The Astral soul system-Chapter 234: important mail

The body landed with a thud on the ground right in front of the desk and silence immediately followed

"Sable barely bat an eye and although Xavier and Neo were caught off guard they remembered him doing something similar to save Jade.

Unfortunately Giovanni was the one who was stumped. For a few seconds he just stared at the body, unable to speak

"So?"

"Ah right. This is cache. He owns the -"

Giovanni suddenly paused

"So that means it was you?"

Zen shrugged

"Was he important?"

Giovanni shook his head quickly, denying it

"This guy is just some lowlife Kane brought in and promoted without anyone elses consent. He was just a figure head Kane used to control more territory indirectly "

"So he was on Kane’s side? Good riddance then"

Giovanni nodded, looking pitifully at the corpse

Neo suddenly spoke up

"Wait, how did Kane bring someone in without anyone elses permission. I thought the whole thing about Hydra was many heads but just one body"

"I’d also like to know that,Gio. If memory serves,I remember putting you in charge until I came back"

Giovanni sighed, putting his face in his palm

"You were gone a long time boss. Things changed. Somehow he managed to gather a large following in the group. And then my ability..."

"Oh yeah. Zen said you should have had something else"

Giovanni nodded

"A while after you left there was a break In at the warehouse we kept most of our stuff and some things were stolen, including the aether circuit you sent for me to use. I didn’t know how that was even possible but I kept investigating and after a while I found out -"

"Kane stole it "

Giovanni nodded, veins bulging visibly on his head

"That rat tripped me up and pulled the whole gang from under me. If i wasn’t smart he’d have gotten me kicked out by now . If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s flapping his gums. He just won’t shut up about how it’s stupid that we were waiting for some stupid kid to come back and how he makes a better leader. He seems to have forgotten all about how you saved his miserable life back then and he wouldn’t stop sucking up"

Zen didn’t seem suprised and just shrugged

"I always knew Kane was a snake. That’s why I didn’t trust him with any major role. In any case that ability is a upper rank six, meaning if he has it, he’s a threat "

Neo groaned

"Where the hell did you even get one of those? And why give it to a gangster of all people "

Zen shrugged

"It was intended for Giovanni. I figured he was hardworking and hard-headed enough to keep this whole operation afloat. Besides,i thought it suited him at the time. Now I think it’d have been better if I just got you a high level earth ability"

Neo rolled his eyes

"Spoken like a true rich kid"

"Hmm?"

"You were rich enough to fund an entire gang as a kid"

"The ar- The organization didn’t allow ownership of money, but we had unlimited resources, whether for training or anything else, even food "

Enough reminiscing. Zen turned back to Giovanni and pointed at the corpse whose name was cache.

"His ability. Where did he get it?"

Giovanni shook his head

"Sorry boss. The heads are responsible for taking care of their own men, abilities and all. I could look into it but the only person who’d know is Kane, and he’s very protective of his secrets"

Zen considered just taking his pistols to kane’s office and just shoot him in the head like this guy. But that might not work as well as.

"Boss,if you’re considering fighting him now, you should probably rethink it first. I don’t see him fight often but he’s strong. Crazy strong.i don’t know what he did to who to get stronger,but something’s definitely wrong with it. He just found out about you killing this morning and he’s out for blood. He came here to find out if I knew anything."

"I know "

"What?"

"I heard the whole thing. It seems Kane already thinks he owns this place. We’ll have to take him down a peg or two "

Black had been staying hidden the whole time and relayed the whole conversation to him, and although he couldn’t get everything. Long story short. Kane’s boss, and he thinks he’s been attacked. His first suspect was Giovanni since the two openly despise each other,but he’s been here the since last night and Zen had gotten rid of all the security cameras in the club.

It also seems Kane is about to leave on some trip. Perfect timing,or at least it would be if he didn’t have Maximilian

The rest of them were starting to get impatient. Unlike Zen they didn’t know that Max was still safe. In fact he hadn’t been harmed in the slightest yet, which was strange since they were appearantly hired to kill him

"Zen,I hope you haven’t forgotten why we came here"

Zen nodded, turning to Giovanni

"Forget Kane for now. Whe need to find Hunter"

"I’ll have my men start looking for him now. No one will rest until it’s done"

He immediately got up and left the room,most likely to give the order

As soon as he left again, everyone deflated back into their seats

"I still can’t believe you technically own this stuff"

"Yeah, we’re lucky we met the one of the guys who were still completely loyal to you"

Zen looked around and dropped himself into Giovanni’s seat, looking through the desk.

"What’s wrong?"

Zen didn’t respond , just casually flipping through some documents.

A few minutes passed and Giovanni came back, seeing Zen in his seat.

"Boss?"

"Your handwriting hasn’t gotten much better"

Zen commented

Giovanni scratched his bald head with an embarrassed smile

"Honestly boss. This kinda thing isn’t really my speed, but I can’t trust anyone else with this "

"I can see that, but you’re also doing...okay?"

"What’s wrong with it"

Giovanni asked, seeing Zen’s expression

"Well,you seem way too invested in this place. You do know what a cover up is, right? "

He even checked online and appearantly this restaurant had a good reputation, friendly customer service, reasonable prices and high quality food...

...

...

He wasn’t upset, he just found it very strange. Sure he understood that Giovanni took orders very seriously but Zen never specifically said anything about running a successful cover up business.

