"The target this time is a building owned by the opposition party 'Everybody Zenshin'" Sho stated.

 

"They are suspected of having a chemical production facility in Hokkaido and our mission is to infiltrate, verify, and destroy.” Sho continued as he handed out thick stacks of printouts to his teammates.

 

Of course, Sho had already placed all the relevant information in their team intranet. And reading the information was supposed to be their homework. But knowing his teammates, he was pretty sure that Jun was the only one who’d read everything. Nino probably skimmed through a few pages before getting bored, whereas Ohno and Aiba… Sho sighed as he wondered how he ended up with teammates like them. Before sighing again, he recalled the physical prowess of the Toshiba team - his own little nickname for their two Players. 

 

“Ok, so as you probably already know, Zenshin has been steadily gaining supporters since the last election. They have been very active in the grassroots and given away a great deal of money through charity, and with the elections due on the end of next year, we need to be extremely careful not to mess this up, or we could end up with a national disaster in our hands.” Sho started off the meeting explaining the background of their mission. 

 

“So there’s been rumours online that Zenshin is actually a cult and have been recruiting scientists to develop weapons of mass destruction to ‘purify’ Japan eh?” Nino commented. “How can we be sure that this isn’t a conspiracy by the government to rid themselves of a rival political party?”

 

Sho shrugged.

 

“You can read the reports from our Intelligence counterparts.”

 

“Over 60 scientific hires in SPD Scientific in the past three years, solid evidence that SPD Scientific is linked to Everybody Zenshin…” Jun mumbled as he flipped through the printouts.

 

“Well, actually it’s not just solid evidence… One of the party members of Zenshin let it slip that SPD Scientific was under them in a twitter post, Intelligence caught it before the tweet was deleted an hour later.” Sho replied.

 

“Ok, so it’s safe to assume that SPD and Zenshin are one and the same, do we agree on that?” Nino asked, looking around the room.

 

Sho and Jun nodded. On the other side of the room, Aiba and Ohno were looking at their mobile phones.

 

Jun coughed. “No electronics during meetings!” He chided.

 

Aiba and Ohno sheepishly put their phones away.

 

“Ok. So what’s the beef with SPD now?” Nino asked.

 

“You’d know if you’d actually read the materials,” Sho complained.

 

“Anyway, as I said earlier, 60 new scientific hires in the past three years…”

 

“And what is wrong with that? Aren’t they a scientific company?” Nino interrupted.

 

Sho shot daggers at Nino as he spoke, “Not if they are a scientific consumables and equipment distributor!” 

 

“From their company information, they are supposed to be dealing in just labware and equipment. No chemicals. Yet they hired over 40 chemists, of which 7 are from Iraq and Iran. Intelligence suspects those people have been working on the weapons program in their home countries, but that still needs to be verified.” Sho explained.

 

“Ok, that doesn’t sound good.” Nino conceded.

 

“And customs control reports that they just ordered a whole list of chemicals.” Jun added.

 

“Yes, all were shipped to their headquarters in Hokkaido. They claim to be a chemical distribution company, but our partners have been trying to order chemicals from them for 6 months now with no success.” Sho shrugged offhandedly.

 

“Wait, SPD HQ is in Hokkaido?” Nino asked.

 

“That’s right,” Sho confirmed.

 

“Is there a lot of research going on in Hokkaido? Why would a distribution company locate it’s HQ there? That doesn’t make sense?” Nino questioned.

 

“You got that right! That’s exactly the reason for our existence!” Sho laughed.

 

“Our task is to infiltrate their HQ and see what’s really going on in there, and find out what they are doing with those chemicals.” Sho stated.

 

“Ahhhhh. I get it. Because the polls are favouring Zenshin now that the gov doesn’t want to do a normal raid.” Nino said.

 

“And because they don’t have a single shred of solid evidence against SPD to get a search warrant. Yet they are afraid that Zenshin will politicise the raid and make the situation even worse for the already losing ruling party…. So they use us to secretly target SPD, and if anything goes wrong, they will cut all ties with us.” Nino summed up.

 

“Hey you know they do have our backs,” Sho argued.

 

“Yeah, until something goes wrong, then they’ll abandon us because what we do can’t be linked to the government ever, or else it’s all over.” Nino begrudged.

 

“They’ll help us in the dark,” Sho countered.

 

“Yeah, we’ll most likely be given a new identity and exiled from Japan,” Nino replied.

 

“Well, we just have to succeed, don’t we?” Jun quipped.

 

Nino sighed.

 

“Ok ok, let’s get on with it. Building layout. Jun will you please be so kind as to wake our partners up, we’ll need their input from now on.” Nino requested. 

 

Jun sighed as he turned around to be greeted by the sleeping forms of the two Players. 

 

“You should have just let them play,” Nino grunted. 

 

“Now Oh-chan will take forever to boot up,” Nino muttered as Jun shook a lost looking Ohno awake.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

 

-------------------------------------------

 

Sho fiddled with the projector to show the building layout on the screen.

 

“Ok, the building is 8 stories high with 3 basements, making a total of 11 floors, and each floor is roughly the size of a football field,” Sho said as he flashed an image of the building exterior.

 

“That’s huge!” Ohno pouted.

 

“We have their blueprints from when it was built, but the building had since undergone renovations thrice, so we don’t actually know their building layout anymore,” Sho said as he started showing a mockup walkthrough of the building.

 

“Nah, stop showing that,” Ohno commanded. “No point showing something that we know has changed. It’ll only give us false impressions that could lead to costly mistakes.” Ohno explained.

 

“You’re right.” Sho acknowledged as he closed the simulation software.

 

“Any chance we can get in there?” Jun asked.

 

“How?” Sho replied.

 

“Hasn’t the building undergone any sort of fire or structural safety evaluation since it was built? How about we carry out one now? Do some recon and get some footage in.” Nino remarked.

 

Sho nodded. “Right, I’ll check on that.”

 

“Ok! Lunch time! I’m hungry!” Aiba declared.

 

“Wait, we are ending the meeting like that?” Sho panicked.

 

“Aiba’s right, with no solid information on the building floor plan, there’s nothing much to strategise for anyway. We don’t even know where we should be looking. Get us more info Sho.” Nino commented.

 

“Maybe if we can get in contact with their cleaners or something?” Jun added.

 

“Ok ok, I’ll work on it.” Sho sighed. He really hated being the team manager sometimes.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

 

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“5, 4, 3, 2, 1, START!” The announcer rang out.

 

The five Players dashed out of their respective starting points and into the building.

 

It was a competition that's been going on for the past three years now. Held once every quarter, the Player-Controller pairs of Arashi and Kanjani competed against each other to see which pair was the best. Except for the one time when Ohno-Nino pair couldn’t compete due to Ohno’s injury, the winner has never changed.

 

It was the ultimate test of individual ability and partnership. The mission details were only given to the Controllers, and so it was up to the Controllers to tell the Players where to go, what items to pick up, which target to shoot… So on and so forth. But of course, as with all the tests provided by the Agency, things weren’t so simple.

 

“Just try and get a feel of the place while I read what’s going on.” Nino’s voice came through the earpiece.

 

Ohno nodded, more to himself than anything else. He did have microphones equipped on him, but he’d only use them as a last resort. Sure in the past few games a new rule had been added. Players who talked to their Controllers excessively lost points. But Ohno had been doing that pretty much since the start. After all, in a real mission, talking might give away his position and cost him the mission or worst, his life. Instead, he relied on their decades of friendship and trust to read each other’s minds. Plus, Ohno was never a man of many words to begin with, so he was happy to keep his mouth shut. Conversely, Nino too kept his words and instructions concise. After all, Ohno and to a smaller extent, Nino, needed to listen out for sounds of danger. And that couldn’t be done if Nino was trying to give a monologue.

