Learning By Eye

The next morning, I awoke to the feeling of my body having been contorted slightly by the wormwood bush I was sleeping in. I was initially disoriented, both because I was exhausted from the day before and because I was full of adrenaline as I went to sleep. But the gentle, smooth mist and the light of dawn cleared my mind as I was becoming active. When I fully regained consciousness, my first thought was what Alice was doing; I had to check if she had truly noticed me last night. I exited the bush and tried to find out where Alice was from the outside perimeter of the house. At this time of day, Alice was decently likely, but not guaranteed, to still be asleep. If I were to peek at her at the wrong moment, she would notice me immediately, so I had to observe her indirectly. I climbed onto the roof and crawled along its surface in order to hear her noises. After a few minutes of carefully scanning for her, she did not appear to be active upstairs, so I found a good window to enter through, slowly and carefully checked to make sure Alice was absent and broke in when I saw her gone.

Now that I had made it inside of the house, I could more freely scan for Alice due to having more sources of cover. I slowly walked out of the room and started looking for her. Again, I focused mainly on the sounds she would be making if she was awake; her bedroom was empty. I scanned the top floor but found no trace of her, but when I approached the stairway to the ground floor, I began to hear sizzling. I assumed she was cooking breakfast for herself. With this knowledge, I furtively descended the stairs to enter the living room when the cover allowed me to stay hidden from her. I hid behind her couch and waited there to observe where she would go next, as well as to hear if she would speak to herself any. After a while her cooking ceased, and she started to walk out of the kitchen. I couldn’t see her, so I preemptively wrapped myself around the couch ready to wiggle underneath it if she would come into the living room. However, she didn’t enter that way. Instead she went into another adjacent room. I shifted my position around the couch again, laying on my knees facing the front as I tried to listen to her again. She started to speak about her mission, trying to assure herself that it would go well.

“Okay. It’s just a few more. All I have to do is a few more minor kills, and I’ll be ready to take that contract on. I’m sure I can do this well. I won’t fail like I did that other time.”

She said nothing about my father nor me. She didn’t appear panicked either, so it seemed she had not noticed me. After a few minutes, she went upstairs, equipped her assassin gear and left. I waited for a few minutes to see if she would come back before I decided that it was safe to free roam the house. I first took scraps and dishwater for my own breakfast: enough to sustain myself, but little enough to dilute the missing supply. After that, I decided to do what I had intended last night: look through Alice’s belongings to find hints of her relation to my father. While I had done this to an extent before last night, I was much looser in my search since I was uncertain if she had interacted with him. I went into her room first and looked for her computer. It was sitting underneath her dresser, suspended by a cloth pocket. I did not intend to use it immediately, because I assumed that Eric would have tracking software on it. If I had used her computer while she was away, and Eric noticed that it was while Alice was supposed to be on a job, they both would have been much more alert of me. Plus, I most likely would have had to use a password in order to access it. I looked through the rest of her belongings to see if there was anything hidden about my father. But nothing turned up.

I was frustrated that I could not immediately find clues on my father through her items, but I kept my thoughts clear and calm. I tried to think of another way I could directly gather the information I wanted. Then it occurred to me that both Alice and my father were assassins, and that Alice was conducting an assassination at the moment. If I could directly observe Alice’s killing techniques and compare them to those of my father’s, I could deduce whether or not she had learned how to kill from him. It seemed absurd to me, but it was definitely worth confirming. It was also the fastest way I could find out if I was correct. I looked for Alice’s kill contract to see where her target was. I found her contract on her dresser, but the date was still days away. I kept looking and eventually found a contract with the same day, as well as the location of the target. I rushed to the destination as fast as I could and prepared to observe Alice kill her target.

The location was a rural area. The house was a standard one floor building with very few surrounding houses, unlike Alice’s which had zero. Still, I didn’t have to worry much about being spotted by outsiders: only Alice and the target. I circled the outside of the house to see where the target was, as well as to make sure that Alice would not see me. The windows were much higher above the ground than Alice’s were, so I could easily circle the perimeter by scooting along the walls and listening for sounds, peering in when I couldn’t hear anything. I eventually found a good window and swiftly slipped through it. It was a storage room, and neither Alice nor the target were inside with me. The door had a small window with a wire lattice inside, and I could see outside to view a middle-sized hallway. I saw the target sitting in the room across the hallway. He looked exhausted, like a caffeine addict who hadn’t had his daily cup of coffee yet. But Alice was still nowhere in sight.

