Broken Defense

One of the masked members came up by his side with some curiosity. “Found something boss?” They turned to lean around their leader’s tall figure, but got blocked.

“I told you to stop calling me boss,” he corrected, ignoring the question completely. He turned away to face the pod that they had come for. His hand rested on the smooth white painted metal. “I’m only taking over until we get the boss back.” Checking for the signal from the others in the team as they messed around with the equipment, the all clear came.

He gave a gesture to the one on the opposite side of the pod. Their fingers dug into the metal bending it with ease. Unlike the vault gate, this was a weak and thin metal. It took almost no effort to destroy it. In a single motion, they ripped it out of the seating on the pod exposing the individual inside the pod. Their real boss was covered in thin clouds from the sudden change of the sealed environment of the medical pod.

Taking their boss out of the pod and throwing them over his shoulder, he threw out his arm ordering them to the other pods. They quickly made easy work of the other nine pods freeing those held captive by the UN.

The raid’s time started to countdown fast in their efforts to give everyone a fighting chance. Their signal to leave came as a distant rumbling that they recognized. Trouble was on their way and it was early. A full four minutes early, but they had no time to complain about it.

“Our welcome is overstayed, guys! We’re leaving!” their leader ordered carrying their boss with him out of the bank vault. He felt the danger on his heels as they sped through the halls to make a clean escape.

Chapter 369 – Broken Defense

“Sir, the reports are coming in that the enemy is retreating.”

Evans glared annoyed at the monitor, still running off back-ups until the engineers restored power. He watched the updates come across the map making very clear to him what happened. Everyone was worthless. And the most worthless of them all just walked in. “Can’t sleep, Shigemitsu?”

Unfazed by the General’s annoyed barb, Shigemitsu walked over next to him looking at the map to see what the situation was. “It’s a long walk from my office when the elevators are down.” Focusing over to the red marks on the scene to denote the attack points, he picked up on things quickly. “The containment cell was their target. I thought you kept the locations a secret, General.”

Crossing his arms not liking the accusation, Evans didn’t bother looking at the annoying man. “Limited UN personnel know of any of the cell locations, even less know about Alpha.” He already knew that he had a great distaste for the man, a businessman and a shrewd one that knowingly carried superiority and confidence over all of them. ‘Our reliance on their technology might come back to destroy everything that we’re working for, but we don’t have a choice if we are to have peace. But I don’t have time for this snake. We’ve got ten escaped B Ranked or higher criminals and a leak to find.’ The General’s morning started early.

Far north of the UN base and out into the free stretches of the city, the masked team arrived at their destination. A large seemingly abandoned apartment complex stood in front of them. Such a place came a little off for such a band of rogues and ruffians. Knocking on the service door, they were greeted by four rough looking individuals that seemed to have no connections to each other.

Through the halls, they carried their objectives with them into a large back room on the ground floor of the complex. It used to be the staff room where the owner would meet with the employees or the day’s schedules were handed out. Now, it had a makeshift fill of tables, supplies and cots or blankets. People quickly rushed to aid the rescuers with those that they freed.

The leader was met by several happy faces to see that he was successful. However, not everyone was as happy. It was difficult for everyone. It might have been a successful raid, but it came at a price and even worse. Those that they rescued weren’t who they hoped for. Not a perfect rescue, but they just had to make do with it.

It was some time before Saki came to and found herself in unfamiliar surroundings. She had children as well as teenagers hovering around her. As her eyes readjusted to everything, she saw adults further back. It was hard to get a read of the place that she had found herself in. ‘Not the UN,’ she noted to herself as the only obvious point. Seeing where she was made her think that Hiroshi did something stupid and rescued her, but he would have been around or Yuki. But there was no one that she knew around her. It was a strange place.

“Hey Miss!” spoke one kid, leaning into her bedside.

“Are you a bad person?” a girl asked.

“Bad person?” she answered back in an echo. It seemed like a strange question, but also an accurate one. She couldn’t answer it as honestly as she would have done so in an immediate gut reaction to such a question. It made her think about things that she needed to fully face.

“They said you were with the others where they hold really bad people.”

“Huh?” Saki still tried to get caught up on everything that happened. The last thing she remembered was going into the pod and seeing Masayuki’s frustrated face. Everything else was a blank.

