June took in a deep breath and straightened his ebony black shirt as he returned to the dining area. Although the whole assassination part was fast and quick, hiding the body took more time than he would like to admit.
Using his dormant ability, he makes a quick scan of the room before taking any step within. This is a habit that he had adopted a long time ago from his time as a government grunt. In a way, it's a survival method, an extension of what people would consider common sense. You wouldn't enter a room without knowing the risk that it possesses, after all.
Stretching his hands and shoulders, he headed in the direction of the coffee machine, though not before sending quick glances to the table that the Pandavar clan members were sitting at.
'Quiver is still here; however, there are two more seats that are empty...' June pondered to himself before taking a mug from below the wooden counter. With a press of a button, the dispenser woke up, releasing a steaming deluge of tenebrous roast directly into the mug. It has a strong aroma to it that hit June's nostrils instantly as the murky liquid gradually rises.
From the smell of it, he immediately could tell that these beans were freshly brewed. With a small smile on his face, he moved the mug closer to his lips and slowly took a few sips as he observed Quiver company from a safe distance.
Thankfully, there are more people here in the dining hall now than 10 minutes ago when he left the vicinity of the motel. This means that it was easier to spy on these guys than before.
'Granted, judging from the other guy, I really doubt that these amateurs could even detect me.' June lampooned.
As June was observing them from across the room, a question popped into his mind.
'What was taking the other two guys so long to return?'
Based on his experiences in fields like this, it usually takes around three or five minutes for people to return to their tables. For example, during his mission guarding a big name crime boss in the black market last year. These two guys have been gone for 7 minutes now since June started observing.
'Well, while it's unusual, it's not really anything that uncommon. Maybe they just went to their rooms first or maybe there's perhaps friction in the group? However, that doesn't explain why their plate is still on the table. And I'm pretty sure that there aren't any meals on those plates that could cause a major reaction in the bowel areas...'
Still, there was something that his instinct was telling him. As someone who had undergone several dangerous missions in the past few years, he would say that his instinct is pretty reliable; it had saved him a good few times before.
With a small sigh, he placed the empty mug down on the counter. It was at that moment that he noticed that Quiver finally stood up and raised his hand to notify the servers that he had finished his meal.
'Judging from his relaxed and authoritative body language than before, Quiver should be a higher ranking member within the Pandavar clan.' June quickly made up his mind as he began to slowly follow the yellow haired man.
Even though he would like to wait and kill the other two legacies left on the table, June also wanted information. Quiver, being someone he deduced to be a decently higher rank officer, could probably tell him more information if interrogated than those other guys.
Information is key, as his government Drill instructor would always say. Shaking his head, he began to lower his breathing rate, a common technique taught to government grunts during their training, as a mean to stalk the target without them noticing. Though he decided to add one more step into this by mirroring Quiver's exact walking rhythm, his speed, stride length and even the ever so slight bit of pauses. June's grandfather had told him about this method back then during one of his training sessions. This way, he can make his footsteps blend into the ambient noise of the motel and the target's own footsteps.
However, as Quiver starts to enter one of the right wings of the motel, June decides to mix in the heel-toe roll method that was standardised in training programs. Government officers were taught to land on the outside edges of their feet first, then roll inwards to the ball of the foot and heel. By keeping one's weight on the rear leg until the leading one is fully planted into the ground, this reduces the amount of noise that footsteps create. This is useful to follow targets when they're in a quiet area, such as hallways like these.
But because he's mixing these two techniques, June had to cut off certain portions of the techniques so that both of them could be successfully integrated as one.
'Judging from this, Quiver seems to be heading to his own room...' June thought to himself as he silently followed the legacy from a safe distance. At times, he stopped and hid behind different ornaments that the Dragonet Clan had placed as decoration around the building.
From his observation of Quiver so far, he could make out certain habits or even guesses at his fighting style. For instances, while Quiver seemed to be relaxed, he noticed that his muscles seemed rather tense, its direction was subtly reaching towards his waist. With this, June could reasonably conclude that Quiver specialised in close-range weapons, perhaps a dagger or a sword. Granted, not all Awakened who uses short range bladed weapons have this habit, as memories could always be summon in hand, a lot of them have this habit.
Another thing June picked up is that Quiver tend to use his left hand while eating and drinking. From this alone, there was a pretty good chance that Quiver's main fighting stance is southpaw instead of orthodox.
'Unless he's one of those maniacs who are right handed and southpaw at the same time.'
A few seconds later, Quiver finally halted and turned left, facing towards a medium sized door, around two hundred and ten centimetres in height. It seemed that Quiver had reached his room.
A small curve appeared on one side of June's mouth as he summoned the twin daggers [Sable Hearts] in his palm and began to approach Quiver's door. His face is now adorned with the mask of a demon like before.
Just as the door was about to close, June quickly grabbed and held it in place with his left arm while the other hurls one of the daggers towards the target!
Shing Shing —
However, at that moment, just as the blade was about to hit June's intended target on Quiver's body, the legacy suddenly moved, piercing his right bicep instead.
'Interesting, so he's fast enough to react to avoid the blade that was coming towards his shoulder? Well, it doesn't mean much; his right arm should be compromised now.'
Then, four yellow glimmers suddenly appeared behind Quiver's back as the Pandavar summoned a sword memory in his left hand.
Without hesitation, June quickly slammed the door in as the dagger violently detached from Quiver's bicep, causing the blonde man to yelp in pain as blood started pouring down onto the grey carpet beneath like pictures of Niagara Falls that Randall had once shown him in the past.
With steady breath, June began to observe the yellow hands that Quiver had summoned behind him. This seemed to be one of Quiver's aspect abilities that he possesses.
'3 of the glowing arms have hands; however, the one on the top left has a blade instead of a hand. Could that be perhaps his awakened ability? He can summon bladed arms?'
His train of thought was quickly interrupted as Quiver hurled the bladed arm at him at top speed!
June quickly ducked away and grabbed the arm that Quiver have thrown at him, with both hands and one leg, he stomped on where the wrist should be, throwing Quiver into the wall!
'I see, so Quiver can indeed extend how long his arm is, but there seems to be a limit, as I could throw him using the extended arm.'
With a light chuckle sounding from beneath the demonic mask, he hurls another dagger towards Quiver's direction.
Yet just as he was about to release the dagger from his hand, a mysterious hand seemed to materialise out of nowhere beneath the floor, grabbed June's ankle and slammed him into the ground!
June quickly regained his balance right before his face fell first onto the floor and stood up to see the interrupting party.
To his surprise, there seemed to be no one beside Quiver, who was recovering on his feet.
Then an arm appeared behind the wall and grabbed Quiver by the throat, pulling him into the other room!
CRACK! BOOM! —
The wall immediately got destroyed by the pressure of the newcomer!
The man wearing bandages across his face attempted to slit Quiver's throat with a blade, but was interrupted by one of Quiver's glowing hands, blocking it.
A second later, with tremendous effort, Quiver managed to free himself from the man's grip and create a short amount of distance between them.
At that moment of separation, the blue-eyed demon tosses his dagger towards the man with bandages that wrapped around his body and face. However, with lightning speed, the man quickly turned around and parried the dagger that Corsair just threw.
'As expected of you...' June thought to himself, as he straightened his back and glared at the man wearing a black bodysuit in front of him.
"Don't kill him just yet, Hangman."