Third Person

~

"There's no need to lie, Vermillion."

Kira had been expecting a myriad of reactions but Troy just had to say something more annoying than she was prepared for.

Kuro's awe is more obvious and vocal, running up Rian and inspecting him like some species of rare youkai. Rian doesn't seem to mind too much beaming at the attention and studying akuro right back even when Kuro grabs him by the face to look right into the eyes

"He doesn't look crazy…"

"Kuro! He's right there!" Kira's trying not to freak out but her words come out more panicked than she intends.

"It's not like he can understand us," Inoue, quieter than the other two, has been intently watching her instead of Rian but his eyes flicker between them just once as if trying to make any other sort of connection.

Kira's well aware she had pulled way out of her league but they didn't have to be so obvious about it.

"Actually I do," Rian pipes up, the weight of hanging off him hardly seeming to register.

They all turn to him.

Kira gawks, "How?"

Grinning, he gently places Kuro down so he can excitedly search his pockets, "I don't know if you all understand me clearly but the Force just perfected something we've been working on for a while," He pulls out four baby blue, gel airpod things after a couple seconds of frantic searching.

He holds them out and all four of them take it, Troy and Inoue more wary than Kira thinks they should be.

She puts on hers as Rian begins to speak again, noticing little difference.

"They're specially made with altered runes that work well with modern tech so you don't need to direct any energy into them or use a spell. Cool right? You should be hearing me in whatever language your brain is more used to."

Kira's gotten used to both Japanese and English over the years so she guesses that's why it doesn't have that much of an effect on her.

Inoue sniffs, "Impressive but a simple spell would be more effective since this could fall out at any moment."

Rian takes the disdain head on, all teeth, "A simple spell should be enough to keep it from falling out."

Despite their calm expressions Kira picks up on the hostility slowly creeping in. Thankfully Troy speaks up before she has to do anything.

"Why do you have this many?"

Rian rubs the back of his head sheepishly, "I lose track of them pretty easily," in a flash he's on his knees in front of the blond, pressing a kiss to Troy's gloved hand and sealing the deal with a charming wink, "If they glowed like your eyes though I'd find them pretty easily and never let go."

Kira sighs not missing the dark, shadow that falls over Troy's face, she should have probably seen this coming.

"Sorry to burst your bubble but he's a guy?" Kuro chimes in.

Rian doesn't bat an eye, still on his knees, "I know."

Troy takes his hand back but Kira notices it's not with the same annoyance he'd use with her or Kuro.

Before Kuro can voice whatever dumb thing he's about to say and take them further off track, Inoue steps in, saving Kira the embarrassment of dealing with this nonsense any longer.

"What I want to know is why you three," he points to Kira, Kuro and Troy, "Decided to take action before I got here. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have caused if it were a different agent on this route?"

His reprimanding tone gives Kira second thoughts and she holds up her hands in a gesture midway between surrender and a calming gesture. She'd been thinking the same thing and she'll definitely give Kuro an earful later but this really wasn't the time.

"C'mon Inoue-san, all that matters is that-"

His gaze flashes on her, "I'm not hearing a thing from you Miss Kira Vermillion."

He says her name with a hint of venom but all she's stuck on is the fact he knows who she is.

"You know who I am?"

"Your dad's a billionaire, remember?" Rian says sliding up next to her to link their arms like old buddies.

From seemingly nowhere Inoue gets out a phone and in under a minute he's pulled up one of her social media pages.

Its a long shot from any of the Vermillions but she has a sizable amount of followers just from association with the family. She'd never given much thought to it since all she did was post about volleyball and shopping with her friends.

She laughs nervously, "I should probably make that private."

Inoue draws the phone back, scrolling before looking up at the boys, "I'm guessing you're both Troy and Kuro then? Once any moron knows what to look for, it's pretty easy."

Kira ignores the burning looks they throw her way, squarely focusing on Inoue's stern face. "I get it, I did something stupid and I should've made sure Kuro didn't get out of line, can we move on now?" she groans, pulling her hood and Mask back up but leaving her voice.

Rian moves behind her, massaging her shoulders, "So tense,"

She rounds on him, "Not so fast, you're not off the hook for lying to me for almost a year."

He smirks, "And you're not off the hook for ignoring me for six whole months."

A silent exchange passes between them over the next couple seconds and Kira caves first, pouting, "Later."

Rian turns away from her, walking over to his glider. A compartment opens up and from within he pulls out a jacket that looks vaguely militia style. Black with orange trim and silver buttons.

He doesn't wear it but drapes it over his shoulders, allowing them to see a bronze badge over the chest area. Open angel wings surrounded by laurel borders with a simplified flag and spear forming an 'x' in the center.

