Falling from heaven to hell took only the time of a single phone call.
Staring at the disconnected call on her communicator, Sakura felt as if her breathing had stopped.
Despite the sweltering heat, her entire body felt cold, as if plunged into an ice cellar.
"Rin... please be okay!"
Looking at Ryoma lying unconscious on the ground like a dead dog, Sakura felt an infinite regret welling up in her heart. Being able to state her information so accurately was enough to prove the terrifying nature of the other party's intelligence network.
As an assassin, she knew that one day she would fall during a mission. This was an assassin's fate.
But she hadn't expected karma to arrive so swiftly. Just as she glimpsed the hope of solving her sister's medical expenses, she was plunged into the abyss in the blink of an eye, even implicating the sister she cherished most.
A sense of urgency constantly plucked at Sakura's nerves, but her remaining reason urged her to take Ryoma to the location designated by the other party.
...
Sakura had assumed the meeting place would be in the wilderness or an abandoned factory.
But when she arrived, she found the situation completely different from what she had imagined.
Neat stone steps were lined with blooming cherry blossom trees on both sides. A gentle breeze blew, causing the sea of flowers to ripple like waves, threatening to embrace her in an ocean of pink.
At the end of the stone steps, a bright red torii gate stood quietly.
On a giant rock by the side of the path, the characters "Yae" were engraved.
This was actually a shrine!
Sakura didn't understand what the other party intended to do, but she only hoped her sister was safe.
So, dragging Ryoma with one hand, she quickly ascended the stone steps, passed through the torii gate, and entered the shrine.
After crossing the torii, Sakura realized that this shrine seemed a bit too new. There were still quite a few building materials piled up inside the spacious shrine, looking as if construction had just finished.
And on the altar, what was enshrined wasn't any familiar deity, but a large, lifelike sculpture of a fox.
Nevertheless, Sakura silently prayed to this statue—god or not—for her sister's safety.
Casually tossing Ryoma aside, Sakura looked around to see who exactly had taken her sister.
However...
"Why is there no one here?"
Sakura walked through the entire shrine and found that she and Ryoma were the only living people there. The kidnapper who summoned her was nowhere to be found.
She took out her communicator, preparing to send a message to confirm.
But at that moment, she heard footsteps coming from the steps outside the shrine.
Sakura flicked her arm lightly, and a dagger glinting with cold light fell into her hand. She looked toward the shrine entrance and saw a young man stepping up the stone stairs.
He had black hair and grey eyes, with a streak of white highlights in his bangs. He was extremely, perhaps 90% or even 100%, handsome. It was Li Mu.
Seeing Li Mu, Sakura frowned slightly.
"Is the person appearing here a tourist, or..."
"Miss Sakura, it seems you've arrived on time."
Hearing Li Mu's words, Sakura's heart sank. She knew this person was the one who had kidnapped her sister.
"So even kidnappers can be late?" Sakura was about to make a sarcastic remark, but suddenly remembered that she herself had been late for a kidnapping not long ago.
Regarding Sakura's words, Li Mu said frankly, "I apologize for standing you up, but your sister's hospital is quite far. It took me a lot of time to get there."
Hearing this, Sakura's eyes widened.
"What... do you mean?"
"Oh, I used the time I stood you up to go kidnap your sister."
"...In other words, when you threatened me, you hadn't actually kidnapped my sister yet?"
Li Mu nodded honestly and gave Sakura a brilliant smile. "But, Rin is indeed in my hands now."
"..."
Gripping the knife in her hand tightly, regret suddenly flooded Sakura's chest. She had the urge to stab herself.
Fortunately, her reason still remained.
She lifted the unconscious Ryoma from the ground with one hand while pressing the dagger in her other hand against his neck. "Release Rin! Or I can't guarantee Ryoma's safety!"
At this moment, for Sakura, this CEO of MEI Corp was the only card she had to play. Since this person cared so much about Ryoma, she figured she could use him to force the man to release Rin.
But when she said this, she found the young man opposite her looking at her with a strange expression.
—Like he was looking at an idiot.
"You caught Ryoma. Why should I release anyone?"
Facing Li Mu's strange look, Sakura pressed the dagger closer to Ryoma's neck, thinking Li Mu was just bluffing.
But she soon realized that even as the dagger drew a line of blood on Ryoma's neck, the person in front of her remained unmoved, as if watching a comical performance.
"No need to bluff." Sakura gripped the dagger tighter. "If you really didn't care about his life or death, how could you threaten me to bring him here?"
As soon as these words came out, Sakura found the look in the other party's eyes grew even stranger.
"When did I ever say I wanted you to bring him here?"
Sakura thought carefully and suddenly realized that the other party really hadn't said to bring Ryoma. He had only used her sister to threaten her to come to this place.
