"Mithra," Mizuno continued, "I know how difficult this is but you're going to have to trust me. This is all for the project."

"How?" he snapped, "What part could he possibly play?"

"He's going to train Nick."

"To be what? A killer?"

Mizuno swore, "Mithra, please shut your mouth and trust me, alright?" He looked at Nick and told him to join him. Nick obeyed, though he tried to keep a bit of a distance from Strom, who sat completely relaxed and intrigued by Mizuno's actions. "Strom I'd like to borrow your Zastava M76 if you don't mind."

Strom shrugged and walked it over to him. Mizuno set the rather large rifle on the edge of the building, looked through the sights, and after everything was satisfactory he told Nick to crouch at the edge of the building, press the b.u.t.t of the rifle against his right shoulder, wrap his first two fingers around the trigger, breathe evenly, and steady the rifle with his left hand.

"There's an empty bottle on the roof of the building across the way," Mizuno instructed the young man, "Take as accurate of an aim as you can and once you're ready fire at the item. Use the scope to take aim by setting the object between the crosshairs and fire once you're ready."

Nick nodded and after a few seconds found the bottle, lined up the sights as Mizuno told him and pulled the trigger. He couldn't tell if he hit the bottle or not as he failed to brace himself for the recoil from the shot.

Mizuno immediately seized the rifle from Nick (as the weapon nearly flew out of Nick's grasp and off the roof) and Strom laughed at the poor shot. Mizuno returned the rifle to the a.s.sa.s.sin, pulled Nick back up to his feet, and asked Strom, "Did he hit the bottle?"

Strom removed his gla.s.ses, looked over to where the bottle was, and nodded. He put his gla.s.ses back on and congratulated Nick. "That was a five-hundred meter shot you just made."

"That's approximately five-hundred forty-six and eighty-one-hundredths yards," Mizuno clarified.

Nick tried in vain to wipe the dirt off of his clothes and asked, "Wh-What was the p-p-point of th-that?"

They all looked for an answer from Mizuno, but the j.a.panese man simply waited for Nick to repeat the question without stuttering, which he did after one other failed attempt. Mizuno folded his arms across his chest and took a seat on the ledge of the building. "Nick, close your eyes and concentrate. Picture the rifle in your hands. Remember the color, the weight, the feel, the kick, the design, and the smell of it after you fired. Just try to remember everything."

Nick nodded and did as he was told. They all waited in silence for nearly a minute before a cloud of smoke erupted around Nick. Once it cleared they all found Nick standing there with an exact replica of the rifle he held minutes before.

"Holy s.h.i.t," the German swore with his eyes wide. "Did...Did he just make a Zastava M76 out of thin air?"

Mithra, Melanie, and Nick all stood amazed at the feat as well, though Nick most of all, as he'd never witnessed anything of that sort other than when Strom shot at him.

"I told you he was going to be great." Mizuno smirked, "Explain everything to him."

"Okay," the man brought out his and began to explain the weapon, "This is a Zastava M76 sniper rifle. It's good, it's Serbian, and it's my favorite." He pointed to the barrel of the gun, "That's a suppressor; it m.u.f.fles the shot which allows you to remain hidden when you're sniping people out." He then flipped to the b.u.t.t of the gun, "Synthetic polymer, I prefer black. It's not really important what color it is, but material does matter. And all of my weapons have one of these," he said as he pointed to a small emblem on the end of the gun. A small ghost emblem was emblazoned there.

Nick checked his weapon to see if the emblem was there as well and discovered it was. "Like this?" he asked the man.

The German walked over, grabbed the gun, and took a look. He grinned, "Exactly like that." He glanced over at Mizuno and asked, "Where'd you find this kid anyway?"

"Seattle," he muttered, "Get back to the point," he told him as he pointed back to the rifle.

Strom nodded, "Of course, of course...Well you get about an eight-hundred meter range with this"

"That's eight-hundred and seventy-five yards," Mizuno elucidated.

"Yes, but if you get really good you can push a thousand or more."

"H-How...How good are y-y...How good are you?"

"He's the best," Mizuno answered. "I've crossed paths with sharpshooters and a wide variety of gunman across the world and he is by far the best."

"The best at what?" Mithra scoffed.

"The best at blowing off the heads of people other people want dead," Mizuno flatly answered. "I'd appreciate it if you simply kept quiet until we all left, that way you don't have to deal with him and Strom won't provoke you."

"Yeah why is that?" Strom asked. "Why are you so p.i.s.sed at me? I mean, besides my profession that is."

Mithra readied himself to continue his argument but Mizuno answered for him. "You killed his father about six years ago."

"Oh," Strom nodded. "That would explain things."

Mithra scowled at Mizuno and barked, "You can't simply act as if it was nothing Mizuno!"

"I'm not," Mizuno defended himself, "It was a travesty that your father was killed, but Strom was nothing more than a weapon. You should be wroth with the individual who hired him to kill your father."

