Chapter 8

A personal mission.

The LCD screen flashed as Sode continued to type on it. Round merely sighed as he sat on her couch waiting for something to happen. This time, someone else invited him over for relevant information and once again he was left waiting.

"Um, Sode, you probably should have just called me later," Round smiled as Sode sighed as she spun around in her chair. Her tail whipped around ever so slightly before sighing.

"Come on~ When you're with a cute girl like me, complaining about doing nothing is kind of silly," Sode chuckled as Round frowned slightly. He could tell when she was hiding something; she always wore that cheerful expression when she did.

"Sode..."

The Nekomata gave a loud grumble before getting up from her seat. She pressed a few more buttons on her keyboard as her printer started to rumble. Two pages scrolled out as she handed one to Round and kept one for herself.

"Listen, I want to confirm something; it's a warehouse in Golden Street. They have something there I don't know what," there was a moment of silence as Round tapped his lips.

"We should probably get the others..."

Sode only shook her head as she stretched slightly and buttoned up her shirt. She cracked her three fingers and her thumb before smiling. "No good, it's better if just the two of us went. I'm sure that Harceleur would be okay, but that beast of a woman would probably just yell and want to be the leader," Sode shrugged.

Round knew she was referring to Choque as he remained silent. It's not like he could counter any of the insults she threw at Choque, so he stayed silent on the matter.

"Man, I hope we don't have to walk all the way there..."

"No worries, I made some accommodations to make the trip a bit faster,"

Round tilted his head as Sode chuckled slightly ever so slightly.

Both of them walked out of Sode's apartment as she took Round to the back of the building. In front of the garage was something hidden underneath a dull brown tarp as Sode pulled it off revealing a motorcycle. Round heart skipped a beat for a moment. Honestly, it wasn't something he imagined the small Sode riding.

It had a lovely silver and black finish to it, though it was obviously crafted just for her. Round wondered how she was even able to afford it considering the pay that they got.

"I got it from a friend of mine," Sode smiled as she pulled out her keys and straddled the machine. She then looked at Round her simply looked back at her,

"Um," Round scratched the back of his head as Sode giggled before patting the back of the seat.

"Don't tell me your embarrassed, I mean sure it's called the bitch seat. Just try not to think about it," Sode ears twitched as a sly smile crept across her face.

"Why couldn't you just get a car like everyone else?"

"Now, now, do you really think a car would suit someone as stylish as me~?"

Round got on the back end of the motorcycle as Sode refused to start it, "um Sode, what are you doing?"

"If I ride like this then you're just going to fly off, you got to get in a better position than that~" Sode smiled as Round sighed he knew what she was implying as he wrapped his arms around her stomach. Round just prayed that Harceleur wouldn't hear about it. He could already imagine the vampire constantly snickering and laughing at the whole ordeal.

"Good~" She revved up the engine, Round noticed something odd about the motorcycle, but couldn't actually place his finger on it. With a single swift motion, she pulled out and started to ride down the road.

After what seemed like a few minutes, they finally arrived at their destination. Sode skid to a stop as she parked her motorcycle on the side of the worn down building. It looked completely abandoned, not unlike the warehouse they were sent too a few weeks ago. Sode nose twitched as she scanned the area, her eyes dilated before she bit her lip.

"That's weird, nothing is here...I don't even smell any demons or Holy ones..." Sode got off the bike as Round followed. They walked up to the giant wooden doors, Round holding both of his pistols in his hands.

"So what are we looking for anyway?"

"Weapons, special weapons, though these are a bit more complicated,"

Round remained silent for a moment. "What kind of 'special' weapons?" He had to ask, even if it was for his own piece of mind.

Sode looked like she was about to answer as she closed her mouth, "nothing you have to worry about..."

Round frowned for a moment before shoving his hands into his pockets, "damn, that's pretty shady Sode..." It probably wasn't the most elegant way to put it. However, it was pretty sketchy, to say the least. He already knew Sode most likely got the information from less than clean sources.

Sode pouted, "Hey now, someone as cute as me being shady is kind of an insult...how about I treat you to dinner today! Anything you want!"

