Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Okane ga Nai, they are from the amazing mind of Hitoyo Shinozaki!

ENJOY! :)

Chapter 1

It was a cold, dark night in rural Japan, snow fell in swirling drifts onto a small village, its lights seen from a distance created a soft warm glow around the entire area. On the outskirts of the village stood a large, slightly out of place, traditional Japanese home.

Surrounded by a thick twenty-five foot high wall, it spread five acres outward and consisted of multiple, singled floor, buildings. A large garden took over the complete northern edge of the area and the clear pond was glassed over with a thick layer of ice. Icicles dangled from tree branches and the intricately designed zen garden was covered in white snow.

Around the entire perimeter stood cameras capturing all angles from the surrounding area and guards posted along the top paced back and forth scanning for intruders. Inside the perimeter, more guards shuffled their way around, keen eyes open for anything out of ordinary. Each guard carried an array of weapons, but their main was an automatic AK-47 assault rifle.

Two of the guards passed each other on their rounds. One, around forty, had dark midnight black hair while the other was a young man, no more than twenty-three with dark brown hair.

The one with black hair told the other, "So I heard that Yano was able to get the night off, lucky bastard." The young man with brown hair chuckled nervously, still slightly intimidated by his senior, having just started the week before. "Yeah…lucky…" He brought his gloved hands up to cup his mouth and breathed warm air onto them to try and warm them up.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, the young man saw a shadow pass above his head. His head darted up quickly and scanned the area where he thought he saw it. A large tree stood in the area and he blinked thinking he must be sleepy or something and imagined it.

"Eh, nanda? What's wrong?" asked the other man.

"Oh…nani mo arimasen…I thought I saw something over there near the tree, but I'm a bit tired, so I might be imagining it."

He rubs his eyes as the other man agreed, "Hai, fatigue tends to catch up to ya when you have to work long hours. It's a bit breezy as well so the trees tend to move like that. Besides, the tree is too far away from the wall, where guards are posted, to even pose a threat. Don't you worry, ne."

With that both men continue on their rounds.

"Someya-san. I'm in." A small human dressed in all white to blend into the surrounding snow, snuck across the kawara rooftops to drop silently into a small dark alley. The figure, without pause, made its way towards the main structure sitting directly at the heart of the maze of buildings.

"Yoku dekita. Good job, Ayase. You should be about one hundred and thirteen meters from your target. Ki o tsukete, be careful. We don't want to alert the guards until the last possible second."

"I know, I know…How many times have we done this…I know the protocol." Ayase keeps an eye out for the roaming guards. Like a small white shadow, he slips under the Japanese style houses which are raised up to avoid the wetness of the ground and makes his way forward.

"Wakkata wakkata, I get it Ayase, but how many times has your plan ended up with you running away with bullets at your heels?" Someya-san's voice rose as she spoke, ending her sentence with a yell.

"Hey, shut up, baka. Even though this is new technology, I still don't trust these ear pieces to keep all the sound in. Besides, that hurt my eardrum." Ayase mumbles quietly.

"Gomen ne... Focus."

"I would if you stopped talking." Ayase sticks his head out from under the floor boards to check the area. Turning his head from left to right he saw no one until he almost stepped out. Coming around a corner to his right came a guard yawning largely and scanning the quiet scene in front of him. Ayase quickly ducked back under his protective area and squatted to wait for the guard to move on. As he moved pasted, Ayase quickly and silently swung himself from under the building, grabbed the hand railing above his head and flipped up onto the roof before the guard even moved another five feet. A small amount of snow fell from where Ayase landed, sending a rather large puff to flurry downward.

The guard, catching that small movement turned quickly and glanced up to find where it originated. But by then Ayase was already gone, leaving the guard to pass it off as just more snow falling from the overhanging tree. Shrugging, the young man walked further down the path and disappeared around the next corner.

Crouching in the large tree was Ayase, night vision goggles over his eyes to zoom in on the building standing in front of him.

