4 Chapter 4

"What the heck happened!?" A portly man screamed at several hooded men lining up in front of him. "How did they become priority 1 protection targets!?"

"But we didn't do anything..." a voice spoke, but it was unclear from which man. "We were only going to do surveillance for the next few days... plus it's not like engaging the Earth Fiend was ever part of the plan..."

"Hey! Hey! How long've you been in this business!? Priority 1 protection means that they're preparing for archmage level threats!" The man screamed once more, "And that means?..." he asked to one of them.

The man simply stayed silent, which might've been the professional thing to do, but it only brought him a purple glowing fist to the body.

Despite the man's meager stature, his punch had elicited crackling sounds comparable to a kid stepping on bubble wrap, from his henchmen's body. Before it was blown away and turned into a fleshy pinball against the enclosed space.

"That means that somebody bigger than all of us is in play! 'We didn't so anything..," The man mocked, "What can you do in a fight between a half-step archmage and an archmage!? The mission's over! Any of you jump in there and we'll be like ants in the middle of a bull fight, we'll be lucky if we don't get trampled accidentally."

"I want a full report of what you guys observed by the hour! Now get out of here!"

Unbeknownst to anyone, there were 7 different groups having a similar location in different places.

And in only one of those did anyone actually get anywhere close to an answer.

"Hey man, you're specialty is scouting right? See anything special." A man asked his colleague discreetly.

"Nah man, all I saw was the Earth Fiend ducking." He replied.

'There's no way that I saw it properly, the enemy must've used some illusion magic or something to cover their attack.' The man thought, 'Even if it was real, what am I going to say? That the crippled kid was the one who attacked and injured the Earth Fiend?'

He decided to keep it to himself for good reason.

If they heard it, they'd either think that someone had played a trick on his magic or that he was going senile.

In his line of work, if they thought he could no longer be trusted to work, it wouldn't end with just him losing his job.

...

"Oy Lassie! Ta think ya'd let yaself get beaten by lowly assassins, who'da thought that you'd start deteriorating before I did." A croaky voice sounded from the phone.

"Oooh, 'deteriorating', you just learn that word today?" Curtis jabbed. "Kudos to the guys at the old folks home trying so hard to keep you from going senile, someone should tell them it's too late, cause I didn't get beaten."

"Not what ah heard." He replied, "Heard the measly assassin hurt ya pretty bad, want me to kiss your boo boo?"

"First of all, it was just a scratch, second of all, if you bring that urinal you call a mouth anywhere near me then you'll be losing the little bit of teeth you have left!" She screamed into the phone.

"So feisty, I wonder wha'cha mastah will say once she hears tha news..." He teased jokingly.

But apparently Curtis didn't get the memo as her face instantly paled, "Hey man! Let's not do anything ras..."

*Click* Her words were stopped short by the sound of the call getting cut off.

Curtis hunched over her table looking at the call end on her phone screen, sweat had at some point begun running down her body.

Looking at her friend, Akagi has begun to feel a little guilty.

This was the 16th call from one of her "acquaintances", and it was pretty clear that they fell into two categories.

It was either those who wanted to get into her good books or those who hated her guts.

Or sometimes... this weird combination of the two..

But it wasn't as if she could blame them, more times than not, she was in the latter category even though she was one of her best friends.

"Well... I can see that you have your own issues to deal with..." Akagi picked up her coat and her purse, but a hand held her arm as she was about to turn around.

'Damn!' She thought, regretting that she stayed so long because it was interesting to watch her suffer through those calls.

"Urgh..." Akagi groaned as she turned to see her friend, who was uncharacteristically depressed after the series of butt-kissing/mocking calls she'd just received.

"Akagi..." Despite the lifelessness Curtis portrayed, her feeble hands had an iron grip pulling Akagi in as if her resistance meant nothing whatsoever.

"What do you want?..." putting her hands up was all Akagi could do to make sure her face wasn't mushed against Curtis's.

"I need an unregistered passport, a foreign ID, and some funds for... eh.. about as long as I live..." Curtis asked. "With things being the way they are, it's better for me to disappear from here.."

"You're joking right? Just cause you were targeted by an assassin?" She replied at Curtis's exaggerated comments.

"Who cares about the assassin!? I've had 20 attempts at my life this year alone!"

"But it's only May.." Akagi recoiled from the revelation.

"Exactly! I have one of those every other week, but you called for whatever this is! And now I probably can't even go out in public without one of those powerhouses, families or their old bastards giving me sh*t! I probably won't even be able to get drunk in peace anymore!" She moped, her head dangled from her shaking shoulders which were propped up by her hands on the table. "I can no longer live here.."