"But who just kills people for money?" Mithra asked, "What sort of monster does that?"

"An a.s.sa.s.sin," Strom plainly said. "Who was your father anyway?"

"He was a man who worked tirelessly to find a cure for paralysis," Mithra told him, "He was weeks away from the cure and you killed him."

Strom chuckled, "Y'know, you'd be surprised at how many people don't want anyone to find that cure. In fact," he paused for a moment, "Most of my clients don't want any cures to be found."

"Wh-Why is th..." Nick paused, took a breath, and restarted, "Why is that?"

"Privatization of the drug means a single corporation can make billions in profit over a single cure Nick," Mizuno explained. "Medicine oftentimes has nothing to do with humanity; it's more so about corporate gain."

"Still," Melanie finally spoke up, "He did kill Mithra's dad."

Mizuno rubbed his eyes, "Yes, Strom did kill Mithra's father, but we could get into an hour long debate as to who truly killed him but we don't have the time. We all have flights to catch and we're running out of time to get out of here before someone notices us."

"We are not done here," Mithra snapped. "I cannot allow him to simply walk away from this." Mithra retrieved a small playing card from his wallet and showed it to Strom. The playing card had an image of a ghost on it and the suit was of spades. "You left this on my father's chest after you shot him in the head. I've kept this with me for years to remind me that if I ever had the chance to avenge him then I would."

Mizuno's eyes flashed. "So you only joined this group so you would have the chance to find and kill Strom if the opportunity ever arose..." Mizuno frowned. He glanced over at Melanie and his eyes gleamed, "And you only joined because of the money I offered you."

"Oh do not play this game Mizuno," Mithra barked. "You knew very well of our reasons for joining."

"I did and I still do."

"Then this isn't a surprise."

Mizuno shook his head, "No, you're right, this isn't." He stood up and walked toward Mithra. He stopped in front of him and questioned him, "Do you think I didn't know about this? That I somehow didn't realize what I was doing when I planned to meet you here in Mumbai and at the same time have Strom meet us here?" Mithra shifted uneasily in place as Mizuno continued, "I knew how you would react, I knew you would want to attack him, and I knew that in the end this would be good for you."

"What are you"

"The man who hired Strom Trenor to kill your father was a man named Teymour Farah. He paid Strom approximately seven-hundred fifty-thousand American dollars to kill your father on June sixteenth of two-thousand twenty-three. You joined this group on March eighth of twenty-twenty seven and September twentieth of that same year I hired Strom to kill Teymor Farah for what he'd done to your father as well as some other atrocities he'd committed." Mithra froze. He only stared, wide-eyed, and as such Mizuno continued, "I would have done it myself if I had the time and energy to do so, but I didn't, so I hired Strom."

The German frowned. "The man who hired me to kill Farah was"

"Motoi Mifune," Mizuno finished. "I hired you under that name."

Strom rolled his eyes and started to take his rifle apart. He muttered something in German under his breath. Nick watched the man slowly and carefully take the rifle apart, piece by piece. Strom meticulously stored everything in a bag with the utmost care Nick believed an a.s.sa.s.sin might show to any sort of thing, living or inanimate. Nick found it strange.

"Is there a reason you did that?" Mithra asked.

Mizuno nodded, "I knew it would hinder you so I took the liberty of ending that constraint."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

He shrugged. "I thought you might leave the group if that was the case and I couldn't have that." Mizuno looked away from him and smirked, "You may not realize this, but you're actually a very valuable member of this group Mithra. Now," he completely turned away from Mithra and back to Strom and Nick, "Nick, Strom is going to teach you how to shoot with a variety of firearms. I would normally teach you but I've got another stop to make in the meantime and I feel Strom will handle the task remarkably."

Nick sheepishly looked at the a.s.sa.s.sin as he finished with his weapons and set the bag at his feet. "You expect m-me to"

Mizuno cut him off, "I expect you to trust him, to follow him, and to learn from him. He's solely here to teach you how to hit a target with a gun instinctively." He turned from them and spoke to the whole group collectively, "Strom and Nick will head for Seattle while Mithra and Melanie will stop off in Paris to collect another one of our members."

"Is it David?" Melanie asked.

Mizuno glanced over to her and acted as if he was alarmed. "I'd nearly forgotten you were even here Melanie. But yes, it's David."

"When do we leave?" Melanie asked.

Mizuno checked his watch, "I'd like to leave now, though Strom and Nick have time to kill before they need to leave Mumbai. Your flight leaves in two hours though, so you'll need to leave now as well."

He walked away without another word and Mithra and Melanie left in a hurry after him. Strom didn't budge though. All he did was rub his eyes and let out a small sigh.

Nick looked at the man and asked, "Shouldn't we be leaving?"

Strom shook his head. "If we all left as one group there's a greater chance that we'd be caught or seen. It's better to let them leave and exit later."

