Haneul’s face paled. “B-blue Triangle?” She genuinely stuttered, a rare occurrence. “How did that rumour get around? And why would they come after the UNSC’s President anyway?”

“We don’t know and even with my position as a former IAI agent and current contactor, I haven’t received any information as to why there may be rumours to the UNSC’s President being ordered to be assassinated and even less of a clue as to why it’s the Blue Triangle.”

Haneul’s face hardened and she laughed bitterly. “That Blue Triangle’s just ridiculous. Maybe I should bring my assistant along. She has a score to settle with them, after all.”

“Haneul I’m afraid we can only allow one agent to go on this mission.” He said sternly, “But I do think I don’t need to warn you about the Blue Triangle and all that you should beware of?”

“Yes.” Haneul nodded, “They recruit young as well. And the people often look the opposite to the stereotypical ‘assassin type’ and are often ‘fallen angels’; people who formerly were agents for places such as the IAI. In fact, in particular the IAI.” Haneul darkly said as worry dripped into her mind about her former comrade. She didn’t know where or how he had managed to disappear completely form the world, or at least from her world, but she sure as hell hoped he didn’t disappear off to the Blue Triangle.

“Look, Haneul. I know what you’re thinking about, but Sungyeol disappeared a whole 2 years before that incident.” He paused and they both knew what incident he was talking about. It was, of course, the infamous incident in the intelligence agencies’ circle where 15% of all active IAI members all turned over to the ‘dark side’, which would be the Blue Triangle, all in one day. 80% of all the members that had turned over were actually active field agents. It happened so quickly and so suddenly that the IAI required firm concentration from its remaining members to stay above water and running. That event had never really been forgotten, just ceased to be talked about. But everyone still thought of it as a great mystery as to why it happened all at once. It was just simply astounding how 15% of just the IAI’s members just ‘disappeared’ all in one day.

“Yeah wasn’t that the day the IAI finally discovered something was wrong because they killed Hwayoung’s father who’s completely innocent.”

“Indeed. But you know what? It’s baffling, really. Why would those agents spend all those years they had painstakingly suffered training from us only to use it on killing people for personal gain? I knew a couple of them personally and I have to say that they didn’t strike me as the money first type. Neither did they strike my wife as those types and as a psychologist I think she knows her stuff.”

“You know what’s even more baffling than all that is how the IAI only realised 6 years ago. How did it take a whole 20 or so years of partnership to find out that the Blue Triangle was ‘bad’?” Haneul sarcastically said.

“And we shall never know.” Professor Ok leaned back in his Italian leather desk chair and tiredly rubbed his face. “Anyway, enough discussion about that. Let’s get back to the point. Your job today isn’t to protect the president, but to scope out the place and check for any suspicious behaviour. It’s embarrassing, really. We haven’t managed to catch a single Blue Triangle assassin for questioning and interrogating in the 6 years since the incident happened. In fact, none of the world’s agencies have which is even worse. But remember, if the assassin is taking a shot at the President, don’t interfere. That’s not your job today and don’t ever forget that as an IAI agent your job isn’t to do what you feel is morally right, but to do what the IAI has told you to.” He gave Haneul a look, knowing Haneul’s ‘rebel’ background. Haneul gulped a little under his gaze. He then continued on. “Your second job is to of course, deal with the initial mission of the vandalism problems. We can’t have anyone damaging and vandalizing the second national treasure of South Korea.” He sat back up and leaned in close to Haneul conspiratorially and began whispering, “Although let me tell you something which is probably very odd of a cultural professor to say so, but concentrate on the UNSC case more. My former IAI agent senses are just telling me that something’s not right.”

Haneul nodded and stood up from her chair. “So what time should I go there?”

“Oh, any time you want as long as it’s before 3 in the afternoon. And it is currently 11:52 which means you have about 3 hours to just have fun or do whatever youngsters like you do these day.” He said without even looking at a clock or at a watch. Haneul presumed that even well after one retired, the skills they learnt with an intelligence agency stuck with them through life.

