From heaven to hell was only one phone call away.
Looking at the hung-up communication on her communicator, Sakura felt like her breathing was about to stop.
On this hot day, she only felt cold all over, as if falling into an ice cellar.
"Rin... please don't let anything happen to you!"
Looking at Ryoma unconscious on the ground like a dead dog, Sakura only felt endless regret surge up in her heart. Being able to accurately state her information was enough to show the terror of the other party's intelligence system.
As an assassin, she knew that one day she would fall on some mission—this was an assassin's fate.
But she didn't expect retribution to come so quickly. Just as she glimpsed hope of resolving her sister's treatment costs, she fell into the abyss in the blink of an eye, even implicating her most precious sister.
A sense of urgency constantly plucked at Sakura's nerves, but her remaining rationality still urged her to take Ryoma to the location specified by the other party.
...
Sakura had thought the other party would arrange the meeting place in the wilderness or an abandoned factory.
But when she arrived, she found the situation was completely different from what she thought.
On both sides of the neat stone steps were blooming cherry blossom trees. A breeze blew, and the sea of flowers stirred like waves, about to embrace her into a pink ocean.
At the end of the stone steps, a crimson torii gate stood quietly.
On a huge stone at the side of the road, the characters 'Yae' were inscribed.
This was actually a shrine!
Sakura didn't understand what the other party wanted to do, but she only hoped her sister was safe.
So, dragging Ryoma with one hand, she quickly climbed the stone steps, passed through the torii gate, and entered the shrine.
After crossing the torii gate, Sakura discovered that this shrine seemed a bit too new. The spacious shrine still had quite a bit of building materials piled up, looking like it had just been completed.
And on the altar, what was enshrined was not some familiar deity, but a vividly carved large fox.
However, Sakura still prayed in her heart to this statue, whether it was a deity or not, for her sister's safety.
Casually throwing down Ryoma, Sakura looked around to see who had captured her sister.
However...
"Why is no one here?"
Sakura walked through the entire shrine and found that there were only two living people here—herself and Ryoma. The kidnapper who told her to come here was not here.
She took out her communicator, preparing to send a message to the other party to confirm.
But at this moment, she heard footsteps coming from the steps outside the shrine.
Sakura lightly swung her arm, and a dagger gleaming with cold light fell into her hand. She looked toward the entrance of the shrine and saw a young man stepping up the stone stairs into the shrine.
He had black hair and gray eyes, with a strand of white highlights in front of his forehead. He was extremely—even ninety percent—good-looking. It was Lucius.
Seeing Lucius, Sakura frowned slightly.
"The one appearing here, is it a tourist, or..."
"Miss Sakura, it seems you arrived on time."
Hearing Lucius's words, Sakura's heart sank. She knew this person was the one who had kidnapped her sister.
"So kidnappers can be late too?" Sakura was about to mock him, but suddenly remembered that not long ago, she herself seemed to have been late during a kidnapping.
And regarding Sakura's words, Lucius honestly said: "I'm very sorry for standing you up, but your sister's hospital is quite far. It took me quite some time to get there."
Hearing this, Sakura's eyes widened.
"You... what do you mean?"
"Oh, I took advantage of the time I stood you up to kidnap your sister."
"...In other words, when you threatened me, you hadn't actually kidnapped my sister?"
Lucius honestly nodded and gave Sakura a brilliant smile. "However, Rin is indeed in my hands now."
"..."
Gripping the knife in her hand tightly, regret suddenly flooded into Sakura's chest. She had an impulse to give herself a stab.
But fortunately, her rationality still remained.
She picked up the unconscious Ryoma from the ground with one hand while pressing the dagger in her other hand against Ryoma's neck. "Release Rin! Otherwise I can't guarantee Ryoma's safety!"
At this moment, for Sakura, this president of MEI Corp was the only card in her hand. Since this person cared so much about Ryoma, she thought she could use him to coerce this person to release Rin.
But when she said these words, she found the young man opposite looking at her with a strange look.
—Like looking at an idiot.
"You're the one who captured Ryoma, why should I release anyone?"
Meeting Lucius's strange gaze, Sakura pressed the dagger closer to Ryoma's neck. She thought Lucius was just bluffing.
But she soon discovered that even though the dagger in her hand had already drawn blood on Ryoma's neck, the person in front of her still remained unmoved, as if watching a comical performance.
"No need to bluff." Sakura gripped the dagger in her hand tightly. "If you really didn't care about his life, why would you threaten me to bring him here?"
As soon as these words came out, Sakura found the opposite gaze became even stranger.
"When did I ever say I wanted you to bring him here?"
Sakura thought carefully and suddenly found that the other party really hadn't said to bring Ryoma over. He only threatened her to come to this place using her sister.
Everything else seemed to be her own assumptions...
Looking at Lucius's calm gaze, Sakura finally confirmed that this person in front of her really didn't care about Ryoma's life or death.
