Kai Mayason was lucky he wasn't the one to come home at night. Harumi was debating on throttling him for his little stalkerish stunt at school. Lloyd was asleep. Nya wasn't home. No one would know until it was too late. Sure Nya might track her down, but Harumi and Ro were cursed to die in a few weeks anyway, so who cared?

     But it was Nya Mayason who walked through the front door in the end, not her ghastly brother.

     "Good evening, Ru," she said. Nya's voice was high-pitched, but in a mischievous way. While Kai radiated warmth, Nya was an ice-cold cup of water. Her eyeliner was sharper than a blade of a katana, and her stare dissected everything it touched. She certainly was more intense than her brother, but in a quieter way. Harumi had a feeling that Nya was the most dangerous one in the household.

     "Good evening, Nya," Harumi returned meekly, smiling to the best of her ability.

     "Did you hear the news, Ru?" Nya glided (what was it with the Mayason siblings and gliding?) into the lavish kitchen, plucking items from the fridge and turning on the gas stove with a flick of her wrist. Harumi carefully sat back down on the couch. As she packed her homework, she made sure to keep Nya within her line of sight.

     "The Ninja stopped the man who recently tried to assassinate the mayor," Nya said, almost cheerfully. "What was his name... Neuro?"

     "That's good of them," Harumi said, because that's what everyone else would have stated in her position.

     Nya raised an arched brow, plucked to absolute perfection. Harumi had never seen Nya appear anything other than stunning. While Kai would come home with his hair disheveled and his cheeks flushed with exertion, Nya would slither into the room looking like she just came back from the beauty parlor. "It will make an excellent story for Lloyd," said Nya.

     Harumi briefly thought about pressing the news for more details, but decided against it. The Ninja did things like this all the time, and without any sort of personal bias on their part. Thus, looking into who they stopped would do nothing to help her decipher their identities.

     Everyone knew who the Ninja were. Hypothetically, of course.

     They were an elite team of martial artists hired by the mayor to take out any threats to his power. Yes, they would stifle crime bosses every now and then, but most of the time their jobs were taking out the mayor's political opponents. Harumi had met the Ninja once while she was still the Katsukis' little princess, and all of them had been silent as the grave. They never spoke on camera. When they weren't commanding heists, they couldn't be found. No one even knew if the group was made up of males or females.

     The legacy they'd built for themselves was far more powerful than any TV show host could dream of. Everyone feared the Ninja getting involved, so most of the mayor's opponents tuned their policies down to the point where they weren't opponents at all. The public both revered and despised the Ninja for what they did. They were practically gods among men with the impression they'd left in the city.

     Harumi didn't fear the Ninja.

     She wished one of the mayor's opponents was smart enough to kill them.

     She hoped she found out who they were so the biker gang could crush them.

     "The Ninja must make their families proud," Harumi said instead.

     Nya didn't react, she just added more seasoning to her pot of boiling water. "If the Ninja were smart, they wouldn't have families."

     "That makes sense."

     If the Ninja had families, then they'd have weak points that could potentially exploit their identities. Harumi had subconsciously figured this out, seeing as the Ninja had been publicly active for around ten years and never had an identity slip. They couldn't allow for any weak points. If their identities were compromised, then their illusive reputations would be ruined.

     Harumi continued packing her backpack, unaware of Nya's next actions. But then she felt the sensation again. Eyes on the back of her head. Just like Zane.

     When Harumi looked up, Nya was staring at her. But unlike Zane, the Mayason sister didn't look away.

     "You don't ask a lot of questions," Nya said. Her sharp eyes were narrowed, her lithe figure standing with arms crossed. The aroma of cooked garlic wafted through the air. It was supposed to coat the living area in an aura of hominess, but instead, it soured the tension to a point where the hairs on the back of Harumi's arms stood up.

     In an instant, Nya was in Harumi's face, her dangerous stare leeringly close.

     "Who are you truly, Ru Wiggins?"

     Harumi sucked in a breath, only finding fresh mint leaves and lily pads in the air. She could feel Nya's searing gaze, as ice-cold as Kai's was fiery-hot. "I'm a college student," Harumi said, clenching her fists to make sure she maintained the illusion of calm, "I haven't decided my major yet, but I will by the end of this year."

     Nya stood there a moment longer, refusing to flinch, refusing to back down until her inquisition was fulfilled. Harumi straightened her back, promising herself she would not show fear to a Mayason. After a few seconds Nya exhaled, then she was back in the kitchen with enough grace to make a ballerina jealous.

     "I can see why my brother hired you," Nya said as Harumi made her way to the front door.

     Harumi decided not to ask what she meant by that.

     She could have sworn she saw a cloaked figure on the roofs as she made her way back to her and Ro's flat, but when she looked up to properly speculate, no one was there. Harumi tightened her hood around her splotched hair, hurrying towards her destination. She passed a pole with a "Wanted" poster on it, tearing down the insignificant paper as she scurried by. It was only when Harumi was in the safety of her own home did she allow herself to smooth out the crumpled paper.

     Her smiling face grinned back at her.

     Harumi stared down at the poster, then rummaged for a lighter in the cluttered kitchen drawers.

     And she let the poster burn.