Chapitre 48: Bodyguarding! Sort of?

"Remember, you're bodyguards. That means you're meant to be seen, not heard." The information broker known as Giran lectures Himi and I as the three of us drive to his meeting. "At least that's how these usually go down. But the people I'm meeting are bringing their daughter to get her more involved with the family business. So, since the two of you'll be about the same age, if they want you to talk, then talk."

He gives us a measuring look before snorting. "But only if you think opening your mouths won't endanger the deal!"

I exchange glances with Himi and see my own interest reflected in her eyes. "Any idea what the deal is about?" I stage whisper the question to her.

"No idea," she stage whispers back with amusement glinting in her eyes. "Maybe it's about buying weapons to overthrow the rich?"

I nod. "So that means we should talk about how bad rich people are and how we want them all dead, right?"

She nods and I nod back. At least until Giran shouts at us.

"Oi! I get it already, drop the sass!" We laugh at getting the man to shout like that, his eyebrow twitching in the car's mirror. Though the smirk playing at his lips tells us that he's not really mad. 'Guess he's more fun than I thought he would be.'

"To sum up the meeting and the deal into something you brats can understand; any and all major corporations need some connections to the underground. Even if it's just to make sure they know what their competitors might do."

He shrugs. "Course, once you've dipped your toes in the water it's not that big a deal to take your first step. And the next. Before you know it, you're waist deep in villainy." He glances at us through his reflection. "We're aiming to get them to take their first step while informing them of one of their competitors putting a bounty on their daughter."

I nod understandingly. "So you're hoping that their daughter getting threatened will encourage them to put a counter-hit on their competition, which would mean they're more open to the idea of the other services you can give them. Not to mention providing us with blackmail material should they try to pull out or turn on us."

Himi snorts. "Like you know anything about pulling out."

"Like you ever complain." I shoot back without looking at her.

I tap a fist onto my palm, directing my words back towards Giran who's studiously trying to ignore us. Poor fool. He doesn't know that doesn't work yet. "Or are you planning to offer the services of Himi and I as bodyguards for her after staging a-"

My analysis of what benefits he can get from the meeting are interrupted by his cursing, and we swerve around someone falling out of the sky. I poke my head out the window to look behind us just in time to see Mirko driving her feet into the apparent villain's face and cratering the road. I wave both hands excitedly while shouting at her.

"HIII, MIRKO! BIG FAN! I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO TAKING CARE OF YOU LATER!" I chuckle as I see her do a double take at my words, pulling myself back inside the car. "Yeah, that's going to be fun. Wanna come with, Himi? I have some tests to run regarding her quirk."

She taps her chin after pulling herself back in the car, having waved at the rabbit hero along with me. "Maaayyybeee… Next week? It could be interesting to do it the same day that UA starts."

I nod. "Yep! Sounds like a plan! Probably for the best that we do it on opening day too. I know that Shiggy wanted to make his own plans for the start of the school year."

I hear Giran sigh in the front seat. "Kid, I can't tell if you're a genius or crazy."

I laugh, my words echoed by Himi.

""Why can't it be both?""

`~`

"Remember," Giran says outside the room to the 'I'm wealthy but want to feel lower class but not really' hotel room. "No talking unless they talk to you first. If they choose to send their daughter out of the room, one of you go with her while the other stays with me. This includes if they have their own bodyguards. Priorities are protecting me, their daughter, then the parents. Understood?"

Himi and I give him a pair of crisp salutes to show our understanding. They aren't the same salutes, but they're at least crisp!

He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up. "This is starting to feel like a bad idea. But it's too late to back out now." He looks at us so I lower my mask and stick out my tongue at him. He requested us. Not our problem if he's having regrets!

He sighs again before adjusting himself to project a laid-back air and putting a cocky smirk on his face. "Well then, let's make some money."

He pushes open the door and inside I can see a man and woman dressed in lavish outfits. The man is in a dark blue pinstriped suit and has slicked back black hair and one of those 'polite' mustaches. The ones that are trimmed into a thin line above their lips. The woman is wearing a dark red business top matched with a pencil skirt that comes to about mid-thigh. Her long black braided ponytail trailing down her back.

