Chapter 103 - Back There Again (3)

The descent didn't take long. We dropped through the cold air, which battered my ears painfully. I could feel the wire scraping the skin off my palm, but at this speed, that was unavoidable.

The ground rushed up to meet us. My feet touched down safely.

Thankfully, nothing unexpected happened this time. We made it down safely and got away from the arena. Riccardo, who had landed first, was making a report on a phone he'd gotten from somewhere.

Probably taken from a dead cop or mobster, I imagined.

It hadn't even occurred to me to grab one. Something to reflect on.

I shifted Bobby into a more comfortable position in my arms and approached. My senior looked up.

"Status?"

"I'm fine, apart from a little chest pain."

Riccardo's brow creased slightly, but he didn't press me. Before long, his low-voiced report came to an end. A chilly silence settled in where the conversation had been.

We stood in the moonlit wasteland, waiting for backup. Bobby, who had been crying her heart out, held out a hand to borrow Riccardo's phone.

"I'm going to call Dad..."

Sniffling, she took the phone he offered.

"And tell him to wipe them all out..."

Huh?

That was quite a thing I'd just heard.

I gave Bobby an unsettled look, but she merely sniffled through her red nose and held the phone to her ear. Riccardo remained silent, a wry smile on his face.

Hmm.

So that business about operating outside the law or whatever hadn't been wrong after all.

I set my blond senior down somewhere suitable so she could talk in peace.

A few paces away, I quietly waited for backup, my mouth shut as I looked down at Achille, who still hadn't woken up.

An agonizing wait.

The medical helicopter arrived.

"Send the injured up first!"

Someone was shouting from the helicopter.

From then on, everything was a blur. We sent Achille up, then Bobby, and boarded ourselves.

As soon as everyone was aboard, the helicopter left for Black Badger headquarters. Medical personnel were on board, and they gathered around Achille and Bobby, working frantically.

For Bobby, the answer was essentially decided. A prosthetic leg was the only option, and there was nothing more they could do for now.

In Achille's case, they said his arm would heal, but the toxin already circulating through his body was the problem.

Proper treatment would have to wait until we reached headquarters. Having told us that much, the medics concentrated on their work. Riccardo and I kept checking on our seniors in the cramped helicopter, with nothing else we could do.

What would happen to the arena, what would become of the people inside, how the police and the Mafia would be dealt with... I had no energy to spare for the details. I talked to Bobby to keep her spirits up and watched Achille's condition. I answered the medics' questions, too.

The noise made conversation difficult, adding to the confusion. It wasn't until the pilot spoke that I realized we had reached headquarters.

Headquarters drew closer through the darkness.

The top floor.

We landed on the roof.

* * *

Ska was there. The aide watched us disembark, looking troubled, then slowly walked onto the landing pad.

I watched him look at Achille with a heavy gaze as he was wheeled away, then turn toward Bobby on the next stretcher. He said something to her and briefly squeezed her shoulder.

Achille and Bobby soon disappeared from view. Once the injured had been taken safely downstairs, he approached us.

"You all right?"

"Ah... I'm ashamed to face you..."

Riccardo answered Ska's question with a wry smile.

The profound exhaustion in his voice worried me. He had to be a wreck inside, and I could see him trying not to show it.

I barely suppressed the urge to tell him to go downstairs and rest.

"Coming back after failing such a simple mission... And with a kid who hasn't even stopped being a new recruit in my care, no less."

"Hospital first. Both of you."

"I need to submit a report... I'll send the rookie down."

"Write it tomorrow," Ska said firmly. "You've already given me a brief report."

"Thanks to the new recruit throwing himself in to save me, I'm in one piece... Hear me out while it's fresh in my mind. We left the place a complete shitshow, too... We're talking a lot more than one or two dead."

The aide stared at the smiling Riccardo for a long time. Looking at his comrade, the superior's finely shaped eyes were troubled. I watched the two men, consumed by guilt.

I really had no excuse.

He had bought me dinner and briefed me on the mission's special circumstances, and now I'd put that look on his face. As Riccardo said, this mission had been a failure.

Even though I alone had known it wasn't as simple as it looked...

"Hilde."

Ska's voice jolted me out of my thoughts. I straightened.

"Yes, sir."

"Go get treated. Now."

"I'm fine, too."

There was the chest pain, admittedly. My breaths were short, as though I'd just run flat out, and there was an uncomfortable ache like a stiff shoulder, but otherwise I was fine. The little cuts on my hands would heal in a day or two.

Riccardo was clearly in far worse shape than I was with these minor injuries. There had to be a chain of command for reporting, so I couldn't very well offer to report in his place.

Instead, I said, "I'll wait until you're finished reporting."

"Why? What difference would you standing around like an idiot make?"

"Ric."

My senior turned toward me with a smile. Ska stopped him at once.

I met that chilly smile with a bitter one.

"None..."

"If you know that, why don't you hurry up and fuck off..."

Then I'd go check on Achille. Apparently waiting for the report to finish wasn't allowed.

The cold wind stung my ears. I brushed aside the white hair fluttering at the edge of my vision.

