"Hey, have you heard the latest net-rumor?" The young man seated with his friends was someone...
The Black Network (Triage X SI) [SHUT DOWN]
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Prologue: Wetwork
Gideon020
Really in the mood for ribs.
"Hey, have you heard the latest net-rumor?" The young man seated with his friends was someone that to even to an experienced eye had all the hallmarks of a nerdy Otaku as one of his party smiled.
"You mean the one about that one idol website?" He asked with a perverted grin before it flicked into confusion as the one who had spoken up shook his head, "Eh? That's not what you wanted to talk about?"
"Not this time dude. I got this off the #Chan boards; apparently there's a secret website where you can pay to have someone perform a crime for you!" He glanced from side-to-side, "The rumor goes that you pay any amount of money you want, and you will receive a choice of crimes you want committed based on how much you want to pay."
"Dude, that sounds like a total rip-off," One of his friends spoke up, "No way there's a website that lets people commit crimes using a proxy, it's just there to take your money." There as a pause as they all stared at the original speaker who started looking around shiftily, "You didn't..."
"You know that break-in at that snob Himura's mansion?" He suddenly spoke up, "I ordered that." He accessed his phone and then his emails, sliding the phone over to the rest of the group who took a look.
Thank you for your purchase on The Black Network. Please watch the news or check your newspaper to see if your purchase was successfully accomplished.
They all looked at him, and he met their gazes, "It cost me forty-thousand Yen and agreeing to their terms of service, which included not telling the police." His friends' jaws dropped at those words.
Meanwhile, as other students ignored the antics of the school nerds, a red-haired girl in a different school uniform exited the main building and spotted them before checking her phone, where a photograph was displayed.
Nodding to herself and pulling up the scarf around her neck to create a mask over her lower face before walking over to the group of young men, checking their faces as she approached against the photograph on her phone before she looked up and spoke up, "Kuniyuki Isobe-san?"
The young man who was receiving his phone back noticed his friends were staring behind him and the light, musical voice caused his eyes to widen as he took a breath to calm himself while his friends smiled encouragingly at him. He turned around with what he hoped was a friendly smile, "Yes? How can I-"
In the space between his friends taking their eyes of her to encourage him, the girl had pulled a large pistol from her bag and aimed it squarely at the young man's head, "You violated the terms of the agreement and attempted to alert the police to the existence of the Black Network."
She pulled the trigger and the Desert Eagle bucked in her hand with a boom that echoed across the school and Isobe's head vanished in a cloud of red as brain and skull matter before the pistol whipped up to the other three young men.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Students screamed and ran as the girl picked up the now-dead Isobe's phone and walked away from the near-headless corpses of the four students. Her path shifted and she headed towards the high wall surrounding the school grounds, her light steps picking up speed as teachers were informed and frantic phone calls made as the walk turned into a jog.
The sound of police reports over the earpiece in her right ear prompted the jog to become a run, a dash towards the wall but her breathing and heart-rate were steady and calm as the pistol was returned to her bag and beginning to fill her vision was the wall surrounding the school.
With a short, sharp 'Hup!' the girl jumped and sailed over the wall in an artful flip, landing in a three-point crouch before smoothly rising and turning.
The man that had stopped at seeing a girl flip over a solid concrete wall and land in front of him simply stared as the girl shifted her gaze to him before turning and sprinting across the street to vanish into the alleyways of Tokyo City.
As the police arrived and witness statements were being taken while an ambulance took the bodies away, the girl was already discarding her uniform for more casual clothing while the school bag was slipped into a large backpack as she zipped up a motorcycle jacket and slipped a helmet on.
The black Ducati Diavel roared to life as she gunned the engine and began zipping through the streets of Tokyo, a city that was already beginning to feel the pain of a sudden, nation-wide and dramatic increase in violent crime, corruption and worse.
Elsewhere, as the local news began to pick up the story of the multiple homicide, another woman was walking towards the headquarters of a gang called 'The Empty Eyes' with a large carrying case in one hand, her bountiful chest barely kept in check by her white dress shirt under the long coat draped across her shoulders while eyes hidden by sunglasses regarded the gang member standing at the door with cold humor.
The door guard on the other hand, was openly leering at the woman as she casually tossed her long, blonde hair and spoke with a smile that didn't meet her hidden eyes, "Is Ichiro in?"
"Yeah, he is, but why are you going to see that loser?" The door guard smiled, nearly drooling visibly as his eyes undressed her, "I could show you a better time that Ichiro, baby."
"Well, I was going to get to you later, but I suppose I could do you first." The woman hummed thoughtfully she took a step forward, "Yeah, why not? And you're right, this will be fun."
The guard was about to celebrate bagging this babe when something prompted him to speak his mind, "Uh, hey, why do you want to see Ichiro anyway?"
The woman smiled and before the guard could say anything more, her hand flashed up and he felt them tear through his throat, spraying blood across the ground as he clutched his throat, desperately gurgling as he stared at the woman, who held up a gloved hand with several throwing knives clutched between them.
"To do that."
Kicking the dying guard to lay him out on the ground, the woman casually stepped over him and entered the building as the man bled out behind her. Now inside the building, she placed the carrying case on the ground and pressed the buttons on the electronic lock.
With a soft click the case popped open partially to allow the woman to open it fully and remove a katana in its decorated lacquer sheath, followed by a P90 submachinegun that she calmly fitted with a suppressor while loading a magazine that had a piece of blue tape on it.
Attaching the submachinegun to a carrying loop, the woman calmly began walking up the stairs. As she ascended, she heard a man shouting down the stairs while she continued climbing, her high heeled boots making a distinct clicking sound.
"Oi! Jiro! Ichiro told you to guard the fucking door, not grab some slut off the street! Get the fuck back down there you dumbass horndog!" The woman continued ascending, the clik-clik-clik of her boots making the man shouting even more agitated, "Jiro! Fuck's sake, stop snogging that bitch and fucking-"
She rounded the corner and the man, who had been walking towards the stairs to accost the likely dead man at the bottom, stopped and paled, "Oh shi-"
He didn't get a chance to finish as in a single, perfect movement the sword left its sheath and flashed, the woman flicking the blood off her blade to create a splatter on the ground but left the sword out of the sheath as the man stared dumbly as a line of red formed along his neck, and then with slick, wet noises his head slid off his neck and landed on the floor with a thump as blood began to gush out of the stump.