"Haa.." Akagi held her head as she felt it throb from the incoming headache. "Why do you have to be so dramatic sometimes."

"Dramatic!? Who's being dramatic!?" Curtis glared at her, at some point, she'd gotten a suitcase onto the table and begun.. 'packing' (If one called dumping an unhealthy amount of alcohol into a too small carry on 'packing')

"You can't leave! You just got a kid you need to take care of." Akagi reasoned.

But she didn't expect the blunt response that was waiting for her, "That's right, well the return policy is a month right?"

"Return policy? It's a human kid, not a sales item you can refund!" Akagi shouted.

"Well..." *clack* Curtis's next potentially rude remarks were held in her mouth as the front door of the apartment opened to reveal Tasha, who didn't spare a glance at the two paused ladies the common area as he walked past them and entered his room.

..

It took awhile for the both of them to formulate all the questions in their heads into coherent thoughts.

"I thought you said he hadn't left the room since the attack." Akagi looked at Curtis accusingly.

"Look between the assassin and the amount of alcohol in my system last night.. and this morning.. up till now, it's really hard for me to keep track of one midget." Curtis answered.

"Well you still should've!" Akagi shouted, "Don't you think an assassin might try to take him hostage to get to you!?"

"Look, any assassin worth their salt would know their targets well." Curtis answered, "and if they did their research on me properly, they'd know that it'd be easier to get to me by keeping a 60 year old bottle of scotch hostage than the kid."

She was ready to pull her hair out, "Y'know, that boy might actually be safer with the assassin than with you."

"Good then, give him to that guy, I'm sure he'll be more than happy to take care of a kid who's more silent than a coma patient, hey he can take bring him along on 'bring your kid to work day'." Curtis answered, relieved by the thought, she wasn't exactly ready for this when it fell into her lap.

She turned to face Akagi with a whole "Here's Johnny!" kind of look, complete with the smile, "What do you think? He can get a babysitter on nights where he needs to try and kill me."

"Even though that sounds like a great plan... I can't, he needs you." Akagi replied, for a second she'd actually contemplated the notion.

"Oh come on!.. I'm sure there's people you can trust who can take care of him properly." Curtis groaned, she was hoping the unstable routine would've convinced her to take him off her hands.

"Well, we're not exactly sticking him with you because of your parental qualities.." Akagi said as she waved Curtis off.

"What's that supposed to mean?" The half drunk Curtis sobered up a little at those words.

Curtis looked shocked as she held her mouth, "Uh... nothing! Hahaha! We.. uh picked you because you're... a teacher.. Yes! Right!.. so even though you don't have like parental qualities, you have this uh... educator like quality to you!"

Looking at Curtis's stare, Akagi's back had begun to sweat for some reason.

"Man, you've been drinking some of my beer haven't you!?" Curtis complained, suddenly back in a cheery mood.

"Yes! That's right! Hahaha! Man I'm getting a little tipsy." She responded stiffly. "Tell you what, as an apology why don't I treat us for dinner, Tasha! Get ready, we're going out!"

"He never responds to anything we say or do, what makes you think food is going to budge him?" Curtis snapped.

But as if on cue, Tasha slid his door open and stood in front of Ritsuko staring at her intently.

The both of them had spent ample amounts of time and techniques trying to draw out a response from him so far.

The fact that he'd shown interest in anything was a monumental step forward compared to the non-existent results they'd had with him so far.

But due to their limited interactions with him and how controlled every facet of his life was, there was almost no chance for them to figure this out.

"Well... what would you like to eat?" Akagi instantly jumped in at the moment.

To her occupation, cases like his were completely irresistible.

God knows how much she'd been holding herself back to keep her professional facade, else she might've already cracked his head open with a sledgehammer to see what was inside.

Her enthusiasm however, was unrewarded, as Tasha simply looked at her blankly.

Her momentary excitement was cut short.

It felt as if she'd just gotten a car up and running, only for it to stop after rolling 10 centimeters forward.

"I got attacked today, had to answer a dozen annoying phone calls, half of whom's names I didn't even recognize.. and worst of all! You drank my beer!" Curtis interjected with her poignant, vomit inducing breath accompanied words. "..So if ANYBODY is going to pick the place we're going to eat for free tonight, it's going to be ME!"

While Akagi was looking at her drunken friend in disgust. She just missed the accusing look Tasha gave her for sticking him with Curtis in the first place.

"Don't worry bud, I know you're not sure what you want to eat, so this is me backing you up!" Curtis shouted as she approached Tasha, who responded by closing his room doors once more.