A couple of women came over along with a man to pick up the children, who seemed to be their parents. “We’re sorry, they didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It’s fine. It’s understandable.”

“So you are a bad person?”

“Sakura!”

“I guess that would depend on who you ask,” she replied finally. The girl looked a little confused and bothered by the answer. It wasn’t the sort of answer that she wanted. She seemed to want something simpler, but such things were never so simple. Saki knew that too well. What she did could be written any number of ways to suit whoever needed a message.

“The mystery girl’s awake!” an unknown voice shot across the room at Saki. When she turned to face the voice, she found a young man with a couple of scars on his face, which looked recent, that otherwise held a handsome appearance. His shaggy dark brown hair kept him from looking like he might have been too rigid. He was older than her, probably college age if she had to guess.

Turning out of the blanket to get her feet moving, she staggered a bit to get her balance. Her body felt unusually weak even though she didn’t feel in pain or fatigued. It was a strange feeling.

“Careful, pod sleep knocks it out of ya!” he cautioned as he tried to help her to her feet.

Saki stubbornly refused the help and found her own footing. Her head felt a little loopy still, but she could walk at least. “Where am I?”

“A stubborn one, considering where we found you I guess that makes sense.” Saki glared at him not wanting light banter when she asked questions. A bit of sweat dripped down his face seeing how much of a presence she carried while still being weakened. “Damn woman, if I didn’t know better I’d swear you’d rip off my head.”

“Don’t make me consider it.”

“Yeah, yeah, just my luck that I always find the troublesome ones.” He turned around and motioned with his hand for her to follow him. The strange man escorted her out of the large room and down the hallway.

She found the state of the building to be in surprisingly good repair considering the state of the city. ‘Are they actually keeping this place running? Figured that they were just squatters, but maybe that’s not the case… Everyone just sort of seemed to stop caring after things went to hell…’ It made her even more curious who it was that was running the show here. The sights of children and adults with no connections to the rougher looking people in the room made her think more of Hiroshi. ‘I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that people would band together, especially with the UN. What Hiroshi did probably isn’t that unusual.’

Taking the elevator, they rode up to the top floor of the complex. She still couldn’t see outside to know where in the city she might have been. The hallway only went through the inside of the building. But once she made it to a room, as she expected them to be going, she should start to know where they were.

Stopping at room 1609, the man opened the door for Saki. A large apartment, a single room was bigger than the entire apartment her family lived in, spread out before her. Knowing the situation, she knew that they didn’t rent the room. Though she wondered if the original residents still lived in the building or not. It was very empty as though no one lived in the room. But there was still furniture and on the couch sat several different individuals all with expressions that she knew too well. They were leaders.

“Yo, brought the girl!”

Saki immediately received the attention of the entire room. Whatever conversation that she interrupted no longer seemed to matter. Though she did wonder what they were planning. She had a lot of questions. “Who are all of you?” It ended up being a coin toss which question she picked first. They all seemed important.

A woman’s voice from out of the room broke through to answer Saki’s question. “The North Byakko Alliance.”

Seeking out the voice, she couldn’t find who it came from just yet. The stranger wanted to stay out of sight. Though something else bothered her as well. “Byakko? Shouldn’t it be Genbu?”

The unseen woman laughed loudly through the room. She seemed to find Saki’s retort very entertaining as she couldn’t stop laughing for nearly a minute. Everyone else in the room looked a little bothered by the whole thing. But then the door to the room creaked open as the woman made her appearance. “I like your spirit!” she barked, revealing herself to be a very tall, thin yet fit woman. She wore a simple white hiyoku, the under-kimono, which gave her a very simple appearance to conflict directly with her wild eyes and aura that she bled. Saki could tell that this woman was the one that was the real leader of everyone. She carried herself in a way that none of the others did.

Staring at Saki for a moment, the woman grinned widely revealing a bit of her teeth in her excitement. “I like you. There’s a good fire in yer belly.”

“Eh?” She really didn’t understand what was going on anymore. Giving a name didn’t really answer much of anything to her situation. Everything remained clueless for her. But the woman invited her further into the room.

Taking up a stance by the windows, the boisterous woman faced everyone and Saki directing her words to Saki most importantly. “We fight against the UN and would like for you to join us!”