 

“Ok, it’s a stealth mission. We’ve got to head to the lab, download the evidence from the servers, then scoot before we’re detected. Sounds like our mission eh? Ok chop chop, let’s finish this in an hour. I’ve got a 2x exp event to attend.” Nino instructed, not failing to mention his latest gaming obsession.

 

Ohno looked around the building. The first task at hand was to figure out where he was. As per their usual protocol, they had been transported to the mission location blindfolded. He was at the back of the building, in the delivery area. Ohno climbed up the ramp and tested the door. It swung open effortlessly, surprising Ohno a little. The area opened up into the lobby for the cargo lift. The stairs were available too, but a device beside the door indicated that an access card was needed to use the stairs. Ohno tried the door anyway, but it was locked.

 

“Check the lift” Nino instructed.

 

Ohno called for the lift and he looked around restlessly as he waited for it to arrive. 

 

“We’re in the Environment Monitoring and Research Institute,” Nino’s voice came over the earphones. Since there didn’t seem to be any threat nearby Nino decided to use the time to brief his Player.

 

“Government agency. 3 buildings. 13 floors, 8 floors, and 5 floors.” Nino quickly read out.

 

That was why Nino wanted him to check the lift. Ohno mentally reasoned. It was the quickest way to find out which building they were in. After all, the GPS signal in the basement wouldn’t be very accurate.

 

The buttons in the lift went up to 5 floors. 

 

Ohno jabbed at the 5th floor button, but it wouldn’t light up. A red dot appeared in his field of vision instructing him to go to the first floor. A green arrow appeared shortly after alerting him to the card reader on top of the buttons that Ohno hadn’t notice earlier. Their mission had begun.

 

“We have to take a gamble. The labs could be in either building. Your position should be the wastewater treatment demo plant. The 13th floor might be the admin floor. Probably 8. Let’s try 8.” Nino spoke curtly.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

Nino was sitting in a specially outfitted van. His GPS showed that the van was parked outside just outside the Environment Monitoring and Research Institute but he hadn’t bothered to take a peep outside. He had more important tasks at hand after all. Whereas the Players had their outfits, special equipment, and cool looking visors, Nino had his multi-purpose, all-in-one command center van. It wasn’t anything flashy or large, in fact, it looked completely nondescript from the outside. The point was to blend in and not become a target of the terrorist or whichever organization they were dealing with after all. Nino certainly did not fancy being burnt to a crisp.

 

In front of Nino were three stacks of two monitors each. Nino would have preferred more - the more the merrier, but space in the van was limited. The monitors were stacked on the side of the van, meaning that Nino’s back was against the door. When he’d first started working from this van, it made Nino paranoid that someone would burst in through the door any moment. Now, he checked over his shoulder a little less, trusting the reinforced door to stay close. 

 

Each Controller had their own quirks and own set up, but for Nino, he was happy with just one keyboard and mouse. Having too many input devices confused him - he’d tried before and ended up typing the wrong thing into the wrong keyboard. Instead, he uses a small switcher to pick between giving commands to Ohno’s visor and operating the computer. Right now, Nino had Ohno’s video feed coming into the monitor on the bottom left, and some information he’d dug out about the building displayed on the right. In the top middle, was the map of their current location, and on his primary monitor, he was searching for clues about the remaining two buildings of the research institute. 

 

-------------------------------------------

 

“Let’s just try 8th,” Nino spoke as he directed Ohno to the 8 storey building through on-screen commands.

 

His google searches were getting nowhere and he couldn’t leave Ohno hanging. In either case, it was better to just start searching somewhere than stand around doing nothing at all.

 

Nino directed Ohno to the cargo lift as he started up the RFID hacker, answering Ohno’s unspoken question at the same time. “Perhaps level 3?”

 

Ohno let out a little hum to acknowledge Nino’s command as he fished out his hacking card and placed it on the reader. The card would run through various frequencies and hopefully unlock the scanner in the process.

 

Ohno smiled as the green LED lit on and he jabbed on the number 3. Things were going very smoothly today. Too smoothly, in fact. He’d be happy if it was an actual mission, but for a competition organised by their agency? This was way too easy. There has to be a catch, and Ohno had a feeling that it’ll be coming soon.

 

“Just find any terminal, turn it on, plug the remote in and run,” Nino instructed. He too had sensed the possible danger ahead.

 

“Wait… USB! Fuck.” Nino swore as he remembered the USB lockdown initiated by the government recently. The lockdown software cut off all USB power completely, rendering his remote hacking toll which connects via USB useless.

 

Nino took a deep breath as Ohno stepped out of the lift. His heart was racing now. If the USB lockdown was in place, the need for physical keycards to access any computer was probably active too. Damn. He should have known that things weren’t so easy. 

 

Thankfully for the duo, there was no one on level 3 as Ohno cautiously stepped out. Ohno made his way to the main lobby and was greeted by a set of glass doors locked by an electronic card reader. From the earlier hacking, Nino had already picked up the correct frequency to use and with a happy beep, Ohno was allowed in.

 

“Hmmm…” Ohno hummed as he entered the research institute. He’d raided labs before and this floor certainly didn’t look like one. In fact, it was covered in rows and rows of computer terminals. 

 

As he approached the computer, he realised why Nino was cussing earlier. A physical card reader set at the side of each terminal. Ohno sighed as he looked for the power button on the computer. Sure enough, there was a beep as the words “Insert Access Card” appeared on the screen. Now it was his job to find an access card. Or rather, someone to rob an access card from.

 

Ohno stretched his neck as sighed. The mission had sounded so innocent at first. Find a computer terminal, have Nino hack in and steal goodness knows what data the agency would have planted for them to steal, and then get the hell out of there. But nope, can’t have the Player sitting around shaking their legs eh can they? He’d been hoping to avoid meeting another human being in the mission completely. But it looks like he didn’t have a choice. At least he didn’t have to guess the reaction of the actors. The agents placed by their agency were supposed to act as office workers or whatever. Well, pretend they were from whatever place they were infiltrating. But in truth, the agency wasn’t THAT big and the actors were usually their juniors. Juniors who wanted to prove themselves so that they can become a full fledged Player. And what better way than to take down the current top Player in the agency? Well with the exception of his little fanboy Chinen of course. Maybe he’d get lucky today...

 

Ohno scanned through the corridors. It looked deathly quiet. He was wondering where to head to next when Nino came to the rescue with a green arrow, indicating that he should explore the rest of the floor. 

 

Nino raised an eyebrow as Ohno walked past a door that says “Server Room”. Would the server room be in the admin building or research building? Maybe the research? From his google-fu, he’d found out that the institute, despite the ‘research’ in its name, was actually in charge of managing and promoting the greenery, parks, and waterways in Tokyo while also monitoring the water quality in numerous waterways, rivers and even in Tokyo Bay. If it had been installed to do the monitoring, it would make sense for the research center to have a server room.

 

“I think we’re on the right track.” Nino nodded to himself. “We just need the card.”

 

“4th floor?” Ohno finally spoke.

 

“Yeah. Let’s try that.” Nino agreed.

 

“Time?” Ohno asked.

 

“3:25 pm. It’s been 25 minutes.” Nino replied. 

 

“Damn. The boss raid opens at 4! Go go go!” Nino urged, remembering his game once more.

