As expected, Black Mamba’s machines were heavily guarded. She rubbed her hands in glee when the machine approved of her access. The datastick she inserted into the console did most of the work for her, bypassing through the tightly-knit security of the base’s mainframe like it was child’s play. If it wasn’t for the genius hacker’s little gadget she created herself, Yuri would have been stuck with trying to decipher the password all night long.

‘Seohyun is truly a genius.’

The corners of the infiltrator’s mouth stretched wider as her eyes feasted upon the trove of information before her.

‘Everything is true then?’

Despite feeling a moment of relief before, the authentication of these documents only opened the infiltrator’s mind to more questions. Which sworn member to an organisation would betray such truths to another? What more was that who could have the authority in this organisation to access such highly classified information? The trained infiltrator brought a hand up to rub her temples, the more she thought about it, the more confused she felt.

‘My job is only to infiltrate and authenticate.’

She shook away those thoughts and was preparing to leave when she felt cool steel blades resting just beside her neck. The stealthiest member of the G7 forces could not believe that she had actually fallen captive to another. This other must have been the most accomplished killer in Black Mamba.

Heck, this cannot be happening.

Yuri could not live with such a shame of landing in another person’s hand even if she did not die by this person’s hands.

“Who are you?”

The infiltrator almost could not resist the urge to roll her eyes at the typical question. A woman’s voice. Despite being a woman herself, the stealthiest member of G7 felt insulted getting caught by another.

“Keep silent if you wish to, I am not interested to learn where you are from from your mouth. I can readily rip your clothes off your corpse for any sigil that might be on you. Or I could parade your dead body to see which sect claims it. If all else shall fail, I can simply let you rot in the moat,” the captor spoke so smoothly, it sounded as if she had them recited over a thousand times.

A highly-experienced killer then, my death would not be such a shameful one after all.

“Not a very magnanimous captor, are you?” Yuri replied, trying to keep her voice as cool as possible.

Yuri felt her captor circling her. Yet, the blade moved not an inch away from the lethal spot. A careful assassin indeed… Wait, no way. The infiltrator was momentarily stunned when she came face to face with her captor.

J-Jessica?! Heck!

“Why… I see the reason now. It is indeed an honour for a lowly infiltrator like me to be apprehended by the leader of Black Mamba personally.”

Even though it only lasted a fraction of a second, Yuri saw that flicker of emotion on the said leader’s face. Was that distaste?

It was then that the infiltrator looked beyond the captor’s superficial looks. Her brown orbs appeared hard but Yuri could see the softness within. The blade in her hands was placed lethally on her neck yet she displayed no true intentions of killing her. What aroused Yuri’s interests most was the girl’s hair. This stranger’s fiery red hair was the most unnatural colour yet most natural on her at the same time. This person isn’t Jessica.

“Who are you?” Yuri could not believe she had blurted that question out.

A crease appeared between the captor’s brows which only deepened as the seconds passed.

“You’re not Jessica, are you,” Yuri pressed on. The girl would later curse herself for doing so.

The infiltrator only felt a head-splitting blow to the side of her head before darkness consumed both her vision and mind.

**

A great throbbing pain on the right side of her head was felt as she awoke. Adjusting her eyes to the new environment, Yuri rose abruptly but regretted it afterwards. The throbbing grew intense, and her sense of balance became distorted as she experienced a wave of vertigo striking her.

Damn it, she struck me hard. Whoever she was...

Gloomy and tiny was the cell she was thrown in by her captor once the infiltrator finally got her bearings. Anyone with a bad case of claustrophobia would not make it even for a minute.  A lone dim light was dangling from above, not making any effort to plow through the entire room and dissipate every inch of darkness. Yuri was sitting down on a rectangular metal board which served as a cheap and uncomfortable makeshift bed for the unlucky prisoner. Other than the bed, there was also a sink and a toilet which had seen better days. Iron bars as thick as her arms blocked the exit in front of her.

She looked down on herself. The jumpsuit she wore earlier was still on, but all her equipment and gadgets that she brought with her were gone, probably stowed off in a storage somewhere in the base. Yuri cursed at her lack of being discreet. She was a width away from gathering all the secrets her group needed, and unfortunately, her efforts were all in vain.

She needed to escape from here.

Scanning her surroundings again, she heaved a defeated sigh when absolutely nothing struck out as a potential way to escape from the cell she was in.

I hope the rest will notice me missing and think up of something…

Yuri, left alone with her own thoughts and a terrible headache, could only wait and hope for a miracle.

**

“Ma’am.”

Two fighters saluted Hyomin as she whisked by. The girl only managed a curt nod in her rush to report to her sister. She stopped when she came to face the steel double doors and hesitated for a moment. What was she to say?

Our secrets have been compromised. Yes, that was it. Hyomin prayed her sister would be grateful for this piece of information.

Commands for her to enter were given right after she had given three crisp knocks on the door.

Mustering her courage, Hyomin strode in briskly and confidently yet she was not greeted by a usual sight but rather, by an overly-friendly elder sister.

“I’ve been waiting for you!” It was a rare sight for the leader of Black Mamba to skip in her steps, much less so in the presence of her twin.