The woman calmly approached the door the thug had come from and with a smile she kicked in the door, tearing it off the hinges as gang members leaped up in shock as the door slammed into one unlucky teenager who was too slow in dodging and the flying metal door flattened him.
Not stopping in her entry, the woman strode on top of the door which elicited a pained groan from the teenager seconds before the naked katana slid through the metal and into his skull with a loud squeal as she wrenched the blade back out and smiled at the men and teenagers gathered around her.
"Is Ichiro available? I'm here to collect his overdue payment."
The gang charged.
"Well now♪"
On the other side of the city, two college-age girls calmly walked down the road towards a large office high-rise, one of the girls carrying a large duffel bag over her shoulder, before entering through the front door and heading into the elevator, ignoring the looks of the suited men and women as the doors closed and one of the girls started browsing the internet on her phone.
"Huh, looks like Hime-chan took care of that cocky nerd who tried to rat us out." One of the girls remarked as she leaned back against the elevator wall while her free hand toyed with her color-streaked black hair. The other, a pale-skinned and muscular girl, simply set the duffel bag down as one of her bangs fell in front of an eye and she brushed the dark-purple lock out of the way.
"Right, I forget you prefer not to talk before you meet with the boss." Her chatty companion mused with an amused grin, "Trying to keep your heart from going all doki-doki when he speaks to you?" She giggled as the other girl shot her a chilling glare.
Before anything else could happen, the doors of the elevator opened to a dark floor with the only light coming from a network of fluorescent lamps strung up along the walls, creating an eerie atmosphere since the windows were all blacked out.
The two teenagers were undaunted as they walked through the short corridors and past humming banks of servers under the chilled air of industrial air-conditioners on full-blast as the color-streaked girl shivered, "Geez, I should have remembered to wear a bra whenever I come here."
The pale girl snorted as she tapped at a key-pad in front of a heavy security door, waiting for the beep of the magnetic lock disengaging before sliding the door open to allow the two girls entry into a much warmer room where someone, a man dressed casually, was looking over a bank of monitors and occasionally typing away.
The pale girl spoke, her voice rough and husky as though it rarely found usage, "Boss, we have the equipment stolen by the Red Sparrows."
The color-streaked girl nodded as she bounced on her feet, "Yup! And then we burned the entire fucking building down!" She started giggling madly as the pale girl rolled her eyes while her companion continued, "I think some of them were still alive because we heard screaming as it burned."
The man twirled a hand in a clear message: Get on with it.
"Right," the giggling stopped as the girl continued, "They hadn't managed to crack the encryption on the client list and their computers had emails from various sources who were offering money for our client list. We also found something else." She glanced at the pale girl who nodded.
"There was an email from Tobioka City, where our backup servers are located." The man stiffened and turned slightly, the light from the monitors shining off his glasses as the pale girl continued, "Someone wanted the Red Sparrows to crack the stolen hard-drives in order to find the IP of our backup servers. We did some independent tracing, and the origin was some proxy email server, but I think someone wants to get in on our business Boss."
The man continued to stare at the two college students before turning back to his screens, "Drop the servers on the work bench and go back to your dorms. There'll be a meeting over the weekend, because this is not something simple. This is a problem."
The girls nodded and the pale girl calmly dumped the duffel bag on a nearby bench before the two walked out after making their goodbyes, leaving the young man to lean back in his chair and sigh.
"Knew things were going to heat up after that terrorist bombing," He muttered as a chat window appeared on one of his screens.
>>Guess what?
Gideon grimaced as he stared at the message.
>>You're going to send me home with a nice paycheck and a hearty slap on the back?
>>Tempting but no. I'd say it's time for you to start spreading those butterflies~
>>Tobioka City is practically a Japanese Gotham, and the Batman replaced by a group of hyper-violent gun-toting vigilantes with a medical fetish/theme.
>>And you are the 'lucky' man who saved several girls from horrible fates, earned their undying loyalty, and started a nation-wide criminal hiring system!
>>Because the other option was starve to death on the streets.
>>Now now, don't be like that. Besides, you would have died if you tried to go the hero route. Couldn't get you any 'Hero-grade' Plot Armour.
>>Of course. So, you want me to go to Tobioka?
>>I'd appreciate it.
>>Gah. Save four lunatic girls and thanks to you, I seem to be contributing to the slow decay of Japan. Moreso.
>>Yes. But you're also controlling it. Trust me, I have a plan to turn this shitty situation around, but to do that I need a villain.
>>Target you mean. I know this setting. I know what happens to the villains.
>>Well, good thing you stick to the shadows then. Go to Tobioka City; you need to in order to secure your backup base anyway.
>>And Gideon? Good Luck.
With that the chat window closed and Gideon sighed, "I'll damn well need it." A mobile phone sitting near the keyboard underneath the computer screens buzzed as it vibrated on the desk and he picked it up to read the SMS with attached image.
"...I honestly do not know why she keeps sending selfies after a job. I mean seriously!"
"You mean the one about that one idol website?" He asked with a perverted grin before it flicked into confusion as the one who had spoken up shook his head, "Eh? That's not what you wanted to talk about?"
"Not this time dude. I got this off the #Chan boards; apparently there's a secret website where you can pay to have someone perform a crime for you!" He glanced from side-to-side, "The rumor goes that you pay any amount of money you want, and you will receive a choice of crimes you want committed based on how much you want to pay."
"Dude, that sounds like a total rip-off," One of his friends spoke up, "No way there's a website that lets people commit crimes using a proxy, it's just there to take your money." There as a pause as they all stared at the original speaker who started looking around shiftily, "You didn't..."
"You know that break-in at that snob Himura's mansion?" He suddenly spoke up, "I ordered that." He accessed his phone and then his emails, sliding the phone over to the rest of the group who took a look.
Thank you for your purchase on The Black Network. Please watch the news or check your newspaper to see if your purchase was successfully accomplished.
They all looked at him, and he met their gazes, "It cost me forty-thousand Yen and agreeing to their terms of service, which included not telling the police." His friends' jaws dropped at those words.
Meanwhile, as other students ignored the antics of the school nerds, a red-haired girl in a different school uniform exited the main building and spotted them before checking her phone, where a photograph was displayed.
Nodding to herself and pulling up the scarf around her neck to create a mask over her lower face before walking over to the group of young men, checking their faces as she approached against the photograph on her phone before she looked up and spoke up, "Kuniyuki Isobe-san?"
