady eyes focusing on him, Meanwhile, Ken found himself in an internal war.

He didn’t want to say that he’d be here even less than she hoped; her look of disappointment would crush him, so he tried to sugarcoat it.

“I’ll try, but things have gotten hectic, so I may not be able to…B-But don’t worry…”

He rambled on for what felt like minutes, trying to explain how he wouldn’t be here much and sugarcoat that before circling back to the original topic.

By the time he realized this was going nowhere, Himiko had her head tilted down so her eyes couldn’t be seen.

Her body shook, and her voice seemed to tremble.

“Just go…”

‘Shit.’

Trying to mediate the situation, he stuttered out. “H-Himiko..”

“JUST GO! YOU’RE LIKE THE OTHERS, HAVING GOTTEN BORED OF HIMIKO SO YOU WANT TO LEAVE TOO! HIMIKO ACCEPTS IT, SHE’S NOT NORMAL, OKAY! YES, HIMIKO IS ABNORMAL AND IF YOU HATE THIS HIMIKO THEN GO! GO LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!”

With that, the blond girl ran off, tears dropping from her eyes, leaving a stunned Ken sitting on the bench.