Silently studying the layout placed before him, Ayase envisioned the blueprint he had studied earlier that day and spoke into this communicator, "Someya-san, how many guards again?"

"Seven walking the perimeter, five in the foyer, three in the first room, and only one in the room with him. Get the job done."

"Got it." Ayase quietly put his goggles back into the pouch on his side and then reached up to pull up the white cloth to cover the lower half of his face. Another white cloth covered his bright golden hair that he had tied back into a ponytail. Glancing down at his torso, Ayase made sure that each of his many daggers were available at short notice. Nodding to himself Ayase quietly and weightlessly walked the branches until he stood directly above the pathway between the buildings.

Timing his movements correctly and careful not to disturb the snow resting on the branches of the tree, Ayase jumped effortlessly onto the rooftop muffling his fall with the snow and a roll. Popping up into a run the young man glided across the top of the roof to drop silently into the small quad he knew was situated directly outside the main room where his target was residing.

Like a small white shadow, he crept up to the door, his heart rate beating calmly and loudly in his chest. With a final confirmation from Someya-san and her satellite reading of only one other person standing in the room, Ayase slid the door open while drawing out a dagger at the same time.

Before either of the people could breath, Ayase threw the dagger silently into the guard's throat. While rolling into the room completely, Ayase reached into the pouch on his side and withdrew four poisoned throwing spikes. These spikes he threw at the man sitting on the floor who had been reaching for the gun resting on the table in front of him.

The man gave a strangled cry as he fell backwards, the spikes embedded deep within his chest in a diagonal from his heart down to his right hip. Ayase quickly rushed towards the man on the floor and stared into his face as his body started to convulse with the poison pulsing through his veins.

"Hayashida Naotoshi. Never again will you terrorize or murder people. Go to Hell." Drawing a second dagger from his belt, Ayase slit the man's throat quickly watching the man's fluttering eyes and spazzing limps come to an abrupt stop.

Ayase could hear the guards outside yelling to each other after hearing the cry come from the inner room. Wiping the blood off the dagger in his hand he quickly placed it back into its slit on his waist. As he turned to grab and smash the lamp from the table into the tatami matted floor, the first three guards came rushing into the room with guns out. Like a flash, Ayase dropped the lamp, brought out his own pistol from inside his overlapping shirt and shot them all in quick succession. Running over to another lamp hanging from the wall, Ayase smashed it into the ground to help the first blaze roar to life.

Stashing his gun, he grabbed his dagger from the fallen guard's throat and quickly jumped through the back window onto the wooden walkway outside. Looking both ways he saw guards running towards him.

"There he is! Get him!" The guards pulled out guns and started to shoot at Ayase as he jumped off the edge of the walkway onto the ground below.

"Someya-san, it's done." He spoke into his mouth piece under his mask as he dodged around the garden path. Jumping over rocks and bushes, Ayase made his way towards the frozen pond he knew lay at the northern edge of the premises.

"Yoku gambatta, good work, Ayase. Get out of there without problems. See you in a few." In the background Ayase heard the sound of a car starting and being shoved into gear.

"Roger." His slight form gave him an advantage since his speed increased and gave him maneuverability that the guards chasing him could not even attempt. Ayase's light footsteps brought him to the pond which he gave no hesitation to slide feet first across towards the large tree at the edge of it.

Behind him, the bullets kept coming so as he almost reached the edge, the ice beneath him cracked, spraying shards of sharp ice upward at him as he jumped, extending his reach to grab the lower branches of the overhanging tree. As he gracefully jumped from branch to branch, a stray bullet grazed his right bicep, shooting pain up his shoulder and down his arm.

"Shit." Ayase swore as he reached the top of the tree. He jumped onto the surrounding wall, dodged over the heads of the guards just realizing the intruder was above them, and then jumped without fear, over the side of the wall, dropping the twenty-five feet as if it were just four.