 

Nino left Ohno to find someone to rob an access card from as he briefly turned his attention to a forum post on the cybersecurity system used in government agencies. After Ohno finds an access card, he’d have to direct Ohno on how to retrieve the data. Ideally, he would find a way to bypass the USB lockdown so that he could hack in remotely and transfer the data to the remote device directly. But if that didn’t work, he’d need Ohno to try and transfer the data to a cloud server. Or perhaps they could try and transfer the data through the LAN port instead. If the internet was also locked down as had happened in some government agencies, then the LAN port would be his last hope. If not… Just how they hack were they supposed to steal the data? Nino didn’t have an answer either. For now, Nino was just glad that he’d forced Ohno to take the speed typing class AND forced Ohno to do those monthly ‘remote typing’ exercises he’d come up with in case the remote hacking device couldn’t be used and the hacking had to be done in person. He wondered for a brief second how the member of Kanjani would fare before being brought back to reality by Ohno.

 

“Got it.” Ohno said triumphantly as he dug out an ID card from Inoue’s pockets. He’d bumped into the younger man the moment he entered the stairwell, and proceeded to knock the poor junior out with a single, well aimed blow. 

 

“Great job. Let’s just check out level 4 anyway?” Nino suggested.

 

Ohno had already bounded up the stairs before Nino finished. He’d heard Aiba’s voice in the distance.

 

“Please, can’t you pass the card to me?” Aiba pleaded. 

 

“No… I’m saving it for Ohno senpai!” A cornered Chinen cried as he threatened to break the ID card into two.

 

“I told you, you should have just knocked him out!” A frustrated Jun yelled at Aiba. “How can you be so nice!” Jun grumbled.

 

“Aiba-chan!” Ohno whispered as he approached the duo.

 

“Ohno-senpai!” Chinen cried as he thrust the card into Ohno’s hands before making a hasty escape. 

 

“Wait!” Ohno tried to call Chinen back but he younger man had already disappeared.

 

“Hmm… Now I have two card. Here.” Ohno remarked as he passed the newly obtained card to his group mate. 

 

“What’s on this floor?” Ohno asked.

 

“Labs.” 

 

Ohno nodded. “Great, see ya later!” Ohno replied as he disappeared back down the stairwell. Despite being teammates, they were currently competitors, and helping Aiba obtain the access card was as far as he would go.

 

“This system is so broken,” Nino complained, referring to the use of their juniors as actors.

 

Ohno shrugged. It was something everyone in the agency knew and had complained about, but due to manpower and budget issues, there was nothing much the management could do about it. In any case, everyone would rather see fresh money go into equipment upgrades for their missions rather than hiring better actors for their silly little war games.

 

Still, it was a silly little war game that Ohno and Nino were determined to keep their winning streak on. Ohno raced down the stairs, carefully sidestepping Inoue’s slumped over body, and into the level 3 offices. He plugged in the access card and started up the computer before taking a deep breath.

 

“Sit down. And relax. You can do this.” Nino’s voice came over the earpiece. Nino’s voice was calm and collected, giving Ohno the impression that everything was under control.

 

“Safe mode boot up,” Nino reminded Ohno.

 

Ohno cursed under his breath as the login page showed up on the computer screen. He’d forgotten that he needed to press some keys during the boot up process.

 

“Control, shift, F12.” Nino instructed as Ohno restarted the computer.

 

Ohno calmed himself down as he pressed the keys as instructed. It was starting to come back to him now, all the drills that he did with Nino. He opened up the command prompt and typed in the commands from memory. Soon, he had a username and password in hand.

 

“Got it. Go.” Nino affirmed as he took a screenshot of the account details from his video feed. He proceeded to type it out on the screen for Ohno to key in. 

 

Nino did a mini fist pump as the windows desktop showed up. One step done. Now he had to see if the USB lockdown could be cleared.

 

“Command prompt and type in the following commands,” Nino instructed as he copied and pasted several lines of code into Ohno’s field of view. 

 

They were racing against time now. Or rather, against Aiba and Jun. 

 

“Please let it work…” Nino muttered as he watched rows of text flash across the command prompt.

 

“Plug it in!” Nino commanded as the process completed.

 

Ohno did as he was told, plugging in the remote access device. A little whirl let Ohno knew the device was working.

 

“Great! I’m on it, you see if you can find anything interesting on your side and copy it in!” Nino instructed as he flipped his mic away. It was his turn to get down to work.

 

“Finally,” Ohno muttered as he leaned back on the chair and observed his surroundings. He briefly scrutinized the desktop. It was clean with hardly any icons. Better to let Nino do the hacking and search for a hiding place in case someone comes by.

 

Nino launched his search programs immediately, looking for any hidden drives on the computer and network. Just what kind of evidence were they searching for? Nino had no idea. All he knew was that they would recognise it when they saw it.

 

A ding on his computer alerted him to that a hidden folder called ‘Images’ had been located. He quickly did a virus scan before opening the folder. Inside were hundreds of images of them at the Christmas Party last year. Nino couldn’t help but laugh as he saw a photo of Aiba doing his signature Disco-sama move. The management certainly had a sense of humour, he would concede as much.

 

“Found it. Let’s hope we’re done.” Nino spoke as he flipped the mic back in front of him. As his computer continued searching the network for more information, Nino started copying the folder from the remote to his computer. 

 

Nino was about to declare his mission complete when he found a second hidden folder, named instructions. Inside was a text document. 

 

Nino swore as he glanced through the document and quickly copied it over.

 

“Ok I’m done, come to the van fast, we need to get back to the agency to win!” Nino instructed as he left Ohno to run for the stairwell before reading the instructions properly.

 

Upload the evidence to your Agency folder.

Scan the images and name the people who appeared in the evidence and how many times each person appeared. Text in the results.

Drive yourselves back to the Agency.

Combined results and speeds of all tasks will determine the winner.

 

“Gah! What is this!” Nino cursed as he struggled to remember where he kept his facial recognition software. Thankfully he’s trained a neural network to recognise everyone in the agency for fun, but he was pretty sure that that software wasn’t installed in his current PC. He briefly considered his options before realising that he could just upload the photos to the Agency cloud first, then remote into his PC at work to run the image analysis.

 

“Where are you!” Ohno’s voice came in through the earphones.

 

“Oh shit… Somewhere beside the building.” Nino cursed. He hated getting distracted by his surroundings and usually left the cameras and tiny television in the corner of his van off, but it was coming back to haunt him now. Nino climbed over to the driver’s seat to take a look.

 

“Get back to the 5 storey building, I’m parked on the other side. Opposite the road!” Nino instructed, recognising the waste water demo plant building from the numerous photos he’d seen at the start of the mission.

 

The television screen buzzed to life and confirmed Nino’s earlier words as he settled back into his command center. 

 

“Ok… Here… A photo…” Nino beamed an image of his view of the research institute to Ohno. 

 

“Hmm now… What should I do?” Nino muttered as he struggled to regain his train of thought before he got disrupted by Ohno’s cry for help.

 

“Ok! Upload the photos, then remote it to my desktop… Thank goodness I didn’t turn it of…” Nino sighed in relief as he typed in his username and password. He started the image analysis software just as Ohno’s voice came through.

 

“Almost there!” 

 

Nino looked at Ohno’s feed. His partner was coming out of the wastewater demo plant.

 

“Ok, wait there, I’ll drive over,” Nino spoke as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

 

“Get in the back. I need you to check the image analysis results.” Nino said as he recalled the instruction sheet.

 

“So we have three tasks. Upload the photos, analyse the photos and determine who’s in there and how many times… Then text the names and numbers to the hotline. And get ourselves back home.” Nino spoke as he unlocked the van door for Ohno to climb on.

