A New Moon Rises (Private)

It was safe to say moving back home was a little bit of a hassle. Normally, she didn’t have much to worry about, but coming back home from schooling after some time spent away. Apparently the Wakusei portals that she used to go from place to place had been a little more of a troubling issue than she first let on to be. That, and she didn’t have several extra movers to help her with the move either, so her summoning abilities seemed to be gone. It was to be expected, and nothing truly wrong with the concept of having to start over. She wasn’t much of a fighter to begin with, which is why when Black Rose was around, she was the “social butterfly” of the mafia... or at least that’s what was rumored in it. She felt like a rather different person between the schooling and home, but coming back wasn’t exactly like the same.

Two weeks had gone by since Sakura had come back to Rose Garden, moving into her home for the time being, getting situated back in Fiore, the doll headed off on her own to go somewhere a little more familiar to her. Her choice was the Silver Moon Inn, a place that quite frankly she was unsure if was even running without the guilds funds helping to keep it afloat, but it was worth a try. The small, light frame from the girl didn’t seem all too different between going through place-to-place until she had managed to arrive at the inn. Dust plastered all along the front windows while the rest of them were boarded up. A single closed sign hung in the front right window and yet, despite that, Sakura reached up to grab the handle. Turning it, the door surprisingly opened and with a light peek over each shoulder, she snuck inside and shut the door quietly. When she turned around, the place looked like it packed up for one night, then was left abandoned. Chairs upside and seated on the chairs, the drinks caked in dust and cobwebs.

The doll approached the bar counter, headed to the seat to which she normally always would sit in and began to climb up as best she could. The familiar feeling was nostalgic and as much as she did enjoy it, there wasn’t much of a feeling of joy in knowing this old bar was closed. Turning in the stool, she leaned an arm up to rest on the bar when she heard the sound of paper. A peculiar place to leave any, she grabbed it and pulled it off to see that it was a letter addressed to her. The handwriting was in a lovely and sophisticated form of font and before she knew it, she opened the letter and pulled out a card, looking over the wording on it:

“Sakura Kisagami, we are pleased to inform you that you have been invited for preliminary testing to assess your aptitude in a special business venture. We have been following your career with a vested interest and believe you to be an excellent candidate to fill a vacancy within our organisation.

Our organisation is made up of various men, and woman with goals and skills very similar to your own, and as such we will it is only in our best interest to extend this opportunity out to you. If you are interested, please meet one of our associates at the Silver Moon Inn at 3:30pm. We hope to see you there.”

The doll just blinked. Was... this supposed to have been sent to her home and she just happened to be here early? Well... it made sense in some cases, so if that were the case she had about a couple hours and nothing really else to do. ”Hmm.. I wonder if the water still works...” Jumping off, she landed on the heels her feet were fitted into before wandering into the back, grabbing hold of a tea kettle and filling it, surprisingly enough before setting up the fire to boil. She had the time, may as well kick back on old habits.

691 words

The water she had gotten together for the meeting began to boil and thus, started to let it's steam out through the stout. With it came the usual high pitch screaming sound that kettle boiled water was known to make. In that moment, it was ready at least to be moved into the main area. Of course, it felt like a little more of a struggle with the fact that Sakura weight about twice this water filled kettle, so her balance at first was a bit shakey, however the doll managed to kick herself back into gear and headed into the room once again, setting the pot down on the counter of the bar. An exhale of relief from not having spilled this on herself was good, since.. well she had a lot of practice to perfect it. It was only much easier not feeling anything that made it much better for her to not have to worry about being mummified in medical bandaging to cover various degrees of burns.

The former mafia girl had begun to climb back onto her seat when she had seen the sudden eerie light brightening the bar a little. While half way up, she turned her head to see the floating hologram of the head of a strange looking male, causing her in a fit of surprise to let out a small yelp before she fell down onto the ground. "For crying out loud... I'd have had an arm pop out in my old doll body if you did tha-" A voice began to fill the room, one to which had her first and last name known so far. Beginning to instruct her on a test of sorts, she was to say the least a little bit miffed. Had she of known she wasn't going to be meeting someone face-to-face, she wouldn't have wasted time trying to make tea. Now it just felt like a bit of a waste, thankfully she didn't mix it with anything this time.

With a shrug, Sakura had walked to the bar counter, reaching up onto her tip toes and grabbing the note. The envelope fell in that moment and two photos slid out from inside. Curious, she had picked up the photos and examined them. "At least to assume these are the two meeting, this makes things easier." Inspecting the rest of the photo, she noticed on the back of one had an address labeled. She recognized this very well, as they could probably have assumed so. The cafe was within a block of her house, so this would be an easier bit of an in and out. Her only problem had been how someone of her size and appearance could so easily get a hold of a flashdrive and then get out without really being seen or caught. Placing a finger to her chin, she had to ponder the ideas of what could work well. If only she still had that mutt of a Yokai, she could do it with ease, but alas, she was gone.

Giving a shrug, the doll began to make her way to the backroom once again. She turned on the stove and then looked over each picture carefully, burning the images into her head before burning them. She couldn't allow evidence to remain of any kind. Now Sakura began to make her way to the cafe. Having time to spare, she made a quick stop into her house and began to rummage about her room until she found a couple spare flashdrives she kept and grabbed one that she had which was nearly identical to the flashdrive that she had been tasked to take. Few minor, but only obvious when looked over carefully type of differences, she plugged it in and looked through, making sure there wasn't anything on it but what she wanted... and she was sure that this would be an interesting find when they would. Of course, all the work she did was purely things kept hidden in the family computer, but safe to see things were still there, she prepped the surprise and then headed out and to the cafe.

She arrived within 5 minutes of the scheduled meet, attempting to get a seat of her own. Having to wait for one to open, the doll took the moment to look about the place to find any and all cameras around that she could see. There were a couple obvious older looking cameras, but several were newer, somewhat more advanced. However all of them were perfectly placed to one specific area. Looking over, she noticed the way to the restrooms was perfectly in route and looking up to the hostess, she asked about being able to go while she waited. Happy to escort her, the hostess began to lead Sakura along when she had begun to pass by the table. Her eyes looked up for a moment to the pair of males sitting at the table when he had returned the look. With a small flash in her eyes, the male began to scream. He flipped the table over on top of the gentleman he sat with and then jumped to his feet before being tackled down by a couple of patrons. The flashdrive popped out of his front pocket right by her feet and picking it up, she switched the two of them out, putting the target into her sleeve while the other one was held onto visibly and purposely.

While her target was under his illusion of nightmares, she calmly walked over to the other gentleman, handing him the flashdrive. "Excuse me, mister? Your friend dropped this. I didn't want it to get lost or anything, it seemed important." She shot a smile, giggling happily like a child. "O-Oh, yeah thanks squirt. Now stay back, you could get hurt." He replied, seeming a little caring of her well-being, but with just a nod, she slipped away toward the entrance, snapping her fingers, releasing the illusions that this person had been so terrified by. Letting the fallout wrap itself up, the doll snuck out of the cafe and headed back in the direction of her house, pulling the flashdrive from her sleeve and chuckling to herself in victory. "I thought I lost my touch.. guess not~" With a shrug, Sakura stood in front of her home before she would walk up onto her front porch, sitting down on one of the chairs seated beneath a shingled overhang supported by two brick pillars. She knew if someone was smart enough to set up the meeting where they had, they wouldn't need much time to know where to find her.

1,111 + 691 = 1802 words