"Investigator 65051, codename Knight, of the Task Force's New York Division, at your service," he gives a cheeky salute, "But since Kira's given out my name already I don't mind if you use it."

It goes unsaid that he trusts them not to use it carelessly.

Kira does her best not to be taken by just how different he looks, same energy from their time together but in a whole different context. It makes her feel so many things, awkward, curious and admittedly a bit annoyed at him.

And herself.

How had she never figure it out?

She swallows the emotions down, "So the Task Force is America's number one organization huh?"

"The official name's 'The Ghoul Adjacent Task Force', but that's a mouthful. Over here don't refer to the supernatural stuff as youkai," he says this directly her, "Just think of us as the 'Overseer Council' of Ghoul activity in this part of the world," he adds, sounding pleased.

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Inoue ignores the comparison. Though he wants to point out a very key difference, it's hardly relevant to the mission he's here for. "We're meant to be meeting with one of your Units a while from now but since you're here you might as well take us to your superiors earlier."

Rian nods along, kicking his glider. The sizable chunk of metal makes several whirring sounds as it shrinks to the size of a key chain just a couple inches long. Rian levitates it up before clipping it to his belt.

The tiny wooden men follow soon after, the ones not destroyed from the struggle running towards him before hopping into the air and shifting to box form as they fall into a pouch strapped to his thigh.

"Oh yeah, Juggernaut's meant to take you guys but they won't be returning to base for another twenty minutes." He grins, like he is glad for the opportunity to take something away from them and Kira gets the feeling he's about to do something he isn't meant to.

"Rian…" her warning tone goes unheeded.

"Since you insist! I'll-"

A sharp crackle pierces through the air and Kira casts a look around for the source before realizing it's coming from the airports.

"Rian! You bastard, where the hell are you?! You were meant to call-in minutes ago! What the hell did the sensors pick up? That's all you had to find out, you shithead!"

The voice is shrill, very childish but insistently firmly and distinctly feminine.

Rian holds out a finger, turning away to yell into his own earpiece, "June, chill!"

"I will not chill! We've got missions piling up."

"Not my fault, and besides I've got news that'll blow your mind."

"Don't care, get your ass here and make a report about the sensor activity since it seems you're fine."

"June, c'mon-"

There's a brief hum of static that returns to silence that tells Kira that whatever communication going on has been disconnected.

Rian spins around to them, a whistle of exhausted breath blowing through clenched teeth.

"Sorry you had to hear that, those are all tuned in to my signal so…yeah, let's get going before she chews my head off even more." He starts moving towards the edge of the building.

"Who was that?" Troy asks flatly, hiding his curiosity well.

"My Unit's handler."

Kira perks up, "Handler? Like a Captain?"

Rian shakes his head, "Nope, they just get the missions from the higher-ups and keep the units in line. Our Captain's someone a lot cooler, she's almost like you Kira." With that he hops over the ledge down to the alley and Kira stops abruptly at the comparison.

"Me?"

The guys don't pay her any attention, following Rian down.

She scrambles after them, catching Kuro's question as she does.

"Where are we going?"

"There's an entrance for base close by so we just have to walk a bit. You can revert to casual outfits if you want but probably keep your Masks up until we do." As he does, his outfit changes too, a light grey sweatshirt over a pair of loose black denims. Like this he looks a lot more like the Rian Kira remembers, albeit a bit taller.

She takes his advice and the others follow her lead, except Inoue who simply vanishes his sword and Captain's badge. Kira thinks he looks fine. All black would be a bit suspicious in this weather but it's easier here to dismiss it as him just being emo.

For the ten minute walk to the Task Force base's entryway Rian leads them through the busy streets, happy to play tour guide and answer Kuro's near endless stream of questions.

Kira hangs back, catching his eyes every now and then. She searches for any hint of malice beneath the surface but given she's yet to find any a silent chided floats up from the back of her mind. She should have known better.

He hasn't changed much.

Inoue hangs back with her and she's not sure whether she should be grateful or not for his company.

"Why did you two break up?" He asks it without any hint of emotion but his eyes are narrowed in Rian's direction in quiet dislike, and it throws her for a brief loop.

"Huh? Um… we didn't… not exactly!" She remembers the scene with Troy and doesn't think that made a great impression. Taking a deep calming breath, she finds her feet, "He's not the kind of person you think he is, we just didn't work out."

"He doesn't seem to get that." Immediately, he picks up his pace, following the others down another alleyway, this is much smaller and a tighter fit. She jogs to catch up to them, unaware as to how far back they'd fallen.

