Chapter 3: Me and You
Risa, now with darker hair and eyes, sat with her chin resting against her right palm and elbow on the table, lazily watching the other people in the room and picking at the black sleeve she‘d chosen to wear covering her whole arm today. She’d been over a half hour early to the meeting and so felt pretty used to her surroundings, having explored every inch of the small room while waiting for the others to show up. The room was designed as a meeting room, with an overhead connected to the ceiling and a pull down screen on one wall and a desk with computer set up in the far corner. In the middle of the room was a crescent shaped table with six chairs lined up on the outside and two chairs on the inside.
Risa guessed that there was supposed to be one person per chair, but there seemed to be one person missing. She studied her fellows again; Risa had chosen a chair on the far end and next to her sat a tall, solemn Chinese girl. She had been the next in room after Risa and after her had come a very pretty black haired girl wearing mostly pink. She had sat down on the other end, eyeing the other two warily.
Two police officers had joined them after only a few more minutes, sitting in the two chairs on the inside of the table and fairly ignoring them, flipping through files and discreetly glancing up at one of the three every so often. With the appearance of some sort of law enforcement, the atmosphere became tense and Risa guessed that neither of her companions were particularly fond of rules.
Soon afterwards, a small Chinese girl poked her head hesitantly in the door and Risa felt the girl next to her stiffen. She watched the two lock eyes for a minute and recognition passed between them, but after a second, neither spoke and the smaller girl took a seat next to the pretty girl on the end. Ten minutes later, Risa was just beginning to be slowly suffocated by the tense silence when the door opened yet again to admit another small girl into the room. Her youthful features were somewhat marred by her blank expression, Risa couldn’t help but think the short haired girl would look better with a smile. She quietly took a seat next to the small Chinese girl and Risa felt the girl next to her let out an unintentional breath of relief, apparently glad to have someone between them.
Another stifling ten minutes passed and finally it was time to start the meeting, but there was still an empty seat. This seemed to annoy the officer with the wonky eyes and she made a clucking sound in the back of her throat. “Well, I ain’t gonna wait for that last one anymore. We’re gonna start this meeting.” She announced, her annoyance coloring her words with a delightful accent.
“I don’t care what you did before that earned you this job, I don’t care how many people you beat up or cheated or stole form or even killed. You are all here because you’re the best at what you do.” The officer, whose name plate read Tanaka, continued, “And what you’re going to do for us is-” She was cut off when the door burst open and a flustered young woman ran into the room.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I got lost.” Risa felt her breath catch in her throat when those doe like eyes locked with hers. For a second, the room melted away and it was just the two of them, Risa’s feelings came back in an instant, her love and her anger, and she couldn’t decide which one she wanted to feel more.
Ai visibly shook herself away from Risa’s piercing gaze to apologize once more and then head to the remaining seat. The officer cleared her throat and went on, “As I was saying, what you’re going to do for us is clean up the city of its organized crime.” At that pronouncement, the girls all exchanged looks. Tanaka ignored them, “There are three main bosses in this city and you are going to do away with all of them.” Suddenly, she did a double take at the file in front of her, seeming to lose her words.
Seeing that Tanaka wasn’t going to continue, the second officer, whose nameplate read Kamei, swiftly took over, “Tanaka-san and I will be here to make sure you stay out of trouble, but for the most part, how you go about the job is up to you. We will also act as liaisons between you and the higher ups, bringing you any changes or concerns they have.” She took a moment to scan the faces of the girls in front of her, then smiled brightly, “So any questions? Suggestions?”
The room was silent for a long minute and Risa could see the wheels turning in the other girl’s heads, all trying to twist the situation to their own advantage. Except for Ai who seemed to only focus on Risa herself. That deep gaze conveyed many things to Risa that made her blush and pale at the same time and at once, she knew how to get in control of this situation.
“I think we should have a leader.” Risa announced, surprising everyone in the room, “Someone that we all agree to give the final say so to, someone that can be unbiased and level-headed.” she watched her words sink into the other girls’ heads and nearly smirked when she got the reaction she predicted. Almost immediately after she suggested it, all the girls voiced that they should be the one.
“I think I should be leader, there’s no way anyone could do it better than Sayumi.” the pretty girl on the end stated haughtily.
“There’s no way I would follow someone like you.” the short haired youthful faced girl stated flatly, “I should be leader instead.”
“What makes you think you could lead us any better?” The small Chinese girl shouted energetically leaping to her feet, “Maybe I could do a better job!”
