All five members of Company 8 were inside their matchbox, dressed in their black and grey bunker gear.
In the driver's seat was the Lieutenant. While the Captain, Maki, Sister Iris, and Chrollo were in the back.
"This is our first outing as a company. Be prepared, and watch eachother's backs," Captain Ōbi said.
They all nodded.
"You said this is the first time for our company?" Chrollo asked. He noticed the serious looks on everyone's faces.
"Yes. The company was formed about a month ago, but we couldn't officially go and start putting infernals to rest until the holy sol temple sent us someone. Sister Iris joined us a few days ago, but we didn't have any cases of infernals until now. So yes, this is the first official mission of Company 8," Captain Ōbi said. Chrollo can see tension all over the captain's face.
Shortly after, they arrived at the scene. It was a residential area and in the middle of the street, there was an infernal in white robes. It was launching fire attacks indiscriminately.
Captain Ōbi looked at his team, "Alright, I want us to do this without any mistakes. Maki, Chrollo, you two engage the infernal. Hinawa, make sure no civilians get close. Sister, stay close to me."
"Sir!" The all replied
Chrollo created two fireballs, "These are for you, Maki."
She nodded and used her abilities to take over those flames and turn them into her Sputter and Flare.
Seeing the fire soldiers approaching, the infernal launched a fire attack at them.
Maki put her hands out to stop the flames. Chrollo did the same; he was about to block the attack and counter, but Captain Ōbi jumped in front of them with a shield.
"I'll shield you two, go and take it down."
Chrollo nodded and created a spear out of plasma and fired it at the infernal.
It dodged to the side, but one of its legs was cut off.
Maki took this chance to launch her attack using sputter and flare. The attack launched the infernal high into the air.
"Sister, start the prayer," Chrollo said. His heat vision locked onto the infernal's core.
"Right! The flame is the soul's breath, black smoke is the soul's release, ashes thou wert and art-" sister Iris started.
"-may thy soul return to the great flame of fire. Látom." Chrollo finished the prayer as he wrapped his hand in plasma and pierced through the infernal's core before it even landed.
The remains turned into ashes and vanished into the wind.
"Great work, everyone!" Captain Ōbi said as all of them walked towards the matchbox. He was happy to see his team work together so smoothly. The fight ended fast and cleanly; he was very impressed.
"I asked around, and this person was alone when he combusted. There is no next of kin here. We will have to add that to our report," The lieutenant said as he joined them.
"Right." The Captain nodded
The team left the area. They arrived at their base shortly after.
"That was a job well done. Finish your reports and then come to my office," The Captain said
They all nodded and got to work. They each had to write their reports regarding what had happened. Each of the reports was reviewed by the Lieutenant before he signed off on them. Then all of their reports are placed in one file.
Once the paperwork was done, they went into the captain's office. Captain Ōbi was looking over some documents. But he stopped when they entered his office.
Maki, Chrollo, and Sister Iris lined up in front of the captain. Lieutenant Hinawa stood next to the captain.
"The paperwork is done? That's good. I brought you all here to talk about the mission of Company 8."
No one interrupted him, "Our mission is to put infernals to rest and save people, but that's not all. As you all may know, each company is working independently, and they each view each other as competition, in an unhealthy way."
"They keep information to themselves. Information about what SHC really is. Information about what causes it, and maybe even leads on how to stop it. We are to investigate the other companies. That is our mission. Today, I got to see our company at work. Today was our first day as a team, and I'm certain that if there is anyone who can take on this monumental mission, it's those standing in this room."
Everyone in the room had a serious look on their faces. They understood the severity of their mission.
"We have our first chance to launch an investigation," Captain Ōbi continued. He picked the piece of paper he was looking at earlier and held it for all to see.
"This is Setsuo Miyamoto. He is suspected of murdering people. He is a soldier of the fifth company. Usually, we can't get involved in the matters of other companies, not publicly at least. But he is suspected of killing someone from our jurisdiction." Captain Ōbi finished as he nodded to the Lieutenant.
"We don't have any evidence of this," Lieutenant Hinawa started. "He is covering himself really well, and the fifth might be helping him cover up his crimes. We are trying to get to the bottom of this. We will use this to infiltrate the fifth and do our own investigation,"
"Chrollo and Hinawa will go to the fifth under the pretense of following some leads and investigating the murder that happened in our jurisdiction." Captain Ōbi added
"But first, we will need to send a formal request to look at their records of the incident. Once we have their approval, we will go there," the lieutenant said
They all nodded in agreement, but Chrollo noticed Sister Iris clenching her hands tightly. 'She's probably thinking about Hibana.'
After that, they were dismissed. Chrollo was about to head to his room to relax, but he saw Sister Iris leaving the office with a serious look on her face.
He followed her. After she left the office, she started making her way towards the water fountain. The same one she uses for cleansing.
"Sister Iris," he called out to her. He had caught up to her in the hallway.
"Huh? Oh, hi, Chrollo. Do you need something?" She turned around and looked at him. She had a smile on her face. 'She looks pretty, even when she's sad.'
"I noticed something was on your mind earlier. Does it have to do with what Captain Ōbi said, about the fifth helping cover up crimes, I mean."
Her smile faltered for a second. "Um, yeah. I guess you're pretty sharp, huh? I thought I hid it well."
Chrollo walked closer to her. "If there is something on your mind, sister, you can talk to me. I'm a pretty good listener."
"Thank you, Chrollo, I'm just sad over the loss of human life, that's all."
"You're a very kind person, sister Iris. But also a bad liar." Chrollo said as he turned and walked away.
The next day, Chrollo was training his fire control. He has a lot of big, powerful attacks, but he couldn't use them all the time. Unlike Asakusa, where destroying a couple of houses was fine, in the city, that would be unacceptable.
He was thinking back to the infernal from yesterday; he should've been able to annihilate it with his first attack, but he was too slow.
'I lack fighting experience. I need to improve more.'
Today, he was trying to create something small and quick, something that can be used in the city or a tight area. Something small so it wouldn't hurt others around him.
He was thinking back to other fire users from other works of fiction. Thanks to his abilities, he can recreate pretty much any fire move he's seen before.
Most powerful fire users in fiction had strong, but massive attacks. The head captain from Bleach. Natsu from Fairy Tail. Madara from Naruto. Escanor from TSDS. Ace from One Piece. All of them had their own ways of using fire. But none were subtle.
He opened his hand, and a fireball floated over his palm. The fireball in front of him turned into plasma. 'I think I will use fire for big attacks, but I'll keep plasma for more precise attacks. I was able to launch plasma projectiles, but they were slow, and that infernal was able to dodge them mostly. I should be able to launch them fast.'
While Chrollo was training, others were doing their own thing.
Maki was working out in the gym. Iris was praying and cleansing herself by the water fountain. Hinawa was maintaining his guns.
Captain Ōbi was on the phone with someone..