The Lycoris—named after a flower—were Japan’s secret peacekeepers. Agents with the highest First rank were distinguished by red uniforms. Yet the Firsts weren’t the only central figures to the Lycoris organization.
Still, to be recognized as a First Lycoris, an agent would need to demonstrate abilities at an extremely high level. The requirements were so hard to meet that only a very small number of agents had been promoted to that rank across the organization’s history. Seeing that the Lycoris were active throughout Japan, it was impossible to base their operations around the extremely scarce First Lycoris agents.
The main force quietly removing criminals or other individuals who threatened to disrupt order in Japan were the agents in white—the Third Lycoris.
While their abilities were far from perfect, the Thirds possessed a quality that made them extremely effective as Lycoris agents. As long as they met the minimum requirements for the use of firearms, then they were able to carry out Lycoris missions with sufficient backup.
The lack of skill of the Thirds was offset by their sheer number. The organ supervising the Lycoris—Direct Attack—could readily deploy them without worrying about potential losses affecting the functionality of the organization, and so a lot of the missions were carried out by those of the lowest rank.
The Second Lycoris agents, as their name implied, stood between the Firsts and the Thirds in terms of their ability and numbers. They were the main force in the big cities, where the missions tended to be far more complex, demanding a finer set of abilities and agents working in smaller teams.
Lycoris from the lower ranks could work toward promotion by developing their abilities and passing certain tests, but they had no control over the one characteristic that made them so effective: being young girls.
They had to project an aura of weakness, harmlessness, and vulnerability, using school uniforms as camouflage, allowing them to blend in with the ordinary citizenry. It was this image that offered them the best protection and, at the same time, was their greatest weapon.
It was for this reason that the Lycoris were limited to handguns as their weapons, thin and not very durable body armor, and why they wore skirts, which definitely were not an advantage in battle.
The sacrifices had to be made for the agents to come off as completely non-threatening so the enemies would not see them coming until it was too late.
The need to maintain this facade was the biggest obstacle in advancing to higher ranks.
The girls had a very limited span of time they could devote to training, and extreme training could backfire. The agents could pass for schoolgirls only until their late teenage years. They could only be trained once they were old enough to follow instructions, so overall, they might have less than ten years to learn their profession. Proper combat training could only begin once the girls met the physical requirements, which happened around the time they became teenagers.
In the span of several years, the girls had to learn about Japanese society and its customs and about what girls their age would normally know and how they behaved so that they could masquerade as ordinary Japanese schoolgirls. And this was in addition to acquiring the highly specialized Lycoris skills and mastering the art of seeming harmless at all times.
Third Lycoris were deployed often because they could already be put to work after short training, compensating for their inexperience with the greatest asset of the Lycoris—their appearance. They were much younger than Second and First Lycoris, so their identity as little girls could be used to even better effect.
With their small hands, poor musculature, and low body weight, the Thirds couldn’t control recoil when firing .45 ACP—which was standard for the Lycoris—or even when using heavier 9mm subsonic rounds. But it wasn’t a problem if they got the job done with a single shot. Their tactic was to fire at the target from close enough that the attack would be guaranteed to hit and be fatal. It was this tactic that made it possible for Third Lycoris to successfully carry out extremely difficult tasks such as assassinating high-profile targets surrounded by bodyguards in public settings ever since the beginning of the organization.
To an outsider, it might seem that the Thirds were the epitome of the Lycoris, but Lycoris themselves would agree that it was the Firsts who deserved that title, that they were the Lycoris par excellence.
The First Lycoris—pretty young girls who didn’t rely on ambushing their target, had the skill and knowledge to overwhelm a target in battle using only very basic equipment, and possessed abilities that were totally at odds with their appearances. Yet missions that required them to unleash their full potential were few and far between. For the most part, they merely supervised lower-ranked Lycoris on their missions, and the task Fuki Harukawa, one of the rare First Lycoris, had been assigned that day was no exception…until an unexpected gunshot rang out.