I at least managed to spot the target due to my route choice, but now that I had to open the door in his plain field of vision, it was no longer a useful hiding spot. I exited the storage room, making sure that nobody would see me as I exited and then looked for another good entrance. I found a bedroom, but it didn’t work, because it led once again into his plain sight. I found a glass panel patio and viewed into it from a distance camouflaging myself with brush. I finally found Alice crouching down aiming her revolver down the hallway. Unfortunately, not one more second after I spotted her, the girl pulled the trigger. Alice began to retreat as the bang reverberated through the air. She ran towards my direction, so I crouched down from her field of vision and retreated to another part.

When I finally could not hear her, I slowly peered back at the house to see somebody entering inside, presumably a neighbor to check on what had happened. I knew where the target would be and looked at him from a distance. Blood covered the walls, and his body was motionless and limp. Alice succeeded in her assassination, and I barely witnessed how she did it. I grew even more frustrated, retreated from the scene and returned back to Alice’s house.

It was dusk when I returned, and Alice came back shortly after. She was acting excited and pleased for her accomplishment. But she also faintly seemed troubled and disturbed. I wasn’t certain why she would be distressed, but I didn’t consider it to be important. I just proceeded to observe her as she settled back into her home. She pulled her laptop out, and I carefully observed the keyboard as she typed her password in. She accessed her main computer, and I looked closely at how she was using it. Alice went to a list that looked somewhat like an Excel spreadsheet. She clicked an icon next to the name of the person she killed, and a green dot appeared next to it. The screen turned blue (water blue, like seeing through the ocean) with a video buffer symbol. Alice entered a text chat and started to speak with Eric.

“Hello, Alice. So, the contract was a success?”

“I took an effective shot from 10 meters away and left with no witnesses; Not even the target saw me. The neighbors may have heard the gunshot, but otherwise I was completely hidden.”

“Quick and efficient? Good. Was his death instant?”

“I think so.”

“Excuse me? You ‘think’ so?”

Alice started to panic, but I knew better. I saw the aftermath in the target’s head; Her shot was an instant kill. But she made a mistake by not confirming the target’s death herself. She ran away as soon as she took the shot, without even stopping to take in whether or not her shot was truly well placed.

“I landed a headshot.”

“Very well. Perhaps this time it is of no concern. That was a minor contract away. But even so, Alice. This is a guild whose main draw is being efficient and reliable. I cannot afford to have my reputation ruined by incompetence or imprecise execution. I am confident you understand this?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Of course, if you truly landed a headshot like you say you did, I suppose that’s a decent enough way to tell if you succeeded. But remember; even headshots can be non-lethal, especially with your revolver. Overall, however, good job. I will store your reward into your stockpile and add this onto your progress report.”

“Thanks.”

“Certainly. Now Alice, you’re taking that major contract for the bartender, correct? While you did make a minor mistake on this job, you should be well prepared with 2 more minor contracts: just 1 if it goes especially well.”

“Yes. I think I’ll need those practice kills.”

“My god. This is exactly why you failed to check the body before you left. You must remember that these are still real contracts you’re taking up. The targets are more than shooting dummies. They’re physical objectives who make up a real job you undertake.”

“Of course. I understand that much.”

“Good. Well then, good luck on your next mission. I’ll be sure to judge your performance in full once I get the details of the contract.”

“Eric, wait.”

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find him. And I’m sorry that I mixed him up with somebody else.”

Alice was clearly referencing the story of how she saw me under the bridge.

“Child, that’s in the past. You had decent reasons to believe that he was the man you thought, and I became unreasonably ambitious in my demands for you to find him. The God of Death is not an easy man to spot. You found what you thought was a chance to find him based on a loose description I gave you. Of course, your assault on that random man certainly didn’t help, but I can understand why you would think that was the one. But there’s no more left to do about him now.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“However, you truly were stretching your search parameters when you shot a random Japanese man. He didn’t even have a katana on him, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

Yet even though she truly did attack me, for some reason she blatantly lied to Eric that she never saw such a blade, perhaps in order to avoid his wrath for letting the opportunity slip.

“Now if you don’t mind, I must break contact. I have negotiation work to conduct. I wish you luck in your next missions.”

The chatroom closed, and Alice shutdown her computer. She then went downstairs and prepared for dinner. I exited my hiding spot and went directly into her room to attempt to access her computer, intending to slowly test what extent Eric had probed the device. I typed in the password, had the computer give me access to it, and then quickly closed it and put it back. I placed it on wait to see if Eric noticed my usage. I then went to watch Alice and see what she was doing. She was sitting in the living room with a blank expression on her face, similar to that of her target. The only difference was that her gaze seemed much less exhausted and more forlorn. After a few minutes, she bowed her head slightly and started to clutch her chest. She wasn’t crying like before, but she was clearly in despair. She kept moving through the living room back and forth in slow, gentle motions. Eventually she came back upstairs and went to sleep; I entered her basement as usual and did the same.

