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[color=#008b45][H2]ASAHI GOROSHI[/H2][/color][/center]

For the past few days, Asahi has been oddly quiet. Anyone who kept up with Arms Slave has  vague idea of what he’s been up to, but oddly enough it had nothing to do with the Ebony Strykers. Every time someone caught up to him and asked him what he was doing, he’d tell them he was “training”, but so far he hasn’t gone up a single level. But he was training alright. Asahi was still in this fight.

For the past few days Asahi has been fighting both in DGO and in real life. Like it or not, the Sweepers weren’t done yet, they made that abundantly clear. Asahi hide it well but he was covered in wounds. After and sometimes even during school hours he’d get into fights with random kids, other Sweeper agents sent by the cleaners or Erasers. After hours Asahi would head into the city and take down old contracts and even a few former allies. It was messy business, but it was necessary. In DGO, Asahi simply trained. He fought against Dissolutions and other players carefully; while his archtype tank usually meant he was suppose to take hits, he instead trained differently. He needed to be faster. 

Before he took solace in the fact he was the strongest in his little circle, and generally fought against opponents who couldn’t do any meaningful harm to him. But the reality was that before, he was a big fish in a small pond. Among the Sweepers he might have been a big name, but in DGO he was just another punk with more HP than skills. So he’s been training, using his abilities to their fullest instead of just how he usually used them. Increase his spread, his mobility, his flexibility. Rely less on weapons and unique items, and more on skills and predicting his enemy. Admittedly when Asahi first started out he did horribly; he could have just overwhelmed some of his foes with a relentless amount of blows and sucked up a few hits. But that wouldn’t make him better.

Right now Asahi sat waiting in a park. This was the regular meeting place with another mark of his. By now he would know that someone was after them, so no doubt he’ll have protection. The last guys had a couple of kids with guns, but they were obviously bustas. They didn’t know how to shoot straight and only succeeded in damaging Asahi’s glasses. Who knows what this one might bring, but during the day like this Asahi doubted they’d be packing heat. But they would be watching for him. Tapping the baseball in his hands, Asahi waited.

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[color=#cd2626][H2]RETSU GOROSHI[/H2][/color][/center]

If there was one thing Retsu learned, it’s that the Erasers were no more. She had no idea how it happened. She had half thought that they were the root of her problems. But these past few days Retsu has been investigating what had happened to her Sweepers and why everything was in such disarray. But now she knew. The Red Eraser was dead. Retsu followed on his trail and found his corpse rotting in a landfill. Blue Eraser was hospitalized. The doctors wouldn’t let Retsu see him, but he was suffering from heavy blunt trauma to the back of the head. The Green King fell to their own civil war, but this time the Eraser didn’t come out on top. Now the Fanged Rangers lost their Sweeper support, though most of them just assimilated back into the rangers anyways with everyone else going wayward. Only the White Eraser Retsu had no detail on. But then again, she never operated in a big group anyways. The only thing Retsu did know was that the White Guild Sweepers was left without leadership. Without their Eraser, most either assimilated into the Ivory Masks or went their own way.

And just like that, the Sweepers were no more. Not with a big war or even a declaration. Their key leaders were either dead or removed from power, and without even so much as a single battle to decide things. Retsu felt… Oddly relieved. The Sweepers had originally been a means to build power in DGO to eventually gain followers and shut down the game, but now it’s been twisted into just another tool used to maintain the status quo. Perhaps now that Retsu’s time wasn’t being wasted micromanaging blood thirsty peons, she could actually get some work done. For starters, she took back the powers the the other Erasers once had. The Red King was easiest, and there were enough turncoats from the Green Guild for Retsu to get a working base off of. The only ones she couldn’t take is the Blue and the White, but they’ll be hers soon enough.

Outside of DGO however, Retsu has been very quiet. With Yoshino’s admittance to a hospital, Retsu hasn’t seen Yoshino in quite some time. Her feelings about the girl rather conflicted. As much as she hates to admit this, Retsu had been blinded by teenage love for Yoshino. Her feelings are muddled in emotions, but Retsu knew this much: regardless of who Yoshino is, Retsu was going to fulfill her goal and destroy DGO. With or without Yoshino’s help. And to that end, Retsu needed to know more about who was truly behind the massive multiplayer game.

And that brings Retsu to now. Throughout her investigation of the Erasers one thing always came up: Corpse Collector. Initially just an infamous figure that Retsu had dismissed as a hacker with a grudge, however constant trail with these Erasers made Retsu think she wasn’t just a rogue agent. While Cleaners acting on their own or having vendettas were not unusual, none has ever gotten this close to the Erasers before. The possibility that Corpse Collector had something to do with their predicament wasn’t something that Retsu could ignore. But she had no leads on Corpse Collector. None except one. Retsu went up to a large gate and pressed on the doorbell.

[color=cd2626]”Hello, this is Retsu Goroshi. May I speak to Hibiki Toho?”[/color]