The young man who was receiving his phone back noticed his friends were staring behind him and the light, musical voice caused his eyes to widen as he took a breath to calm himself while his friends smiled encouragingly at him. He turned around with what he hoped was a friendly smile, "Yes? How can I-"
In the space between his friends taking their eyes of her to encourage him, the girl had pulled a large pistol from her bag and aimed it squarely at the young man's head, "You violated the terms of the agreement and attempted to alert the police to the existence of the Black Network."
She pulled the trigger and the Desert Eagle bucked in her hand with a boom that echoed across the school and Isobe's head vanished in a cloud of red as brain and skull matter before the pistol whipped up to the other three young men.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Students screamed and ran as the girl picked up the now-dead Isobe's phone and walked away from the near-headless corpses of the four students. Her path shifted and she headed towards the high wall surrounding the school grounds, her light steps picking up speed as teachers were informed and frantic phone calls made as the walk turned into a jog.
The sound of police reports over the earpiece in her right ear prompted the jog to become a run, a dash towards the wall but her breathing and heart-rate were steady and calm as the pistol was returned to her bag and beginning to fill her vision was the wall surrounding the school.
With a short, sharp 'Hup!' the girl jumped and sailed over the wall in an artful flip, landing in a three-point crouch before smoothly rising and turning.
The man that had stopped at seeing a girl flip over a solid concrete wall and land in front of him simply stared as the girl shifted her gaze to him before turning and sprinting across the street to vanish into the alleyways of Tokyo City.
As the police arrived and witness statements were being taken while an ambulance took the bodies away, the girl was already discarding her uniform for more casual clothing while the school bag was slipped into a large backpack as she zipped up a motorcycle jacket and slipped a helmet on.
The black Ducati Diavel roared to life as she gunned the engine and began zipping through the streets of Tokyo, a city that was already beginning to feel the pain of a sudden, nation-wide and dramatic increase in violent crime, corruption and worse.
Elsewhere, as the local news began to pick up the story of the multiple homicide, another woman was walking towards the headquarters of a gang called 'The Empty Eyes' with a large carrying case in one hand, her bountiful chest barely kept in check by her white dress shirt under the long coat draped across her shoulders while eyes hidden by sunglasses regarded the gang member standing at the door with cold humor.
The door guard on the other hand, was openly leering at the woman as she casually tossed her long, blonde hair and spoke with a smile that didn't meet her hidden eyes, "Is Ichiro in?"
"Yeah, he is, but why are you going to see that loser?" The door guard smiled, nearly drooling visibly as his eyes undressed her, "I could show you a better time that Ichiro, baby."
"Well, I was going to get to you later, but I suppose I could do you first." The woman hummed thoughtfully she took a step forward, "Yeah, why not? And you're right, this will be fun."
The guard was about to celebrate bagging this babe when something prompted him to speak his mind, "Uh, hey, why do you want to see Ichiro anyway?"
The woman smiled and before the guard could say anything more, her hand flashed up and he felt them tear through his throat, spraying blood across the ground as he clutched his throat, desperately gurgling as he stared at the woman, who held up a gloved hand with several throwing knives clutched between them.
"To do that."
Kicking the dying guard to lay him out on the ground, the woman casually stepped over him and entered the building as the man bled out behind her. Now inside the building, she placed the carrying case on the ground and pressed the buttons on the electronic lock.
With a soft click the case popped open partially to allow the woman to open it fully and remove a katana in its decorated lacquer sheath, followed by a P90 submachinegun that she calmly fitted with a suppressor while loading a magazine that had a piece of blue tape on it.
Attaching the submachinegun to a carrying loop, the woman calmly began walking up the stairs. As she ascended, she heard a man shouting down the stairs while she continued climbing, her high heeled boots making a distinct clicking sound.
"Oi! Jiro! Ichiro told you to guard the fucking door, not grab some slut off the street! Get the fuck back down there you dumbass horndog!" The woman continued ascending, the clik-clik-clik of her boots making the man shouting even more agitated, "Jiro! Fuck's sake, stop snogging that bitch and fucking-"
She rounded the corner and the man, who had been walking towards the stairs to accost the likely dead man at the bottom, stopped and paled, "Oh shi-"
He didn't get a chance to finish as in a single, perfect movement the sword left its sheath and flashed, the woman flicking the blood off her blade to create a splatter on the ground but left the sword out of the sheath as the man stared dumbly as a line of red formed along his neck, and then with slick, wet noises his head slid off his neck and landed on the floor with a thump as blood began to gush out of the stump.
The woman calmly approached the door the thug had come from and with a smile she kicked in the door, tearing it off the hinges as gang members leaped up in shock as the door slammed into one unlucky teenager who was too slow in dodging and the flying metal door flattened him.
Not stopping in her entry, the woman strode on top of the door which elicited a pained groan from the teenager seconds before the naked katana slid through the metal and into his skull with a loud squeal as she wrenched the blade back out and smiled at the men and teenagers gathered around her.
"Is Ichiro available? I'm here to collect his overdue payment."
The gang charged.
"Well now♪"
On the other side of the city, two college-age girls calmly walked down the road towards a large office high-rise, one of the girls carrying a large duffel bag over her shoulder, before entering through the front door and heading into the elevator, ignoring the looks of the suited men and women as the doors closed and one of the girls started browsing the internet on her phone.
"Huh, looks like Hime-chan took care of that cocky nerd who tried to rat us out." One of the girls remarked as she leaned back against the elevator wall while her free hand toyed with her color-streaked black hair. The other, a pale-skinned and muscular girl, simply set the duffel bag down as one of her bangs fell in front of an eye and she brushed the dark-purple lock out of the way.
"Right, I forget you prefer not to talk before you meet with the boss." Her chatty companion mused with an amused grin, "Trying to keep your heart from going all doki-doki when he speaks to you?" She giggled as the other girl shot her a chilling glare.
Before anything else could happen, the doors of the elevator opened to a dark floor with the only light coming from a network of fluorescent lamps strung up along the walls, creating an eerie atmosphere since the windows were all blacked out.
The two teenagers were undaunted as they walked through the short corridors and past humming banks of servers under the chilled air of industrial air-conditioners on full-blast as the color-streaked girl shivered, "Geez, I should have remembered to wear a bra whenever I come here."
The pale girl snorted as she tapped at a key-pad in front of a heavy security door, waiting for the beep of the magnetic lock disengaging before sliding the door open to allow the two girls entry into a much warmer room where someone, a man dressed casually, was looking over a bank of monitors and occasionally typing away.
The pale girl spoke, her voice rough and husky as though it rarely found usage, "Boss, we have the equipment stolen by the Red Sparrows."
