Chapter 38: Dead Drop

Kurome scratched down letter after letter on the parchment, her body working on its own as it logged all her observations. No amounts of resistance her mind had halting the swift and deliberate strokes every movement she made left atop the parchment.

She had become accustomed to these by now. At the end of every week since she joined the Jaegers her body would come to her room, lock the door behind her and get to writing down everything she knew about the Jaegers movements and mentality.

If she so much as noticed wave acting off, it would be logged in her. Every absence of Dr. Stylish, stamped with the day and time. Whenever Seryu oiled and cleaned her arms or fed Hekatonkeires.

Everything was noted down and added to a pile she would hide somewhere within her room, out of sight of anyone who even so much as came to inspect her belonging. Not that anyone would do that to one of General Esdeath's Jaegers.

But out of all the notes she had, the most detailed were those of the General herself. Kurome could barely understand the things her body was writing down. Not because it was illegible or in a foreign language, no, quite the opposite actually. It was in perfect Empyrean, every word exquisitely carved into the parchment.

Details about the inanest things were written down. What did Esdeath wear, how was her hair styled, did her hat sag a little or was it perfectly atop her head? All of these strange things would be logged, and she couldn't fathom why.

He could have just ordered her to draw her face for him if he were so interested in seeing her. And she did, just like she had done for the other Jaegers minus herself.

Sighing to herself, Kurome's hand tapped down on the final line adding a small full stop to the final sentence of her report. Looking to the pile of papers on the end of her desk, Kurome couldn't help but feel disgusted with herself. The amount of information on the Jaegers movements, their abilities. Once these got into Parc's hands it was bound to be devastating for them.

Just a single one of them was more than enough to have her hung for treason and espionage with her being declared a traitor to the Empire. Chances are no one would even know she was dead as the chances of her own colleagues from the assassination corps would come to make her disappear.

And if Esdeath learnt of it? Now that was a terrifying idea. She knew it wouldn't be a quick death she would go through. Months-YEARS, of torture would await her before she could finally see the white light at the end of the tunnel.

Once the ink on the parchment had dried, Kurome lifted it, placing it at the top of the pile. Pulling some twine from her desk she laid two long strings over each other in a plus formation.

Moving the pile onto the centre of the pile. Lifting up two ends of the same piece of twine and tying them together, doing the same with the other. Tightly binding them together while not damaging the parchment.

Tonight would be the first time she dropped off a package at the dead drop location at the edge of the city where foot traffic was minimal.

Stuffing the package into her satchel, Kurome stood and made quick strides to her door. Unlocking it and exiting into the hallway of the dorms where most of the Jaegers were living bar Bols and Dr. Stylish who already had their own housing arrangements somewhere inside the city.

Kurome had given up trying to force her legs not to move on their own as they dragged her through the nighttime city. Skirting between alleys and districts to loose anyone who may be following her.

Soon she found herself within the red light district right near where her dead drop was to be. Pushing her way through the thinning crowds of drunkards and courtesans, Kurome soon found herself in one of the many abandoned buildings the Capital harboured.

It had had been a brothel at one point its life, housing numerous courtesans. It was discovered that the a group of insurrectionists were using the whores as information brokers, keeping their information exchanges hidden behind closed doors.

And it was here that Parc had decided for the deaddrop. Long had the whores and owner been executed. Now all that remained here were rats and the odd drunkard fallen unconscious on the step.

Climbing the stairs up to the third floor, Kurome made her way to room 303. The door to it barely hanging on by a single hinge with the roof to the room collapsed in on itself making entering the actual room a fruitless endeavor.

Except, she wasn't entering the room.

Pulling the squeaking door open, Kurome scanned the rubble lying at her feet. Kneeling down she grabbed a large wooden beam, using as much of her strength to lift it up, pushing her leg beneath it to keep it held up as she quickly pulled the package from her satchel.

Casting it a hesitant look before laying ot down on the ground and pushing it deep into the crevice that was hidden behind the beam. Lifting the beam a little to get her leg out from it, she lowered it, slow enough that it didn't disturb any of the rubble above it and hid the package from sight.

Closing the door, Kurome placed a large rock infront of it to keep it from swinging open should any gusts make their way in from any cracked windows or what not.

There really wasn't much else for her to do now that it was all set. Descending the staircase back to the ground floor. Kurome exited the building. Looking left and right for anyone who may see her but finding no one.

