Chapter 365: What’s The Homework.
"I always knew you were more involved with the bastard than you let on, but..." Dante clicked his tongue. "I never thought you were the boss’s son."
"Yeah... I’m not that happy about it either." Finn said.
Sighing, Dante got up to refill his coffee, taking the time to process what he heard. The boy kept the details to a minimum, but it wasn’t that difficult to fill in the gaps.
Their first meeting happened because of the blue Juggernaut Dante bought a while back. He remembered the boy saying it belonged to his father, but something told him he wasn’t talking about Jaguar.
The boy had his family ripped away from him. He had his skull split before he could hit puberty, and he was forced to work for a gang that kills people for the smallest inconvenience. He managed to escape somehow, but with that thing sticking out of the back of his head, he could never dream of living a normal life.
"You said you were on the streets for two years now, right?" Dante asked.
"Yup." Finn nodded. "Two years, give or take."
"Did they look for you since?"
"Almost tracked me a couple of times. I learned how to avoid them really quickly, so I never had any close calls after the first few times."
"Until tonight."
"Until tonight."
Though he wanted to believe that the boy’s skills were what allowed him to escape capture, Dante guessed that it was the Daggers themselves who hadn’t put much effort into searching for him. It couldn’t have been that difficult to find a kid with an MLP. There weren’t that many to begin with, so just asking around would have given them plenty of clues.
’Did they think he wouldn’t survive?’
Neo-Vatra wasn’t the kind of place a kid could survive in on their own. Interacting with people would have increased the chances of someone seeing him MLP and reporting to the Daggers, so the boy likely didn’t make any friends since he first escaped. Because of that, the gangsters didn’t think he would survive for long and gave up the search.
It might just be that Jaguar lost interest and ordered the search to end. Whatever the case, the Daggers didn’t seem too concerned about the boy, which is why it took one of their top to recognize him.
"We almost screwed the plan, huh?" Dante said. "No, you could say it’s already screwed. They probably figured out it was us behind what happened in the restaurant, and since they now know you’re still alive, there is no way they wouldn’t come after you."
"Right..." The boy cast his gaze once more.
"Turns out that fancy dinner wasn’t worth it, huh?"
"Urgh..."
"Told you." Said Dante. "It was a bad idea."
They barely got anything from their little outing and exposed themselves to unnecessary danger. To top it off, they alerted the enemy to their presence and put the entire plan into jeopardy. They messed up big time.
"Still..." Staring at the dark liquid filled his mug, Dante voiced his decision. "We aren’t going to stop."
Personally, he wasn’t too invested in the two crime syndicates. He was no hero, and though he felt nothing but hatred toward them, he wouldn’t have concerned himself with their matters any other day. That said, he had already promised that they would take down the Dagger. He promised to take down Black Skull, too. That’s what he was going to do.
"Won’t stop..." Finn muttered. "I won’t stop."
Sparing him a glance, Dante gulped from his lightly lukewarm coffee.
"The plan needs some alterations, though." He said. "Both Black Skull and the Daggers know they’re being targeted by good Diver, but the latter is now aware of who that Diver is. They also know he has accomplices."
Finn grimaced.
"I.. I’m not sure they think that highly of me..."
"You escaped and evaded their pursuit. Then you survived for two years on your own. If that’s not enough to make them wary of you, I don’t know what it would take."
"Right..."
Once again, the boy’s gaze returned to the floor at his feet. Dante didn’t know what was so interesting about it that he kept looking at it this entire time.
"If there is one thing I hate more than geniuses, it’s ones who look down on themselves," Dante said. "Don’t sell yourself short, kid. Few can do what you did at your age."
"Right..."
Words of encouragement didn’t come easy for Dante, so he was glad to see them work, or so he thought for a second. The boy regained enough confidence to raise his gaze, but instead of looking him in the eyes, he turned to the side and scrunched his nose.
"Who’re you calling a kid? You’re a kid yourself."
Dante snorted.
"If you’re still annoyed by being called a kid, you’re still a kid."
That jab was good enough to leave him speechless, and after a fruitless attempt at searching for a comeback, Finn admitted defeat and changed the subject.
"So, you said we need to alter the plan. What do you have in mind?"
"... For now, we lay low,"Dante replied after a moment of thought.
"Isn’t that what we have been doing?"
"I wouldn’t call having dinner in the middle of the enemy territory lying low."
The original plan would have them observe the fire and wait for the right moment to toss another piece of wood. As it turned out, they had unknowingly leaned too close toward the fire, and they needed to pull back to avoid getting burned.
"I have a surgery coming up, and it will probably take me at least a couple of weeks to get back on my feet."
Though he was excited about finally getting an SRE and an MLP as well, Dante couldn’t help the fear creeping up on him. Larry had guaranteed that he could pull off the surgery with a 100% success rate, but that did little to ease the fear of knowing what even the smallest failure might result in. Both implants involved the brain and spine, after all.
"I think we should go into hiding. At least until I recover."
"Go into hiding?" Finn frowned. "That sounds... a little wasteful."
"Better than risking running into those bastards," Dante said. "Don’t worry, I will give you some homework to keep you busy."
"You just made it worse." The boy’s expression fell.
"I will ask Suzuka to let you stay at her place."
"What’s the homework?"