Under The Veil of Night

Kevin glanced at the clothes in Kanae’s hands. "There’s no need. You can return back now. The streets are much safer right now, but you shouldn’t roam so much."

"Okay, thank you, President," Kanae smiled brightly.

She put the clothes on the table and walked out of the room. Outside the room, she bumped into Mike and Neo who have just returned. Neo’s eyes grew wide when he saw her there.

"What are you doing so early in this place?"

"I slept over," Kanae answered with a sheepish grin. "I’ll return back now."

"Wait, here’s some food for you," Mike gave her the food box they got from their subordinates. No wonder they still bought more food boxes. It turned out she had stayed over.

"Thank you!"

Neo looked at Kanae for a moment before walking towards the office. Inside, he saw that their Boss seemed to be in an awful mood. He wondered what Kanae did to leave him in this kind of mood.

"Boss, the streets are clean right now. There are several groups that got involved in the fight," Neo reported the events yesterday night.

Kevin listened as Neo gave him the full report. Although there were only a few casualties, he still felt rather displeased.

"One more thing, Boss, did Kanae stay here all of last night?" Neo asked.

"She was always here except when she took a bath and changed her clothes."

"How long did she take for that?"

"20 minutes," Kevin frowned. It was pretty long, but he knew that girls usually took longer in terms of taking care of their appearance. "Why are you asking this?"

20 minutes were not enough to travel from this floor to the Souhon Clan’s territory and back after a fierce fight. Neo shook his head. Shouldn’t he be glad that his suspicion turned out to be wrong?

"Nothing, I feel that you’ve been caring more about her lately, Boss."

Noticing that Kevin’s aura seemed to turn more dangerous, Neo immediately put the report on the table and bid farewell. Mike followed suit and disappeared from the room.

Kevin glanced towards the report and collected himself. No one should know about this, and he didn’t want to let them know. It would be better to let this feeling pass. (A/N: Will it pass?)

...

Kanae reached her house after a short stroll on the street. She was not in a hurry, and she noticed that there were a lot of people cleaning up. Of course, she would not participate and let them do their own thing.

When she reached her home, her special phone vibrated and Tommy’s weak voice sounded.

"Captain, why did you make me do this job? I’m being beaten up black and blue everywhere."

"With this, you can rest for a long time with a proper reason," Kanae said as she put on weights . She would be staying at home for the entire day today, so training would be the best option.

"You’re so heartless, Captain."

Jason turned on his phone as he leaned back in his bed. "The plan is a success. The rumors about our group fully participating have been spread, and many people know about them."

"That’s good."

"Wait, why do you want to create rumors? There’s no need to do things like this, right?"

Jason snorted. He didn’t expect someone like Tommy to understand their way of doing things. "We want to make alibis."

"Why?"

"Lately, some of my friends are asking about my disappearance. Because Fiore Group has gotten famous, if it’s discovered that our real identities disappear on the very same day Fiore Group members are active, it will be a disaster."

Tommy tried to process what Jason told him so far. Did that mean there were people who suspected their true identities? Well, it was not that hard to guess who they were if they tried to connect the dots.

"There’s no one who’s that sharp and you already made sure that there were a lot of people who had absences this month."

"Normally, I wouldn’t worry so much, but you leak out your identity too much, Tommy."

Towards that fact, Tommy stayed silent. It was true. He was not being careful enough, which allowed the Ryukalin Clan to find out about his real identity. In addition, Souhon Clan Young Master Jay also knew about him because he leaked it out before. If they tried to trace the people who disappeared based on his absence, they might track down the others.

He smiled ruefully. "I’m sorry."

"It’s not your fault entirely. It’s just that the Ryukalin Clan is growing stronger with time. Although they’re staying low profile because of their young clan head, they’re not weak at all," Jason said in a solemn tone.

He had done his investigation on the clans, and many of them were extremely complicated. His information was limited, and he knew that there were a lot of deeply-hidden secrets here and there that he wasn’t even aware of. Still, that was enough for him to deduce their overall ability and the Ryukalin Clan was one of the most dangerous ones in his opinion.

Kanae yawned. "There’s no need for you to apologize. The milk was spilled and there’s no way for us to take it back. The most important thing for you now is to make sure you grow stronger and limit your interaction with us in real life."

"I understand. Now, can I get treated?"

"Shin should be able to do it," Kanae turned off the communication device and lay down on her bed. It was rather tiring to oversee things from afar and not participate. Honestly, she was really worried when she stayed put, but she forced herself to wait for the others patiently.

"Let’s just train."

This time, she wore a hood to conceal her face. Using her speed to avoid the cameras, she stopped near the Black Street and started to jog around.

The Black Street that she passed this time was different than the one she used to go to. There were several clusters of tall buildings in this city, which gave rise to the several Black Streets that their shadows created. However, they all had one similarity. It was the fact that there were no law enforcers inspecting things. Every Black Street had some slight differences from one to another, but they were mostly the same.

It was the place where the sun rarely appeared, or didn’t show at all. After all, the name ’black’ was not without reason. The tall buildings blocked most of the sunlight, which made the place dark most of the time.

On the other hand, Tommy had reached Shiro’s place. The doctor seemed to be deathly tired.

"You’re not the only one who had to work hard today," Tommy complained.

Shiro glared at Tommy. Because he was the shadow guard of Fiore Group, the information about him was very limited. This made it hard for them to find out about Shin’s appearance. The only thing they knew was his ability in sniping and shooting.

Because he didn’t have much relation to the clans while Tommy’s identity was already leaked out, they were the ones who got chosen for the mission. Jason was clearly off limits as he was a high-profile celebrity while Kanae was too close with the Ryukalin Clan and her disappearance might make them suspicious.

"I don’t want to cover for you again, Brat! You better be grateful that I still do this job."

"Yea, yea, I know. Can you treat my wound now?"

"Sure, come here," Shiro had black lines on his forehead as he beckoned for Tommy to come closer. He would make this brat suffer a bit.

Tommy sensed that there was something wrong. "Why does your face look so scary?"

"My face is always like this, now bear with this."

"OUCH! You demonic doctor!"

Tommy’s scream rang through the street, but no one paid much attention as they were preoccupied with the cleanup from the clan’s battle.