 

The duo shared a fist bump as Ohno took over Nino’s comfy command chair.

 

“Buckle up!” Nino said as he took off his headset.

 

“Let’s go!” Ohno replied as he locked the van door and took off his gear and visor.

 

“Should we call Aiba?” Ohno suddenly asked as Nino turned into the highway.

 

Nino thought for a while before replying, “nah, Aiba will call us when they are done. Let him concentrate on his mission first.”

 

“Good point,” Ohno replied as he stared at the progress bar on the computer screen.

 

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Sho was chairing the debrief session for Arashi, but no one was paying attention to him.

 

“So where did you start?” Ohno asked Aiba.

 

“Cargo loading area! On the 13th floor building!” Aiba chirped.

 

“Oh, me too, I was in the cargo bay of the 5th floor place.” Ohno quipped. “How did you know the 8 floors one was the right place?”

 

“Jun said so! Because SPG is 8 floors right?” Aiba replied proudly.

 

“It’s SPD scientific.” Sho interrupted. “And I’m trying to conduct a briefing session here, will you please listen to me!” Sho yelled, frustrated.

 

“Just give us the executive summary and be done with it…” Nino muttered.

 

“You have news to share regarding SPD scientific don’t you?” Jun asked. “Why not just get down to it? Or are you planning to make fun of everyone’s Christmas party photos?” Jun said, referring to the ‘evidence’ they brought back from the competition.

 

Jun and Aiba had lost again. It frustrated the both of them to no end. Despite Jun correctly guessing that the exercise was a mock-up for their upcoming mission and therefore the labs should be on level 8… He’d been unsuccessful in unlocking the USB ports and it slowed his progress significantly. In fact, they were very nearly beaten by the Kanjani team, and Jun hadn’t been in the best of moods ever since.

 

“Relax Jun, why are you so tense,” Nino teased.

 

Jun snapped. “Of course you can relax. Mr. Genius hacker. Do you know how much frustration I went through? We almost lost! Arashi almost…” 

 

“Relax Jun, it’s just a game. It doesn’t reflect your or Aiba’s capabilities. Nino brings his hacking skills and Sho does the research. Aiba brings his strength and you your eye for detail. We work best as a team of five, not as pairs. Why are you stressing out over a little war game? We still won anyway. Let’s just focus on this SPG mission and show our Kansai juniors what Arashi is capable of.” Ohno counseled.

 

“It’s SPD!” Sho interrupted.

 

“And don’t worry, even if you lost to the Yoko team, you’re still Arashi’s no. 2 Controller.” Nino teased.

 

“You bastard,” Jun laughed as Nino dodged his smack.

 

“Ok ok,” Sho sighed. “Let’s skip ahead on the agenda and talk about SPD scientific instead.” 

 

Sho got on the computer and pulled out a folder. 

 

“So after the previous meeting, management were able to send some electrical engineers in and they got some footage. There’s definitely a lab in there when they should be none.” Sho said as he played the videos.

 

“Ok, so what’s the plan?” Aiba asked, curious. “Do we get to blow up the lab?” 

 

“Not quite, but close,” Sho hummed.

 

“The powers up there, whom we’re meeting with next Monday morning at 8:30 am by the way--

 hey did you hear that Ohno? 8:30 am, please don’t be late.” Sho said as he shot a look at Ohno. “Well anyway, they decided that the best course of action is to expose the illegal lab in SPD to the public. So that means that we need to cause an accident in the lab. And they had set the Christmas Day to be D-Day.”

 

Aiba groaned. “Can’t I ever celebrate my birthday in peace?”

 

Last year they had spent Christmas Eve, his birthday, rehearsing for their individual performances for the Christmas Party. Looks like this year he’ll be spending his birthday rehearsing for the Christmas Day raid.

 

“Can’t they do it on New Year’s Day instead?” Aiba groaned.

 

“You know I don’t have any say in this.” Sho defended himself. “But I think they don’t want to start a new year with such terrible news.” 

 

Aiba sighed.

 

“Hey, it’s not just you too. All the firefighters and policemen will be called in to respond to whatever emergency you’re going to create,” Sho comforted Aiba.

 

Aiba sighed. At least, well hopefully, he’ll have fun blowing stuff up.

 

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“Happy birthday Aiba!” Ohno greeted as he met Aiba along the corridor.

 

They were in Hokkaido. Sapporo to be exact, in a hotel roughly 15 kilometers away from the headquarters of SPD scientific. They had checked in the day before and spent some time roaming around Sapporo to get used to the cold weather. Since they were raiding the building on a public holiday when the building was supposed to be empty save for some security personnel, they had every reason to believe that the central heating would be off in most parts of the building. 

 

“All ready?” Ohno asked.

 

Aiba shook his head. “I’m nervous Oh-chan, I couldn’t sleep all night!”

 

“You’re always so nervous before a mission! Really Aiba, we’ve gone through so many different simulations and you have done consistently well. You’ll be fine, no worries.” Ohno patted Aiba as they walked to the meeting room. The Agency had set up a virtual reality simulation center for the Players there. On the other hand, the Controllers and Sho would be working from the trailer parked in the hotel - an arrangement that would hold for the actual day. The connection range had been tried and tested during the earlier infiltration, so there was no need for the two controllers to hide out in their separate cargo vans. Instead, they would be able to work together in the larger, spacious trailer. That way, Sho and other support staff could better help the team too. Sure they could have just used a meeting room in the hotel, but Nino and Jun felt that familiarity with the setup was more important. Plus, driving the entire trailer up minimized the need for setting up hardware on site and possible areas of failure. In such a high profile mission, Arashi and the Agency collectively decided to minimize the risk. 

 

“Ne, let’s have Genghis Khan when we’re done tomorrow ok?” Ohno comforted the birthday boy. Truth be told, he’d already made the staff arrange for a feast after the Christmas Day raid. Doing something leader-like for once and was totally unlike Ohno. It wasn’t a surprise when everyone was shocked to find out that the leader of Arashi was officially Ohno and not Sho. But it was really because Ohno and Nino had been the first confirmed members of Arashi more than anything else. Ohno would have happily given the position to Nino, but Nino insisted since he was the older brother.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

 

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“This is the last day of rehearsals, I’m all fired up!” Sho said as he started on his kaisen don.

 

“Geez, just how much do you eat Sho?” Nino asked as he looked at the two empty bowls of ramen in front of Sho. On the other hand, he was already full up from one bowl of ramen.

 

“It’s because I’m all fired up and ready for war!” Sho quipped as he dug into the rice. “Uwah umai! As expected, the seafood in Hokkaido is good!”

 

“You’re not even a Player…” Nino muttered as he left the dining table and made for the sofa to play with his Switch. He was soon joined by the other three and they started a round of Mario Kart.

 

“Hey, you’re playing without me again!” Sho complained.

 

“There’s only one Switch here, we can only have four players. AND, you’re still eating!” Nino jested.

 

Sho pouted as he moved over to the sofa to watch the rest play. 

 

“I’m finished! My turn now!” Sho announced as he put down his rice bowl.

 

“Ok! Let’s start the briefing. We’ve been waiting!” Nino announced as he collected back his game controllers and kept his switch. Ohno giggled. He loved it when Nino bullied someone other than himself.

 

 

For once, everyone was paying attention to Sho. Usually Aiba and Ohno were dozing off or fooling around. That, or Nino and Jun were talking amongst themselves. Sho felt a little uneasy having all four pairs of eyes on him.

