"Gah-"

She was too focused on the chase that she didn't realize how high of a building she was on before jumping. 'Cross' quietly cursed to herself, briefly stopping to recatch her breath. She looked forward to the end of the alleyway, and one of the branches, and she was pretty sure she was someone just turning that corner.

Having no time to take a break, she quickly jumped back up, and started running again.

Weird. She thought to herself as she struggled through the messy alleyways, jumping from surface to surface. Suddenly their walking pattern changed completely.

She jumped to the wall and kicked it to boost herself down the alleyway branching, landing surprisingly smoothly and immediately continuing to run. She could see the figure in the distance from afar, though they seemed to still be running away. She raised her crossbow as she ran, and shot once, though as expected, it missed.

The figure seemed to turn around, although not much could be seen under the black hood they wore before turning around again, and-

They wore a black hood.

The realization struck her for a second, and she immediately looked to view the person again subconsciously. They already turned around, so she couldn't see much of their actual facial features or anything, but-

She didn't look at where she was going, and accidentally tripped on her feet as she was going, causing her to fall forward. She then realized this, and right before hitting the ground, pushed herself back up with one hand and spun around, plastering herself to one of the walls, catching her breath for a second, before looking back upfront. The figure was gone.

She got back on her feet, and looked around confused. They were just there!

The alleyway was also a dead end, and there was no way they could've passed her without her noticing nor in such a short timeframe. The buildings and walls surrounding the alleyway were also tall enough that no normal person could just jump up them casually. They had to have gotten away in the short 4 seconds or less time when she wasn't looking, but that was impossible.
She looked behind her right after, and no, there was no sight of them there either. They had, quite literally, vanished.

She even backtracked a little to the previous branching alleyway, and there were no signs of life there either. She silently cursed to herself.
Sighing a little, she looked back into the dead ended alleyway. Maybe they were just hiding there.

After a few seconds, she reached the end of the place, and the first thing she noticed was that there was a lot of trash around. A pile of junk containing cans, plastic bottles, along with other random wrappers were situated in the corner, and in the other, there was an even larger pile of filled up plastic bags, both black and white.

She examined the wall, and it seemed normal, just bricks. There was graffiti on it, but other than that, there was nothing else eye-catching. She looked up at the large wall, nothing, and then down right below it, and noticed something... a little out of the ordinary.
It was shiny, and reflected the moon right above the dark atmospheric paths. She reached out and grabbed it, and upon closer inspection, it was a dirty, thin, shattered piece of metal.
It had a pointy tip, and it's other end seemed fractured, suggesting that it was forcefully broken off. She examined the piece of metal in silence, piecing together a theory together in her mind.

Where have I seen something like this...

She looked back up to the top of the building, filled with suspicion, and decided that she should test out her theory before it's too late. She placed the piece of metal into her pocket, and from her quiver, she took out two of her metal made arrows, which were made solely for dire close combat and not for actual shooting. She held one in each hand.

She hesitantly held one to the wall, it's sharp tip hitting the brick, before pushing it in harshly, and jumping up, quickly using the other one to impale the wall again, and repeating the process after taking out the first arrow. She didn't know if it was working or if she was actually going anywhere, but she just let her body work on it's own almost automatically.
She did it again, again, and again, but suddenly, as she pushed her right hand up and forward, she didn't hit a brick wall, but air. The hand with the arrow fell and hit surface, and as she pulled from the other one and jumped up, she was instead flinged onto an actual flat, horizontal surface.

She was admittedly very exhausted when she took a moment to sit, think, and breathe. Her thought train was starting again, though.
She just successfully climbed the wall. And with the context that that was probably what her 'target' did, she immediately was brought to the speculation that the the piece of metal she found either at the bottom was actually the sharp part of a knife, or a dagger.

But when did they find the time to do this...? She turned around a little, and looked down on the alleyway. Surely they couldn't have just done this when I turned away for a few seconds...

And then, a different realization hits her, and she reaches into her pocket. She held the dagger blade and examined it more thoroughly. It was fairly thin, and potentially fragile, that it should be considered a miracle if the person actually did climb up the wall using the technique she just used. But that wasn't the part she was focused on. Continuing on, upon closer inspection, the tip of the blade was almost like a needle. It was also approximately 11' inches, although that's not counting the other part of it that probably still stuck onto the original dagger.

Could this belong to-

She realized that she couldn't just sit around for too long, and stood back up again, and started looking for the person again, this time from above.

She jumped to the roof of the building next to the one she was on, and the next one, and peaked down another set of alleyways. But of course, even after a while of searching, she couldn't find the black hooded figure, and eventually gave up.

She got out her working phone, and dialed her client's number.

*Click!*

...

"So, were you able to get him?"

"Sadly, I wasn't." She mumbled into the phone. "Something strange happened."

"Ah. May I ask what?"

"Halfway through the chase, the target disappeared into thin air, and someone else started running away in their place." She explained, slowly but truthfully. "I couldn't see who it was, but they were wearing a black hood, and their movements were very versatile and quick, too swift for it to be just that of a regular civilian. They got away before I knew it."

"...I see."

"I apologize for letting them slip away."

"Oh, no, there is no need for you to do that, though I hope you understand that this means I cannot give the promised payment, since you failed the assassination. The contract is still in action, though, and I would like to tell you that my- er, 'friend', saw the figure you were talking about just about a moment ago, somewhere in the west of our building. If you could catch them, then you will still get what was promised in the contract, but if you don't then, that's reasonable. I'll dispose of them in a different way. Good night!"

*Click!*

The other person hung up.

What a weird person... She placed her phone back into her other pocket, and looked down from the building's roof. West of the Aque corp building... that's...

She started traveling down, and headed for the alliance's Southwest hideout slash safehouse.

She didn't immediately enter it, and instead, just peeked inside, and as she expected, there was already someone inside.

"I need to dispose of this somewhere..."

A dirty blond haired person held what seemed to be a greyish black hoodie, and was walking towards the inner room of the safehouse.

After making sure he wasn't there anymore, she walked inside, and sat on the nearby couch in one of the room's corners. She heard some ruffling and noises from the other room, but didn't bother paying attention to it.
Instead, while waiting for them to come back out, she started examining the scars she got from the chase. She just noticed now how badly scared her legs were, especially her right one. She also looked mildly dirty, with a new tear in her jacket, though it was considered pretty normal.

She got out the blade of the dagger from her pocket again, and held it carefully in between her fingers.

"F-False-? Since when did you get here-?"

"Good afternoon, Grian," False greeted her ally, who just came out of the other room, looking completely surprised and a little nervous. "I think we need to talk about what just happened."

You may evade and run, but just know you can't hide