The color-streaked girl nodded as she bounced on her feet, "Yup! And then we burned the entire fucking building down!" She started giggling madly as the pale girl rolled her eyes while her companion continued, "I think some of them were still alive because we heard screaming as it burned."
The man twirled a hand in a clear message: Get on with it.
"Right," the giggling stopped as the girl continued, "They hadn't managed to crack the encryption on the client list and their computers had emails from various sources who were offering money for our client list. We also found something else." She glanced at the pale girl who nodded.
"There was an email from Tobioka City, where our backup servers are located." The man stiffened and turned slightly, the light from the monitors shining off his glasses as the pale girl continued, "Someone wanted the Red Sparrows to crack the stolen hard-drives in order to find the IP of our backup servers. We did some independent tracing, and the origin was some proxy email server, but I think someone wants to get in on our business Boss."
The man continued to stare at the two college students before turning back to his screens, "Drop the servers on the work bench and go back to your dorms. There'll be a meeting over the weekend, because this is not something simple. This is a problem."
The girls nodded and the pale girl calmly dumped the duffel bag on a nearby bench before the two walked out after making their goodbyes, leaving the young man to lean back in his chair and sigh.
"Knew things were going to heat up after that terrorist bombing," He muttered as a chat window appeared on one of his screens.
>>Guess what?
Gideon grimaced as he stared at the message.
>>You're going to send me home with a nice paycheck and a hearty slap on the back?
>>Tempting but no. I'd say it's time for you to start spreading those butterflies~
>>Tobioka City is practically a Japanese Gotham, and the Batman replaced by a group of hyper-violent gun-toting vigilantes with a medical fetish/theme.
>>And you are the 'lucky' man who saved several girls from horrible fates, earned their undying loyalty, and started a nation-wide criminal hiring system!
>>Because the other option was starve to death on the streets.
>>Now now, don't be like that. Besides, you would have died if you tried to go the hero route. Couldn't get you any 'Hero-grade' Plot Armour.
>>Of course. So, you want me to go to Tobioka?
>>I'd appreciate it.
>>Gah. Save four lunatic girls and thanks to you, I seem to be contributing to the slow decay of Japan. Moreso.
>>Yes. But you're also controlling it. Trust me, I have a plan to turn this shitty situation around, but to do that I need a villain.
>>Target you mean. I know this setting. I know what happens to the villains.
>>Well, good thing you stick to the shadows then. Go to Tobioka City; you need to in order to secure your backup base anyway.
>>And Gideon? Good Luck.
With that the chat window closed and Gideon sighed, "I'll damn well need it." A mobile phone sitting near the keyboard underneath the computer screens buzzed as it vibrated on the desk and he picked it up to read the SMS with attached image.
"...I honestly do not know why she keeps sending selfies after a job. I mean seriously!"
Last edited:
Chapter 1: A Problem In Tobioka City
Gideon020
Really in the mood for ribs.
One year after the terrorist attack on Tobioka City's International Medical Conference, there was a thunderstorm that swept Japan, a monsoon of horrific power that many believed was divine judgment from the heavens for the slow, but noticeable decay of Japan. Others simply accepted it as another in a long string of events slowly destroying whatever good was left in Japan.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the concrete in a Tokyo alleyway, the blast of electromagnetic energy destroying a security camera as the blinding flash faded a young man carefully stood up from the shallow crater in the alleyway, head turning in one direction and then another blearily before he noticed a sign in Japanese now flickering to life above his head.
Staring at the sign, the young man turned to stare at the sky, before rubbing his temples and walking off in a random direction.
It was a Sunday when Gideon walked into the office building with the key to his floor jingling in his hand as he approached the front desk, walked around the side and tapped at the security keypad for the elevators before smiling as they dinged as one, "Ah, Yuki, you darling little slut, remind me to have your boss give you a pay raise." Turning away from the desk, he watched the doors slide open to allow four new entrants, "Good morning ladies, sorry for the early start but we need to deal with this now rather than later."
He watched as they entered the lobby and looked them over.
Saika Bradley was in the lead as Gideon went over his memories; an illegitimate child between an American serviceman and a wealthy Japanese family, the kind of corrupt old money that had a finger in numerous zaibatsu and keiretsu with a family history going back to ancient feudal lords and possibly earlier.
Twenty-four years old with blonde hair and green eyes, Bradley had the kind of skin tone that reminded Gideon of James Bond movies; radiant but not pale, just light enough that you could compare her to porcelain. And considering the setting and the trope regarding American women, Gideon wasn't surprised her lithe, graceful form had a bosom that brought more than a few memories back of several H-Doujin he had read a long, long time ago.
As it turns out, when you live in a setting that has 'Ecchi' as an element of reality, you lose the spark of enjoyment rather quickly.
Even so, Gideon's eyes went to the scar along her throat, silently tracing another exposed by her bountiful cleavage, and the thigh-high slit along her skirt revealed a long leg that also had a faded, but still visible scar running up it.
Gideon didn't begrudge the woman her clinging to the bastardized Bushido she practiced, not after what her own 'family' of proud 'samurai' did to her.
His eyes shifted to the cheerful girl and the pale Russian walking side-by-side; unlike Saika, Chise Morino was practically a walking advertisement for the Kogal stereotype with darkly tanned skin, dark hair streaked through with various highlights, the loose and overly large socks forming a perfect image as she bounced along with her backpack slung over one shoulder.
Gideon didn't have to look far to see the various flame motifs on her bag nor the charm on her mobile phone as she showed off her new purchases to the Russian, and the way a bottle of lighter fluid peeked out of one pocket told Gideon that Chise had been doing more than just doing her routine visit to the capsule toy machines.
But then, why not allow her to set fire to a few things once in a while? Gideon could point out exactly where a line of cigar, not cigarette but actual cigar, burn scars ran up her spine like a twisted snake, he knew exactly where the cuts were made on her lower body and thighs, and the scars that used to be a set of numbers tattooed into her shoulder.
Not for the last time did Gideon wonder if he was going to be stuck in this universe of ultra-violent lunatics and fan-service as his eyes traced over to the third member, the Russian.
Akulova Elisaveta Tarasovna, Lisa when they were alone, was one that Gideon more than any of the other girls did not regret rescuing.
