DD 204 Ch 36

The names from the UG weren't hard for me to track down. There were only five, and I was just crossing the second off my list.

I'd found him in a 20th-floor safe zone, hiding out amid a group of ruffians. He'd completely lost all the pomp and arrogance that everyone else I'd met from SJS had wielded before.

It felt good to see those who once thought themselves untouchable cower and hide.

In a way, I reveled in this work. I shouldn’t, but removing these people had a purpose for me on multiple levels.

And because of that, I didn’t take anyone with me on these jobs, unsure exactly how deep I’d go in satisfying the personal part of this.

Of course, I was doing this for the UG and for the stability they wanted, but a small part of me, deep in my heart, wanted to eradicate any traces of the people connected to my parents' death.

When the new president of the SJS had announced that my mother was killed, not because of some small rivalry between the Nagato and the Kaiming, but as part of a larger plot for SJS to get a stranglehold on powerful adventurer families, it made me want to ensure anyone associated with that plot was cut down, ripped up by the roots and burned.

Which was also why I was doing this on the weekend without telling the rest of my party. They absolutely would be right here next to me if they knew. But this was something personal, something I wanted to do on my own. Something I needed for full closure.

Activating [Eyes of Wisdom], I marveled at the ability's power. To be able to find anyone or anything within the dungeon was clearly not a common ability. Sure, it might just come off as a tracking ability to some, but I was almost certain that if I showed it to the Orkai, they would be very impressed. 

The next target wasn't far within the same safe zone.

I slid my weapons back into the sheaths at my hip and left the headless corpse to rot in the alley. My grandfather's trick of taking the head worked wonderfully, though it did make me feel a little like a serial killer to walk around with essentially a bag of heads in my CID.

Then again, I was an assassin walking around with a hitlist. I shouldn’t feel anything at all, so why did I decide to do this myself?

I was currently in a safe zone, and most people were walking around without a care in the world. Safe zones were relatively safe. The human ones were enforced by the UG, and now I learned that safe zones were enforced by the Orkai once they passed Star City.

Luckily the UG footprint in this particular safe zone was small, and probably why they hadn't found the two members lying within the area. These two had dressed themselves to look more like beggars to avoid detection.

As I swayed through the crowd, searching for my next target, UG guards scanned me, only to freeze in place and turn away as if I wasn't there. I wasn't sure why they reacted that way, but I had a feeling the UG had put some sort of note next to my name in their system. My own status within humanity was rising precipitously. 

I ducked past a doorway, only for several scantily clad women to coo at me. The smell of perfume hit my head and made my eyes water. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes so I could look around. 

"Oh my, he's a cute one," a woman past her prime, but still doing her best to look young, sauntered up in front of me.

I put a hand out to stop her. "I'm looking for someone." I told her.

"Oh well," she started to say something, but my eyes glowed blue, and the woman quickly stepped away as I moved past to find my target.

He had hidden in a brothel of all places, which did offer a bit of security. But the guards inside the establishment took one look at me before deciding I was not worth their lives.

I walked to the back, kicking down a door to find my target, Kev, amid three young ladies.

His head was moving back and forth as if he couldn't decide which one he wanted to kiss more. My shattering of the door had barely even bothered him. The two girls who didn't have their mouths presently occupied turned to see who had come in. 

One of the women tried to get his attention, but I moved faster than he could react. A throwing knife left my hand and landed in his shoulder, pinning him nicely to the bed.

The room’s full attention was now on me. The ladies squawked and shot out of the room, screaming for the guards and help. 

Meanwhile, Kev thrashed in the bed, ripping the knife out and squaring up to fight me. He came fast, but not fast enough.

I smacked my own throwing knife out of his hand before chopping him in the throat and collapsing his windpipe. I expected him to react like most, reaching for his throat, but instead he seemed to go into some rabid state as he tried to scratch me with his nails.

He got within a foot of me before I activated the [Sword of Omens], and an illusionary sword that stabbed him and pinned him in place. He froze, his eyes losing focus and his body losing strength. Yet somehow, despite the sudden lack of strength, it was as if the sword floating in the middle of him was holding him up. He sort of dangled from it where it had stabbed him in the chest. 

I moved quickly. Five seconds was a long time, but at the same time, it could pass quickly and I needed to move quick. I pulled his arms behind his back, and a rope appeared from my CID to loop back and forth before I tied it in a tight knot and shoved a thick cloth in his mouth.

By the time the stun ended, he was bound and gagged. Meanwhile, several others were running into the room to see what was happening. Most were in various states of undress.

"I don't think you want to do that," I said, looking at the low-level adventurers. "You ain't up for a fight."

"Yeah? And who are you?" Another waved a sword at me. 