Staying on his feet, Ayase sprinted away from the wall, dodging the bullets raining down on him, becoming almost a mist with his speed, no bullets could touch him. Suddenly, a car burst from the surrounding tree line, speeding over the snow towards Ayase. He heard the guards from the wall yelling that there was a vehicle coming, and they started to shoot at both him and the approaching car. It was a large truck, its trunk bed open and as it reached Ayase, the car spun, leaving the back open for him to jump onto.

With grace and speed, Ayase was able to jump onto the moving truck as it started to speed away, with a push of a button, Ayase closed the trunk bed, creating a small bullet-proof bubble to protect his back. He yanked off his face mask and head cover as he opened the truck's window to glance inside.

"Well, Ayase, that was cutting it a bit close, was it not…?" Someya-san glanced back at her partner as she pushed the gas more.

"Heehee. Eh…not really…not too scratched up." Ayase looked down at his white garb, now bloodstained in the arm. "Not too deep, nothing to worry about."

Someya-san sighed and then rolled her eyes, "Whatever. Tell them so we can get our paycheck."

"Ugh..this blood is never going to come out." Ayase grumbled unhappily glancing at his arm.

"Well, no one told you to get hit, baka. It's your own fault for getting sloppy," Someya-san glanced over as Ayase wiggled into the seat next to her.

"Hey, if you get any blood on the seat, you're paying to get it cleaned." Ayase rolled his eyes knowing how cheap his partner could be and ignored her comment.

Ayase then stripped off his blood stained shirt and grabbed the first aid kit from the glove compartment in front of him. "Ayase, why do you have such pretty skin, it's so unfair!" Someya-san whined. "I wish my skin looked like that…then boys wouldn't be able to get enough of me," she said with a saucy wink.

"Oya, Someya-san, I don't want to know about your boy troubles, please!" Ayase searched the first aid kit until he found the antiseptic solution, clean gauze strips and medical tape. "Dammit…" Ayase upended some of the antiseptic solution onto his wound, wiping blood before it dripped to far down his arm, until the gunshot graze was relatively clean. He tossed the dirty gauze into a compartment between the seats, closing the lid and pressing a button that created a mini incinerator to dispose of the DNA. He then took a clean guaze and taped up his wound before pulling on a clean shirt.

Ayase gave a sigh and sank further into his seat before pulling out his phone to send a message to their client.

Job done. Payment required.

Two minutes after he sent the message, Ayase opened his phone again to a new message, the contents contained an account number as proof of the transaction. His eyes popped open at the amount transferred, "Not bad for one night's work, ne, Aya-chan!" Someya-san laughed, switching to use the nickname she had called Ayase when they were younger.

"That's a pretty penny," Ayase agreed. "Someya-san, wake me up when we get home, I'm going to rest my eyes."

An hour later

"Ayase. Wake up, you have to get upstairs on your own," Someya-san said pulling into an underground garage below their moderately sized apartment complex. Ayase groggily looked around and then rubbed his eyes, "Alright, Someya-san."

As they walked through their back door, Ayase's phone beeped again to signal he had a new message. Pulling his phone out and opening it with a click, Ayase read the message before relaying it to Someya-san, "We have a new job from my cousin, Ishi Tetsuo. He said the target is a drug smuggler, a Kanou Somuku. In three days he will return from a business trip and will be at one of his homes in Shinjuku. We are to get him then." With a sigh Ayase closed his phone and yawned, "I can't even think right now, sleepy time for me…" Ayase kicked off his shoes before making his way down the hall towards his room. He was so exhausted he didn't realize that Someya-san hadn't moved once since Ayase finished relaying the message.

"Oyasumi, Someya-san. Good work tonight."

"Otsukare, Ayase, thanks for your hard work as well," Someya-san said automatically.

Ayase made it to his room and closed the door behind him. He gently placed his bag carrying his stuff onto the chair beside his bed then made his way to his closet for his PJs. After changing he brushed his teeth and washed his face, while leaving the bathroom he tentatively touched his injured arm. With a shrug Ayase walks over to his bed and flops onto it, asleep before his head even touched the pillow.

End of Chapter 1