“Alright.” Haneul opened the door slightly and bowed to Professor Ok. “Thank you for your time! My thoughts on hangul’s background have been cleared.” She said naturally, as if she just came out from an especially enlightening lecture, not too loud and obvious and not so soft that if anybody were there in the hallway of the staff offices they wouldn’t be able to hear, “Thank you so much, Professor Ok!”

-----------------

Haneul hiked up Gwanaksan towards the Wongaksa Pagoda. As she arrived, she could tell the place was obviously preparing for someone as important as an UNSC coming to visit. She nodded to herself when her internal clock told her it was only a little past 2:12.

“Hi.” Haneul cheerfully said to a boy who looked about her age working on the preparations. “I was sent here to help with the preparations but I wasn’t given a time. Did I come a bit late?”

He turned around to look at her and was immediately stunned. “Oh, no, of course not, of course not. Come here and I’ll show you what you can do to help.”

Haneul spent the next 30 minutes working on the preparations, all the while taking a scope of the location. She saw that there were 5 different locations from which an assassin could have an easy clear shot of the president and at least 17 different locations which were possible to shoot from if the assassin had mastered the ricocheting bullet perfectly. And the 17 different locations were just the ones that Haneul could identify. She was sure there were more, as someone who had only half-mastered the ricocheting bullet.

“How about we move this slightly to the left?” Haneul suggested.

“What for?” The person who was obviously in charge of the decorations asked, wondering wy this random girl he didn’t even know the name of was suggesting such a thing.

“Because then the banner would be more easily visible and the entire decorations scheme would be more balanced.” Haneul explained, which was the truth, but not the whole truth. Haneul couldn’t have cared less about how visually appealing everything was. Her main motive behind the move was that just such a small move could block off 4 out of 5 direct shooting locations all at once, which meant that Haneul could easily guard the last location. Not to mention, that the last location provided an excellent view of 10 out of the 17 ricochet bullet shooting locations.

“Alright then. The girl does have a point. Let’s move it.” The person in charge said after he stepped back and took a look. Haneul smiled and felt a little bit more satisfied with the safety of the place. Whilst it wasn’t really her duty to protect the UNSC President, she did want to narrow down the locations the rumoured assassin would be able to shoot from and thus be able to corner him. She swallowed the lump that had formed in as she thought about the reasons why. They were purely selfish reasons. She wanted to corner an assassin, any assassin, as long as they were from the Blue Triangle so badly. She wanted to take them in for interrogation so, so badly she felt bad at her wants. She knew that if she managed to successfully bring in the first Blue Triangle assassin that had been caught by any intelligence agency for the first time since the incident, she would be rewarded. And she intended to use that reward to add a question to the list of interrogation questions. And that question would be related to her former comrade, Lee Sungyeol.

“Anymore suggestions, girl?” The man called out to her. Haneul took a look around and decided that asking them to move pole 2.5 metres to its right was a bit too much and it wouldn’t help much anyway so he shook her head.

“No. I believe the UNSC President will be satisfied with this.” She stuck two thumbs up at which the man looked very pleased.

“Sir! They said the UNSC President will be arriving in about 10 minutes! We have to quickly finish everything up!” A man in his mid 20s suddenly ran into the scene and yelled.

Suddenly everything went into frenzy and Haneul slipped out of the scene towards the location she had in mind to guard.

-----------------

Haneul stood there at that location on top of a thick tree branch which obscured her from everyone’s view, not sure what to be expecting. A black limousine was soon seen coming into view and Haneul noted that it must be the President’s transport as she soon heard music fanfare and all the camera crews zoomed towards it with all their equipment. Haneul heard a rustling and then quickly climbed even further up the tree and hid in a branch above which was even more obscured from view.