"Me? I'm just the garbage man." I pointed down at the man at my feet. "He's wanted for betraying humanity to the Nagas." 

Several of the people who had come to protect him seemed to take a step back in that plan, their weapons drooping and their vigilance faltering. 

"He what?" A woman. 

"No way. He's here like every week." Somebody else said.

Kev was already free of his stun and began muffled protests around the gag in his mouth.

I had known that in such a public spot, it was going to be hard to walk out with him. So I would put this one on the UG and let them deal with the aftermath. "Take it up with the UG. I'm just doing my job." I gave them all a nonchalant shrug before kicking Kev up into my arms and throwing him over my shoulder. 

People went to stop me, but I was simply too fast. Compared to me using Sprint, these level 20 adventurers might as well have been standing still as I wove between them effortlessly, bringing the bound man with me on my shoulders. 

Kev here was particularly interesting to me. According to the web that I had seen from Director Ametto, he was the highest ranking, or at least the closest to the center of the web.

So after I'd escaped the brothel, I sped through the safe zone with him bouncing on my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

His muffled protest continued and his one attempt at using a skill failed spectacularly when I hit him hard enough to disrupt it.

I chose to ignore everyone until the safe zone had been left behind, along with anyone who would have stopped me. 

Those people at the brothel had drawn their weapons, but in reality, they hadn't done much. More than anything, it seemed like they were putting on a show. I didn't expect any of them to actually follow out of the safe zone and away from UG security to get this guy back.

So, this was as far as I’d go with him.

I dropped Kev down on the ground before I ripped the gag out of his mouth. 

"You can't do this." He frowned at me.

I smacked him hard enough to clear his head. "Alright, now that we've gotten past your whole megalomaniac you-can't-touch-me thing, let's get on to the whole answering-my-questions bit." 

Kev chuckled. "You have no idea how much shit you're in. Do you know what the SJS is?" 

I couldn't help but smile wide. "I know exactly what the SJS is; It's the organization that I've been dismantling quite successfully, my dear." 

Kev's face paled. "You, you're..." He squinted at me.

I had a mask on my face, and I pulled it down.

Kev groaned when he saw my face. "Fucking hell." He said.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm that handsome," I said with a smirk. "Now, if we could get on to the main topic. You see, there was a statement brought up to me recently that I need to verify." 

Kev looked me up and down. "You're the young heir of the Nagato clan, and you have that question for me, which means you want to know what sort of involvement SJS had in your parents' death. Am I right?" 

I tilted my head slightly, surprised that he had gotten to the point. He might have been smarter than some of the others. 

"You free me and you promise me on your honor, whatever it is, that you won't kill me, and I’ll share what you crave to know.” He told me.

I took a deep breath. "I hope what you have to say satisfies me, Kev. I promise I won't kill you." 

He grinned. "Your answer is yes. I was between the Kaiming and SJS. I mostly handled communications between the two. But my position granted me plenty of information. SJS planted your mother's entire party. Well, all but one. Three members were completely under their influence. And their express purpose was to get your mother on their side. You’d be surprised how easy it was to trickle money in front of most and lead them down into the organization until they couldn’t dream of getting out. With her flipped, the entire Nagato clan would be working for the SJS in due time. At that point, Nagato's would be bound by us rather than honor." He suppressed a smile.

“But she still refused to work with one of the world's leading financial institutions. It was ridiculous, to say the least.” He rolled his eyes.

“No, she just had a spine.” I growled.

Kev was unperturbed. “The man responsible for all of this worked for SJS, and that was a fact. His failure to flip your clan, your mother, and her clan, led to his demotion and the one that took over decided on a new approach. To cut the roots and apply pressure until the Nagato Clan withered.”

I grimaced. In truth, that plan had largely worked. My grandparents had begun reviving it, and we had brought back traitors from Kaiming. Even now, the clan estate sat at least half empty.

The Nagato Clan wasn’t half of what it was in its prime.

I lashed out with that pain and sliced his head from his shoulders before he could even realize I had gone back on my promise. I had heard enough and it was time to finish this.

Stuffing his head in my CID, I left the rest to rot. His own CID was simple enough to pluck off his wrist. I'd empty it of any value it had, though I was sure it was a pittance at most. Though, it certainly would be enough to buy nice flowers for my mother's grave. 

I stared down at his body for a moment before being thankful that I didn't bring any of the others with me. A part of me had known that some of my darkness would come out here. I wasn't interested in having to be good on this mission. In fact, a part of me desperately wanted to inflict pain on these people.

Anyway, it was time for the rest and right now I wanted to get it over with. The admission had turned the fire in me surprisingly cold.

I stepped through the portal back to the Nagato clan estate, waving it closed, content that the dungeon would take care of the rest of the body. 