'No, that's wrong. I don't regret saving any of them, even if I do regret dragging them back into this life of bloodshed and horror. I just find myself prouder for saving her.' Gideon muttered inside his head as he met the pale Russian girl's eyes and she gave him a small smile that he returned with a short nod; Akulova Elisaveta was the same age as Chise at 19, and while Chise had a full bust that wouldn't be out of place on a porno set (and wasn't that ironic, considering what Chise had been doing when they met?), Lisa was visibly larger and Gideon had listened to Saika's complaints more than once about the 'Russkie' being nearly as big as her.
Gideon had learned to ignore the bouncing chests when he held meetings with the girls; it was with some mixed success that he managed to keep his eyes on theirs even if Lisa made it a point to show off her visibly muscular physique and taunt Bradley in Russian about how her genetics didn't need American blood to be perfect.
Gideon still made sure they never sat together. He already had to deal with the Cold War in miniature when they were near each other, the last thing he needed was World War 3, better to have the Cold War and occasional flashbacks to World War 2 that occurred when the two of them were drunk.
And if that didn't work? Gideon had photos he was more than willing to use to keep them quiet, 'Thank the Lord for the Christmas Party last year.' He thought to himself as his eyes landed on the last member to enter, even if she was technically the first to join his little criminal enterprise.
Tomo Otani, 16 years old, born into poverty and thankfully had a chest that was 'normal' for this reality, something Gideon was actually happy for since he had enough problems breathing when Bradley or Tarasovna decided to tag-team him or when Morino used him to settle an argument. Tomo was surprisingly normal, apart from the obvious.
She went to a private school, she was the Japanese equivalent to an honors student, she participated in numerous clubs and was the Student Council President through some kind of convoluted anime situation Gideon had no wish to try to understand.
'If only people knew...' Gideon thought to himself as Tomo noticed his stare and blushed lightly as she fidgeted with her pony tail, the action causing her blazer to shift just enough to provide a peak at a holstered handgun.
"Oh Boss-kun~" Chise's voice brought him out of his introspection just in time for a flash of color and then the college student's chest was enveloping him, "Did you really miss Chise-chan so much that you called her for a hot and steamy love-love session? I don't mind you asking the others to join us Boss-Kun, what with your appetite." She giggled as he managed to shift enough to see Saika placing her hands to her cheeks.
"Ara, Ara♪" The blonde gushed with her eyes closed, "An illicit meeting in a closed office building? Well, this one has no choice if her lord commands it!~"
"Ah." Lisa murmured just loud enough for everyone to hear, "Myself and the Boss..." A light dusting of pink crossed her cheeks, "...lewd."
"Mou, Darling." Tomo suddenly pouted, "How many times do I have to tell you, I'm more than enough woman for you!"
Gideon managed to get his mouth and nose free from the pleasant but suffocating confinement, 'I hate ruining their naughty, perverted and ultimately enjoyable fun, but business before pleasure...'
"We have a problem."
Instantly he felt Chise stiffen before she slowly and reluctantly slid off him while the smile on Saika and Lisa's faces had instantly been replaced by ice. Tomo's expression, momentarily, sent a dagger of unease through him as she swept into the ugliest expression of hatred for brief seconds and then shifting to an empty, blank mask.
He sighed, "Much as I wanted this weekend to be a false alarm leading to us having a nice day together...It isn't. In fact, the situation is bad enough that I'm recalling Katharina back from Hokkaido."
"Shit..." Chise muttered, "It must be bad if you're bringing back Shirai-chan from her clan."
"Katharina has been briefed and will meet us at the target location. I've made arrangements to transfer you, Lisa and Tomo to new schools in the area because we're going to be there for a long while." Gideon explained as he stood up and brushed himself down before motioning to the elevators, "Come on, I'll brief you in the office."
As the four of them fell in behind them, Gideon continued, "There was a reason we couldn't find the stolen hard-drives in Tokyo. They were moved...to Tobioka City." He stabbed the elevator call button, "They tried to crack the encryption but failed, so the Red Sparrows were hired to crack them instead. I believe that our mysterious proxy server in Tobioka is related to the group that stole the hard drives."
"Do we have a target?" Tomo whispered, face as empty as a shadowed corridor, "Do we know who stole the drives?"
"Yes, in fact." Gideon replied as he watched the floor numbers increase, "I hired our friend in Thailand to check out the proxy server. As it turns out, it is in fact linked to number of private and public email servers, mostly corporate and civilian linked to a number of our clients across all four main islands, but one stood out."
The elevator chimed and Gideon exited with the girls, "It was a hospital email server in Tobioka, the Mochizuki General Hospital. Likely another cut-out, a deniable asset." Gideon mentally snorted, 'Actually no, but I can't go up against Triage and their Ampoule teams just yet. i need to organise the Tobioka underworld, make them bow down to the Network.'
"I've heard rumors about Tobioka," Chise spoke up, "Supposedly there's a vigilante team there cleaning out the local underworld; they're a heavily armed group with a lot of training and skill, lots of natural talent too."
Gideon nodded, "About in line with what Nezumi informed me when I called him. But the fact is, Tobioka City's rampant corruption and crime rate was necessary in order to disguise the location of Backup Server Facility 4." He turned his head slightly as he stopped in front of the locked door that would lead past the servers underneath the air-conditioners, "If we lose BSF 4, we lose millions in lost revenue for this month alone, along with exposing hundreds of our clients to possible assassination and police retaliation. That is unacceptable."
He unlocked the door and a blast of cold air hit him in the face as he sighed, "As much as it pains me, we need to leave our cushy Tokyo high life and go rub elbows with the yokels." As they passed through the server room, Chise immediately glomped onto Gideon's arm and he sighed, "Didn't wear underwear again did you?"
"Nope!~"
He sighed at the retort, "Pervy exhibitionist pyro."
"You love it, and besides!" She twirled and posed, "I'm fireproof! No matter the burning heat of the flames, the fires of Evil Killer Firefly burn hotter and consume the heat of the world!" She went into another pose just as Gideon lightly stroked her head.
"Yeah, you're fireproof all right." He muttered just loud enough for her to hear before stopping at the security door, "No fires, no blades and no bullets will snuff out the raging inferno in your blood as long as you live." He unlocked the door, not looking back at Chise's expression while entering the main room of the infamous Japanese 'Criminal Hiring Site' that had caught the attention of not just Japan but the world.
It was known to those who haunted the Net as The Black Network, a Japan-only website hidden behind layers of proxies and fake IP addresses, a website that only those who frequented certain forums ever received the web address that allowed them to commit the ultimate dark thrill.
"I can hire someone to do a crime for me! And I won't be held accountable!"
