Mao Akai was brought back into Neon by a helicopter, and a silver-haired, heterochromatic woman pushed her into a two-story villa before disappearing.
The moment Mao Akai stepped inside, she felt a gaze fixed upon her. Scanning her surroundings, she found that this ordinary-looking villa was riddled with security cameras.
*As expected of this organization, resorting to such cheap tricks,* she thought with inward disdain, though her face wore a look of utter contempt.
"Rum, do you still need to keep watching?"
Silence filled the room, broken only by the echo of her own voice.
"Boring tricks." Mao Akai walked up beneath one of the cameras. "Is this a test for me? Do you need me to find every single camera before you dare to show your face?"
Still, there was no reply.
Mao Akai curled her lip, raised her hand, and fired directly toward the rear right.
The bullet shattered a picture frame, destroying the camera hidden within it.
This time, the house finally stirred.
A round of applause echoed from all directions.
Mao Akai sneered inwardly, never expecting the organization to rely on such a clichéd intimidation tactic. She put away her gun and stood quietly in place, curious to see what other tricks Rum had up his sleeve.
Suddenly, the lights in the room went out. The instant darkness fell, Mao Akai flashed to the side of the room, pressing her back against the wall with her arms raised in a defensive stance.
Yet no one attacked her in the dark; instead, a massive arrow appeared in her field of vision via a projection.
Mao Akai waited for about a minute. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and during this time, no one made a move against her. She understood that Rum, hiding behind the scenes, likely wanted her to follow the arrow.
"Making a mystery out of nothing," she muttered softly, then briskly walked up to the second floor.
Just as her last foot stepped onto the second-floor landing, the sound of rushing air broke out behind her, sealing her inside the villa.
What on earth was Rum trying to do?
Mao Akai frowned.
From the moment Bourbon arrived in the nick of time while she was confronting Gin, it was clear that Rum actually wanted to recruit her. That was why she had dared to board the helicopter in the first place, but the current situation was turning bizarre.
Mao Akai recalled the meaningful glance the silver-haired woman who brought her here had given her before leaving. It seemed things were not as she had imagined; Rum apparently intended more than just a simple warning.
In the darkness, tiny ventilation holes appeared on the walls around the room, and colorless, odorless gas was silently pumped inside.
Mao Akai quickly sensed something was wrong. Her vision began to double, and her body started swaying out of her control.
Was this an anesthetic?
She blinked, fighting to stay conscious, and began to scoff aloud, "What, the assassins you sent couldn't kill me, so you're resorting to such cowardly tricks? An organization that scurries around like rats in a sewer actually dares to dream of recruiting me?"
As she spoke, Mao Akai scanned her surroundings. Perhaps because her physique was different from ordinary people's, most anesthetics had no effect on her.
Seeing that still no one appeared, she continued, "If my honey weren't in this organization, I wouldn't even have given you a second glance!"
A string of curses followed from her lips, but no one paid her any mind.
*It seems they need me to pass out,* Mao Akai thought to herself, so she relaxed her grip on her own body and soon collapsed limply to the floor.
Pinga, waiting in the control room, glanced at the empty canister of anesthetic gas and let out a sigh of relief. He had almost made a fool of himself in front of Rum.
Wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead, he went back to operating the instrument panel before him.
At his input of commands, a massive mechanical arm appeared inside the room, picked up the limp woman, and placed her onto an operating table.
"Lord Rum, I am ready." He bowed respectfully, as though that could make Rum see his humility.
"Begin the brainwashing," an electronic, gender-neutral voice mingled with static came through the equipment.
Pinga looked up in surprise. "My lord?"
He had thought Lord Rum had sent this woman—who had sabotaged the organization's mission—here so they could implant a micro-bomb inside her body.
"A woman like that wouldn't be threatened by such toys." Rum sat behind a screen with an inscrutable smile; he needed this woman to surrender to him willingly.
Though he did not understand Rum's methods, Pinga would not contradict Rum's orders. He cast a regretful glance at the monitor and pressed a button. Instantly, the sealed room was enveloped by an indescribable sound. Mao Akai, lying on the operating table, furrowed her brow in unbearable agony.
Fragmented sounds drifted into Mao Akai's ears, an intricate tangle of memories and incomprehensible emotions leaving her unable to tell where she was.
"Rum..."
"Obey orders..."
"Rum..."
"Obey Rum's orders..."
The agonizing noise relentlessly drilled into Mao Akai's brain. She reached up to cover her ears, but the inescapable sound pursued her all the same.
"Obey..."
"Obey..."
"Crimson, execute the mission... Crimson, kill them... Crimson, this mission..."
"Wrong! I am not Crimson!" Mao Akai snapped her eyes open, the blinding white light piercing her pupils and pricking tears from her eyes.
As her consciousness cleared, the commands just implanted in her brain melted away like smoke.
*So this is what they were up to.*
Mao Akai decided to play along with their script.
She emptied her mind, her newly focused gaze turning hollow once more, and her pretty lips parted and closed as she mechanically repeated the same phrase, "Obey orders... obey orders... obey..."
Watching from outside, Pinga was startled when Mao Akai woke up. He had thought the brainwashing had failed, but seeing her actions put his mind at ease. After all, the organization's power was incomparably vast in his heart, and the drugs developed by the organization were foolproof; the brainwashed woman simply possessed a stronger willpower than most, yet she still had not escaped their control.
Seeing Mao Akai slowly regaining her wits, Pinga whispered to Rum, "Lord Rum, should we increase the dosage?"
"No, this is just fine." Rum watched with satisfaction as a trace of resistance flickered across Mao Akai's face.
If an elite assassin like this could be brainwashed on the very first try, he would have suspected he was being conned.
Soon, Mao Akai fully recovered. She glared coldly at the camera. "This is no way to recruit someone."
Hearing her question, the reverberating electronic voice echoed from all directions. "My dear assassin, you injured quite a few of our people earlier. If we didn't check thoroughly, the others wouldn't be able to trust you."