"Ken!" Grandma Sakura had been walking through the courtyard as I appeared. She took one look at me before she frowned. "Come in. Rest. Eat. You look like..."

"No, I have a little more to do. I just needed a place to step into before I made another portal." I told her, lifting my CID to start figuring out the next route I’d take.

"Nonsense. You look like you could use a rest. I insist." She frowned at me in a way that I knew to listen to her or I wouldn’t like what happened next.

I took a deep breath, wanting to wrap this one up, but at the same time knowing that I was not in the right mental state to do delicate work. Perhaps she was right as an assassin I should cool my head and go back when I wasn’t so up in arms.

"Well, if you insist," I said, taking the offered excuse. 

"I do. Come, I'm sure we can find one of Himi's hidden cheesecakes." She ushered me inside.

"Oh, do you know where they're all hidden?" I asked, falling into step with her. 

"No, but it's not hard to find them. It's quite literally, 'Where will your grandfather not look?' Which is honestly a rather short list." She replied. “Or perhaps we all understand him well enough to know where they are. After all, we have the self control not to eat the entire thing.”

I chuckled and followed her into the dining hall, where a long table dominated the room. 

"I want to ask what you've been doing, but I will not. But can I ask who the client is?" She prodded.

"UG," I said simply. "You didn't ask, but it was remnants of the SJS."

Grandma Sakura hummed at that statement. "And you're doing it alone?”

“It seemed easier that way." I didn’t meet her eyes, not wanting her to see everything behind that answer.

She only pursed her lips. "We taught the others in your party some aspects of stealth so that you would not be doing this alone. Are there more names on the list?" 

I glanced down, nodding. "But it should be quick enough. I've been using [Eyes of Wisdom] to track them down.”

“Write the names down. Use your eyes on a map of the dungeon. And I'll have people from the clan take care of it. I do not condone you running around alone like some sort of lone wolf." She crossed her arms.

"Grandma, it's..."

She gave me a patented Sakura glare that told me to shut up. "It is not okay. Even in the line of assassins, becoming a lone wolf is incredibly dangerous. When things go wrong, and it is not an 'if', it is a 'when'. You do enough work, and something will eventually go wrong. When it does, it will pay to have the support. It will pay to have brought support with you, even if you don't think it was necessary for the mission in the first place." She told me.

I couldn't exactly refute her words. I knew how unpredictable the dungeon could be. Just because these targets were all in mostly low-level areas didn't stop the chance that there would always be a high-level adventurer in there somewhere to throw a massive wrench into my plans. 

"I understand, Grandma. I'm sorry." I replied dutifully.

"If you truly understood, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place." She walked past a small shrine and opened up the doors on it. It was almost painful for me as it revealed the pictures of my mother and father. A small incense stick was already prepared, just not lit. 

"Why are you opening the shrine?" I asked her, with more steel than I had meant in my voice. 

"A feeling, Ken. I spent a great deal of time watching over you in your teenage years. The only time you ever get this moody is when it's about your mother." She told me.

"My father died down there too." I told her.

"Yes, but let's be honest, you were always a bit of a mama's boy." She smirked at me, daring me to argue.

I chuckled. "Aren't most little kids clinging to their mother's skirts?"

"Yes, but you were a little old and still quite attached. I blame the fact that they were adventurers and often disappeared on dives, leaving you with us for weeks at a time. When they came back you might as well have been made of Velcro. But in the same breath, that also made it far easier for you to transition after they didn't come back up."

I snorted. ‘Easier’ didn't feel like an appropriate word. 

"Loss is never easy. You know that more than most. But not only from a singular direction, from both. Taking lives has a cost as well, Ken. You can mitigate that cost by putting a purpose behind your blade. However, I must ask you, this mission you've taken for the UG, how much of it was steeped in revenge?" She asked me.

"A fair bit," I admitted, reaching into the CID I had dangling from my fingertips. I reached in and found the most expensive item, a diamond-studded bracelet. I hung it on the corner of my mother's picture frame before finding a gold ring and placing it behind the incense stick on my father's.

"Don't dwell on it," Grandma Sakura warned. "It's not good for you or anyone else. Do any of the rest of your ladies know where you are?"

I hesitated. "They know I took the job.”

“And they didn't come?" She looked like she was about to rush off and find them, giving them her own lecture. 

"They didn't know I was currently on a job. They just knew I had one this weekend." Grandma Sakura clicked her tongue and tapped on our CID. "Well, now Crimson knows. Enjoy that. Oh, and here's one of the cheesecakes."

I groaned, but took the cheesecake, having no idea where she had just found the dessert.

Turning back to my mother’s shrine and took a deep breath, I tried to clear my mind. The stick of incense wafted smoke back and forth in front of my mother’s picture, creating a mesmerizing flow to watch while I breathed in and out.