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Bang.

She quickly turned to find the kid from the file, lying on the ground with a bullet wound in his side.

Ugh, seriously?

She took out her blade as she heard steps moving towards them.

"And you are the promising recruit?" she questioned him.

The kid spit some blood. "Kieran."

"Right."

A man ran around the corner and she threw her dagger straight at him. The blade lodged itself right in his neck, knocking him over and leaving a trail of blood as he fell.

She took a few slow steps towards the body. "And what were you trying to do with this guy? Thought you'd lure him in for his uniform and failed miserably?"

"Something like that," Kieran responded in a defeated tone. "Didn't think you'd be here already."

Was he implying she wasn't as competent as he was? Even after getting shot? She would not let him win.

Bella took the blade out of the neck and wiped it clean. Then she grabbed the corpse by the collar of its bloody uniform. "Well, this one won't do. Guess we'll have to get two more guards for their uniforms before we kill them." She turned back to him, a sarcastic smile on her face. "Hopefully three missing guards won't raise alarms at the house."

He sighed. "Um. Belladonna, right?" Hand still on the bullet wound at his side, he sat up. He stared at her for a moment as if waiting for confirmation, but received none.

She dropped the corpse in front of him. "Patch yourself up and hide this while I get two more guards." As she left the room, she added, "And don't worry, I can save you some of the fun later; if you prove yourself useful that is. I'm sure you wouldn't want me to keep all the killing to myself."

He glared at her but still agreed. "Sure."

Bella was getting tired of his antics already and the mission hadn't even started. Still, she couldn't let him get to her.

She lured the first guard behind the warehouse.

Why did she have to be paired up with this kid?

Knocked the guard out.

What was so special about him that she had to be recommended just to work with him?

Then, she lured the second guard using the other one's body.

Clearly he was some sort of Protégé to the Fourth, but why?

Knocked the second guard out.

Someone who got shot so early into a mission shouldn't even be important enough to be kept alive.

She brought both of the guards back to the warehouse.

In it, Kieran was tending to his wound. His build was a little bony, but not completely. It was as if he started eating properly just recently. He seemed to have a little muscle too, which was to be expected from training under the Fourth. If it weren't for his close ties to the apostle, Bella would've assumed he was a Graychapel kid who’d joined the Scythe to feed his family or something along those lines.

The floor seemed to be cleaned up a bit too. Not completely, obviously, but enough to pass for a dirty floor rather than a murder scene. The bloodstains didn't look like bloodstains anymore and the corpse was gone.

At least he knew how to do something right, it seemed.

Tending his wounds and removing the obvious evidence was the bare minimum, but the kid wasn't completely useless, which worked well for her. Incompetent enough to not surpass her, competent enough to not get in her way. At least she wouldn't need to worry too much about him.

"Here, one for you." Bella dropped one of the guards at Kieran's feet. Then she lifted the other one. "And one for me."

They stripped each of the guards of their clothes and changed into them in complete silence, which she was thankful for. After a rough start, she was glad to finally be back on track with the mission. She wouldn't let her apostle down. Now all that was left was to kill the guards so that the real work could actually start.