“I would sooner cut out my own tongue than have to follow you as leader.” The up-till-then somber Chinese girl responded instantly, the venom in her voice sending the younger girl back into her seat.
“Well I think one of us should lead.” Tanaka said, getting a nod from her partner, “There’s no way I would listen to somebody with a record.”
The other girls protested immediately, “That’s not fair, we all have records!”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re all here!”
“I don’t want to listen to some goody-two shoes cop.”
Just when it seemed like the argument would degenerate into a riot, Risa stood swiftly, kicking her chair backwards into the wall with a loud clatter. The noise instantly brought everyone’s attention to her, “I vote for Ai-chan.” she said simply.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Tanaka said angrily, “I won’t follow a criminal.”
“Ai-chan doesn’t have a record, she’s never been in trouble before in her life.” Risa resisted the urge to smirk at the look on her old friend’s face, “And she’s obviously more level-headed than the rest of you. And probably older, too.”
For a moment, Risa held her breath, it looked like the others would protest again, but the officers shuffled through their papers quickly, apparently looking for Ai’s file. When they were satisfied with whatever they were looking for, they looked at each other and nodded, “Well, I guess that’s okay.” Tanaka reluctantly acknowledged and Risa let out a breath as the other girls slowly nodded their assent, righting her chair and taking a seat.
“Okay then, now that that’s settled, what to you propose we do next Ai-chan?” Risa almost laughed when she turned to face Ai again, the older girl had a perfect deer in headlights expression, brown eyes wide and mouth formed into a small ‘O’.
“Uh, well, we could. I mean, I think that.” Ai floundered and Risa watched, considering it a small payback for years earlier that she hadn’t forgotten or forgiven, but eventually she intervened.
“May I make a suggestion?” She interrupted Ai’s struggle and the older girl closed her jaw with a click, nodding her assent. “Okay, now the three bosses have formed a treaty with each other. The first and weakest boss is Takashi-dono and he is responsible for the trafficking of drugs throughout the city. The way it works is, he gives about ten percent of his profits to each of the other bosses and agrees to supply the higher ups with as much of his stock as they want and offer discounts to certain members within reason. And in exchange, the other bosses don’t mess with his business and give him sole rights to the drug trade. And vice versa for the other bosses and their trades.”
Now in her element, Risa started to gesture excitedly, “Takashi-dono is the easiest target to start with, if we bring down his main source of income and cut off his supply to the others, it with throw everyone off. And all the junkies in the other gangs will be going through serious withdrawal until they can find another source, of which there is no other in this city or any of the closest outlying regions.”
“Now, to bring down Takashi-dono, it’s going to take three main steps,” Risa held up her fingers as she counted, “one: take out his supply, two: take out his men, three: take out the higher ups and the boss. Now,” here she tapped her index finger on the table, “we’re going to need to pinpoint his main supplier, or suppliers as it probably is, and also find who his men are. Until then I was thinking that we can systematically take down the main dealers and stir up some trouble until we can get the info we need to finish Takashi-dono.”
When she was finished with her little mini rant, Risa finally paid attention to the reaction of the other girls. Ai was staring at her like she was an alien, the two cops had their jaws dropped, the bigger Chinese girl and Sayumi were looking at her with a new measure of respect and the last two girls just looked confused. “Uh,” Risa turned to Ai sheepishly, “If that’s alright with you Ai-chan?”
Ai stared for a moment longer before nodding deliberately, “Sure, let’s do that. How are we going to get that information we need?”
“Well, I figure the police have a file on him or something like that. Or we can just shake down some people until we get what we want.” Risa shrugged nonchalantly at the last suggestion.
“We can’t give you access to those kind of files.” Kamei said slowly, actually looking a little regretful.
“I could get the info if I had my computers.” The smaller Chinese girl said sullenly causing a snort to sound from next to Risa, “You have something to say Jun?” she addressed towards the bigger girl.
“A lot of things Lin, but I don’t think you want to have that kind of discussion around all these strangers.” Jun said haughtily, crossing her arms and turning casually away.
“How many times do I have to say that what happened to your brother wasn’t my fault?!” Lin stood, still speaking in Japanese, apparently as a concession.
“Do you really want to say this here?” Jun turned back to her to glare, the small girl next to her unconsciously leaning back in her chair to avoid the flying sparks.