Nick nodded to signify his understanding of their plan, though he wasn't sure what to do or say after that point. Strom sat there on the ledge of the building as if nothing was amiss. He scratched at his chin a bit, glanced at his watch, looked over his shoulder at the streets below, and to Nick's surprise was calm about the entire situation.

"Do you do th-this...Do you train a lot of people?"

Strom shook his head, "Nope, you're the first."

"Why'd you agree then?"

He shrugged and said, "Someone offers you a quarter of a million American dollars to teach a teenager how to shoot and there's the added mystique of the kid's super power?" He chuckled, "h.e.l.l, the request was too interesting to pa.s.s up..." His smile faded slightly and he admitted if anyone else made the request he would have refused, as it would have been a trap.

"Why d-d-do you trust...Why do you trust him?"

Strom hesitated to give a straight answer, "It's a bit of a tale, but...basically Mizuno has a reputation with me and although I resent him a bit he's proven he's someone I can trust, more or less." Strom stood up, stretched for a moment, grabbed his bag off of the roof, slung it over his shoulder and promptly headed for the stairs. Nick followed after him, though he tried to keep a few paces behind the man.

As soon as the door closed and the two of them were in the much cooler stairwell Strom stopped, turned to face Nick who stood roughly at his eye level once Strom was two steps below him, and told Nick, "You can relax y'know, I'm not gonna hurt you." Strom could still tell how hesitant Nick was and Strom tried to rationalize the situation with him, "Mizuno only paid me half, right? If I want the other twenty-five-hundred thousand dollars I have to uphold my part of the deal. Not to mention, I don't hurt people because I like to," he turned around and continued walking down the stairs and muttered, "It's just a job."

Nick frowned. "Then why did you decide to kill for a living?"

"It's something I'm good at and something that doesn't require too much of my time and pays very well," he told Nick. "Besides, most of the people I kill aren't random civilians, so it's not like I'm a monster or anything."

"How do you and Mizuno know each other?"

Strom ignored the question.

Nick asked another query instead, "Do you know anything about Mizuno?"

Strom coughed. "You could say that. He's hired me before for various a.s.sa.s.sinations or jobs, but even before that I managed to learn to turn down any requests for Mizuno's head."

"People want him dead?"

Strom smirked, "A lot of people do, though most of them don't know they want him dead specifically."

"What d-do...What do you mean?"

"There are people who want him dead but they do not know who he is. They might have a picture of him or an alias he used once, but n.o.body knows who he is."

"But people want to kill him?"

Strom nodded, "Only a few have tried...They're not alive anymore though."

Nick fell quiet. They walked down the staircase that clung to the walls of the building and spiraled down toward the street level floor at the bottom. As soon as they reached the exit Nick asked another question, "M-Mizuno...What do you know about Mizuno's group? About his project?"

"I don't really know anything kid. I'm not a part of it," Strom told him. "I do know, same as you, that his group utilizes people with super powers."

"Does he have a power?"

Strom stopped. "No one's told you much about him, have they?"

"No, they haven't."

He let out a breath, scratched at this face a bit, and tarried in the cool stairwell to reveal a bit about the man. "His name's Hiroshi Mizuno, or at least that's what he's told those close to him to call him, and all I know about him is that he came out of nowhere six years ago. I had someone offer me thirty-thousand dollars to kill him and since I'd never heard of him I decided to take the deal. I set everything up, took aim, but somehow things backfired and within an hour I found myself looking down the barrel of his gun rather than the other way around. Long story short, he let me go because he knew I knew I couldn't touch him, and he was well aware that I wouldn't dare try to either."

"What happened to the guy who hired you to kill him?"

"I tried to contact the guy but found out he was killed soon after my meeting with Mizuno. I didn't realize it until years later, even though I a.s.sumed it, but Mizuno killed him."

"How'd he know who to kill?"

"That's the simple part of it," Strom told him. "He learned it from me."

"You told him?"

He shook his head. "You don't understand. Mizuno has two very unique abilities, neither of which I was acquainted with until a year and a half ago. His first ability has to do with his mind. His mental capacity is something I've never heard of before. Basically, he never forgets anything, yet he can store memories for recall later, so all of his memories won't overwhelm him at once. Now that ability by itself isn't anything dangerous, it's the other ability that makes it so deadly."

"And what's that?"

"Hiroshi Mizuno has the ability to learn everything you've ever done, said, thought, seen, heard, or learned in your entire life in the blink of an eye," Strom revealed. "And coupled with his ability to never forget anything he'll remember everything you know along with what he knows and he'll put it to good use." Strom elaborated, "Basically, if you know a martial art, so will he, except where you might hold some difficulty in the sport he'll be perfect at it, as you were taught how to do everything perfectly at one point and your body messes things up."

Nick felt his heart race and his ears redden. He looked away from Strom and asked in a whisper, "D-Do you think...Do you think he knows everything about me?"