Everything else... seemed to be her own assumption...
Looking at Li Mu's calm gaze, Sakura finally confirmed that this person 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, and finally at Li Mu opposite her. Sakura's brain froze.
She suddenly didn't know whether she should keep holding Ryoma or just throw him away.
"What exactly do you want?"
"You."
"..."
The atmosphere fell into a weird silence until a gust of wind brushed past Sakura's hair, startling her awake.
"...Huh?"
Seeing Sakura's face turn white then red as if she imagined something, Li Mu said:
"Sakura, I think very highly of you. So, are you interested in selling the rest of your life?"
Hearing Li Mu's words, Sakura's expression became weird. "You mean, you kidnapped my sister just to recruit me?"
"What else?"
"..."
Seeing Sakura fall silent, Li Mu took out his communicator and fiddled with it for a while.
The next moment, Sakura felt a vibration from her own communicator.
After hesitating, she dragged Ryoma away from Li Mu before opening her communicator.
She found it was a transfer notification. Just looking at the content, Sakura's breathing quickened. The zeros following the balance made it hard for her to look away.
"How about it? Want to work for me? The benefits are much better than those capitalist lamppost decorations at Chrysalis~"
Sakura gritted her teeth, attempting to resist Li Mu's temptation.
Although she was an assassin, she was an assassin with integrity. She couldn't just switch sides because someone paid more; how could she do business like that?
Ding!
Another transfer notification came through. Clicking it open, she saw another string of zeros behind the balance, even more than before—more than she might 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 moved. But she quickly thought of the organization's cruel methods of purging traitors, and the heat in her heart was doused by a bucket of cold water.
Seeing Sakura's struggle, Li Mu knew it was time to play the decisive chip.
"I can cure your sister's illness."
"..."
"In that case, I have only one choice..."
Sakura sighed, threw down the dagger in her hand, tossed the unconscious Ryoma aside, and walked squarely in front of Li Mu.
"If my lord does not abandon me, Sakura is willing to serve you like a dog or horse!"
Sorry, he just gave too much. Sakura wept in her heart.
And Li Mu was very happy because he had collected another actor for his script.
Just then, Vill-V sent a communication. Seeing Sakura standing aside 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 a hint of schadenfreude as she displayed an image for Li Mu.
Not far outside the shrine, autonomous mechs were approaching. It seemed their target was this place.
Looking at the image Vill-V provided, Li Mu was thoughtful.
"United Government mechs. What are they coming here for?"
To catch him?
Li Mu rejected that idea. He hadn't been exposed yet, so why would the United Government catch him?
So, there was only one possibility. He looked at Ryoma lying on the ground.
In other words, they mistook Ryoma for the real Ryoma and were coming to save him?
But soon, another question arose in Li Mu's mind.
How did these people know Ryoma was here?
Li Mu frowned. He thought of Eden's kidnapping and suddenly felt it was extremely familiar.
Did this guy want to pull the "hero saving the beauty" trick used on Eden on Ryoma now? Was Sakura hired by them as a consumable pawn?
Looking at the bewildered Sakura, Li Mu felt speechless.
"Are you assassins some kind of tool just for farming favorability?"
"And these people are too unprofessional. Using the same plot twice? Don't they know the audience's threshold keeps getting higher?"
"Do you need me to clean them up?" Vill-V's voice came through.
"Clean them up. I don't have time to play with them right now."
...
--- Cocolia's Office ---
"Cocolia, the same scheme again? Are you sure there's really no problem?" The voice of her military partner came through the communicator.
"Major, absolutely no problem." Cocolia was quite confident. "My plan itself is flawless. Last time was just an uncontrollable accident. We can't be that unlucky every time."
"I observe that this Mr. Ryoma is no ordinary person; his future is limitless. Since he's already taking off, joining him now would just be icing on the cake, far less effective than offering help in a time of need."
"And this time, we are saving him from fire and water."
As for where the fire and water came from, that wasn't important. As long as Ryoma believed they saved him, and she could hitch a ride on the express train, she might be able to turn things around.
Although most people in the Far East scoffed at his so-called Second New Nagazora, Cocolia was quite optimistic about it. If she could join as a partner, it would be a massive political achievement, enough for her to advance further.
"It better be so. You know why I went from Colonel to Major!" The voice on the communicator was quite annoyed but forcibly suppressed it.
Just then, a communication came from the mech squad.
Cocolia looked spirited.
"How goes it? Have you saved Ryoma?"
"Sorry, Commander. Our mechs spontaneously self-destructed halfway there."
"..."
Silence. Long silence. Until a roar came from the communicator:
"Cocolia, I #$%#!!!"
"Didn't you say it was foolproof?!"
"I'll never believe you again! Take your hero saving the beauty and eat @#$@!"