A vast nighttime vista stretched beyond the rooftop.

The aide, who had been pressing between his brows with an awkward expression at his comrade's cutting words, looked at me.

"Yun will be here soon."

"Pardon?"

Why?

"He'll have received word that you've just arrived. Let your training officer know where you are on your way to the hospital building."

"Yes, I'll do that."

"Or you can wait here a moment and go with him. He should be here any minute."

I doubted he'd be here any minute.

I didn't even know why he'd bother coming. What difference would his being here make?

My training officer, who was efficiency incarnate and born without a shred of humanity, would never come here. I wouldn't have been surprised if he hadn't even checked when I was getting back.

Not that I was stupid enough to say any of that aloud.

I gave my seniors an innocuous smile.

"Then I'll head down first..."

"Hildebert."

What the hell?

That scared the shit out of me.

I jolted reflexively, sending a sharp pain across my chest.

That hurt...

I frowned at the stabbing pain and didn't bother smoothing my expression as I watched my training officer approach.

Choi Yun, walking toward us in a lab coat.

His face was as devoid of emotion as ever.

"Why are you here?"

"Yes, it really has been a while."

Yun brushed off my rude greeting. He walked past a blinking Ska and Riccardo, whose eyebrows arched, and stopped in front of me.

"You've become so polite since I last saw you."

"Of course."

Seeing your face reminds me of something I'd briefly forgotten.

"I'm a greenhorn who hasn't even taken the promotion exam. Shouldn't I be polite?"

Ska cleared his throat in surprise. My rudeness seemed to have shocked him. Understandable, since he didn't know the circumstances. He couldn't possibly imagine that Yun hadn't said a single word about the promotion exam.

Give me some advance notice about something that important, would you?

If Riccardo hadn't casually mentioned it, I was certain I would have gone into the next year without knowing the exam existed. Yun was exactly the sort of person who might blithely tell me about it a month beforehand.

I looked into my training officer's eyes with a hint of reproach. Naturally, my look bounced right off him.

Instead, ignoring my words, he narrowed his eyes as if puzzled and said, "Why does your breathing sound like that?"

"Pardon?"

What was wrong with my breathing?

"Does it sound strange?"

"It does."

Yun stepped closer.

"Take a breath."

A breath...

Taking a deep breath was uncomfortable, so I took a shallow one. Then my eyes widened at what my training officer did next.

What the hell?

"What are you doing all of a sudden?!"

"Hold still."

He abruptly pressed his ear to my chest. Horrified, I wanted to back away, but he already had hold of my arm, so I couldn't.

Still as silently quick as ever.

With no way to escape, I obediently stood where I was. Yun remained motionless, terrifyingly close, then frowned faintly.

"Sounds like a pneumothorax."

At his low mutter, my seniors came closer. I pretended not to notice their looks.

"Did you injure your chest?"

"I did take a hard hit."

"When the building collapsed?"

"No, in the arena."

"And I hear you ran carrying Sordi after that?"

I nodded meekly at Yun's question. I kept my gaze fixed on him without so much as shifting my eyes. I didn't have the courage to check Riccardo's expression beside me.

I also ignored Ska frowning at my chest.

Yun blinked his jet-black eyes once.

"The pain must have made running difficult."

Hmm.

"If I hadn't run, I'd have been squashed into paste."

Yun stared at me. His face gave absolutely no hint of what he was thinking. Those eyes were as piercing and cold as ever.

The silence that fell over the roof was terrifying. Unable to move, I prayed for this moment to pass quickly. I didn't want to make Riccardo any angrier. He'd been so intent on leaving me on the ground...

My training officer slowly broke the silence.

"You have a pain tolerance this high, but you hate getting on the lab table?"

"Are you asking because you genuinely don't know?"

"I hear you even ran up the stairs in this condition."

"Well, it doesn't hurt much when the adrenaline is flowing."

And please stop bringing up the one subject I most wanted to avoid. I don't want to upset Riccardo any more than I already have.

But once again, my training officer mercilessly brushed aside my desperate signals. He gave a cold snort, released my arm, and slowly turned.

"Follow me."

His voice was low and flat.

"And no detours to anyone else's room."

The man was uncanny.

I stared sulkily at Yun's back, then resigned myself. Turning my head, I gave Riccardo and Ska, who had been standing beside us listening, a small bow.

My seniors were watching me with unreadable faces.

Ah.

"I'm sorry."

I apologized to the silent Riccardo.

"I wasn't lying... The adrenaline really did keep it from hurting as much as it does now... I'll come and apologize properly once I've been treated. Oh, and now that you've got your physical abilities back, feel free to come beat me up as much as you like, whenever you want."

Riccardo didn't answer, but I didn't let that stop me from bowing my head again. Then, slowly following Yun, I added something that might help unleash the anger my senior was barely holding back.

"Still, thank you for trusting me."

Yun would probably protect me, more or less.

"Please make sure you rest after your report, Riccardo."

I didn't dare check his expression. I turned away and quickly fled the landing pad after my training officer.