6 Asset

The solid greyish matt metal door stood in front of me. Three inches thick for blast and fire protection. A security pin pad at the side with a dud eye scanner. Useless, by the way. Great for emergencies if someone was accidentally turned mortal. Or if the police ever turns up.

I don't like take risks on fail-safes. Even if there is 0.00000000001% probability of something happening, there's a threat. 

Slipping through the door was easy. Second obstacle - the secondary archaic spells against mortals and yōkai. They only respond to a select group in the circle. Me included. To most humans, this will be a plain grey room full of useless old documents. That's the decoy, which sends nosy humans straight to the mental hospital when they start insisting on the supernatural. 

The energy fields lighted up and then faded. I walked through the wall. Easy peasy portal. Those hi tech assassin Hollywood films are nothing compared to this section.

The portal leads to Kakuriyo, our hidden haven realm. No need for a secret door or an automated shelving system. Everything can be invisibly stored and pulled out when needed in Kakuriyo. Even mortal weapons. 

My fellow serpent yōkai, Daija, is in his human form again, sitting at the table, carefully polishing a tantō. Judging from the short sword's forged length of approximately 40 centimeters long, that relic was probably from the Kamakura period.

He stopped and looked up. Then proceeded to sheath his tantō. In a blink, it disappeared. 

"Gun." he held out his hand. 

Oh yeah, I like it when he knows what I want.

Pulling my Glock pistol out of the holster, I placed it in his hand.  

Why couldn't dad give me a cool brother like this? Instead of a crazy one. Ah well never mind, big brother can't do much after being sealed. Oh wait, Daija is too sentimental for me at times. 

His brooding good looks remind me of the tales which the humans told about him. Some garbage about a demon falling in love with a mortal.

The real story is that pretty boy yōkai here met a pretty human girl near a lake who needed company and they kept meeting up for strolls. Oh no, Daija wasn't in love with her. Just like every deity, human and yōkai, we like pets. 

Seen a human pulling a damn baby stroller occupied by a small dog wearing sunglasses and a mobile fan blowing at it? That's not love. That's obsession. Same with Daija, who was obsessed with having her as a pet. She thought he was in love with her and mistakenly reciprocated.

One thing led to another, and she drowned. 

We never forget our first pets. That's how Daija got his pet cherry popped. The everlasting sweet memory of our first time enjoying the power of fully controlling a living creature, sticks like superglue.

A pet can live or die on our whim. It eats when we feed it. Sits when we order it. Plays when we allow it. Fucks when we want it to. That's like humans sending their precious pedigree to breed with another. No love involved in pet breeding despite the human hypocritical views of 'marrying for love' in regards to their species.

So Daija here has been sulking for centuries. Over some dead pet of a girl.

Never mind his foolishness, he is a quick worker. Intelligent as well. His talent is weapons handling and modifications. 

Raising his eyebrow at me, he popped the magazine out from the pistol with his nimble fingers.

Ah damn! I forgot the fucking magazine!

"I don't suppose your magazine needs cleaning?"

Hearty har har. Sarcastic asshole. 

"If you want." he shrugged as he left the magazine neatly on the side.

Pulling back the slide, he released the lever. Quickly, his fingers worked around in a blur. A click. Off came the slide. Then the recoil spring assembly. Finally, the barrel.

All neatly arranged on his table like a surgeon's tray. 15 seconds flat. Daija had what the humans call 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder', OCD for short. 

Just oh say, push the barrel a little off to ruin the parallel arrangement. 

"Don't touch," he hissed softly and pushed it back to the original position before pulling the cleaning implements out from Kakuriyo empty space. Cotton buds and all. Plus some gun lubricating oil. 

He quickly cleaned the barrel, as though my fingers had some dreadful curse on it.

OH, COME ON, lemme lemme mess your space… pretty please…

He looks so cute when he is really pissed off. 

"You can go out and do your business in Kakuriyo if you want. It will take a while… considering…" he paused as he looked carefully through the barrel. 

"You haven't cleaned it for a while, you dirty girl."

His fucking OCD can go kiss my ass. I don't need to clean a Glock that often. It hasn't even unloaded a full magazine. 

I moved up closer to him, bent over to whisper into his ear. "How about you clean it for me… I know I have been really bad."

Ahhh, he froze as I ran my fingers over his shoulder. This makes him so lovable. Oh, that blush on his handsome sharp features. An indicator when a cold blooded serpent yōkai has fed recently.

He regained his composure and continued to clean the barrel, discarding one blackish gun residue stained cotton bud after another. 

"Seriously, go fuck with someone else," he muttered. 

Ouch,rejection, I am so hurt. Not. The only reason he is working with me is because of my human form's resemblance to his pet. Not to mention the idiotic villages giving her my name. 

My iPhone beeped. Kakuriyo can sometimes receive cell phone signals from the parallel realm as long as its location is tied to the mortal location. 

New message. 

[Honmaguro Auction Details. Toyosu Market. Regular time. Reply yes to invite]

To escape possible mobile phone monitoring, no thanks to human terrorists, everything had become a code. A high level assassination with a going price of above 20 million Japanese yen was named after one of the most expensive tuna fishes. Toyosu market, where the actual tuna auction took place, was a code for the go ahead. It used to be 'Tsukiji' but old Tsukiji was only a memory now. Timing was dependent on the customer. Regular time in this case was a month to get the job done. 

These cases cannot just die in a supernatural way. There were complications which required a human weapon. Sometimes a very complex purpose laid behind it - like starting a bloody war between humans. Hence the exorbitant price charged. 

My fingers tap the confirmation reply.

[Yes]

"Another high-level job?" Daija asked. 

"Uhhuh."

He pulled out a new magazine of bullets out from Kakuriyo. "Take this one as well. It's new."

That is what I deem a true asset to our corporation. He is always one step ahead.