Good thing it isn't over her shoulder!

And sitting between the two is a mini version of the mother, her own ponytail starting high as opposed to her mother's trailing one. Her own sleeveless green dress having the upper portion a conservative ruffled trim. Though it fails to hide that the daughter has far surpassed the mother.

Oh, and there's a brown bear with a scar across his muzzle and a rhino with a pink mohawk standing behind them with their arms crossed.

The man nods at Giran in greeting. "Hello, Giran. You said there's something we should know about?"

He nods and opens his mouth to respond only for the rhino to cut him off. "Hold on now, I don't like the look of these two." Though he says that his eyes are focused on Himi, while the bear is looking at us warily.

"Feeling's mutual." Himi shoots back and his oversized nostrils flare.

"And yeh' brought a weapon? Tsk, tsk. Gonna have-"

His barely, not even really, concealed agenda doesn't have the chance to go farther as his partner slaps the back of his head. "Stop it. Crap like that is why you can never get any jobs!"

The rhino snorts. "As if. People don't care what I do as long as I get results. Ain't that right, Mr. Yaoyorozu?"

The seated man takes a deep breath in before letting it out slowly, clearly regretting his choice of bodyguard. His wife's expression hasn't changed but I imagine that she's irritated as well. It's the daughter's expression that lets out the most information.

Abject disgust.

Interesting for a few reasons. It means that she hasn't been around this particular person before, meaning that either the family uses different bodyguards for different situations -understandable, but I find it hard to imagine they'd trust such a crude one with their clandestine secret meetings- or they were hired for this specific meeting. Which would imply that they themselves don't tend to have these sorts of meetings enough to warrant dedicated bodyguards.

The fact that she had such an instant and obvious reaction also tells me that she's been pretty sheltered. There's always at least one person who'll comment on a girl's body, doubly so with how big her chest is. She hasn't learned to ignore them yet. Or at least not how to show her disgust/anger in a less overt way.

So. This is more than just an introduction into the villainy side of business for her. It's an introduction into how bad some people can be. If it's intentional, then odds are good that this is also a test for Giran, and they were already aware that someone had targeted their family. If unintentional, then they'll likely be unable to keep their cool at finding out that someone's initial instinct was to target their sheltered daughter rather than the parents they've likely been dealing with.

"I do not believe we will be requiring your services any further, Mr. Damusai. You shall receive half the original pay as compensation, but I request that you leave now."

Mr. Yaoyorozu doesn't even look at the rhino, having full faith that his orders will be carried out. He doesn't see the shock flash across the rhino's face before rapidly being overwritten by anger. He doesn't see him pull back his arm to punch or the bear's wide eyes as he lunges to stop him.

What he, and his family, do see are the pair of knives flashing above his head to enter the rhino's eyes. And everyone hears his screams as he stumbles back, hands hovering over the handles sticking out of his head. On one hand he wants to pull them out, having foreign objects where you used to have visual organs tends to be unpleasant, to say the least. On the other, pulling them out will likely cause even more pain, and possibly irreparable damage. If it's not already. Quirks kind of mess with the whole 'irreparable' and 'unhealable' thing.

Given his clear decision paralysis, I decide to help him out!

*BANG*

By shooting him in the face!

He drops with a heavy thud, blood erupting out from his forehead. It's interesting that the bullet didn't go out the back, his quirk apparently giving him increased durability in addition to a probable strength enhancement. His quirk would have been more than adequate to get him into a hero school, so I wonder why he's here? Horrible personality, maybe? Oh well. It's doesn't matter anymore. He's dead.

The Yaoyorozu family wasn't idle in the short time the altercation took, unlike their second bodyguard who froze. Not that I can really tell all that much from the half-dome metal covering the three of them.

I scratch my head, looking at Giran for direction. He's giving me the stink-eye so I turn to Himi instead! She's pouting at me. Probably because I used a gun instead of a knife to kill the rhino. She doesn't like guns because they lack 'that personal connection'. Which I can agree with, but given how he didn't go down to knives in each eye from the two of us I felt it was worth it for expediency.

