[One Year Later]
CRASH!
The sound of crates falling immediately pulled the attention of the supervisor, a man in a black suit who had a scowl on his face.
"Temee, nani yatten da yo?!?" the supervisor said as he walked towards the man who had dropped a couple of sealed crates whilst using the forklift<anno data-annotation-id="6f1c0766-1eb7-4919-a2c8-110cdf88d467" data-title=".">.1</anno>
"S-sorry boss," the man in the forklift said with a stutter.
He knew that the cargo they were transporting was quite important, since they were set to be delivered to a major client.
Dropping them would just damage the ’goods’, which would be bad for business.
The supervisor had a dark expression on his face as he looked at the man.
"Sorry?" he repeated, his voice dangerously calm.
The forklift operator swallowed as he tried to keep himself from getting into trouble.... At least, more than he already has.
"I-I’ll clean it up immediately."
"You’d better."
With that, the supervisor glanced at the fallen crates before crouching beside one of them.
Fortunately, none of the seals had been broken, causing him to let out a sigh of relief.
"Do you have any idea how much these are worth?"
"N-no, boss."
The supervisor stood up and adjusted his tie before looking at the man and adding, "Not even your life could afford these."
The boss didn’t give him a chance to respond before he turned towards the other workers.
"Get those crates back onto the truck."
Several men immediately obeyed his order without question.
The warehouse quickly returned to its previous rhythm, with forklifts moving between rows of containers and workers loading the cargo.
To anyone watching from outside, it would’ve looked like nothing more than an ordinary shipping facility.
But that couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
While it really was a shipping facility, what they shipped was not furniture or any other objects.
Rather, the ’goods’ were humans... Awakened humans.
This was one of the Argent Ring’s shipping facilities, one responsible for sending out their created ’goods’ to the customer who pays the highest.
The boss walked toward the back of the warehouse, where several armed men stood beside a large refrigerated container.
"Open it."
One of the men immediately stepped forward and entered a code into the keypad.
BEEP.
The locks disengaged with a heavy click before the doors slowly swung open, and a wave of cold air was released into the warehouse.
The boss stepped forward, looked inside and noticed that the container was filled with rows of reinforced cages.
And inside those cages were people- no, children.
They were all unconscious, but very much alive, especially since their dying would just be a waste of precious Primagen.
Those things were hard to come by.
The boss paid no mind to the other unconscious kids; instead, he focused on the one that was still conscious.
She was a girl who seemed no older than ten, but her expression showed that she wasn’t scared in the least bit.
Cold perhaps, but definitely not scared.
"Quite a brave young lady you are," the man said with a smile as he approached her, "I wonder if I should keep you for myself."
The girl slowly looked up at him before saying, "My father is going to tear you limb from limb."
He silently looked at her for a while before bursting out in a fit of laughter, "You really are that man’s daughter."
"Unfortunately for you," he stopped laughing and looked directly into her eyes, "the moment you’re shipped with the other cargo, your father will have no way of finding you."
"..." The girl silently looked at him, but chose not to say another word.
"What?" The man taunted, "not so confident any—"
BOOM!
A loud explosion that shook the entire warehouse suddenly went off, and with it, every piece of tech was turned off.
"W-what the fuck was that?" The man screamed as he stood up, about to head outside, but before he could reach the door, one of his men suddenly peeked inside.
"I think you should stay in here for a while, boss," the guard said with a frown on his face, "the warehouse is under attack."
Before the boss could get the chance to say anything else, the man closed the door, and with a click, he was sealed with the other cargo.
The boss turned back only to see the girl smiling at him. "Told you, didn’t I?"
"We are the Argent Ring," the boss started, "all the guards out there are awakened humans, so your father’s men do not stand a chance."
"Then why are you sweating?"
The boss’s smile immediately disappeared as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and glanced toward the sealed doors.
"I-it’s hot in here."
Yeah, right.
It was so hot that one would tremble from the freezing heat.
The girl didn’t believe his words; after all, she was the one trembling from cold.
BOOM!
Another explosion rocked the container, causing several of the cages to shake, but the unconscious children remained completely still.
The boss flinched at this as he let out again, "What the hell is happening out there?"
He hurried toward the door and slammed his hand against the control panel, trying to open it, only to fail.
"The power is out."
"No shit," the girl muttered.
The boss turned toward her with an irritated expression. "You should learn to watch your mouth."
She simply smiled in response.
For the daughter of the Yakuza, she had been trained from the moment she could walk, never to show an ounce of fear to the enemy.
But in truth, she was scared.
Scared that her papa would never be able to rescue her. That is, until she heard the commotion outside, and she was now certain that he had come for her.
"Dammit," the boss pulled out his phone and tried to turn it on, only for that to fail too.
He then began pounding against it as he shouted,
"OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR!"
That seemed to have done it, because the next second, he heard a click as the container door was pulled open.
The boss came face to face with the same guard that had locked him in, but he was looking clearly worse now.
Blood was dripping down his face, and he seemed to be struggling to even speak.
The last thing the guard managed to let out was,
"Oni."
THUD!
The guard fell over, revealing a katana lodged in his back, and the boss immediately stepped back in a hurry.
"W-what the hell happened?"
His question was soon answered when he noticed a silhouette slowly approaching from within the dark warehouse.
The boss almost had a heart attack as he noticed who was attacking them.
Their attacker was one with a head full of white hair, and he was dressed in a black suit with a smile on his face.
"Z-Zero?"
Zero smiled in response before saying,
"Hello there."
<annotations style="display: none;">The Japanese phrase translates to: What the fuck are you doing? (also, from this point on I'll be using English, but know that they're speaking Japanese.)</annotations>
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