She soon saw a tall and thin male figure clad fully in camouflage, even complete with a camouflage beanie and gloves so she couldn’t see his hair colour, style or what his hands looked like climb onto the branch she was on just a minute ago. All she knew was that he had a dark blue triangle that looked like an iron-on on the back of his jacket and that meant be was part of the Blue Triangle. She watched him move around and position himself comfortably. She frowned in confusion. He wasn’t carrying a rifle bag of any sort. He was only carrying a small sports bag which wouldn’t even be long enough to fit a rifle. It would definitely be able to fit a couple of pistols, but no assassin would try and shoot from this far away with a pistol. Her queries were soon answered when the man opened up the sports bag. Her eyes widened as she watched him pulled out two sets of sports uniform to reveal very peculiar looking sporting equipment such as badminton bats which were slightly wonky and tennis racquets that seemed either too big or small and were missing strings. Or at least that’s what Haneul identified them as.

Haneul had a very strange feeling about the equipment and her suspicions were soon confirmed, once again. The man expertly pulled apart the equipment and reassembled it all. He then pulled out another odd thing out of his bag which could never be disguised as a sporting equipment and fit it on. He then picked up a tennis ball unstably and dropped it, causing a loud thunk and no bounce back which Haneul raised an eyebrow at. What kind of tennis ball didn’t bounce? Her question was then answered quickly again. It seemed almost as if her thoughts had drifted over to this man and he decided to answer them as soon as her mind has asked them. He calmly tore the material outer part of the tennis ball and Haneul’s eye rounded to see bullets inside. She then craned her neck slightly to see how many tennis balls were in that bag. 5. 5 that she could see. And each one appeared to carry about 5 or 6 bullets each. At least 25 bullets right there.

But what happened next surprised Haneul. Greatly. He only retrieved one bullet and put it into the rifle. Haneul almost scoffed, except she held it back knowing what would happen if she made a loud noise. This man is so confident and with that sort of confidence comes foolishness. It would only be too easy to stop him if he only has one bullet in that rifle. Haneul smirked to herself, completely forgetting what Professor Ok had told her about not interfering.

She watched as he put a silencer on the rifle. She smiled to herself, knowing that if she were to shoot that bullet somewhere else and tip all his bullets away and off the tree, he wouldn’t be able to carry out his mission. Haneul quickly pulled out her phone which was already on silent and began texting Professor Ok.

Back-up wanted. Blue Triangle agent here. Prepare to corner. Tree base 50m north of pagoda, 100m north-west of podium.

Haneul was sure that back-up would be on its way by then. Nobody would pass up on the chance to catch a Blue Triangle assassin. She decided she’d wait about 10 minutes until she goes into action. She was going to forget about Professor Ok's warnings about interfering.

Before the 10 minutes was up though, Haneul saw him preparing to go into action. He crouched forwards on the branch and aimed his rifle at the President. By the way the President was walking, Haneul could tell he was wearing a bulletproof vest. And she also knew that the man must’ve known.

“Bulletproof vest, huh?” She heard him mutter to himself. She frowned. That accent when he spoke Korean was so familiar, except she couldn’t quite place it. Both of them then heard a rustling at the base of the tree. They both looked down in sync and whilst the mysterious assassin couldn’t see it, Haneul saw a light flashing at the base. Whoever at the base was using Morse code. ‘IAI’ was all that signed to Haneul in Morse code. Haneul gingerly stuck her right hand out of the leafy covering so they could see with a thumbs up to show she was ready. The Blue Triangle assassin decided that nothing was happening and he leaned back into his original half crouching position with the rifle positioned. Haneul knew he was probably aiming for the President’s head since the torso was obviously protected by a bulletproof vest.

Haneul watched as his finger began to curl around the trigger. She heard a low chuckle come from him and she knew he was about to go into action. “How about another minute, Mr. Corrupt President? Enjoy the short remainder of your life.” He muttered to himself and Haneul could almost heard a smirk come upon his face. She realised he was probably aiming right for the end of the speech to make the most impact. Haneul too went into action. She put on a pair of gloves to make sure she didn’t leave behind any fingerprints and she brought out her small throwing knives. She stuck them into the trunk next to her and began changing into more flexible clothing. The made sure to put on a mask covering her nose and mouth, just like she had seen another (or was it?) mysterious man do so in those tunnels in Japan a few months ago. The moment she was done, she heard his countdown begin.