Sighing in a bit of relief she knelt down and picked up a dark stone and placed it in a broken window, placing another on the opposite side of the same window.

To most it would look like some bum had gotten bored and decided to start playing with pebbles. But to Kurome and Parc it was a signifier of something being in the cache. If the stones weren't on the windowsill, there was nothing there. A sign to Kurome that Parc had already picked it up and was awaiting the next, or for him, a sign that something was there for pick up.

He had gone through a few more signals, such as three stones, one against the sides of the windowsill with one in the centre being an urgent pickup. And meant that something really bad was happening with the Jaegers. Things like they had discovered a lead back to Night Raids hideout being one of them.

Seeing nothing wrong with her placement, Kurome turned away, her legs making large and quick strides back towards the red light district. The small crowds having grown just slightly as the night grew on.

The hours between midnight and dawn being the busiest hours of the night for the brothels.

"Aayyy, *Hic* Lass," a stench of alcohol wafted into Kurome's nose as a fat drunken man approached her. Her cheeks aflame from the inordinate amounts of liquor he'd drunken and his clothing half undone with lipstick marks dotting his rolls of fat.

"Whys don't yous comes with me~ Have gots the mhaney fer a bits o' fun," the drunken piggy tried to hook an arm around Kurome's shoulder, but she picked up her pace avoiding his fatty arm.

The man not having expected this stumbled, having expected to have a cute girl act as his crutch. Instead finding air that let him flounder onto the floor. Almost causing it to rumble from his weight.

Dazed the man rolled onto his back and looked to Kurome with drunken anger. "G-ghet bhak ear, hyu lhil shlut!" the pig somehow got to his feet, stomping after Kurome just as she turned into.

"Ahm ghon mhake yous bheg fer iht, *Hic*" The man lifted his hand up to the alley wall, using it to keep himself upright as he got nearer to Kurome who was ignoring him entirely. Keeping a steady pace as she walked down the alley towards another street.

"Ah sed get bhack er!" Using what little stability, he head, the man rumbled towards Kurome, his hand reaching out for her shoulder, only for his hand to rub against her neck unnervingly close to her collar.

Kurome once again felt a foreboding premonition like she had with Dr. Stylish. In fear of it she pushed forwards out of the mans reach, sending him sprawling to the floor once again.

Kurome turned to look at the man, his muscles, fatty arms unable to hold him up. Not that she cared as she turned away, speeding up into a swift run away from the man to lose him. Her mind still worried as to what she would have done had he touched it.

The further she got from where she left the man sprawled, the calmer she became. Eventually falling into slow strides. Now that she was clear of the busy red-light district there were few if any people still awake. Lights in the houses were snuffed out and only the odd straggler on their way back to their home from midnight rendezvous with who knows who were on the streets around these parts.

It was in this calm, chilly night that Kurome lifted her hand to her neck, checking her collar to feel if it had at all shifted of loosened from the mans actions. Sighing in relief when se found nothing wrong with it.

"Why if it isn't Kurome. How stylish of you to be out this late," Her feet stopped at the voice. Turning almost mechanically to the sparkling owner of the voice.

"Dr. Stylish…" Kurome grumbled, frowning as she saw two people standing behind him. A wide smiling, heavily muscular man who showed no shame in showing off his hairy chest with his half-unbuttoned shirt. And a scholarly looking boy with small spectacles over his nose.

She certainly was not thrilled to meet him. The chances were to slim to be a coincidence. "You were following me?" she asked, frowning at her own question, she hadn't felt any presences following her. So just how was he here?

Her hand gravitated to Yatsufusa. Lingering just close enough that she could unsheathe it in the blink of an eye.

"Oh no, no, certainly not. It is unbecoming for a stylish man such as myself to be following a young lady such as yourself," Stylish swept a hand through his hair with a bright grin that almost made his teeth sparkle.

She didn't believe him one bit.

Looking between Stylish's two followers, Kurome frowned, she could feel a sense of danger from the smaller, scholarly boy while the muscled man made her frown from how much bloodlust he was exuding.

"Who are they?" She asked.

"Ah!" Stylish exclaimed clapping his hands together in an overly dramatic manner, "how rude of me, these are Kaku and Toby," he indicated to the giant and scholar respectively, "they are under my employ." Stylish's grin grew more ominous.

"For today they are acting as my hands in a little experiment."

For some reason she felt this 'experiment' had something to do with her. "And that is?" Her expression soured, her hand falling onto Yatsufusa's handle pressing against the tsuba to slide the blade out just a little.