Not much happened until 2 days later. Alice left the house for an unknown purpose. I woke up after she was gone, so I couldn’t follow her without tracking information. I believed it was safe to free roam the house, but thought it was a good idea to try and find out when she would be back. When I was thinking of how to find out where she was, it occurred to me that she may have been conducting another assassination. I looked for a contract she would have for the potential mission. About an hour of searching later, I found one dated for the same day. I rushed to the location: a rundown apartment complex with lots of space for internal residence, but otherwise very few people. As I was looking for a good approach to enter, I saw Alice’s silhouette cast onto the surface of the main window from one of the apartments. She quickly disappeared, and then she emerged a few seconds later without any traces of blood covering her. She was, however, carrying a bloody kitchen knife inside of a plastic container with her. She again left the scene of the murder immediately and went to return home. So unfortunately, I was too late for a second time. The part that infuriated me the most was that being unable to see how she did it was entirely my own fault. My own abilities had failed me. However, I could at the very least take a good look at the body to see how cleanly she killed him. I didn’t believe that anybody was inside the house at the moment, but I thought it was worth a check to be safe. Nobody was visible through the windows, and all of the neighbors seemed to either be absent or still inside. I opened the door and found his body. He was lying face down in a pool of blood. I could barely see a slit on his neck. On closer inspection, there was a crescent shaped slit in his armpit; I knew his insides had been shredded to bits. No objects in the house were broken or displaced, and Alice left behind no traces.

I looked outside of the window through its blinds to see if anybody was outside. But nobody was present. I slowly exited the door, checking both sides for anybody present there. I readied my pistol and katana in case I had to kill anybody who would potentially see me. Nobody was outside at the moment, and both sides of the 2nd floor had their doors closed. I crawled along the wall of the building towards the side with the most cover, careful to duck underneath the apartments’ windows. I then looked to the side of the building to spot potential witnesses, jumped to the bottom and proceeded to return to Alice’s house.

Upon arrival, I found Alice in her room chatting with Eric. I had gotten into position just early enough to take in the whole conversation that Alice had with him.

“Eric! I did it! It was a perfect kill!”

“Oh? Which contract was this?”

“The one from Ted Goldman! It was for Aaron Fischer!”

“Is this so?”

“Take a look! Take a look!”

“Here we are, yes. Well Alice, you did splendidly. This is one of the stricter contracts, and it’s from one of my higher regulars. You’ve done much better than your last mission. You have redeemed yourself for your blunder. In fact, if I can get enough information from my clean-up agents, you may already be ready to go after Keith Stevens.”

“Really? Thank you! I’ll do my best!”

“Very well. Do not disappoint me on this mission. Don’t forget what happened the last time I gave you a major contract.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. If you understand, I will break contact now. You are to keep your computer active until I confirm whether or not you’re clear for the contract.”

“I understand.”

The chatroom closed, and Alice sighed in relief. Her body expressions were mildly joyous, but her overall demeanor somehow seemed even more somber than when I saw after the previous kill. Alice went into her kitchen to make dinner, and I waited for her to go to sleep before I did as well.

The next day, Alice received a notification from Eric saying that her contract was an A rank, and that she was now clear to assassinate Keith Stevens. Eric ended the message by commanding Alice to equip her stealth suit.

I saw Alice take out a chest from her closet. She then took a key from another location and unlocked it to reveal her suit. I saw Alice enter the bathroom, and when she came out, her original attire was altered almost completely. The vaguely multicolored, loose fitting suit she had before was discarded for this mission. In its place was a tight, gothic type, uniformly colored pitch-black suit. She was now wearing opera gloves, fashion icon boots, generic pants, and a tight button up vest with white wavy frills surrounding its collar and button up section, going slightly below her breasts. The only part of her original outfit was her jacket, which in this suit was now black as well. Alice left the house to conduct her kill, and I followed her almost immediately.

This time, the target’s location was the bar itself where Keith worked. Since I now knew where Alice was, and I wasn’t directly attempting to engage anything, I could easily observe both her and the target from a distance to see how the kill would happen. The bar was about 15 minutes away from closing. Once the bar closed, Keith exited. I knew this because Alice nodded upon seeing him and began to enter his car. Her movements as she did so were swift, graceful and furtive. They looked almost exactly like my father’s movements. This alone heavily hinted that her assassination style was the same as that of my father’s. But I wanted to learn more. I took a daring move and followed in after her. Alice sat herself directly behind the driver’s seat. I refused to not bear witness to the actual kill. Keith came to the trunk of his car and opened it up to retrieve an item. When he closed the hatch back, I rushed to it from the passenger’s side and then opened and closed it in synchronization with his door. I readied my pistol and waited to see what would happened next. Almost immediately after we both had entered the vehicle, Alice threatened him and said,

“Don’t! move… You’re going to take me somewhere I want to go. Got it?”

