I sat down on his neatly cleaned bed in utter care and precision. Just to not make a ruffle on the sheets.

"I heard from our monitor that the location of your upcoming mission is the same place where we could be as well," I spoke. I saw him not batting an eye on something else than me, that should mean I have to continue. "In order for that, maybe we can cooperate?"

"No," he answered. "Why would a Delta team member would ask for cooperation? Our missions differ from each other, that means we could not collide each others' businesses." He put his book to his desk shelf and stood up to open a curtain of his window.

Well, the window is just a decoration, we are not allowed to see the sights of the outside.

"But that doesn't mean we can't help each other, what if we need some back ups?" I asked even though it's a useless query.

"Calling for Backups are for weak, Delta girl," he said then turned his face to me. "Unless you proved yourself weak, backups are useless. Once you're scored as weak or strong, you will be placed to another team that matched your capacity. Not every members of every team could retain their positions of their own, they should be strong enough to handle their own cases."

I was lost for words. What he said was true and I couldn't argue more about it.

Guess we're on our own.

After my conversation with 044, I had an interactions with Sachzna, Clario, and Heron. I learned that they should have been in five members not when Fidora, a teenage girl of their team, died on our last phase due to heart attack. Technically, Sachzna is the only woman in their group.

As I entered our quarter, I saw my team members sat up in hopes for a good news. But the shook in my head just indicated that we can't get a collaboration with the Eagle team. Making them sigh in defeat before sitting back to the couch.

006 then spoke, "That means we're on our own. We need to train harder to retain our selves in our team. You knew the rules by now, Ami." Benina, Thadd, and Keio became curious as to what 006 had talked about.

"I just learned a certain rule in this organization from 044 of Eagle team," I started before folding my arms. "There's scoring. If we're scored as weaker or stronger by the speculators, we will be transferred to another team and we can't do anything about it. That is why the Eagle team cannot help us in any way possible."

"That means," Thadd chided. "We must keep our score just to keep our position in this team?"

"Exactly," 006 answered. "But people like us are the only exemptions."

"How?" Benina asks as Keio looked curiously towards him.

"Sciffs, or people like us, will never be replaced or be taken from the team we were assigned in. Once we're placed on a certain team, we can no longer be transfered. In short, we're non-transferable. Our only goal is to keep our members with their scores or guide them to have higher scores."

We, aside from 006, looked at each other with the only certainty we have in mind.

This mission should keep us as Delta team members.

× × ×

"Are you sure you can get this right, Benina? It's starting to scare the shit out of me," I spoke as I saw Benina with hair scissors and a comb in her hands. Uncertain of what she can do.

Because awhile ago, I asked her to give me some bangs on my hair—as part of my desired get-up for our upcoming mission.

She grinned at me. "I know what to do. I'm a hairstylist before I became a pastry chef before!" she boasted. That didn't even helped me get at eased.

Cutting my hair to bangs is the last thing I would do for the rest of my life. This is the first time in my twenty-five whole years to have a cut on my long hair.

"Be sure to not make it too short!" I exaggerated that made her chuckled.

As she cuts my hair, I felt my whole world stopped. I closed my eyes in fear that it would look horrible. My trust issues even went skyrocketed than awhile ago.

After a few touches and scissor-zips, Benina coughed a little.

"You can open your eyes now, Ami." As I opened my eyes, I was instantly welcomed with a mirror in front of me.

A mirror of a girl with bangs that's not shorter nor longer. A just-right length.

I looked at her, aghast.

"Benina..." I almost choked out of words. "This is... Cute."

× × ×

"See, Thadd? She looked younger than her age!" She exclaimed as she gestured her hand to my newly-cut bangs.

Thadd and Keio looked at each other in our lounge area before looking back at us. Exactly to me.

"Who's she?" Keio asked as he stared at me.

"Ami?" Thad added to ask that made the two of them gasps as they realized who they were looking at.

I chuckled. "Nah, I decided to have bangs for our mission. Let's get to our training room?" They both nodded.

006 was already in there because Even will be handling the other teams. I remembered they were the Eagle, Charlie, and Alpha teams.

Our teams and the rest of the other teams are tasked to do our own trainings for this day.

As we entered our training area, 006 looked at us with his usual stoic face.

"You're a minute late, run five lapse," he spoke that we immediately did as told.

After a few lapses, we then started our intensive training. With guidance of our leader, of course.

It took us three long hours of no-break training, so we could catch up with 006's endurance when we do our sparring with him. And boy, it was really tough and tiring that when 006 said we could take our break, we instantly lied down on anywhere we were while holding our weapon of choices.

"My back ached," Benina grumbled. I heard Keio and Thadd snoring fast. I sighed, this training today is hellish than we were under Even's guidance.

Heck, 006 is a monster in our team today!