"Bring her to the front entrance of the warehouse," I said as I walked down a hall to the front of the building. According to the woman, her name was Naru, and she was from the Zaraki Family. She had also said that she was looking to work for me.
I found it strange that she was so brazen with her words out in public, even if the streets were mostly bare. She had even gone as far as to say my name, but it wasn't like the people in the area didn't know. It was going to be hard to keep anything secret in a city like this, where information seemed to pass faster than it could electronically. I had still not completely figured that out, but there must be informants all over the city.
When I got to the front entrance, the woman was waiting for me with a smirk on her face with one of my human guards. I nodded, waved for him to leave, and then waited before speaking.
"So, Stephan sent you over here to get his foot in my clan as well? Are you sure that is a wise move?" I asked and then gestured for the beaten-up couch, but then stopped her as I frowned at it. "Sorry, give me a moment," I said and placed my hand on the couch, changing it to something new and comfortable. It looked out of place now, but I was hardly going to ask a human to sit on something that had bugs crawling all over it.
"Yes, he did, sort of," the woman said as she walked over and sat down, then let out a sigh. "Wow! This is the most comfortable thing I have ever sat on! And you just changed it as easily as breathing... I mean, if you breathed. Do you breathe air?" She asked me curiously, and I lifted an eyebrow.
"You are a curious one, but I did not leave my work to answer your questions. What is it that you want?" I asked, and Naru smiled up at me.
"A few things, now that you ask! The first thing is to make you fall madly in love with me so you can give me strong children one day! That is more of a work-in-progress thing, so what I am really here for is to work for you! Boss Zaraki let me go, so I don't have a place to go, and I heard that you are looking for people, right?" Naru said, and I just stared at her with a blank expression before sitting down in the other chair.
"Yes, I am looking for people, but you are a strange one to be offering your services," I said, crossing my legs as I leaned back. "What makes you think that you can help me? What skills do you have that would benefit me?"
Naru shrugged and ran her fingers through her bright orange hair, considering the question for a moment before she smiled brightly. "Well, I'm really fast, and I don't get tired easily! I can read glyphs and symbols, so if there is something magical happening around here, I could probably figure out what it means and how to use it. I may not be able to actually wield magic, but I know enough about it to make it useful. Oh! And I am really good at killing people! Almost forgot! That is what I do most of the time!"
I nodded slowly, considering this new information carefully. While I wasn't sure how much of it was true or even worth using, I couldn't really ignore someone that had been sent by Stephan Zaraki himself. He must have seen something in the woman that made him think she could be useful, and that gave me some peace of mind. What bothered me was the fact that he "let her go." That hardly seemed likely and was more than likely going to use her to spy somehow. That meant using some way to do it without me knowing, and I already had an idea of how that might be done.
"So killing is your specialty, but you don't use magic?" I asked curiously, and she nodded, pulling out a throwing knife. She casually threw it across the room, but the speed that it traveled did not match the perceived force used to throw it. The blade buried deeply into the wall, but then with a flick of her wrist, it was ripped out and flew back into her hand, or that is what it looked like at first glance.
Time slowed as I reexamined what I had just seen, but with more layers on so I could see and measure what was actually happening. The moment she flicked her wrist, chaotic energy was sucked into the blade, then it burst out of her hand at over 3000 feet per second. I watched in slow motion as it slammed into the wall with another burst of magic that seemed to prevent it from going all the way through. If it hadn't, that blade would have been in peace after hitting the outer cement wall around the building. The other thing was that there seemed to be a line of magic or chaotic energy that connected the blade to a platinum bangle she had on her wrist. I assumed that this was how she got the blade back into her hand.
Time resumed, and I looked over at Naru, who was twirling the blade in her fingers with a self-satisfied smile.
"So? What do you think? Pretty amazing skills?" She asked, and I shrugged.
"You have become good at catching and twirling that blade in your hands, but I don't see much that another person with some control and magical ability couldn't do," I said, and Naru almost dropped her blade as her eyes peeled back, but I put up my hand. "It is clear that this is a magical item that you have become good with, and it seems very useful, but it has many weaknesses," I explained.
"You're kidding, right? What weaknesses does a weapon like this have?! You act like I don't know how to fight hand-to-hand! Do you want to test me?! I will fight you, metal man! If you are to be the father of my children, then you must see me as an equal in arms if not in status!" Naru demanded, hopping up in her short shirt and white shirt that was cut down the center and then tied together.