"Well, I say experiment," Toby pulled out three small masks from behind him, handing one to Kaku and Dr. Stylish who brought it up to their mouths, the mask suctioning to their faces. "In reality, it is more to sate my curiosity really."

His eyes conveyed a smirk as he pulled out a canister from his coat, pulling a pin on it and threw it towards Kurome. Yatsufusa flashing through the air to bat the canister away from her. She had heard about these thing, portable explosives built into small containers.

A lift threatening prospect for anyone near them.

When Yatsufusa collided with the canister a crack filled the air. What she had thought to be metal from the gleam it gave off had turned out to be some form of moulded clay that shattered on contact with her katana.

Kurome's eyes widened in surprise as when the canister shattered a cloud of white dust burst out and filled the air around her in a plume of particulates that stung her eyes and burned her lungs as she breathed it in.

With a swift leap backwards, she burst free from the plume, but her legs had frozen in place, unmoving. Making her unable to bring them back to catch herself before she landed on the floor with a grunt.

Kurome growled attempting to force her legs to move, yet nothing would happen. Same for her arms as not seconds latter did she find her grip of Yatsufusa weakening. Her body heavy and unresponsive.

This was the second time something like this had happened to her where she was awake but in a body that wouldn't respond. Only, this time her body wouldn't move. It was frustrating, she felt pathetic, how could she let this happen twice in nearly as many months. "Wh..at… did… yo..u.. do…" her voice struggled to come out of her numb lips.

"Just a little paralytic, nothing to draw you unconscious mind you. It is really more for my safety than yours." Stylish pushed through the falling smog of white particulates stroking the masks chin area.

Kurome wanted to say something, but her lips could no longer move, the paralytic having circulated through her whole body.

"I do apologize for having to do such a thing to you," Stylish looked to Kaku and nodded in Kurome's direction. Kaku rushing towards Kurome and lifting her from the ground with one hand, lifting her off the ground and held her out to Dr. Stylish.

Stylish pulled on a pair of blue gloves with metal plates on the back of the hand and fingers, his Teigu, Perfector.

"I've found it curious, Kurome. In all the years of reports I have gotten on your wellbeing. None involved such a connection to this collar you are wearing." He reached his gloved hand to Kurome's neck, pressing into her collar. "And yet, here you are wearing it with such an intense connection to an object you have had for no longer than a few months."

Stylish's finger continued around Kurome's neck, halting just by the buckle. "I found it strange at first, believing it to be nothing than a new cosmetic you decided to wear without consulting Uncle Bill. But then I see you picking at it and then you begin to convulse in some form of pleasure."

He pressed into the gap just above the prong, "Uncle Bill certainly has no interest in giving you brats of the Assassination group any pleasure. So perhaps you encountered another who did. Someone outside of the empire. Someone versed in the arts of the mind who implanted some form of control into your body through this collar that would give you such a powerful reaction to it."

Even under the control of the paralytic, Kurome began to shiver, her vision growing hazier and hazier as Stylish curled his finger under the prong. "Or… perhaps it is the collar itself that is doing that to you. Then that just adds more questions. What type of technological advance could enable such a thing? Is it the ability of a teigu? Or just a simple machine. I simply must know what it is."

"S… top…" Kurome used all of the power that remained in her body to say that single word.

"No, it is unstylish to stop an unfinished experiment." Kurome's vision went black as Stylish pulled the prong up, removing it from the leather and the strap loosening from the buckle before coming undone.

Kurome's head slumped forwards.

Stylish held the collar on one end, spinning it around in his hand to search for any signs of technology, "it's… a collar… tsk! How unflattering, and here I was so excited to deconstruct something new," Stylish grumbled tossing the leather collar to the side.

"Hnn?" just as he threw it he noticed in the corner of his eye a dull, golden light shimmering from Kurome's leg. "What's this?" he muttered turning his focus to her leg, her ankle specifically where a golden chain like mark was shinning through her dark panty hose.

He didn't notice it then, the small twitch in Kurome's hand and the slight almost unnoticeable twist of her head.

"Kaku, Toby, we are returning to the lab for further experimentation. It appears what is ailing our dear subject is more advanced than expected." Stylish turned away from Kaku, beginning to walk down the street. Oblivious to the sharp cutting of air behind him and the sudden diffusion of a sharp metallic odour.

"Dr… R… un…"