Round smiled, almost entirely forgetting about his question. "Well, when you put it like that I will keep my mouth shut for a bit, but I really want a full answer later," Round stated as they entered the warehouse.

Nothing was too out of the ordinary; it was a broken down building. Sun rays beamed through the cracks in the ceiling as Sode tapped her lip for a moment before examining the walls of the building.

"There we go~" Sode smiled as she dug her claws into one of the floorboards of the building and ripped it out. From there it showed a large hole leading downward.

"Eh? Something underneath huh?" Round said as he stared into the dark abyss. It was a large drop as Sode chuckled.

"It's never so simple huh? See you at the bottom~" Sode winked as she jumped down without a care. Round closed his eyes and straightened his jacket. With a deep breath he followed Sode down the hole.

At first, nothing but darkness consumed his eyes, but oddly enough he was nearly blinded by a flash of light the further he fell. The worn out building structure suddenly turned into something lab like. He finally reached the bottom of the hole as he landed on something soft and bounced off of it. He noticed a crude mattress placed where he landed.

"Huh? This place is pretty small," Sode said as he turned his attention to the demon.

"Hey, did you know about this place?"

Sode merely shrugged ignoring Round's comments as she walked up to the large elevator like door in front of them. She examined the pad on the side as she quickly entered a combination of numbers and the doors were flung open. She chuckled as both she and Round continued their way. Round couldn't help but narrow his eyes. He was slowly starting to understand why she wanted to him to with her alone.

"Aw...what's with that look Round~."

Round smiled before rubbing his head, "it's not really any of my business to ask what this is all about. I guess if it's just you and me...like you said it would look a lot less suspicious," Round paused for a moment. "As far as I'm concerned, once we leave here this never happened..."

Sode eyes widen for a moment as Round gave a weak smile. Whatever Sode's reasoning for doing these things, it had to be a good one. He didn't want to cause her trouble with pointless questions.

"Huhuhu, you'll make a girl happy one day with that attitude, come on..." They walked deeper into a large circular room, in the middle was something in a blue glass case as Sode and Round walked up to it. It looked like a strange arm like device with blue liquid running through it Round was just trying to comprehend what he was looking at,

"Hmm, this is it all right...the weapon created for..." Sode didn't finish her sentence as the atmosphere in the area changed. Even Round felt it as he stepped away from the, an odd stench filled the room as some odd blue and red liquid started to fall from the ceiling.

With a loud thud, a giant beast like corpse fell from the roof. Was it a demon? At least that is what Round assumed. However, it looked like an odd patchwork. It had a shark's head a man's body and pieces of other animals and demons sowed together. Sode flinched.

"Round get away from that, that's not a demon or a holy one, that's just a monster!"

An odd description as the creature gave a distorted scream as it rushed the both of them. Sode jumped upward as Round rolled to the side, firing some shots into the animal's body. However, it just absorbed some the lead into its body before shooting it back at Round.

Round flinched. However, the bullets never reached him as a gust of wind knocked them off course. Round looked up as he saw Sode running across the ceiling before kicking off of it and reeling her feet back. She delivered a kick to the monster's arm; it should have been enough to break it in two...however the beast just ignored the blow, it grabbed Sode and flung her towards a wall.

Round bit his lip as he continued to fire rounds into the beast's body as it turned its attention back towards Round, it made a mad dash towards the gunman as Round prepared to move his body.

"...!" He realized something; he actually wouldn't make it in time. The monster was moving to fast as Round froze.

However the monster stopped for a moment, Round looked towards the creatures head. Sode was on top of the monsters, the creatures skull between her thighs. Sode twisted her body as a crack echoed through the room. She ripped the creatures head off with her legs as the monster fell over. Sode jumped off as she let out a sigh.

"Sorry about that, didn't expect something like that~" Sode was still carefree after event as she walked back up to the glass. Round remained silent as he followed her.

She examined the glass for a moment, tapping it. She hummed to herself as she slowly started to lift the glass, neither of them even noticing the twitching head behind them.

It was like the wind as the head quickly crawled towards them, as if it was a spider.

"GAH" It gave a loud grunt, by the time either Round or Sode turned around it was too late. The monster had already ripped Round's arm off.