“10… 9… 8…” Haneul pulled her knives out of the trunk again and aimed it. The knives may not look like they had the ability to do much, but oh trust me they did. They were extra hardened and sharpened with diamond dust. Haneul positioned them between her fingers. Three on each hand. She crouched slightly, ready to throw.

“4… 3… 2… 1…” And then Haneul released the first 3 knives from her left hand. They cut right through the rifle’s barrel and Haneul was sure that one had gone right where the bullet was about to go and had blocked it.

The man’s first reaction was to roll away from where he was to somewhere further down the branch and he looked up. The two of them met eyes and Haneul frowned as she saw his eyes. He seemed so familiar. Unfortunately for her though, his nose and mouth were covered by a similar type of mask to Haneul’s and Haneul inwardly cursed. She was just glad she had put on contacts earlier.

Haneul then released another knife in his direction and his quick reflects let him dodge out of the way. He then realised that fighting among the tree tops probably wasn’t the best idea, so he jumped down towards the bushes below. Too bad for him, that wasn’t the best idea either.

Haneul too swiftly climbed down the tree and while going down, pulled out another few knives. At the base she saw the assassin fighting off all the people that had been called from the IAI. She gasped as she saw one of the back-ups bleeding from their head. She quickly pulled that one away from the scene of the battle.

She ran back towards the scene of the battle after she handed the person a towel and told them to hold it to their forehead. She pulled one man away from the battle and told him to take care of their injured comrade. She then took his place and joined the fight.

Because it was 6 vs 1, Haneul found it a bit hard to approach the assassin fighting in the middle, though she felt awed by his skill. Nobody would be able to guess from his thin frame that he was such a fighter. He executed all his moves perfectly and gracefully that it seemed like he wasn’t even in a panic at all, though his eyes read otherwise. He seemed to be executing very little effort to knock them all out and Haneul suspected that he was aiming for pressure points. Two other comrades suddenly were knocked out at once and Haneul rushed forward to continue the fight. Soon all of them were on the floor and Haneul was the only one left fighting. She began executing one of her Taekwondo routines she had practised with Woohyun and Sungyeol since they were young. Though this didn’t seem to work on his and she frowned. Since when did it not work on anybody?

Haneul was momentarily distracted and she threw a knife awry. The man caught it with one hand by the blade and quickly wielded it in front of him as if to say “keep away”. Haneul, however, didn’t do that. She charged forwards again to attack and the two of them continued fighting.

All of a sudden Haneul experienced a pain on her upper left arm and she gasped in pain. She fell back slightly and dropped all her knives to grip her arm while gritting her teeth. She felt the familiar sensation of warm and sticky fresh blood ooze out of the cut in her black cashmere sweater. “You…” She began and then she saw the man’s eyes widen at her, almost in comprehending.

“Ah!” Both of them heard a noise from behind Haneul and Haneul became momentarily distracted. She turned around to see one of her back-ups clamouring back up. She turned back to the man to find that he had disappeared.

“.” She cursed under her breath.

“Sorry about that.” She heard the same person as before say sheepishly as they rubbed their neck, “There were 6 of us yet he still escaped.”

Haneul heard un-silenced gunshot sounds and screams from the direction of where the UNSC President was making his speech and Haneul knew the Blue Triangle agent must have shot the man from a closer proximity. She could hear shouts of “This is big news” and “Catch that man!” from the direction of the stage. Haneul pursed her lips, reminding herself that it wasn’t her job to care about the UNSC President at all and shook her head.

“No, it’s okay.” Haneul sighed. She then stared at her arm which blood was flowing freely from and pursed her lips as she spoke again. “I don’t know why, but I don’t think that’s the last I’ll see of him.”