Raiden walked alongside them but remained quiet, he had purposely stopped coming down here and being around Alexandria for a reason that was pretty much hidden from everyone. Or was it not?
"Alright. Let's make our way to the apartment blocks. I got the okay to come visit her.."
"Okay that's fine with me.
Raiden let Gharma lead the way and led Alexandria to the Apartment blocks to meet Gharma's contact. They waited until they were at apartment 224, a little walk from where they were initially. He knocked on the door, patiently waiting.
"It may take her a second to answer the door. Give it a bit."
Raiden nodded and waited for her to open up the door, He was thinking about how a strong woman could possibly be a huge muscular girl and that grossed him out slightly just thinking about it.
However, he was met with the opposite. A somewhat small girl in messy attire opened the door. A cat slowly peeped out from behind her. She was probably no bigger than Yuki, and her eyes were rather dark and lifeless. Not because of anything other than the fact that she was usually in the house. Rotting. Despite all this, she was still beautiful and if she put herself together she could probably be one of the best looking girls on their campuses. She looked at Alex and Raiden and Yawned, scratching her head.
"Ah. What brings the party here to my house of all places? I stopped doing that a little while ago."
Raiden looked her up and down and suddenly his attention was caught by the cat, Raiden didn't really have any animals at the palace but he loved cats. He almost immediately dropped down and called out to it with small clicks to get its attention. Alex looked at her and tilted her head.
"So Gharma… you brought us to a bed rotter?"
"Oh! Not the party. Looks like you guys came here to judge me?"
She looked at Alex.
"Maybe you should take more fashion tips from me who the fuck are you impressing with your little get up?"
Raiden was completely distracted by the cat, continuing to call it towards him with a cutesy smile on his face clearly amused by it. He didn't want any parts of their argument.
"Fashion tips? You look like you just crawled out of a grave with an ugly ass cat."
"Hey well here's a suggestion and this is a complete shot in the dark. How about I fucking kill you right here right now and you can play on the ground with my cat? What about that?"
Raiden looked up at Sayama a little nervous as he blanked out of the previous conversation.
"Hey so we got a proposition for you."
Alexandria was about to chip in before Raiden interrupted, she angrily pouted behind the two as they talked to Sayama.
"Yeah that's right. You don't want to fight me."
She rolled her eyes.
"What are you selling?"
Gharma looked at Alex and back at Sayama.
"We want you to join our brigade. We're going to start doing jobs around town and building a business. We figured you'd join since you need a job, and you need to get outside Sayama."
He looked on at her outfit. Even though Gharma was consistently in the streets he never let himself go. He always was dressed in expensive designer clothes, custom clothes he got from doing people favors in his younger times. He looked on.
"The girl you talked to is Alex..and this is my brother Raiden. You work for us and we'll guarantee you enough money to move out of this place. I know you want to see the school and other things in the world. There's nothing here in the city."
Raiden nodded with Gharma.
"It's a cool job too, something that will always keep you on your toes no matter what, the only requirement is that you work with us and not against us you know?
"Well..how much are you paying and what exactly do you need? I need a description before I can help. I don't want to get caught up with the feds or anything. Not with your connections. What do you have for me?"
"Well… we're recruiting people for Mercenary work, we created a band of Mercs called the Crimson Tiger, we could pay you in whatever you want, money, a place to stay, discounts at stores, it also comes with a reputation that will proceed what we have now."
"Huh…Discounts at stores and money…Alright…"
She opened the door for them.
"Come in and let's take a look."
Raiden excitedly entered the apartment, picking up the cat and petting it some more. He waited for everyone else to come inside as he continued expressing his happiness with the small animal. Alexandria hesitantly followed after Raiden staying close to him, not saying anything as her job was to listen to the two and nothing more.
Sayama walked over to her desk where she had a bunch of monitors set up. Another cat came from one of the rooms and hopped on her lap as she pet its fur, running her fingers alongside it's back.
"Alright. Mercenary Work. Who are we looking for?"
"Cynil Zenin, I think my cousin already got a good head start since we can essentially track her due to our blood ties but they might need back up… after that if you want to remain in the group you can… we're gonna do jobs together and rack up money and a reputation together." Raiden peered over at the other cat that had hopped up onto her lap with curiosity.