Gideon snorted as he sat down in front of the screens, "It's something, isn't it girls? So many people wonder why Japan is sliding in decay after all the economic slumps and natural disasters, so many..." He span in his chair and his lips curled in a sardonic smile, "And all I have to do is point at this website for an answer."
Four silent, cold stares met his derision and Gideon sighed, "I've sent phonecalls to our agents in Tobioka, and BSF 4 is in fact under threat. They don't have anything truly concrete; four women and one man, heavily armed and well trained, and the only name we have is 'Black Label'."
"Black Label?" Saika questioned, "My lord, that sounds less like a vigilante group and more like one of Morino-san's live X-rated shows for her web-idol channel."
Chise snorted, eyes blazing with a cold fire as she fidgeted with a battered lighter.
"What is our plan Boss?" Akulova questioned, her posture a perfect image of a soldier at attention, "You mentioned a long-term operation."
"That is correct. As I have made mention to each of you several times in the past, Tobioka City is an untapped market for the Black Network, their criminal networks too close-knit for The Network to secure a proper foothold beyond the server facility and the safehouses for our intelligence agents. Nezumi has secured me a meeting with one of the local bigshots, Hideo Aranami."
He tapped a key and a picture of a heavy-set, bald and tattooed man appeared on the largest screen, "Owner of a very wide array of construction businesses under a single Aranami Construction Group, the main one being a concrete manufacturing company that has secured all of the local public construction contracts through a mixture of corner-cutting, graft, bribe-taking, physical and mental attacks on rival companies, hostile takeovers that often are at gunpoint...the point is that for some beach-bum yokel, Aranami and the Aranami Construction Group are big fish in a fucking kiddie pool who have managed to keep the Ingawa-Kai from stomping them."
"So why do we need him?" Tomo spoke up, "Why not kill him and have one of our contacts in the Honshu Clans move in?"
Gideon tapped a few more keys and displayed one of the Black Network's specially-decorated client emails, "Because Hideo Aranami wants to expand his business beyond some second-rate port town and to do that he needs to rustle up some introductions and contacts in Tokyo and in government. And I don't think I need to tell you that we have a large number of politicians making use of our services, hmm?"
"So the meeting is also part of the Network's duty as intermediaries..." Saika murmured, "Aranami is likely well-entrenched in Tobioka, so the only reason he would want to expand and likely leave that city..."
"Is to escape this vigilante group." Tomo finished, "He's using the Black Network to try and escape."
"Correct." Gideon nodded, "We get Aranami his meeting and we get our foothold in Tobioka. If he dies before the meeting? Then we still have a foothold because his son..." He brought up a picture of a male teenager dressed like the usual street trash all five of them dealt with on a daily basis as Gideon scoffed, "His son is a brainless, hedonistic shitheel who inherited his mother's good looks and none of his daddy's brains."
"So that means he'll likely focus on drugs, prostitutes and murder, the basics." Akulova surmised as she listed what Gideon had called 'the Gangbanger ABC' more than once, "Without the business and social acumen to maintain his father's crooked connections, they'll leave him out to dry. Which means an advisor, someone put in place to keep an eye on the brat and keep everything from falling apart."
"Masaki Jin." Gideon replied, bringing up an image of a sharp-dressed, shrewd-looking man with a disarming, charming smile, "Certified sociopath, snake-tongue mother fucker. Literally, he sold and then bought his own mother just to have the legal right to fuck her. According to Nezumi, he's been linked to the new 'Platinum Lily' drug making the rounds and might have links to more powerful organized criminal movements."
"He looks like a weasel," Chise suddenly spoke up, causing Gideon blink at her words before he turned and looked closer at the image.
"Huh...he does." He suddenly shook his head while Tomo and Saika suddenly moved closer to the screen to take a better look at the photo, "Anyway! This is just a lucky coincidence. We need to secure BSF 4 regardless of how well the meeting goes, and if it doesn't work out then we need to start establishing the Network the old-fashioned way."
"Kill the major gang-leaders, install our own candidates, and rake in the profits?" Lisa remarked, the Russian's stony expression at odds with the light humor in her voice.
"And then," Chise spoke up and she rubbed up against Gideon, "Maybe perhaps you can help sooth the burning in my-"
Whap.
"Naughty." Gideon chided while Chise rubbed her head from where Gideon had chopped it firmly, "Save it for later, Firebug, business comes first."
He looked at each and every one of the girls, who stared back with confident grins, "Ladies, what do you say we take a little sea-side, working vacation?"
"Yes sir!"
After making the preparations and agreements to meet up at Gideon's own apartment building for the trip (with reminders to pack for an extended stay until the rest of their stuff could be moved), Gideon said his goodbyes and locked up the office, feeling his phone vibrate with an SMS.
Looking at the message while starting the walk back to his place, Gideon typed out a curt reply.
>>Rolling out.
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the concrete in a Tokyo alleyway, the blast of electromagnetic energy destroying a security camera as the blinding flash faded a young man carefully stood up from the shallow crater in the alleyway, head turning in one direction and then another blearily before he noticed a sign in Japanese now flickering to life above his head.
Staring at the sign, the young man turned to stare at the sky, before rubbing his temples and walking off in a random direction.
It was a Sunday when Gideon walked into the office building with the key to his floor jingling in his hand as he approached the front desk, walked around the side and tapped at the security keypad for the elevators before smiling as they dinged as one, "Ah, Yuki, you darling little slut, remind me to have your boss give you a pay raise." Turning away from the desk, he watched the doors slide open to allow four new entrants, "Good morning ladies, sorry for the early start but we need to deal with this now rather than later."
He watched as they entered the lobby and looked them over.
Saika Bradley was in the lead as Gideon went over his memories; an illegitimate child between an American serviceman and a wealthy Japanese family, the kind of corrupt old money that had a finger in numerous zaibatsu and keiretsu with a family history going back to ancient feudal lords and possibly earlier.
Twenty-four years old with blonde hair and green eyes, Bradley had the kind of skin tone that reminded Gideon of James Bond movies; radiant but not pale, just light enough that you could compare her to porcelain. And considering the setting and the trope regarding American women, Gideon wasn't surprised her lithe, graceful form had a bosom that brought more than a few memories back of several H-Doujin he had read a long, long time ago.
As it turns out, when you live in a setting that has 'Ecchi' as an element of reality, you lose the spark of enjoyment rather quickly.