Still. Given the lack of directions I step forward and knock lightly on the metal. "Hello? Yaoyorozus? Your bodyguard turned bounty hunter is dead! It's ok to come out now!"

They don't come out, but I do hear something inside bumping against the metal. I look around and meet everyone's gazes, the bear rushing for the door when our eyes meet. None of us stop him and we're left with the three of us and a family of turtles. Though only one of them is a teenager. And as far as I know, none of them are ninjas.

Shrugging I start tapping on the metal again. "Come on out. Your other bodyguard decided that he wants to be an Olympic runner instead!"

I hear Giran groan, and a look back shows that he's put his head in his hands.

Welp. At least it's not my or Himi's fault things turned out like this.

`~`

After probably thirty minutes of assurances that, 'no, we weren't trying to kill them. Yes, their bodyguard tried to attack them. No, Himi and I aren't leaving,' they finally come out of their shell. Though not the same as they were when they entered. Now they're armed!

The father has a shortsword in his hand that he's making sure to keep between us. The daughter has the sword's thinner and slimmer cousin; the rapier. Also pointed at us. More specifically me. The mother is the outlier. She has a mace. With pointy spikes. At least she's pointing it at Giran instead of me!

Himi is snacking on some chicken she went and got while Giran and I talked them out of the shell, stating that she didn't kill anyone for once so she doesn't have to clean up the mess. Which is fair. What isn't is the frying pan she hit me with! I didn't steal your kill, it was a joint kill!

Anyways, now that the drama is out of the way, Giran can finally tell them why they're meeting!

"WHAT!? Someone put a price on Momo!?" The father is practically radiating anger, while the daughter is pale from fright. Or the fact that someone attacked her family and got killed right next to them. One of the two.

The mother is calm though, and it's her voice that cuts to the heart of the matter. "Double it. Send it back."

'So, she's the power in the family. Probably intentionally brought their daughter then so she can have a taste of the world. But does that mean the sub-par bodyguards were also some form of test? If so, then for Giran or her family?'

Giran nods happily, his shoulders relaxing just a bit at how they don't seem to hold a grudge against what happened. Not that they should. It's not like we started it. But his shoulders tense again when their daughter speaks up, pointing a shaky finger at the two of us.

"C-can I have one of t-t-them as a gu-guard?" Her voice is shaky, but firm. I raise an eyebrow even as her parents try to reassure her that they have plenty of competent guards. Though I have to wonder about that given how the two they hired for the meeting turned out.

She cuts them off with a firm wave of her hand. "No." She takes a deep breath, steadying herself. "They clearly have experience. They ki- took care of the threat the moment it appeared. They aren't even our bodyguards! I can be assured that they'll protect not only me, but those around me."

"You mean your friends?" I interject, only to see her shoulders slump and look away. Must not have any friends. "We might be able to do part time," I shrug, not really caring. A look at Himi shows her having the same reaction. "But we're too busy to fully attend whatever fancy posh school you're going to-"

"I'll be attending UA's hero course next week," she says with a voice full of confidence, as if it could change my mind. 'I wonder if this'll get her to change hers…'

"UA? You know someone died in the entrance exam, right?"

Her face pales again and so begins the family debate of whether or not she'll attend a school with such poor safety regulations. That's none of our business though, and since Giran already has what he wanted we take our leave.

"Wait!" The girl shouts to override her parents' words of caution, causing us to stop. I look over my shoulder at her with a raised eyebrow, seeing her swallow down her hesitation and speaking in a determined voice. "Can I have a way to contact you? In case we wish to hire you part-time, at least?"

"Hmm…" I tap my mask in thought for a second before shrugging and turning away, sending a lazy wave back at her. "If you really want me, you can talk to Giran. Just ask for Midosagi of the Usagi Twins."

We walk out the door as silence reigns behind us for a brief moment before a renewed round of yelling rings out. But that's not something I need to deal with. At least for now.

I have plans to make regarding a certain rabbit and some interesting herbs I picked up in the forest~.