 

“Ok. For this last afternoon, we’ll go round up the chemicals we believe we’ll find in SPD, and the various possible course of action.” Sho began. “After that… Do you want to do another mock run?” Sho said as he looked around the room.

 

Aiba nodded vehemently and you could almost hear the sigh in Ohno’s eyes. The older man had been hoping to take the afternoon chill, but the nervous streak in Aiba wouldn’t give them any rest. 

 

Sho projected the chemical list up on the TV.

 

“So we know that last week they got a huge delivery of gas cylinders. 10 tanks of oxygen, 5 tanks of nitrogen, and 5 tanks of argon.” Sho started.

 

“The delivery company was told to put all the cylinders in a storage room in the basement, and the cylinders are not chained up individually. Ideally, all the cylinders would still be there in that same room.”

 

“And we can blow them all up!” Aiba interrupted Sho excitedly.

 

“Yes yes, you can do that, but AFTER we are done with everything else,” Sho replied.

 

Sho continued. “So let’s talk about the ideal scenario and where we find all the tanks together in one place. Both of you will then proceed up the building together, backing each other up. Hopefully, you won’t meet any resistance. Then upon gaining entry into the building, you’ll have to take out the guards in the monitoring room and disable the security cameras. Nino will be in charge of the hacking. Aiba will then head off to the lab to find their supply of chemicals while we figure out how to best start a fire. Meanwhile, Ohno and Nino, you’ll have to hack go to their office, get into their computer system, and try to copy all the data out. Ideally the username and password we phished can get us in. If not…” 

 

“I’ll think up of something. Or maybe the support boys will.” Nino replied.

 

“Well worst case scenario we can just blow up the lab and expose SPD to the general public. Let the journalist uncover the link between SPD and Zenshin.” Sho shrugged. The Agency already had their informants provide media outlets with various hints over the past few months. 

 

“If the gas cylinders are not together, we might have to blow some up individually with the carborane acid and fire. Please be very careful with the bottle you’ll be carrying! Carborane acid is the second strongest acid in the world! Like, a million times stronger than 100% sulphuric acid!” Sho started his safety lecture on the chemical once again.

 

Carborane acid was discovered by chemists in the University of California, and was touted as the strongest acid that could be kept in a bottle. The strongest acid known could dissolve even glass, and had to be held in a teflon coated container. For reasons unknown, the government had commissioned the Agency chemists to manufacture carborane acid, and the chemical came up in one of the discussions on how to create havoc in the illegal SPD lab. The idea was to use the strong acid to weaken the walls of gas cylinders - a staple in any chemistry lab, to set the place on fire. The pressure inside the gas cylinders would increase with the heat and break through the weakened walls turning the gas cylinders into a deadly projectile. It was an outlandish but not entirely impossible accident. After all, the reason why there were strict regulations about chaining up gas cylinders, keeping them in cool areas and away from the sun was because of various accidents in lab around the world where damaged gas cylinders became a deadly flying projectile, puncturing through walls and floors killing anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way before finally running out of gas and coming to a stop. 

 

“I wish we could just shoot it.” Aiba moaned. He was always one for simpler, less complicated plans. 

 

“As I’ve explained before, the walls of the gas cylinders are really thick, regular rounds won’t damage them. Plus it’s cylindrical. If your shot is even slightly off the bullet will only graze the metal. PLUS, it will only ricochet and might even kill you!” Sho said impatiently.

 

Sho said it in such a ridiculous tone that Aiba had to laugh. “Ok ok, I get it. Please continue with your lecture, Sakurai-sensei.” 

 

“The goal is to leave as little evidence of your passing behind as possible. So if you meet anyone, knock them out and inject them with tetrodotoxin. That includes the guards in the monitoring room. Also, remember to use the glass bullets for breaking the chemical bottles. The less traces of ourselves that we leave behind, the easier it will be for the prosecutors to cover our tracks.” Sho explained.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

“Kick some ass!” Toma cheered as he gave a fist bump to Aiba and Ohno. “I’ll be waiting for your safe return!” Toma said as the two players stepped out of the car. Toma had been a friend to the members of Arashi since the start, and the Players were glad to have Toma drive them to SPD scientific.

 

“Test test Nino here,” Nino’s voice came over the mic.

 

“Ohno here, I hear you loud and clear,” Ohno replied.

 

“Aiba here. Loud and clear.” Aiba chirped.

 

Now that they were working with each other, there was an added layer of complexity in the communications. Each person could decide whether to talk only to their partners, or to broadcast to the entire group. The controllers too could decide if they want to send an image or visual to just his Player, or to the other Player as well. Sho was also armed with a headset and could listen in to whichever conversations he choose to. If needed, he could also speak directly to one or both of the players. The communications test went on for a while before they were ready to go.

 

“Ok, let’s get rolling. Good luck players!” Sho announced. It had become Arashi’s routine to have Sho send the players on their way now.

 

Ohno and Aiba were in an open air carpark a little ways from the SPD headquarters. They had requested to be dropped off a distance away so that they could test their communications equipment on the ground. Plus, the walk gave the Players some time to get themselves mentally ready. Especially for Aiba, who was still a nervous wreck in the car. The cool Sapporo air calmed him down significantly.

 

“Here we go,” Ohno whispered as they reached the fenced up building. The area was overgrown with fir trees, blocking out the view of any security cameras. They had found the area during their earlier reconnaissance efforts and planned the break-in accordingly.

 

Ohno went over the fence first. “All clear,” he whispered into to Aiba as he sensed no movement in his surroundings.

 

Still sticking to the fence, the duo crept over to the back of the building where the cargo bay was. Ohno turned around to look at Aiba and the other man gave him a nod and the two Players dashed from the cover of the trees into the cargo bay. This was the part of the operation where they were most likely to be discovered - before the monitoring room was taken out. None of them wanted to talk about it, but Ohno knew things could go south easily if the monitoring room had been moved from the original building plan. They had studied the blueprints to look for other likely places for the location of the monitoring room and had a few candidates in mind, but Ohno really hoped things wouldn’t get to that. Sure he was comforted by the fact that SPD had hired a commercial security company - that meant that the guards were likely to be unskilled and unarmed, but he also didn’t like that he would be killing innocents. Ohno quickly pushed those thoughts away as Aiba called out to him. They had discovered the gas cylinder storage room.

 

“Holy shit!” Nino swore as Ohno’s flashlight revealed the hoard of gas cylinders in the room. True to the vendor’s words, the cylinders were placed haphazardly in the room with no sense of order.

 

“Looks like a recipe for disaster,” Sho noted, peering over Jun’s shoulder to look at the video feed.

 

“Indeed, we’ll show them what disaster means soon enough,” Jun deadpanned.

 

“And it’s not even locked,” Nino quipped. He already had his RFID hacking program up and running.

 

“Great job. Now move on to the next phase, find the monitoring room!” Sho declared as he sat down on his workstation. His station was nothing fancy compared to the Controllers. Just a PC with two additional monitors so that he could watch and analyse the video feed and do some research. The monitor on his right has been arranged sideways so that he could put the video feed from Ohno and Aiba one on top of the other in their native resolution. Like Jun, he preferred having the live video feed on the right. He opened another window and played back Ohno’s feed to the part where he entered the storage room and stopped the video. Sho did a quick count of the gas cylinders. There were over 30 of them in the small room. Ohno and Aiba were each carrying 1 litre of carborane acid on them. With all the cylinders crowded together at the back of the room… Sho did a quick simulation of throwing a 500 ml glass bottle on the cylinders and quickly marked out the four areas where Aiba and Ohno should aim for later on. He heaved a sigh of relief as he finished putting the last marker on the screenshot. He’d been really worried that the cylinders would be places far apart or that there would be no space in the storage area or corridor to provide a safe throwing distance. In which case the Players would have to pour out the acid on the cylinders instead. No amount of personal protective equipment could protect the Players from the superacid. Throwing the bottles from afar was the safest option they decided with during their simulations. Pouring the liquid out might seem like a safe option, but not when it’s a super acid that you were pouring out. Fumes from the acid were highly corrosive, and even a single drip from the side of the bottle could burn through skin and bones.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

“I think we struck gold,” Nino whispered as the Players spotted a room conveniently labeled as ’Security Room’. It was still a ways off from the original monitoring room in the blueprint. Jun was about to question if it was just a security office and if there was another monitoring room elsewhere, but Nino had already instructed Ohno to make a move.