Unfortunately, she leaned back a little too far and the chair tipped over, sending her flipping backwards into a roll. In an impressive display of agility, the small girl somersaulted safely back to her feet, standing and rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. Luckily, her little mishap distracted the warring Chinese girls from their argument and they turned their still heated gazes towards her.
“Aaand on that note,” Risa interrupted quickly, attracting the attention of the room again, “How about we introduce ourselves, including what your specialty is or something like that? I’ll go first; my name is Niigaki Risa, I’m 21 years old, uh, I’m from Kanagawa and my blood type’s B. My specialty is ranged weapons, especially guns.” She nervously scratched at the full length arm covering on her right arm when a couple people snickered at her slightly childish introduction.
As if taking up her defense, Ai surprisingly spoke up, “I’m Takahashi Ai, age 23 from Fukui, blood type A. My specialty is explosives.” Short and to the point, just the way Risa remembered her. She was overcome with a wash of nostalgia as she shared a look with the older girl, but quickly turned her attention to the pretty girl on the end when she spoke up.
“Hiii~~!” she started with a high pitched and cheerful tone, “I’m Michishige Sayumi, I’m 20 with an A blood type. Let’s see~ I’m from Yamaguchi! My specialty is, well, I guess you could just say I’m an actress.”
“Yeah, an cold blooded actress who conned people out of their money and committed credit card fraud, mercilessly clearing out people‘s bank accounts.” Tanaka said, rolling her eyes.
“Ah, but they could only prove three counts~!” Sayumi winked at the disgruntled cop, a dangerous glint in her eye.
Eager to stop the fight before it could really begin, the small, youthful faced girl, who had taken her seat again, cleared her throat, “Mitsui Aika, I’m 16, O blood type and I’m from Shiga. I’m a thief.”
“Ehh~! You’re only 16?!”
“Wow, you’re so young!”
“A thief at your age?!”
Aika sighed at the uproar she had caused, “Yeah yeah, whatever. Can we move on?” Jun nodded and stood up.
“I’m Li Chun, you can call me Jun Jun, I’m from China and my specialty is, well, I guess my specialty is hitting people.” here she glared at Lin pointedly, but the girl ignored her, instead starting her own introduction.
“My name is Lin Lin, I’m also from China, in case you couldn’t guess, I’m 18 and I’m a super hacker.” She gave a cheerful peace sign and a grin that caused a few chuckles around the room.
“So is that everyone?” Tanaka asked impatiently, “Then let’s go-” she was cut off by Sayumi.
“You two haven’t introduced yourselves yet!” She stood and slammed her hands on the table to make sure she got attention and looked to the other girls for backup.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Surprisingly, Jun was the one to speak up, apparently wanting to torment the officers a little, “It’s only fair.”
The partners exchanged looks, Tanaka’s clearly saying ‘No way’ while Kamei’s look suggested she thought it might be fun. After a moment, Kamei spoke up, “Well then, my name is Kamei Eri, 20 years old. I was born and raised in Tokyo and my blood type’s AB.” She finished with a cheerful smile and Risa couldn’t help but think she was cute.
Tanaka pouted in a very unintimidating manner, “Tanaka Reina, 20 years old.” she crossed her arms and turned her head away with a quiet huff.
“Now, Reina, that’s not very friendly.” Eri scolded to Reina’s chagrin, “I guess I’ll have to fill in the blanks.”
“Eri.” Reina warned, feeling her face heat up in embarrassment and a little anger.
“She’s got type O blood.”
“Eri. Please.”
“She’s from Fukuoka.”
“Eri, stop it.”
“Oh! She likes ribbons!”
“Eri! Don’t say that!” Reina slammed her hands on the table, trying in vain to get her partner to stop talking.
“She also owns 32 pairs of boots!” Eri grinned when everyone laughed at the teasing, though Risa didn’t think that shade of purple was very healthy for Reina to turn.
A folder slapped down on top of Eri’s head and she let out a cute squeak of exaggerated pain, “Eri, I think they get the point!” Though she was embarrassed, Reina couldn’t help the grin that threatened to stretch across her lips; her partner always knew how to break the ice. She was even feeling a little less hostile towards these criminals.
“Well, now that that’s settled, who’s hungry?!” Eri exclaimed to excited cheers, the dysfunctional group decided that they should fill their bellies before they started really working.
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Just them introducing themselves to each other and maybe trying to get a feel for where everyone stands, nothing too mind blowing yet. I'll have some more interactions next chapter.