And why was the gang boss also legally registered as the business owner. He even took care of the paperwork himself.

"Seems like you have some experience with this. Can you help me look at some documents?"

"Oh,of course bo-"

He hadn’t even finished talking when the remnants of cache’s office which he’d sucked into the shadow realm were all immediately spat out.

A huge desk and multiple file cabinets filled with documents immediately appeared in the center of the room, drawing everyone’s attention to it for a second before all focused on their own thing again, meanwhile Giovanni was appalled

"Something wrong?"

"No it’s just . That ability of yours. I heard about it. It’s pretty rare"

"Rare? I thought I was the only one with this"

"That’s.... not what I heard"

’Interesting’

He pointed to the files

"I got this from the dead guy’s office. There should be something important in there"

Hearing that, Giovanni immediately seemed more interested, walking up to the pile, he grabbed a file cabinet and emptied it’s contents, taking a seat on the ground he started looking through it while Zen got himself up to speed on Giovanni’s gang’s operations.

Sable was just sitting facing a corner that faintly smelled of blood... for some reason and Neo was meditating while Xavier took his anger out on Giovanni’s punching bag.

In this fashion,a few more hours in the day passed until

*Beep Beep*

*Beep Beep*

Zen looked at the alarm

"Seven a.m"

They’d all stayed awake throughout last night.

Hearing the alarm, Giovanni got up slowly

"Oh,is that the time?"

"Damnit!"

Sable suddenly hissed from her corner. It was uncertain what got her so pissed but she looked frustrated.

At the same time,Neo got up, stretching after holding the same position for hours. Only Zen knew he’d stopped meditating a while ago. He didn’t fall asleep, he just... failed. Perhaps he couldn’t concentrate

Xavier seemed a bit wound up as well, though five hours of repeatedly hitting a punching bag in complete silence already hinted at an abnormal mental state.

Seeing the low esteem in the room, Giovanni quickly got up.

"Well,you all must be starving by now. How does breakfast sound?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

Zen sighed

"You guys should eat, and take a rest before we go to school. Unless you still believe he’ll poison us"

Reluctantly they agreed and let Giovanni guide them to the dining area.

A few seconds later he returned, now it was just Zen and Giovanni in the room

"So?"

"Oh, yeah two specials, and a steak, extra rare for the girl. We don’t normally sell steak, but the boys will figure something out"

Zen almost facepalmed 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"I meant your investigation"

"Oh, yeah. All I got is this so far. There’s a lot of stuff here and most of it isn’t going to help finding your friend "

He said, handing Zen an envelope

It was still sealed, meaning either he never got a chance to read it,or he never got a chance to send it. There was no address so he couldn’t tell which one.

It was strange for someone to go through the effort of writing a letter with how advanced technology was nowadays, but the more commonplace something was, the less secure it usually was too.

"Can you make a new seal exactly like this one?"

"If my boys can examine it, sure"

Zen removed the seal carefully, leaving it as intact as possible and dropped it on the table

"Just in case"

He muttered as he pulled out the letter

’Our mutual friend came through. Whether or not we can actually trust what comes out of their mouth remains to be seen. The boss seems to buy it though . I’m not sure how are little brat is the key to all this but at least we have the product, and then those idiots just gave him to us. All for a coin. I knew those freaks were nothing but lunatics. Soon enough we’ll even have that one with the freaky eyes. No one can fight that kind of power. Make your choice and be quick about it A,or you’ll die a fool with the rest of this city,or at least the ones that dare fight back. Be quick A’

"Hmmm"

"What does it say?"

Zen handed him the letter and let him read it

"So they’re not planning on killing him"

"Nope,atl least not until they can use him for something"

Zen mused

"They mentioned mutual friend and Boss separately so this person is probably not a member of the gang"

"What do we do,boss?"

Zen shrugged

"Save the Hunter. I owe him a debt. The rest of this city? We can move the gang elsewhere, and your family too. Where are they now again?"

Giovanni chuckled

"As kind as always,boss. They’re in another city,I wasn’t dumb enough to leave them close to kane’s grasp, and they’re doing well"

He suddenly looked like he remembered something and leaned in

"Eh...boss? How exactly did you get two pioneer families to follow you?"

Zen shrugged

"Same way I did you"

"Of course,of course."

Giovanni laughed out loud, slapping his knee.

"If they’re a part of the team, they’re welcome here anytime "

Zen nodded

"Thank you Gio"

"No thanks needed. Eh,boss. Aren’t you hungry too?"

"Yes? But I have a slightly different diet than what you’re used to, same with that girl"

"If it’s for the boss and his friends,I can get anything you need, even if I have to hunt it myself "

’if only you could. Then again, isn’t Gio the perfect person to turn like Jade and me? Or maybe even like Sable? Both Sable and Jade gained a massive power boost after loosing their humanity, and it looks like he’ll soon need some extra power’

He thought for a while but eventually decided against it

’i already have one"Jade" to deal with. Once I figure out how to deal with her safely, maybe ’

They spent a few more hours, mostly resting and although Zen and Sable didn’t need to sleep,they took a few minutes to relax with the others, especially since they were already late for class.

After a while, they all got up and were about to leave when Zen suddenly got a call. He checked and it was Zaria

Without thinking he took the call

"Hey,Za-"

"Zen! Get over here now! It’s an emergency"

"Zaria? What’s happened?"

"I can’t explain right now, just hurry. It’s Jade!"