Chapter 20: High Hopes

"Ah ah ah," Mrs Goodfrey said as she wiggled her finger in the air as Thaddeus and Reinhardt approached the door, "Everyone except you two."

"Ah, I was wondering when you were going to call us back," Thaddeus said as he spun on his heels, a smirk on his face as his brown hair swayed across his forehead, "Let's get this over with nice and quickly."

"You see, I hate when you speak, so instead of Thaddeus... Reinhardt give me a briefing on your recent mission, seeing that a certain someone forgot to do that on their way back," Goodfrey responded, rolling her eyes at Thaddeus' words.

"Come on Aunty, cut us some slack. You expected us to miss out on the fight that everyone hyped u-"

"Upon investigation, it has been determined that the Kliver Clan is indeed making moves on the outside of the city," Reinhardt interjected, "They've already spread their filthy wings toward neighbouring towns such as Unehara Town and Daito."

"Now now, there's no way to know whether or not they're associated with the Kliver Clan," Thaddeus says, holding a hand in the air as a method of telling Reinhardt to 'Calm Down', "We would need to do some more investigation to determine exactly what association the vampires we've encountered are apart of."

"They all carry the same filthy scent as that cheat," Reinhardt said growling and scrunching up his face as his anger built up.

"Even so-"

"That's some nice information and all," Goodfrey interjected, "But that wasn't your mission. You weren't sent to investigate the Kliver Group, what I wanted was just for you to check on the density of the vampires' spread in the neighbouring communities, Kliver Group or not. Though I do commend you Reinhardt for being able to somehow tie the Kliver Group into this, that would prove... useful someway somehow," As Goodfrey finished up her sentence, she shot a disappointed look over at Thaddeus. She pressed her index finger and her thumb against her temple before sighing.

"Seeing that the Kliver Group is involved, we'll have to send a more experienced team to deal with them," she muttered to herself.

"With all due respect ma'am, I request to be dispatched with the team that would be sent on this mission. I have unfinished business that I need to clean up," Reinhardt said, standing at attention as if he were a soldier.

"Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to turn you down on that one my friend. This mission would immediately call for a minimum of A-rank personnel due to the involvement of the Kliver Group," Goodfrey responded, glancing up at him, "But don't worry, I'm going to have a much easier mission prepared for you and your new-found team in no time."

"I beg you," Reinhardt whimpered, "There's a score that I need to settle."

"And I'm not gonna lose a good hunter over a score that needs settling, do I make myself clear?"

He stepped back in defeat, his head hung low as he clenched his fists, which evoked an eye roll as a response from his brown haired partner who stood beside him.

"Oh yeah, there's something I did forget to report to you," Thaddeus says, leaning himself onto Goodfrey's desk, making her raise a brow in both confusion and frustration.

"And what's that might I ask?"

"Some of the vampires we've encountered, weren't like the rest," he started, "No matter how much I'd cut them down, it seemed as if they weren't gonna stay down. I know for a fact that they should've been beyond the point of death with the sheer amount of wounds I've cut into them... Yet they still didn't fall until the rest of their comrades retreated. If the Kliver Group as we speculate, have vampires like that ready at their disposal, then I'm afraid that this mission might even be a tad bit above an A-Rank's skill level."

"I'll take that into consideration," she said as gently stroked her chin, "That... gives a lot to think about... You may leave to get acquainted with the rest of your team now."

With that, Reinhardt and Thaddeus gave a nod of approval before leaving the room, with Thaddeus slowly shutting the door behind him.

"I think we did well, don't you?... Yeah, we totally nailed that."

***

The doors gently creaked open, giving space to a vast room that's atmosphere was amber in colour due to the several lanterns that hung close to the brown walls. A small crowd gathered at the door, with two people standing at the vanguard, one male and the other female. The male had flat, shiny blue hair that paired well with his blue jumper that was covered in patches and dirt marks. He used his left arm to cover a bruise that he wore on his right as his blue eyes stared down toward the centre of the room where Shouji sat, seemingly awaiting their company. The female who stood behind him had mostly black hair that was accompanied by red streaks around the sides. Both ears would sport four piercings with one at the bottom and the other three being evenly distributed along the side of her earlobe. Her look was that of what one would describe as an 'emo' with both her blouse and tight jeans being black accompanied by fishnet stockings along her arms. The rest of the group behind them blended in with each other quite well, each of their faces having nothing to make them distinguishable from the crowd.

"Why do you look... like that?" Shouji asked, getting up from around the desk he sat in as he slowly began walking toward them.

"We ran into an inconvenience," Shou said, rolling his eyes in slight annoyance, "But don't worry about it, it's mostly handled."

"And those hunters lurking around the place?"

"We took care of most of them."

"What do you mean by most?" Shouji asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Only a couple of them got away," the female said, her arms folded as she stared at Shouji seemingly uninterested in the conversation they were having.

"You have 10 seconds to explain," Shouji said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he turned away from them.

"This group had a werewolf," Shou blurted, "So I'm sorry if they weren't that easy to deal with!"

Shou's response made Shouji freeze for a moment, his hands falling slowly to his sides as he turned around, his eyes brightly shining in their blood-red colour as he glared at Shou.

"Do you take me for an idiot?" he asked, his bloodlust rising to the point where it alerted everyone in the room, "If you were going to make up some type of bullshit to excuse your incompetence, at least make up something believable!"

"He's not lying though," the female uttered.

"I wouldn't say something as drastic as that if it wasn't true. He could even sense me through Lila's stealth... He was the inconvenience that did all this to me," Shou said, his hands hovering over his clothing as a means of showing Shouji his 'battle scars'.

"No no no, all werewolves on this part of the continent are supposed to be dead," Shouji muttered to himself, his hands on his chin as he thought while pacing around in a small circle, "If they really have a werewolf by their side, then that has the possibility to mess up a good amount of what we've been putting in place for all these years... No, no no, that can't happen..."

After pacing around for a while Shouji calmed himself down, letting out a deep breath as he recollected his thoughts and brushed his hand through his hair, "It's all fine, if the werewolf was going to be a hindrance, he would've already interfered... Go tell Hanzo that we need to speed things up before the association can send any more roadblocks our way... I can't afford for them to screw this up."

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Author's Note: Okay, so Soniimarx here. I truly apologize for the chapter being released so late as well as for it being so short. I've hit writer's block for a couple of days and it was hard to move past it for a while... It was especially hard to push out this chapter because even though I know the direction I wanted the story to go, connecting the upcoming parts was a tedious thing to do, so it took a while. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I hope you stick around for the rest coming later on. :3