D-Does she know already? With her thoughts running wild, the usually steady warrior almost stumbled in her steps but her sister had once again did the unexpected and steadied her by the arm.

“T-Thank you, I am fine,” Hyomin stuttered as she attempted to remove her arm politely from her sister’s hold.

A sly, lopsided smile crept into the leader’s face as she withdrew her arm. “You don’t seem yourself today,” her twin commented casually.

You don’t seem yourself too.... however did not echo her thoughts. “I’ve got something to report.”

“I guessed as much. But let me show you something first.”

Hyomin had never realised that the curtains were drawn, much less to know what was behind those evil curtains.

True to her horror, she was greeted by a scene of extreme gore. Two beings, one male and female, as far as Hyomin could tell with the raffia sack around their head had been most brutally strapped onto to a wooden plank. The chains that held their limbs in place were bloodied and it was so rusted that Hyomin believed if the pair had not died by the end of this torture session, nasty infections would have done the job.

Disgusted she may be, Hyomin maintained calm and betrayed no feelings she felt towards such cruelty. “Where are they from?”

Jessica placed a hand over and giggled into it, an almost child-like giggle as she took the arm of a guard which then chose his words with careful precision in his explanations

“Caught them snooping around our weaponry. Surveillance captured every single one of their actions, they must have been amateur thieves seeking to make a fortune from their loot.”

“Fortunately you caught them,” Hyomin stated, without the slightest hint of satisfaction in her tone.

“Fortunately, yes. They appeared at a perfect timing, I was still wondering who I should use to test my new torture-device.” Jessica gestured to a sick-looking machine right beside where the two prisoners were bound.

An angry protest came from the man in the form of an animalistic growl and he soon received the honour to be the first user of the devilish-looking device.

What happened in the next few hours were pure torture to the victim and assault to Hyomin’s senses as she was forced to witness her sister’s sadistic acts.

No matter how strong-willed an assassin was, the process and unearthly shouts from the pair were impossible for anyone to stomach. Even Jessica’s assistants had a hint of sympathy in their eyes as they watched on. Yet, none of them could go against the leader’s request, no, not even Hyomin. The fiery-red-haired warrior stood still, with her jaws clenched tightly and her eyes unshifting. She had countless times questioned how she could be so similar yet dissimilar from her twin at the same time. Amongst those thoughts were flashbacks of her interactions with her twin since the time she learnt about things. Unlike Hyomin who had to develop her characteristics as an assassin, Jessica was a complete natural and embodied all the necessary traits, cold, calculating and cautious.

Jessica had taken her first life when she was only seven. It was one of the informal duel she had with another assassin-in-training. Her opponent had been twice her age and very nearly thrice her built yet Jessica had managed to disable her opponent and slit his throat from ear to ear. It was a scene no one could ever forget, especially not Hyomin.

A most talented assassin Jessica may be and yet she had a strong rival, a thorn in her flesh, which was Hyomin herself. Even though Hyomin had been a soft-hearted child, her physical talents was most disastrously underestimated. Jessica had never lost a duel throughout her life and the only time she did, it was to her twin. Jessica had completely ignored the existence of her fiery-red-haired twin sister until that very day when Hyomin was forced to a duel with her and had beaten her in front of the many warriors of Black Mamba. From then on, Jessica hated the presence of her sister. What was more infuriating was that the niece of the then Black Mamba’s leader, Sunny, had fallen head over heels for her twin.

When the mangled bodies of the victims appeared lifeless and when her twin had gotten enough pleasure from her subjects, Hyomin had finally requested to take leave and was once again surprised that she had received no refusal from her sister.

**

The sound of clacking footsteps broke the ebony-haired prisoner from her reverie. Rising up from her makeshift bed, she waited for the appearance of the newcomer making their way towards her cell. A hard glare creased on her complexion when Yuri saw the person standing on the other side of the bars.

“You…” she addressed her captor, “I am guessing that you came here for answers.”

The crimson-headed woman said nothing. Instead, she grabbed a bunch of keys hanging from her side and inserted one of them into the keyhole of the door to the cell. She unlocked the door and let it swing open. “Go.” Her captor stated curtly.

The infiltrator could not believe her ears and cocked her head to a side. “Excuse me?”

“Go and never come back,” the captor repeated.

“Is this some kind of trick? Y-You’re letting me go? Hello, I hacked into your computers and retrieved highly-classified information from your sect and you are letting me go? Just like that?!” Yuri asked in disbelief.

An icy, cold stare from her then-captor taught Yuri to shut up before she got sliced to pieces.

Yuri then made her way cautiously out of the dark, gloomy cell and tested for any signs of trickeries. The infiltrator had half expected a sword to land on her neck as she feinted a run but there truly was not any signs of the Jessica-look-alike going back on her words.

**

Hi guys, thank you for the wait, subscribes and the comments. I really appreciate them a lot :D

Yuri has quite a huge part in this chapter :) and there are no sunbyung moments but some interactions between the JessMin twins :)

There will be around 5 chapters for this fiction, so we are more than halfway there wooo!