 

“Wait outside Aiba, Ohno will go,” Nino instructed.

 

“We have to check it out in either case,” Nino said to Jun more than to his partner.

 

Jun held his tongue as Ohno held his RFID hacking card to the electronic card reader and swung open the door.

 

“Merry Christmas,” Ohno said calmly before he stabbed the nearest security guard with his ketamine and tetrodotoxin whatever else chemical mix. Ohno couldn’t care less as long as his target got knocked out quietly. It was a new mixture that the chemistry department just developed half a year ago, with this mission being the first field test. Within Arashi, they had agreed that if the drug cocktail didn’t work, the Players would just switch to their revolvers. 

 

Moving swiftly, Ohno stabbed the second guard in the arm with his auto-injector before the latter could even react. The last security guard was so shocked that he fell off his chair, Ohno stabbed him anyway. As the final guard fell unconscious, Ohno took a good look around the room. Rows of monitors adored the walls. It was definitely the CCTV monitoring room alright.

 

“Here,” Nino instructed. While Ohno was concentrating on the fight, Nino and Jun were scrutinizing the room, looking for the computer terminal that was controlling the cameras.

 

“Just continue keeping a lookout, Nino’s hacking in now,” Jun instructed his Player. Beside him, Nino was giving instructions to Ohno.

 

“Grab the ID cards of the guards. Grab one for Aiba too.” Nino instructed. “Ok, get there and show me what’s on the screen.” Nino said as he placed a marker on the computer on Ohno’s field of view.

 

“Hmm… Ok got it. Hang on, you need to type in these.” Nino said as he copied and pasted the first of several lines of code for Ohno to type. 

 

“Now what?” Ohno asked as the command prompt disappeared and was replaced by a graphical user interface.

 

Nino studied the screen for a few seconds before placing a dot on Ohno’s view. A dozen clicks later, Ohno watched in satisfaction as images on the monitors turned to static. The CCTVs were off.

 

“All clear!” Nino announced.

 

“Alright, let’s go Aiba. To the labs.” Jun instructed.

 

“Here,” Ohno nodded to Aiba as he gave him a fist bump. He handed Aiba an access card from the security guards before they parted ways.

 

“Let’s check the original room just to be sure,” Nino said as he started directing Ohno to the monitoring room on the building plan they had. 

 

Ohno tried the door. It was locked. He was about to reach into his pack for the lock tools when Nino’s voice came on.

 

“Let’s just forget it. It’s not even locked with an electronic card reader. Maybe it’s just a storage room. Let’s look for the office.” Nino said as he directed Ohno to the stairs. Already, he pulled out another set of text files with various commands that he might need Ohno to type. Nino hoped that the SPD computer systems did not require an access card unlike their competition two months ago. 

 

Nino heaved a sigh of relief as the remote hacker buzzed to life. No physical access card was needed and there was no USB lockdown. A smirk appeared on Nino’s lips as the username and password supplied by the cybersecurity team worked.

 

“Ok, just leave the device there, go help Aiba raid the labs.” Nino instructed as he made sure the connection to the remote hacker device was working. Sho gave the signal to their cybersecurity team to take over the hacking process while Nino continued guiding Ohno to start on the next task.

 

“Aiba’s on the 7th floor now.” Nino updated Ohno. The plan was for Aiba to start searching from the top while Ohno would work from the bottom up.

 

“This way.” Nino said as he directed Ohno with an on-screen arrow. Their objective was to look for the stockpile of sulphuric acid that SPD scientific was supposed to be hoarding and create a highly exothermic reaction by mixing it with some other chemicals. Or in Aiba’s words, they were supposed to mix a fire and create big havoc in the lab.

 

“The building seems to be empty so far, besides the three guards you knocked out.” Nino helpfully informed Ohno. 

 

“I found something!” Aiba’s voice crackled loudly over the earphones.

 

“Shhhh!” Jun chided as he winced from Aiba’s loud out burst.

 

“Which floor is that on?” Ohno asked.

 

“6th floor, the north side of the building. Yup, H2SO4. That’s sulphuric acid alright.” Sho stated.

 

“Ok, so what am I supposed to do?” Ohno asked.

 

“Just keep going, and opening storage cabinets. We’ll let you know what to pick up. And put some gloves on.” Nino informed Ohno.

 

Ohno fished out the blue nitrile gloves from his pack and put them over the half finger gloves he always wore on missions. Ohno tapped the access card he’d stolen earlier on the card reader outside the lab. The door remained locked.

 

“RFID. Jun got the wavelength.” Nino reminded Ohno. The security guards clearly did not have access to the labs.

 

The labs looked like the chemistry lab in the Agency, only whiter and a little neater. Ohno started walking down the rolls of benches. He stopped as he saw a cabinet full of chemical bottles.

 

“Actually, it seems like their chemical stores are on the North side. We should head there too.” Nino said as Ohno started looking through a chemical cabinet. Ohno was about to walk away when Sho interrupted.

 

“Wait wait, go back.” Sho said. Something on the bottom shelf caught his eye. Ohno stepped back and faced the cabinet once more. 

 

“What’s that below?” Sho asked.

 

Ohno bent down to take a look. 

 

“Glucose! Take the glucose.” Sho instructed.

 

“Where?” Ohno and Nino asked at the same time.

 

Sho pointed it out on Nino’s screen and the Controller dropped a pointer for Ohno. 

 

“Okay,” Ohno picked up the white plastic bottle with grey cap and put it into his pack. It was marked as 1 kg bottle and fitted easily into his pack.

 

“Now let’s find the potassium chloride. The paperwork indicates that they received a stock of them here.” Nino remarked.

 

“But we don’t know what floor,” Ohno grumbled. 

 

“We don’t know what floor,” Nino repeated. “Anyway good news, the cyber boys have started transferring the data over. It should be done in… 25 minutes.” Nino informed.

 

“Ok guys, we need to speed up. Sico securities got wind of the CCTV situation and are sending people down to check. The SPD CEO has just left his house too. The police checkpoint will slow them down but we have 30 minutes at best.” Sho announced as he read the reports from the rest of the Agency. 

 

“Fuck. This is not good. Ask the cyber boys to speed up the hacking process!” Nino urged.

 

“And Oh-chan we need to find that potassium fast!” Nino continued. Ohno doubled up his pace. 

 

“Jun, get Aiba to put in his remote too!” Nino urged.

 

“Got it,” Jun replied. 

 

“No forget the remote, just set the fire.” Sho disagreed. “Destruction is the top priority remember? We don’t have time to set and retrieve another remote!”

 

The two Players raced through the empty building, looking for the chemical store. It was Ohno who found the potassium chloride stores on level 4. 

 

“I saw a trolley on the way in, grab it and stack as many on as you possibly can!” Nino instructed as he started directing Ohno to where he’d seen the trolley earlier.