A strange sensation creeps over her skin almost instantly. A foreboding just like the first time she'd stepped into the Overseer temple. A heaviness in the air offsetting all her bearings.

Apparently Kuro wasn't kidding when he pointed out all agencies used some runes this way.

That it's in a public area takes her a bit off guard.

"You guys all good?" Rian tosses the question over his shoulder as he leads them towards a door at the side of one of the buildings.

There's nothing special about the door, none of the grandeur and awe-inspiring size of the Overseers' Headquarters.

"A bit too open for an entrance, don't you think?" Inoue throws back.

Rian pulls out a plain looking orange keycard, holding it over a discreet peephole, "Oh, don't worry about that, we have an illusory spell over the whole street, it's hard to maintain but regular humans can't see the alley and it'll take anyone who wants to break in forever to find the correct location."

A sharp beeping sound fills the air.

And the door swings open to reveal a sleek compartment of metal and glass, large enough to hold at least fifty people. On the ground a giant '10' is written in blocky pale blue font.

"Ladies first," he says, taking Kira's hands and leading her in.

She looks around, excitement welling up in her gut despite the nerves and her misgivings. "What the…"

"You should change back into your costumes now, I'll check in with June when we get down to know if the Commanders are in but-"

"Down?!" Kuro squeals.

And as if summoned key pad materials at the side of the door as it slams shut and a glass door slides shut.

"An elevator." Troy observes.

Kuro dives for the buttons but Kira grips him by the scarf, "Don't touch anything."

"There are doors like this all over the city, they all lead to staff elevators, but there's a central one only opens for the Commanders and higher-ups," Rian presses a button she doesn't see and immediately their not so little box jerks as it starts its descent.

A soft light pops on overhead and through the glass they can see the metal plating of the shaft they're in but all too quickly it gives way to more glass. The cavernous ceiling stretches further up as they continue down and when Kira peers down through the glass to the ground she gets a good view of just how large this place is; her enhanced sight makes sure of that.

They're on one end of the vast open space and many other elevators line the walls with a single circular one in the center.

"We're coming up on Floor A," Rian points to the tiled open space before them. "Think of it as our reception and lounge area, most Units hang out here when there's nothing to do.".

Kira gathered as much, there were several desks closer to the elevators. All the people seated behind them wore jackets in similar fashion to Rian's and the same goes for those chatting on the coaches placed in small clusters or loitering about in groups of two two six.

Some don't wear their uniforms though and just like at the Temple she notices only a few of them keep their Masks up.

They're going lower though and quickly, they pass Floor A.

"Floors B to D are where the Unit rooms are, that's where our teams get privacy if we don't want to discuss missions out in the open. For training we've got E and-"

"We didn't come for a tour, Sage." Inoue states blandly but Kira can tell he's secretly impressed.

"I wouldn't mind a tour!" Kuro chirps, he's looking out the glass, trying to see the next floor before it even shows.

"Don't be a wet blanket," Rian groans as the elevator jerks to a stop on floor C.

The glass doors open up to a long , spacious hallway lit by dim fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

It's an entirely different atmosphere to what Kira had been expecting given they were meant to be in a place full of Magic Users.

Tall metallic double doors line the walls either side of them, each having a number and tags above them displaying names like 'Sprite', 'Merchant', 'Cosmos' and many more.

Some tags are devoid of names but a few doors down and some interconnected hallways with other elevators later, she spots a familiar name, "Juggernaut".

She turns to Rian as they pass, "The tags are the Unit names right."

"Yup," He comes to a stop a couple moments later, sliding his card through a reader at the side.

Their stop had been so abrupt Kira hadn't got the time to take it all in, and check the name on top. She glances up, eyes widening as she takes in the name.

'What the hell?'

The metal doors open fully to reveal a decently sized workspace with a surprisingly homey feel that's hardly disrupted by the large monitor taking up one wall and the row of lockers on the others. A pink welcome mat shaped like a cat's head bears some cheesy welcome message that none of them pay attention too.

There's a rug at the center of the room, along with a vending machine, long sofa and book shelf taking up another wall. Several sleeping bags are piled up in a corner making room for colorful bean bags and a mat covered in wood shavings. Kira would have missed the weights and punching bag in another corner if not for their shades of vivid red and hot pink.

The walls are also covered in posters of several bands and celebrities she's not well acquainted with but she spots one for the guy she had used as their cover story.

It's a mismatch of so many things that shouldn't go well together that have somehow found their way here.

Rian steps into the empty room back first, gesturing them forward with a warm welcoming gesture, "Welcome to Unit Room 52, home to the Task Force's Requiem Unit."

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