Saya typed on the keyboard for a few seconds before a picture of her appeared on the screen. She sipped her cold up of coffee looking back.
"I've got directions to where she is…I can also find out about the people who took her..I heard about it in the news this morning."
Raiden looked back at Sayama with a smile. "Yeah that would be really helpful! I'll make sure to pay you back big time."
She continued to type, opening up programs on her computer and typing code, altering the way the programs worked.
"I have the police data report. They're currently collecting data for a billion dollar project. So, they may not necessarily be trying to do anything with Cynil in this world..they're trying to build an entirely new thing."
She opened a browser, searching up the company that had a specific symbol. She spun around in her chair.
"Im quite sure you've heard of Tairiku..Haven't you?"
"Of course I have… the famed legendary battle, the last battle of the old world into the new… my father was in that battle so I know a little bit about it…"
"Im not sure if you've heard of Yufūkuna Nayvadius but in terms of net worth and capital gain hes tne richest man in the world. He bought the entire land of Tairiku, as well as over half the sea. With the use of a world Toyoko created there long ago..and with a legendary sage breaking him and his wife out..from what i've gathered they're building another world there..They're planning on ripping trillions of dollars in profit from this..because it'll appeal to kids and fighters at the same time, sponsoring a global competition to climb to the ranks. A digitalized world."
"No? I don't recognize the name… is there a picture of him or something? And a digitalized world? We can't let that happen… we have to stop him at all costs… but if that's what is taking Cynil then…"
"Well they're scanning her to be used in the game world…Here…"
She searched and pulled up the picture of the brown haired man.
Raidens eyes shot wide open and he looked at the man's face.
"I've seen him before… he infiltrated the palace about three days ago… he was there in the kitchen after I got Gharma to join the team…"
"Huh? Really? How did he get past all the security? I don't even think I could get past them if I seriously tried. That place is on lockdown practically."
"He just… appeared… and Shizu asked the same question as him…"
Raiden carried a thousand yard stare at the ground thinking about the man that he had just seen a picture of.
"I don't know why but he's after me for something… some reason he wants my attention…"
"Who knows anything about him? Trying to start this game? Buying out the entirety of the sea square inch for square inch? All of his family miraculously disappeared? Unmarried, No children, No family..He's an enigma..but the Zenin genes are being injected into that game for the…and hes definitely apart of it."
"Then we need to get to it as soon as possible… We can't have Cynil's blood be used as a method of creating super soldiers. If we can get to Yuki then we can help too."
"Last police report says they're in the plains somewhere…on the outskirts of the cities. She was transferred there but that's where her Mana signature stopped."
Raiden gently put the cat down and shot up.
"We have to hurry then… they're outside of the nations jurisdiction, if they get into issues it's gonna be hard for us to recover them."
"So we leaving already? Looks like you were pretty comfortable."
"Of course the cats are cool but we have to make sure Yuki doesn't get taken either, it's just gonna fuel this guys plan and there's nothing we can do about it if we sit here!"
"Alright Alright…We need to be lead the way..and we need a plan.."
"Well… there's enough of us right? We can charge head on. Sayama was it? Is there any digging you can do on the location or anything deeper?"
"Unfortunately my system only goes as far as pinpointing a mana source. They have device blockers all around that area. I can't see or search for anything else."
"So if we can try and pinpoint the area where Mana is vacant do you think we could find the area considering Mana surrounds all living things?"
"Not necessarily…because of your sister or whatever started to break in who knows what kind of guards they have up there…Though that is a decent idea and I can search around."
"It's my cousin and her last place was outside of the kingdoms, that's the last time I could sense her at least, not too far away but outside of the borderlands from what I know… if we can find it outside of the borders then we can pinpoint it for sure."
"Your call Raiden. Which one are we going to then?"
"We need to go… if we can intervene then we have to at least provide a distraction or some sort of diversion…"
"Alright..Let's go." Gharma left out the door and ran outside, heading toward the plains. Raiden followed suit with Alexandria following behind them, leading them to their next battle.