 

“Jun, pull Aiba down to the basement and start setting up the thermite reaction and stuff for the fire.” Sho commanded. It was a race against time now, and time was certainly not on their side.

 

“Arghs the lift!” Ohno swore as he pushed the trolley out of the lab. They’d forgotten that the cargo lift was only on the other side of the building and he’d pushed the trolley into the corridor only to discover that it was too narrow to pass through. 

 

“Sorry!” Nino apologised. He’d forgotten about the lift too. “Go back into the lab, it should go through.” 

 

The trolley did manage to pass through the lab corridors, but only barely. In his rush, Ohno knocked a bunch of glass bottles over, making a large din. Ohno was glad that the building appeared to be deserted.

 

“This way.” Nino urged as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. He looked at the clock, only an estimated 23 minutes left. 

 

“Where are the cars!” Nino demanded to know.

 

“They are turning into the main checkpoint on the second street.” Sho replied. “They police are taking their time but there’s only so long they can hold out for! ETA 20 minutes.”

 

Another bead of sweat rolled down the side of Nino’s head and he wiped it off impatiently. Once the cars cleared the checkpoint they would reach SPD in a mere 10 minutes. He wasn’t sure if the Players had 15 minutes to start the fires and get the hell out of there.

 

 

The trolley shook and rattled as Ohno ran down the 6th floor’s lab corridor. Aiba had left the door to the storage room propped open, and he’d made a stack of sulphuric acid bottles for Ohno to shoot.

 

“Ok. stack up the potassium bottles this way,” Nino instructed as he placed a bunch of dots in Ohno’s vision. Sho had sent him a screenshot of the storeroom and advised him how to best set the place on fire. 

 

Ohno started stacking the 5 kg bottles carefully on top of the glass bottles of sulphuric acid. 

 

“Open a bottle and pour it out. Focus on the middle and scatter some to the sides as well. The heat from the initial fire should break the other bottles and create a chain reaction. Pour the bottle of glucose in the center too.” Nino instructed.

 

Sweat rolled down Ohno’s forehead as he stacked the bottles of potassium chloride as quickly as he could. When there was the last box left, he cut open the cardboard box with his knife, revealing the white plastic bottle with a grey cap inside. Ohno threw the cardboard into the storage room to burn and proceeded to rip the screw cap bottle off. The potassium chloride made a satisfying whoosh as Ohno poured the white crystalline powder out. 

 

“The glucose.” Nino reminded, as Ohno heaved a sigh of relief while shaking out the last few grains of potassium chloride.

 

“Right.” Ohno mumbled as he pulled out the bottle of glucose he’d put into his pack earlier and emptied it in the center of the sandy pile.

 

“Ok, all set.” Ohno announced in the chat.

 

“We are almost done with our set up. You can start Ohno.” Jun affirmed.

 

“Ready?” Ohno asked Nino as he stepped back and took out his specially made gun loaded with glass bullets. The bullets had even been tinted brown to match the amber glass used to contain the sulphuric acid. Guns were hard to obtain in Japan and the Agency wanted to push the incident on someone, anyone within SPD scientific. To be honest, Ohno wasn’t quite sure if the blame pushing would work, but he was only following orders. 

 

“Ok, get back as far as you can with a clear line of sight. After this you need to go down four floors to level 2 and retrieve the remote, then join Aiba in the basement. Got it?” Nino instructed.

 

Ohno nodded his head as he imagined the route to the emergency exit on the other side of the building. 

 

“Alright, let’s go.” Ohno whispered. And then he pulled the trigger.

 

A huge burst of light and the sounds of glass breaking told Ohno that he’d done everything right.

 

“Go go go,” Nino urged. The race was on to get out of the building safely. Well, not before starting even more mayhem. 

 

“I’m done!” Aiba announced as Ohno leaped down four steps.

 

“Careful Ohno, don’t sprain your ankle!” Nino chided.

 

“Where are… they…” Ohno panted.

 

“They are reaching soon. Maybe 5 minutes. But it’s ok as long as you guys can get out safely,” Sho reported.

 

“You’re here!” Nino yelled as Ohno almost missed the level 2 exit. 

 

“Go go,” Nino chanted as he laid out arrow after arrow for Ohno to follow. He could tell the older man was nearing his limit and no longer thinking very clearly now. Nino gladly took over the thinking for Ohno so that his Player could solely focus on speed.

 

"Turn the power switch off and on," Nino ordered as he watched the computer monitor went black. Ohno unplugged the USB remote and ran towards the lift lobby. He would have crashed into the glass door if not for the countless red dots Nino had placed on the electronic card reader. 

 

"Calm down Oh-chan. We'll make it." Nino urged. Nino too, let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

 

 

Ohno fumbled in his pockets for an access card and calmed himself down by taking a deep breath. In the earlier rush, he’d uncharacteristically forgotten where he’d left his RFID hacker. Ohno hoped that it was in his pack somewhere and not left lying around the building. It would be bad if he’d left behind evidence that could be traced back to the Agency. Instead, he found the security guard’s access card in his left pocket.

 

“Yeah, we can do this. This way to the stairs.” Nino said as he placed more arrows for Ohno to follow. Beside him, he could hear Sho report that the Sico security van was reaching the SPD building, with the CEO’s car a short distance behind.

 

“Should have… Passed the acid to Aiba earlier.” Ohno panted as he dashed out of the first floor’s stairs and made for the storage room.

 

“Yeah, we didn’t think of that. Sorry,” Nino apologised. In the storage room, Aiba had pushed in the recycling bin filled with cardboard boxes and doused them with lighter fluid. At the base of the gas cylinders, he’d scattered a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum powder. 

 

“They just got in through the front. They’ll probably head for the monitoring room, you still have some time.” Sho informed the rest of the team.

 

Ohno pulled out his thermite reaction pack and lighter fluid as he ran the cargo bay to the gas cylinder storage room. Aiba took the pack of metal powder from Ohno and began scattering it around the gas cylinders, while Ohno poured the can of lighter fluid over the cardboards as indicated by Nino.

 

“Ready?” Aiba looked at a still panting Ohno. Ohno nodded as he began to take out the last items he’ll need for the day. The carborane acid. The bottles were kept in Teflon coated, airtight cushioned metal containers. Ohno cursed as he wasted several seconds trying to pull the cap open. 

 

“Keep those containers!” Sho reminded the Players. The specially made containers could potentially be traced back to the Agency, and that was the last thing that Arashi wanted.

 

Bottles of super acid in hand, the two Players looked at each other and nodded. In unrehearsed unison, they threw their first bottles onto the area indicated by their respective Controllers. Fumes enveloped the room as the bottles exploded.

 

“Quick, toss the next bottle then the lighter!” Sho’s voice woke the Players out from their stupor. There was something beautifully attractive about watching the nasty black fumes rose into the air. Two more bottles of acid were tossed into the mix before Aiba flicked on his lighter, tossing it into the recycling bin. Neither Players looked back this time as the cardboard caught fire, filling the storage room with an orange glowing light and intense heat.

 

“Run across the road and jump the fence. Toma is right there waiting for you!” Nino commanded. The latter part of his command was lost in the noise as the fire alarm sounded. 

 

“About freaking time!” Ohno smiled as he climbed over the fence. 

 

They had succeeded. Whatever the outcome later, THEIR mission was a success. Ohno heaved a sigh of relief as he gave Aiba a fist bump in the back of the car. 

 

“Great job!” Toma congratulated.

 

“Yeah, it’s time for some Genghis Khan!” Aiba sighed, relieved that it was finally over.

