B TEAM

CH 4. LURKING*

Context: After completing their first S-Class quest, the B Team goes to Mufie's to report their success and cash in their rewards. It's a lot of money... but so are the costs of Rukei's bullets, repairs to Bell's gloves, Micaati's braces, not to stack the rent on top of that. With no other S Classers out, they decide to go for the most expensive bounties to get by— the recent adventurer killer sounds like nasty business, especially for rookies, but Rukei's not allowing anyone to be picky.

B Team decides to go back and rest, and start investigating tomorrow, but someone's following them... With a pincer trap set, Bell and Micaati lead on ahead.

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    Bell didn't know what he expected to be behind him. The loudest part of his head screams the Weaver, and he hates how clearly the scenario scorches through his mind almost as if he wants to see it, and barely pushes it down with thoughts of a startled reporter or (as Rukei presumed) some adventurer down on his luck. He turns around, his heels burn, and even if the figure comes up to only Bell's chest, Bell jumps.

    Wide green eyes. Birthmarks placed delicately around his lashes and balanced on the edge of the nose. Little hands and little shoulders jerked up with equal surprise— Bell stumbles back into Micaati with relief, "Oh— he's like five."

    Cocking a brow, Micaati immediately contested. "He's definitely older than five."

    "Okay, well, he's tiny," Bell's ears fall slack down his head, "That explains why he was so hard to detect. Right, buddy?"

    The boy blinks when he's addressed, fixes the askew smile on his face, goes opening his mouth to speak...

    A click of a gun. A voice just as monotonously brutal to match it. "Don't move."

    He doesn't. Neither does Bell, or Micaati, or the very air that hangs over them, nothing shifts except the tightening of Rukei's calloused fingers over the grip and the press of the muzzle against the boy's skull.

    "The moment you are determined to be a threat, I'll pull the trigger."

    "Woah, woah, woah, wait," stuttered Bell between an awkward laugh, hands lifted out like he was calming some feral animal, "Hang on, Cadet, he's just a kid." Micaati tells her to relax— she's still a little edgy after the quest (well, her arm got shattered, Micaati almost died... Bell actually feels kinda stupid for not being a little more mindful with Rukei's feelings).

"'Just a kid'?"

    It's wasn't that. Rukei doesn't resort to violence. She reacts with it, like it's some kind of legal procedure drilled into her head. She goes about with an indiscriminate and precise viciousness, because that's typically efficient when you're that strong anyways. A bullet flies in a straight path.

"Those are very common last words. Don't say them lightly."

    Whenever she started talking like that, Bell realized that he didn't really know anything about Rukei; not where she comes from, nor where she learned to shoot a gun, nor where she mastered the art of mending and cleaning bloody, torn clothes. But Bell knows her teeth bar together a second too long, and he's worried about her. "Cadet?"

    "Please be more cautious."

    Bell looks back towards the kid he impetuously dubs Snow White (porcelain skin, thick inky hair cut into a bob, and feminine, pretty face if not a little antique somehow, like that doll you keep in its box or the china you never use). Taking in a deep breath of air once, as if satisfied, Snow White breaks into a brilliant smile.