Chapter 9: Her Heart Might Be in the Right Place, but Her Priorities Are Not
Around six in the morning, in a dark, musty hotel room, a man in black clothing sat on the edge of the bed, steeling himself to make a call. His dread was understandable—reporting failure was nerve-wracking for anyone. But in an organization steeped in blood, failure could be fatal.
He stared at his burner phone, running mental gymnastics.
'Damn', he thought bitterly.
It was more than embarrassment—he had assured his boss last time that the mission would be simple. The targets were "only kids," after all. Yet here he was, humiliated and empty-handed. In all his years working as a killer, he'd never felt so incompetent.
With a breath through clenched teeth, he finally pressed the call button.
The line picked up after a few rings.
"What do you have to report?"
The voice on the other end was sharp and direct.
Jackal wanted to cry. Not that he'd expected his boss to make small talk or ask how his morning was going—but he'd hoped for a few more seconds before the hammer dropped.
"Boss. The mission's been... delayed. Due to a few complications, I—"
"Spare me."
The voice cut in immediately, laced with contempt.
"Let me guess—you actually believed this would be easy. That because they're just kids, you didn't need to try. I warned you not to underestimate them."
There was a pause, followed by a low growl through the line.
"Jackal, I've said it before. You need results on this mission. You've already messed up the last two. Three strikes, and you're out. I'm not going to keep covering for your poor performance."
"The Guild doesn't keep incompetents. Understood?"
Jackal clenched his jaw, the familiar fury bubbling under his skin—but he forced it down.
"Yes, sir," he replied curtly.
"Good. I don't want excuses. Just give me the report—why has the mission been delayed?" the man said, voice clipped and controlled.
Jackal quickly outlined everything that had happened since their last conversation.
There was a pause. Then the boss replied, his tone calm but laced with calculated interest.
"So it wasn't exaggerated after all."
"You've landed yourself in something unusually complicated, Jackal. I reviewed the older files on this boy, but I assumed most of it was rumor stacked on coincidence. Now I'm not so sure."
His voice sharpened slightly, words precise.
"The anomaly around him was first noticed by a businessman. The story goes that his five-year-old son had a friend—a boy who won every game of chance they played. Nothing major at first. But the pattern held. Accidents that should have hurt him didn't. Misfortune veered away from him like smoke from a fan."
"The businessman got greedy. Thought he could harness that kind of luck. He hired people to abduct the boy." A beat. "Every one of them failed. Some disappeared. A few broke down mentally. And the man's business? Collapsed under pressure that didn't make sense on paper."
He paused, letting the weight of the information settle.
"Many of those people—including the businessman who started it all—went mad with regret and frustration," the boss continued, his tone matter-of-fact but laced with quiet disdain. "They lost sight of the original goal. They weren't thinking about kidnapping the boy anymore. They just wanted to punish him for defying them… again and again."
Jackal stayed silent, listening intently as the man's voice took on a darker edge.
"They lashed out. Tried to kill him in fits of obsession and resentment. They didn't know—couldn't have known—that the boy's luck wasn't the only thing protecting him."
A brief pause.
"His parents were awakeners. Quiet ones. Hidden. But deadly when provoked."
He let the words hang in the air for a moment, letting the implications settle.
"Every last one of those idiots died for their impulsiveness. They walked into a minefield and got exactly what they deserved."
Jackal's jaw tightened. It wasn't often that he felt humbled by another professional's failures—but he could tell this wasn't just exaggeration. This was patterned failure.
"But that," the boss said, voice shifting from cold to curious, "was only the beginning."
He leaned back in his chair—Jackal could hear the faint creak through the receiver.
"If a greedy, short-sighted businessman could notice that boy's anomaly... do you really think others wouldn't?" His tone grew sharper, as if amused by the obviousness of it.
"More tried. More failed. Eventually, the reports reached the main branch."
Jackal stiffened at the mention. He didn't like thinking about the main branch—technically, their assassin guild operated as a side branch under the Crimson Pact's umbrella. But the main branch members? They were like a different species altogether.
Even someone like him—a hardened killer with a long list of crimes—got the creeps just being near them.
"A boy with a physique like that? There's no way those freaks would ignore him. He was practically custom-made for one of their sacrifices," the man said calmly.
"Like ants to sugar, they've been sending wave after wave of their side-branch operatives to try and snatch the boy. But so far, they've had no luck—no real opportunity to act. They've been so singularly obsessed with turning him into their next offering that they completely missed the bigger picture."
His voice took on a sharper edge.
"They didn't even realize that Harold Graves is the phantom thief we've been hunting all these years."
There was a pause, a flicker of satisfaction in his tone.
"But that's for the best. It means we're the only ones who've put the pieces together. If our branch is the one to locate and harness the artifact's power…"
Now his voice grew hungry with ambition.
"Then maybe—just maybe—we won't be a side branch much longer. Maybe we'll be the new main branch."
While Jackal remained skeptical about the idea of replacing the main branch—his impression of them ran too deep to dismiss—he kept his mouth shut. It wasn't the first time he'd heard his boss voice such ambitions.
His boss was a legendary figure within their branch, known by the codename Sable. In his younger years, he was a rising star—one of the top-ranked assassins among the unranked and iron tiers. Had it not been for a devastating injury during a mission gone wrong, he likely would have advanced to bronze tier and beyond.
Though the injury left him stuck at peak iron tier, Sable's ambition only grew bolder.
How could a man once hailed as a prodigy simply accept mediocrity?
Even with his strength permanently crippled, he clawed his way up the ranks—not with brute force, but through cunning, ruthless strategy, and unshakable will. Bit by bit, tooth and nail, he rose until he reached the top of the guild and seized leadership.