She looked at Ryoma in her left hand, then at the dagger in her right hand, and finally looked at Lucius opposite her. Sakura's brain froze.
She suddenly didn't know whether she should continue holding Ryoma or just throw him away.
"What exactly do you want to do?"
"You."
"..."
The atmosphere fell into strange silence until a breeze swept through Sakura's hair, startling her awake.
"...Huh?"
Looking at Sakura, whose face turned white then red, not knowing what she was thinking, Lucius said:
"Sakura, I think highly of you, so, are you interested in selling your future life?"
Hearing Lucius's words, Sakura's expression became strange. "You mean to say, you kidnapped my sister just to recruit me?"
"What else?"
"..."
Seeing Sakura fall silent, Lucius took out his communicator and fiddled with it for a while.
The next moment, Sakura felt her communicator vibrate.
After hesitating, she still pulled Ryoma away from Lucius, then opened her communicator.
She found it was actually a transfer notification. Just looking at the content, Sakura's breathing quickened. The zeros in the balance made it difficult for her to look away.
"How about it? Want to work with me? The treatment is much better than Poison Cocoon, that inhuman lamppost decoration~"
Sakura bit her teeth, trying to resist Lucius's temptation.
Although she was an assassin, she was also an assassin with integrity. She couldn't just betray because someone offered more. How could she do business like that?
"Ding!"
Another transfer notification came. Opening it, it was still a string of zeros after the balance, and even more—more than she could definitely earn in a lifetime as an assassin.
If she had this money, she would never have to worry about her sister's treatment costs again.
Honestly, Sakura was tempted, but she soon thought of the organization's cruel methods for clearing out traitors, and the heat in her heart was doused with a bucket of cold water.
After seeing Sakura's struggle, Lucius knew it was time to throw out the decisive chip.
"Your sister's illness, I can cure it."
"..."
"In that case, I only have one choice..."
Sakura sighed, dropped the dagger in her hand, and at the same time threw the unconscious Ryoma aside. She properly walked to Lucius.
"If you don't mind, Sakura is willing to serve like a dog or horse!"
Sorry, he gave too much. Sakura cried inwardly.
And Lucius was very happy because he had collected another script actor.
Just then, Vill-V sent a communication. Looking at Sakura standing to the side and Ryoma lying unconscious on the ground, she smiled and said:
"Looks like the problem is solved, but I have some interesting information here."
Vill-V's tone carried schadenfreude as she showed Lucius an image.
Not far from the shrine's perimeter, autonomous mechs were approaching. By the looks of it, their target was here.
Looking at the image Vill-V provided, Lucius was thoughtful.
"United Government mechs, what are they coming here for?"
To catch him?
Lucius dismissed this. He hadn't been exposed now, why would the United Government catch him?
So, there was only one possibility. He turned his gaze to Ryoma lying on the ground.
In other words, they treated Ryoma as the real Ryoma and came to rescue him?
But soon, Lucius had another doubt.
How did these people know Ryoma was here?
Lucius frowned. He thought of Eden's kidnapping incident and suddenly felt it was very familiar.
This guy wanted to use "hero saves the beauty" on Ryoma like they did with Eden? Sakura was hired by them as a disposable pawn?
Looking at the confused Sakura, Lucius felt speechless.
"Are you assassins specifically used as tools to farm favorability?"
"And these people are too unprofessional. Using the same plot over and over, don't they know the audience's threshold keeps rising?"
"Do you need me to help clean them up?" Vill-V's voice came.
"Clean them up. No time to play with them now."
...
Cocolia's office.
"Cocolia, the same scheme, are you sure there's really no problem?" The voice from her military partner came through the communicator.
"Major, there's absolutely no problem." Cocolia was quite confident. "My plan itself has no issues. Last time was just an uncontrollable accident. We can't be this unlucky every time."
"I observe that Mr. Ryoma is no ordinary man with an unlimited future. But since he has already taken flight, approaching him now is always icing on the cake, far inferior to sending coal in snowy weather."
"And this time, we're saving him from fire and water."
As for how the fire and water came about, that wasn't important. As long as Ryoma believed they saved him, using this to catch the express train, she might be able to turn things around.
Although most people in the Far East disdained his so-called New Nagazora II, she, Cocolia, was quite optimistic about it. If she could join as a partner, that would be tremendous political achievement, enough to take her further.
"Better be so. You know why I went from colonel to major!" The voice from the communicator was quite annoyed but forcibly suppressed.
At this time, communication came from the mech forces.
Cocolia's expression became excited.
"How is it, did you rescue Ryoma?"
"Sorry, sir. Our mechs spontaneously exploded halfway there."
"..."
Silence, long silence, until a roar came from the communication:
"Cocolia, I #¥%¥!!!"
"Didn't you say it was foolproof?!"
"I'll never trust you again. Take your hero-saves-the-beauty and eat @#¥@!"
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