Even so, Gideon's eyes went to the scar along her throat, silently tracing another exposed by her bountiful cleavage, and the thigh-high slit along her skirt revealed a long leg that also had a faded, but still visible scar running up it.
Gideon didn't begrudge the woman her clinging to the bastardized Bushido she practiced, not after what her own 'family' of proud 'samurai' did to her.
His eyes shifted to the cheerful girl and the pale Russian walking side-by-side; unlike Saika, Chise Morino was practically a walking advertisement for the Kogal stereotype with darkly tanned skin, dark hair streaked through with various highlights, the loose and overly large socks forming a perfect image as she bounced along with her backpack slung over one shoulder.
Gideon didn't have to look far to see the various flame motifs on her bag nor the charm on her mobile phone as she showed off her new purchases to the Russian, and the way a bottle of lighter fluid peeked out of one pocket told Gideon that Chise had been doing more than just doing her routine visit to the capsule toy machines.
But then, why not allow her to set fire to a few things once in a while? Gideon could point out exactly where a line of cigar, not cigarette but actual cigar, burn scars ran up her spine like a twisted snake, he knew exactly where the cuts were made on her lower body and thighs, and the scars that used to be a set of numbers tattooed into her shoulder.
Not for the last time did Gideon wonder if he was going to be stuck in this universe of ultra-violent lunatics and fan-service as his eyes traced over to the third member, the Russian.
Akulova Elisaveta Tarasovna, Lisa when they were alone, was one that Gideon more than any of the other girls did not regret rescuing.
'No, that's wrong. I don't regret saving any of them, even if I do regret dragging them back into this life of bloodshed and horror. I just find myself prouder for saving her.' Gideon muttered inside his head as he met the pale Russian girl's eyes and she gave him a small smile that he returned with a short nod; Akulova Elisaveta was the same age as Chise at 19, and while Chise had a full bust that wouldn't be out of place on a porno set (and wasn't that ironic, considering what Chise had been doing when they met?), Lisa was visibly larger and Gideon had listened to Saika's complaints more than once about the 'Russkie' being nearly as big as her.
Gideon had learned to ignore the bouncing chests when he held meetings with the girls; it was with some mixed success that he managed to keep his eyes on theirs even if Lisa made it a point to show off her visibly muscular physique and taunt Bradley in Russian about how her genetics didn't need American blood to be perfect.
Gideon still made sure they never sat together. He already had to deal with the Cold War in miniature when they were near each other, the last thing he needed was World War 3, better to have the Cold War and occasional flashbacks to World War 2 that occurred when the two of them were drunk.
And if that didn't work? Gideon had photos he was more than willing to use to keep them quiet, 'Thank the Lord for the Christmas Party last year.' He thought to himself as his eyes landed on the last member to enter, even if she was technically the first to join his little criminal enterprise.
Tomo Otani, 16 years old, born into poverty and thankfully had a chest that was 'normal' for this reality, something Gideon was actually happy for since he had enough problems breathing when Bradley or Tarasovna decided to tag-team him or when Morino used him to settle an argument. Tomo was surprisingly normal, apart from the obvious.
She went to a private school, she was the Japanese equivalent to an honors student, she participated in numerous clubs and was the Student Council President through some kind of convoluted anime situation Gideon had no wish to try to understand.
'If only people knew...' Gideon thought to himself as Tomo noticed his stare and blushed lightly as she fidgeted with her pony tail, the action causing her blazer to shift just enough to provide a peak at a holstered handgun.
"Oh Boss-kun~" Chise's voice brought him out of his introspection just in time for a flash of color and then the college student's chest was enveloping him, "Did you really miss Chise-chan so much that you called her for a hot and steamy love-love session? I don't mind you asking the others to join us Boss-Kun, what with your appetite." She giggled as he managed to shift enough to see Saika placing her hands to her cheeks.
"Ara, Ara♪" The blonde gushed with her eyes closed, "An illicit meeting in a closed office building? Well, this one has no choice if her lord commands it!~"
"Ah." Lisa murmured just loud enough for everyone to hear, "Myself and the Boss..." A light dusting of pink crossed her cheeks, "...lewd."
"Mou, Darling." Tomo suddenly pouted, "How many times do I have to tell you, I'm more than enough woman for you!"
Gideon managed to get his mouth and nose free from the pleasant but suffocating confinement, 'I hate ruining their naughty, perverted and ultimately enjoyable fun, but business before pleasure...'
"We have a problem."
Instantly he felt Chise stiffen before she slowly and reluctantly slid off him while the smile on Saika and Lisa's faces had instantly been replaced by ice. Tomo's expression, momentarily, sent a dagger of unease through him as she swept into the ugliest expression of hatred for brief seconds and then shifting to an empty, blank mask.
He sighed, "Much as I wanted this weekend to be a false alarm leading to us having a nice day together...It isn't. In fact, the situation is bad enough that I'm recalling Katharina back from Hokkaido."
"Shit..." Chise muttered, "It must be bad if you're bringing back Shirai-chan from her clan."
"Katharina has been briefed and will meet us at the target location. I've made arrangements to transfer you, Lisa and Tomo to new schools in the area because we're going to be there for a long while." Gideon explained as he stood up and brushed himself down before motioning to the elevators, "Come on, I'll brief you in the office."
As the four of them fell in behind them, Gideon continued, "There was a reason we couldn't find the stolen hard-drives in Tokyo. They were moved...to Tobioka City." He stabbed the elevator call button, "They tried to crack the encryption but failed, so the Red Sparrows were hired to crack them instead. I believe that our mysterious proxy server in Tobioka is related to the group that stole the hard drives."
"Do we have a target?" Tomo whispered, face as empty as a shadowed corridor, "Do we know who stole the drives?"
"Yes, in fact." Gideon replied as he watched the floor numbers increase, "I hired our friend in Thailand to check out the proxy server. As it turns out, it is in fact linked to number of private and public email servers, mostly corporate and civilian linked to a number of our clients across all four main islands, but one stood out."
The elevator chimed and Gideon exited with the girls, "It was a hospital email server in Tobioka, the Mochizuki General Hospital. Likely another cut-out, a deniable asset." Gideon mentally snorted, 'Actually no, but I can't go up against Triage and their Ampoule teams just yet. i need to organise the Tobioka underworld, make them bow down to the Network.'
"I've heard rumors about Tobioka," Chise spoke up, "Supposedly there's a vigilante team there cleaning out the local underworld; they're a heavily armed group with a lot of training and skill, lots of natural talent too."