But with his unstable standing, challengers constantly circled like vultures, eager to tear him down. The fact that he'd maintained power this long, despite his physical limitations, was a testament to just how dangerous and relentless he truly was.
Sable likely wanted the artifact not only to solidify his position as the leader of their faction, but also to overcome the physical limitations his injury had imposed—so he could one day challenge the main branch directly.
After all, even within the same organization, how could a group of criminals be expected to hold monogamous ideals of loyalty or unity? They weren't comrades fighting for a shared cause—they were a cage full of ravenous beasts, each clawing for dominance in a brutal game of survival.
"Jackal, let's accomplish what others couldn't," Sable said, his voice calm but resolute. "It will be arduous—but if we succeed, the outcome will justify any cost."
—----
In another part of the city, a girl with short hair lay asleep in a small apartment. The walls were old and peeling, but they were covered in pop art posters and all sorts of doodles. The furniture was minimal, yet arranged to feel cozy.
Her sleep was abruptly interrupted by loud banging on the door. Grumbling, she got up, ready to yell at whoever had ruined her rest. But when she opened the door, she was met with the sight of a tall, handsome young man in a casual suit. He had short, dark hair—and around the eyes and brow, a resemblance to her was unmistakable.
Her brows furrowed as she recognized him.
"What do you want, big brother?" she asked, annoyed. "You'd better have a damn good reason for showing up and interrupting my sleep after I left the family."
The young man—her cousin—glanced around the apartment before replying.
"Mina," he said, pausing as his gaze swept over the old, shabby space. "I still don't understand why you insist on staying in a place like this."
His tone was flat, with just a trace of disdain.
"I'd rather live in a dump than listen to Grandpa's arrangements," Mina grumbled, trying to smooth the stubborn cowlick in her hair. Her eyes flickered with disgust. "No way I'm getting married for the sake of the family. I don't care if Grandpa wants to 'keep the bloodline strong.' I'll choose who I marry, period."
Her cousin regarded her with thinly veiled disdain. "It's our duty to uphold the strength of the Takayama family, Mina. Do you have any idea how many rival forces would leap at the chance to tear us down if we ever showed weakness? You're incredibly talented, yet you insist on wasting away in this cramped apartment, surrounded by unawakened weaklings and ignorant civilians. In another country, no less."
Mina's expression went cold. "Kaito, if you came here just to spout bullshit, leave. Otherwise, cut to the point."
Kaito pursed his lips. "Fine. Your mother's health has taken a turn. She's very ill. We don't know how much time she has left. No matter what grudges you hold against Grandfather or… Uncle, you should come home. You might not get another chance to see her."
Though Kaito's tone stayed cold, his voice softened slightly as he delivered the news.
Mina went quiet, her mind drifting to the warm, gentle-hearted woman who had raised her. Her mother was one of the few people in the family Mina had a good relationship with—a woman of quiet strength and fierce kindness who had practically raised her alone.
Because she had married into the Takayama family, Mina's mother was never treated with much respect. And as for the "uncle" Kaito mentioned—that was her father.
He was alive, certainly, but barely present in her life. Mina was convinced the man was possessed by a rabbit spirit, considering how often he thought with his lower half. If someone lined up all his illegitimate children, they could fill several football teams. The only reason she wasn't already drowning in half-siblings at family functions was because their grandfather had drawn a hard line—none of her father's illegitimate children were acknowledged as part of the Takayama bloodline. It was probably the only decision Mina ever agreed with.
It might have sounded cruel—her half-siblings weren't to blame, after all. But this was the fallout of a family system so rotten it turned love into a bargaining chip. Most of those women had thrown themselves at a married man not out of ignorance, but because in their world, power outweighed dignity. And her father? He may have been a serial adulterer, but at least he was upfront about it. He never lied, never made promises. Everyone knew exactly what they were getting into.
Her mother had once found bitter comfort in that. At least he wasn't pretending to love her. From the beginning, their marriage was nothing more than a transaction arranged by the family elders—two suitable bloodlines bound together to produce the next generation. Once Mina and her younger brother were born, the charade ended. They were husband and wife on paper, strangers in practice. Not love, not partnership—just duty.
Watching that cold performance of a marriage unfold day by day filled Mina with quiet revulsion. It wasn't just her parents she resented—it was the entire Takayama clan and its suffocating traditions. Marrying for status. Bearing children for lineage. Pretending the lack of affection was noble sacrifice instead of soul rot.
She swore to herself that she would never follow in their footsteps. She'd marry for love or not at all—and she wouldn't allow herself to be controlled by her family's rules.
"Fine. I'll visit home," she finally responded, "But this better not be some scheme by Grandfather to convince me back home."
"You don't need to worry. I promise it's not," Kaito responded.
While their interactions were often cold, Mina could admit that her relationship with Kaito was slightly better than with some of her other cousins. He was faithful and dutiful to the clan—sometimes to a frustrating degree—but he still cared about her in his own way. Even when he criticized her choices, he never tried to force her to give up her freedom.
He studied her quietly for a moment before finally voicing the question that had been bothering him.
"Even if you left the family, why insist on attending that school? Even cut off from the clan, there are better academies that would accept you without issue. I could make arrangements discreetly. Grandfather wouldn't even know."
"Don't you dare!" Mina snapped, her face flushing red. "I have my reasons for being there!"
Kaito blinked in surprise. As her cousin, he'd never seen her so flustered.
"The person I've chosen to be my future husband goes to school there," she added with a shy smile—leaving Kaito staring in stunned silence as his brain short-circuited.
He couldn't believe it—his cousin, the brilliant and supremely talented Mina, had actually chosen her school because of a boy!
'I definitely need to bring her home', he thought in dismay. 'If I don't, my cousin's going to turn into one of those full-blown love-brained idiots!'