 

A deafening explosion filled the air just as Toma drove off. A puff of dust cloud descended on the car, an indication of the damage the exploding gas cylinders had done. Toma sped off to safety, only much later had he realised that he was gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles has turned white.

 

“Whoa! That went off fast!” Sho gasped. “I glad ya’all made it back safely, great job.”

 

“Ahh! My card!” Ohno suddenly cried as he rummaged through his pack. 

 

“It’s in your pack I’m sure,” Nino replied. “There, there it is.” Nino laughed as he spotted the RFID hacking card.

 

“Where? Where?! I don’t see it!” Ohno complained as he tipped the contents of his pack out onto his lap.

 

“You blind old man!” Nino teased. He did not drop a pin on Ohno’s visuals this time.

 

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That night, they had a celebration feast while watching the news reports of the SPD fire roll in. Reporters were quick to hop on to the fact that SPD Scientific was actually owned by the up and coming political party Everybody Zenshin. As the government had predicted, informal polls by the journalists showed that the general public was shocked and appalled by the alleged illegal activities going on inside the illegal laboratories.

 

However, there were no mentions of what happened to the three security guards that Ohno had knocked out, or the people that entered the SPD HQ after Ohno had started the fire on level 6.

 

“Media blockade huh?” Sho remarked. Evidently, it would look bad on the government if they were found out to have harmed innocent civilians in the raid.

 

“Well, Kimura-san says they are ok.” Nino replied as he checked the messages on his phone. 

 

“Ah, I’m glad.” Aiba sighed in relief as he stuffed another piece of meat into his mouth.

 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Sho reprimanded with a disapproving look.

 

“Stop talking and eat more,” Jun said to no one in particular as the put the cooked BBQ meat into smaller pieces and distributed them onto his teammates’ plates. 

 

“Nah, I’m good, give them to Oh-chan,” Nino said as he rejected Jun’s offer. Nino shook his head in amazement at how much the rest of Arashi could eat, Aiba and Sho in particular. It made his meals look like a kid-sized portion in comparison. 

 

“I can’t wait to go home.” Ohno moaned as he savored a piece of scallop.

 

“I love the seafood though,” Sho chirped as he ate a piece of abalone.

 

“Hey, eat the meat I grilled too before it gets cold!” Jun scolded as he put yet more mutton onto the grill.

 

“I’m eating it, I’m eating it!” Aiba yelled as he stole a piece of mutton from Ohno’s plate. 

 

“Hey!” Ohno protested as he watched the meat disappeared into Aiba’s mouth.

 

“Serves you right for not eating it immediately!” Jun teased.

 

“Who wants more beer?” Nino asked. His stomach was bursting at the seams and he needed to go for a walk.

 

“Haiiii!” Ohno and Sho passed their glasses to Nino. 

 

“Ahh… I’ll just bring the bottle over.” Nino groaned as he picked himself off the floor and went to fetch the beer from the kitchen. 

 

Nino smiled to himself as he watched his teammates interact with each other, laughing and joking, the tension of the day forgotten. A warm feeling spread through his body and before he realised it, his vision was blurry. 

 

“You sentimental old snort,” Nino mentally smacked himself as he wiped away a tear. He hadn’t realise it at first, but Arashi was beginning to feel more and more like family. 

 

-------------------------------------------

 

“Ne, Nii-chan,” Nino called, surprising Ohno. He hadn’t called Ohno that since they entered the Agency. Instead, he referred to Ohno as his partner or colleague. 

 

“Say, if I told you then that we would find a new family, would you have believed me?” Nino asked as he rested his head on Ohno’s shoulder like he used to do as a child.

 

Ohno hugged Nino tightly. They were coming to the end of their 6 months long vacation, sitting on the bench opposite their new bungalow in Miyagi. The sun was setting and the view of the sea was magnificent.They had bought a house in the same street where they used to live. The street had completely changed now, and the duo couldn’t recognise any of it, but they had just wanted to return to their hometown. 

 

“I don’t know Kazu,” Ohno finally replied, calling his younger brother by his childhood nickname. “Maybe, but I would never have imaged a family as wonderful as Arashi.”

 

“The food is ready!” Aiba called out from across the street, destroying their brotherly moment.

 

“Let’s not keep them waiting shall we?” Nino said with a smile as he got up.

 

“Yeah, let’s.” Ohno smiled bitterly as he followed after Nino.

 

Summer was about to start and the weather was still a little chilly. However Arashi’s leave was about to end.

 

 

 

It was Jun who breached the topic first.

 

“So… Are you guys going back?”

 

There had been a lot of discussion amongst the members after the mission ended. Nino and Jun had been growing skeptical of the Agency’s management and the government. Aiba wasn’t pleased with the prospect of being made to harm innocent civilians.

 

Nino shrugged. “The money is good, you know. It’s not like things are going to change if we aren’t there.”

 

“Well…” Ohno spoke up. “Personally, I’m really glad to be in the Agency. I’m not like you guys. I wasn’t a pro gamer or a computer wiz like Nino. My grades sucked. I would never have been able to get into the police academy. I would never have accomplished any of these without you guys. And what Nino said is right. The world would still go on without us. The government will always need a secret arm. Whether we are there or not, the missions will still be assigned and completed. And if not the Agency, maybe the military or the police or someone else will still get the job done. Then why not us? At least, if we are there, we can change things. We can teach our juniors to be good stewards. We can question the mission objectives and fact check the information given. And it’s not like we are angels anyway. Ok, at least I am not. I would have gladly killed those security guards if they were armed. Or if the chemical cocktail didn’t work. It’s part of our job. It’s in our job description. But what matters is that we did prevent a repeat of the 1995 sarin attack in Tokyo. We did save lives and we did bring down a cult. We did protect our country. Was it not worthwhile?” Ohno lectured.

 

Ohno’s long speech surprised the other members. They were not used to such deep arguments from the usually taciturn old man.

 

Investigations into the data obtained from their mission and subsequent raids on Everybody Zenshin’s offices have revealed plans to manufacture a new toxin compound, dubbed Setoxin by the cult, to carry out terrorist attacks on Haneda and Narita International Airport. If successful, the attack would have kill thousands of people, deeply hurting Japan’s economy and security.

 

“In any case… This isn’t a job that we can do forever.” Ohno continued. “I’m 33 already. Who knows how long I’ll be able to keep up to the demands of being a Player.” Ohno shrugged. “Of course, it would be meaningless for me to continue if the rest of you, or well, any of you, disagrees. I want us to continue working together, the five of us.”

 

“Well, Matchy-san did say that we could take another three months off if we needed a longer break and more time to consider. It’ll be unpaid though.” Sho said.

 

“Nah, we’ve already left a lot of money on the table with this 6 months long break.” Nino rejected the suggestion. The Agency was kind enough to provide them with a three months long paid holiday for the member to lay low and recover mentally from the stressful mission, but the additional three months of leave came with a reduced pay. 

 

“Besides, the summer competition happens next week isn’t it? We can’t let Kanjani have their way twice in a row!” Nino added.

 

The mood lightened. “Ha! Be prepared to lose then, me and Aiba have been practising hard throughout our holidays!” Jun jeered.

 

“And what makes you think that me and Nii-chan have been slacking?” Nino smirked.

 

Sho raised an eyebrow at Nino’s use of the term Nii-chan to refer to Ohno. Now that was new. Ohno himself looked surprised too as his face turned red in embarrassment. This time it was Aiba’s turn to tease Ohno about his rapidly reddening face.

 

Sho chuckled as he watched the rest of the team bickered. Arashi was going to turn out just fine.