Keith slowly nodded, and then Alice made him drive with her directions. She did not notice me in the back at all. As she was speaking to him, I slowly and carefully latched the trunk shut so it wouldn’t flap open as we moved. This was a minivan, so I wasn’t locking myself in the back. We drove a fair distance before arriving onto the interstate. After roughly 8 minutes, we arrived back onto complex roads, and eventually we made our way to a park.

Alice told Keith to stop, and they both exited the van. Alice placed Keith at gunpoint to his back. Then she spoke to him.

“Sorry, Keith. This is nothing personal. I have lives to save.”

She then suddenly shot him in the heart, and then rapidly shot him again in the liver, just as the contract ordered. He didn’t suffer for very long and quickly died to her bullets. She then picked up a phone and called somebody.

“The job’s done. There were no major issues.”

“No. We’re currently in the middle of Fawn Birth Park. But the job’s been fulfilled without compromise to my stealth.”

“Excellent. Goodbye.”

I was still in the trunk, and Alice stepped into the car herself. As we drove back to the bar, Alice began to speak to herself about her assassination.

“It’s done. I’m finally through with this killing spree! Maybe now Eric will treat me well after what I’ve done to please him. Whom am I kidding though? He never changes. He’s not going to let me go anytime soon.”

She went silent and then pounded the radio.

“Damn it! I wish I had managed to keep that katana from Yuuto when I saw him under that bridge.”

Apparently, she thought I was he.

“I can’t believe I attacked him on the spot, after how kind he was to me. Like, I guess I was desperate but just...”

I was shocked. Why would my father ever directly interact with Alice whom he barely knew?

“I know Eric wants to see him so badly, but this isn’t how it works. I get why he wants to see him so badly. I really do. Those stealth manuals from Japan are how he learned to be an assassin and how he taught me as well. Yuuto follows them perfectly with no error, and he has attained almost universal S ranks. I get it. He wants to meet his idol so badly. But he’s not the kind of man to show himself. I can’t tell him that I know about Yuuto. The only reason I know him at all is because he took pity on me. I know Eric’s not good. I know Yuuto is. I can’t tell Eric that I know anything about him. I can’t bring myself to betray him, especially as much as I have. If I had just managed to deliver that katana to him, Eric would have been drooling over it. He would have finally stopped treating me like garbage. Yuuto could surely break back in and get it, right? No harm done. It’s okay. It’s okay! … Damn it it’s not okay though! I assaulted one of the only people who would treat me with any kindness! Will is all that’s left, if he even still is! I’m alone now! I drove away my only beacon of light, I disappointed my real father, I’m still stuck in a horrible killing job, and I’m only free from it as long as a school break!”

Alice started to cry.

“I hate this! Please, Yuuto! I’m sorry! Save me from this! Help me…”

I came to know exactly how and why my father would meet Alice. He wanted to help her. And if my father had anything to do with her, I wanted to carry out his desire to help her. Nonetheless, my absolute priority was on my father. Whether I took a side route to help Alice or focused my efforts onto infiltrating the guild for information, ultimately, I was going for my father.

When we came to a stop, Alice placed the car back where it was originally parked and went back home, to which I followed soon after. I spent the walk back home thinking about what else Alice knew about my father. I came to believe that I could directly interrogate Alice about him. I no longer considered her a threat to me, because she seemed to have a strong attachment to my father just as I did. Befriending Alice and offering to help her could make it easier for me to infiltrate the building and extract information. She could easily enter in and out of it and extract information without enemy resistance. Rather than painstakingly slipping through gaps, I could have Alice betray them in secret and give me what I needed to know. I did not intend to simply jump out of the attic and immediately announce that we were allies, but I could still befriend her rather quickly. I decided to message her with a measure to keep her from immediately turning me in and have her find it in a plane-sight location. This was how I would speak to her. When Alice got home, she turned in her contract and received an award of $1200 and a 16-day break, which Eric called an Izayoi vacation. This meant that I had roughly 2 weeks to freely message her and interact with her without long hiatuses when she would be away.

I was heavily exhausted from my week and went back into Alice’s basement to rest. I had to prepare myself for the next day even though there was not much pressure on my end. I placed my katana and pistol beside me and rested for the next day, intending to clear my mind well to put my plan into action.