The New Contract

You’re sitting at your desk, digging through the piles of paperwork. Invoices, requests from Akasuki for this or that tool, potential clients, the whole inner workings of Yamada Support Incorporated laid out before you. It might be about time to hire another accountant to help you. The business had grown in the past year and a half.

Browsing the spreadsheets open on your computer, you start crunching the numbers. Comparing the cost of a new hire vs the time it would save you. The numbers would be tight, maybe landing a big contract would help push the budget into your favor. You pick up the stack of potential new clients looking for something worthwhile.

Several hero agencies looking for repairs on their support items. They’re the bread and butter of your business, but right now you’re looking for something a bit more lucrative and long term. A couple rookies looking for a supplier on some common items, those will be a nice boost to the revenue stream. You eventually find 3 requests for Yamada Support Incorporated to design new support items for them.

You’re no expert on the engineering side, so you’ll have to bring the ideas down to the workshop to see what’s possible. You gather the design requests on your clipboard ready to go visit Akasuki. You look up at the door when you hear a knocking, “Come in.” You dig out a couple other pieces of paperwork you need the Chief Engineer to sign off on.

The door swings open, “Mr. Yamada, Ms. Yamada sent me to get you. She’s got something to show you.” Tasukeko is Akasuki’s right hand woman, second in command in your growing engineering department. When Akasuki hired the cute little blonde, you were worried she had other ideas. But Akasuki has been nothing but professional on the job.

“I was just making my way down there,” you tell her while grabbing your stuff. The two of you make your way to the workshop. You’re curious what Akasuki has to show you this time. Last week it was a destroyed rivet machine and the week before that it was pictures of some girls she met the night before and she needed a wingman to take the straight friend. You never know what to expect when Akasuki requests for you to come to the workshop.

“Ren! I need some N-342 Titanium NanoScrews, a yard of Hamura SuperMesh in white, and a big fat CFO signature on this,” Akasuki calls out as you enter the workshop, she slaps the table where you can see a piece of paper.

“That’s an expensive shopping list. And last time I checked your workload, I don’t recall any of your designs needing nanoscrews or supermesh,” you are relieved she just wanted to squeeze you for money and that nothing is on fire. “I’ve got some stuff for you to . . .” you trail off as you read the header of Akasuki’s paper. The logo for the Wild, Wild Pussycats catches your eye. You skim over the letter, they’re having problems with their support gloves jamming. You remember Ragdoll’s gloves jamming while the two of you were buried on the mountain side. It looks like the Pussycats have commissioned a couple support companies to build prototypes for replacement gloves, and a big contract is offered to the best showing. Their previous contract had expired, so they’re willing to commit their whole support needs to whoever can give them what they really need. “Why didn’t this come to my office?”

“Oh I got excited when I saw the agency name on it,” Akasuki casually dismisses you. “I mean this is our first request from an agency that’s on the Hero Billboard JP! Sure they’ve barely broken onto the top 500, but this could be our foot in the door for bigger contracts.” She’s right this could be a big get for the company. Plus it might give you a chance to see Tomoko again. The parts she’s requesting would eat any profit from the prototype commission, but if she can win the contract it would be a huge boon. “I can do this. I just need the parts,” Akasuki gives you a serious look and you lean over signing the contract putting trust in your sister’s skills.

“Tasukeko, you can order the parts,” you call out.

“Yeah. Akasuki had me get them this morning already. Sorry, boss,” she responds as Akasuki pulls a roll of supermesh from under her workstation. You give your sister a disapproving look.

“What? Oh like you were going to say no,” Akasuki laughs. “Tasukeko, you got the honing inserts ready?” You watch as Akasuki fiddles with a mechanical hand in front of her. She’s back to work and you might as well not be here any longer.

You leave the workshop, trusting that Akasuki and her engineers can finish their work unsupervised. You stare at the letterhead, reminiscing about your one night with the hero. You can picture it now, you presenting your sister’s gear to the hero agency and becoming close with your hero. You’d had your share of dates over the past 3 years since that night, but something never clicked with any of those women. You return to your office, preparing to send the signed contract back to the Pussycats.

You walk into the Wild, Wild Pussycats’ office with Akasuki at your side, and Tasukeko close behind with the glove case in tow. The receptionist guides the three of you to a conference room. You sit in the room, Akasuki and Tasukeko setting up the table with their gadgets. The gloves were expensive to make, actually too expensive. Akasuki kept asking for more and more until eventually we had spent double the budget. If Yamada Support Incorporated doesn’t win the contract, this commission will have been a loss. You should’ve stopped her at some point, but your sister knows how to manipulate you when she wants something. Plus you might’ve been distracted daydreaming about how after winning the contract, you’d get closer to Tomoko and build a real relationship.

“Welcome to the Wild, Wild Pussycats HQ,” a gruff voice starts talking as the doors open again. Tiger and Pixie-Bob enter the room. You watch waiting for the other Pussycats, but they don’t follow. Your heart sinks a little as you realize that Mandalay and, more importantly, Ragdoll aren’t coming. Tiger continues talking going over the specifics of the tests the prototypes will be ran through. You drift into daydreams, ignoring the technical stuff. You normally wouldn’t have attended something like this, leaving it to Akasuki, but you let your hopes of seeing Tomoko drag you along.

The whole affair takes all day, testing the gloves to their limits, the Pussycats asking the support engineers a slew of questions about tweaks that could be made to the designs. From your completely unbiased opinion the Yamada gloves were the best, Akasuki’s plan to spend more might have paid off.

“Thank you all for coming. We’ll have to discuss everything we’ve seen today with the rest of the team. You can expect our agency to reach out within the week,” Pixie-Bob closed out the day. You were still disappointed that you didn’t get to see Tomoko again, but after watching Akasuki in action you have high hopes that she’ll win the lucrative contract. And after a couple days of waiting, your suspicions were proven true when the Wild, Wild Pussycats reached out to Yamada Support Incorporated to offer them an exclusive contract to supply them with not just their gloves but all their support needs. Akasuki immediately started working on new helmets after hearing the news, while you worked on acquiring the materials needed for the other support items. You couldn’t help but smile as you ordered the flame retardant blankets that Ragdoll had wrapped you in on the day of the avalanche.