Gideon nodded, "About in line with what Nezumi informed me when I called him. But the fact is, Tobioka City's rampant corruption and crime rate was necessary in order to disguise the location of Backup Server Facility 4." He turned his head slightly as he stopped in front of the locked door that would lead past the servers underneath the air-conditioners, "If we lose BSF 4, we lose millions in lost revenue for this month alone, along with exposing hundreds of our clients to possible assassination and police retaliation. That is unacceptable."
He unlocked the door and a blast of cold air hit him in the face as he sighed, "As much as it pains me, we need to leave our cushy Tokyo high life and go rub elbows with the yokels." As they passed through the server room, Chise immediately glomped onto Gideon's arm and he sighed, "Didn't wear underwear again did you?"
"Nope!~"
He sighed at the retort, "Pervy exhibitionist pyro."
"You love it, and besides!" She twirled and posed, "I'm fireproof! No matter the burning heat of the flames, the fires of Evil Killer Firefly burn hotter and consume the heat of the world!" She went into another pose just as Gideon lightly stroked her head.
"Yeah, you're fireproof all right." He muttered just loud enough for her to hear before stopping at the security door, "No fires, no blades and no bullets will snuff out the raging inferno in your blood as long as you live." He unlocked the door, not looking back at Chise's expression while entering the main room of the infamous Japanese 'Criminal Hiring Site' that had caught the attention of not just Japan but the world.
It was known to those who haunted the Net as The Black Network, a Japan-only website hidden behind layers of proxies and fake IP addresses, a website that only those who frequented certain forums ever received the web address that allowed them to commit the ultimate dark thrill.
"I can hire someone to do a crime for me! And I won't be held accountable!"
Gideon snorted as he sat down in front of the screens, "It's something, isn't it girls? So many people wonder why Japan is sliding in decay after all the economic slumps and natural disasters, so many..." He span in his chair and his lips curled in a sardonic smile, "And all I have to do is point at this website for an answer."
Four silent, cold stares met his derision and Gideon sighed, "I've sent phonecalls to our agents in Tobioka, and BSF 4 is in fact under threat. They don't have anything truly concrete; four women and one man, heavily armed and well trained, and the only name we have is 'Black Label'."
"Black Label?" Saika questioned, "My lord, that sounds less like a vigilante group and more like one of Morino-san's live X-rated shows for her web-idol channel."
Chise snorted, eyes blazing with a cold fire as she fidgeted with a battered lighter.
"What is our plan Boss?" Akulova questioned, her posture a perfect image of a soldier at attention, "You mentioned a long-term operation."
"That is correct. As I have made mention to each of you several times in the past, Tobioka City is an untapped market for the Black Network, their criminal networks too close-knit for The Network to secure a proper foothold beyond the server facility and the safehouses for our intelligence agents. Nezumi has secured me a meeting with one of the local bigshots, Hideo Aranami."
He tapped a key and a picture of a heavy-set, bald and tattooed man appeared on the largest screen, "Owner of a very wide array of construction businesses under a single Aranami Construction Group, the main one being a concrete manufacturing company that has secured all of the local public construction contracts through a mixture of corner-cutting, graft, bribe-taking, physical and mental attacks on rival companies, hostile takeovers that often are at gunpoint...the point is that for some beach-bum yokel, Aranami and the Aranami Construction Group are big fish in a fucking kiddie pool who have managed to keep the Ingawa-Kai from stomping them."
"So why do we need him?" Tomo spoke up, "Why not kill him and have one of our contacts in the Honshu Clans move in?"
Gideon tapped a few more keys and displayed one of the Black Network's specially-decorated client emails, "Because Hideo Aranami wants to expand his business beyond some second-rate port town and to do that he needs to rustle up some introductions and contacts in Tokyo and in government. And I don't think I need to tell you that we have a large number of politicians making use of our services, hmm?"
"So the meeting is also part of the Network's duty as intermediaries..." Saika murmured, "Aranami is likely well-entrenched in Tobioka, so the only reason he would want to expand and likely leave that city..."
"Is to escape this vigilante group." Tomo finished, "He's using the Black Network to try and escape."
"Correct." Gideon nodded, "We get Aranami his meeting and we get our foothold in Tobioka. If he dies before the meeting? Then we still have a foothold because his son..." He brought up a picture of a male teenager dressed like the usual street trash all five of them dealt with on a daily basis as Gideon scoffed, "His son is a brainless, hedonistic shitheel who inherited his mother's good looks and none of his daddy's brains."
"So that means he'll likely focus on drugs, prostitutes and murder, the basics." Akulova surmised as she listed what Gideon had called 'the Gangbanger ABC' more than once, "Without the business and social acumen to maintain his father's crooked connections, they'll leave him out to dry. Which means an advisor, someone put in place to keep an eye on the brat and keep everything from falling apart."
"Masaki Jin." Gideon replied, bringing up an image of a sharp-dressed, shrewd-looking man with a disarming, charming smile, "Certified sociopath, snake-tongue mother fucker. Literally, he sold and then bought his own mother just to have the legal right to fuck her. According to Nezumi, he's been linked to the new 'Platinum Lily' drug making the rounds and might have links to more powerful organized criminal movements."
"He looks like a weasel," Chise suddenly spoke up, causing Gideon blink at her words before he turned and looked closer at the image.
"Huh...he does." He suddenly shook his head while Tomo and Saika suddenly moved closer to the screen to take a better look at the photo, "Anyway! This is just a lucky coincidence. We need to secure BSF 4 regardless of how well the meeting goes, and if it doesn't work out then we need to start establishing the Network the old-fashioned way."
"Kill the major gang-leaders, install our own candidates, and rake in the profits?" Lisa remarked, the Russian's stony expression at odds with the light humor in her voice.
"And then," Chise spoke up and she rubbed up against Gideon, "Maybe perhaps you can help sooth the burning in my-"
Whap.
"Naughty." Gideon chided while Chise rubbed her head from where Gideon had chopped it firmly, "Save it for later, Firebug, business comes first."
He looked at each and every one of the girls, who stared back with confident grins, "Ladies, what do you say we take a little sea-side, working vacation?"
"Yes sir!"
After making the preparations and agreements to meet up at Gideon's own apartment building for the trip (with reminders to pack for an extended stay until the rest of their stuff could be moved), Gideon said his goodbyes and locked up the office, feeling his phone vibrate with an SMS.
Looking at the message while starting the walk back to his place, Gideon typed out a curt reply.
>>Rolling out.
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