Welcome to the Dragon Den

Chapter 8

If someone told Issei that spy work was this boring, he would no doubt disagree at first. If movies and Tv shows had one thing right under all their bullshit, it was their action scenes right?

Well, you'd be wrong on so many levels it's not even funny.

Issei arrived on Kyoto at 00:47 A.M, checked the instructions his "unknown" contractor send him and went to a simple restaurant. It was more appropriate to call the place a hole-in-the-wall type of, but hey he wasn't one to pass on the opportunity to eat Kyoto's famous fried tofu. The outside crust was crunchy and the insides were soft and tasty, simply melting in your mouth.

The other customers paid Issei no attention, his appearance ordinary and all, and he could observe people without raising suspicion. He checked the message once more, trying to memorize the contents before deleting the text:

"I know who you are, Sekiryuutei, and I mean no harm. I heard about your abilities in stealth and how you are trained in hand-to-hand combat. What I ask of you is simple. I need you to investigate the rumors on Downtown and confirm if there is any threat to the leader of the Youkais. Payment will be discussed as soon as you finish your job."

"One last thing, do not try to tell anyone about this. Not that anyone will believe you, but avoiding troublesome situations is preferable, for both you and me."

- Delete text? -

-Yes -No

- Text Deleted. -

He listened carefully for any possibly ominous rumor, but the majority of what he heard was trash talk, drunken ramblings, a man trying to seduce a half-drunk lady, trash talk, and this one group of girls talking about trendy clothes. Did Kyoto allow teenagers to simply wander at any time?Ahh, how come I turn into an infiltrator and the best thing I can get is this. What am I going to tell Yasaka? The biggest threat here is how good this tofu is! At this rate my wallet will be crying tears-...

Issei was eating his third helping of stir-fried tofu when he managed to pick something up. A small bit of conversation, but one that was mildly interesting.

"Heroes?" One young man questioned, his cup empty as he stared at the other man sitting in front of him.

"Shii-...not so loud, you idiot." The older man responded, his head turning to check if anyone was paying attention to their banter. When he found no one particularly interested on them he let out a sigh, his breath stank of alcohol, and scratched his balding head. He poured the younger man more sake, taking a swig of his own cup.

"Yeah, there are these stories about how a bunch of specialkids are disappearing under the orders of this Hero thing. It's all a bunch of bull if you ask me, but the boys working on the docks are making some big bucks to simply smuggle some random peeps to China. What do you say, wanna make some dough?"

"Fuck...I mean, hell yeah, but you know...smuggling people and shit-...If the cops catch us, this could be some heavy shit man." The younger one said, eyeing his alcohol.

"It's gonna be easy money dude, I even put some good word about you to the big shot running the whole thing. He said that the boys in blue have been sweetened already, and things on the more...magical side have been prepared. We only need to show up, guard the place, play tough to the other boys, carry some crates and boom! Easy cash!"

"Why are you even calling me to come? The last gig I did was a mess and the pay was cut short, I barely made by last month because you said "The yakuza don't deal on this area!"" The young man said with bitterness clear on his voice. The older man gave him a dry stare.