Fujii Tōya strode toward the cabin corridor, then grabbed his subordinate by the collar. "Where are they?!"
A sneer curled his lips. These were the rats he had deliberately let escape. Now it was time for them to prove their worth to him.
"Deputy Fujii..."
Ito Cheng, an ordinary Team Rocket member with an honest-looking, somewhat handsome face, was clever. The moment he saw his deputy captain Tōya frown, he corrected himself. "Captain Fujii, they should have run toward room 312. Heh heh."
"Deputy Captain Ito, you know your stuff."
Fujii Tōya played along with a smile. After all, someone in authority sometimes needed to build rapport with his subordinates. His predecessor had died over precisely that.
No, perhaps he was contemplating life with a rampaging Gyarados right now.
Inside, however, he was utterly cold. He knew this Deputy Captain Ito, whom he found fairly agreeable, would probably die because of his own temperament someday.
Ito Cheng might have forgotten the gender of Team Rocket's current boss. Just because someone said nothing did not mean they did not care.
But he did not mind. Once he became an operations captain, recruits would be everywhere. These days, countless people were willing to join Team Rocket for a single tool. They were all pawns.
Fujii Tōya thought coldly to himself. Hadn't he once been the same? Heh.
If he, who had struggled up from the very bottom, was ultimately killed, it would only prove his own incompetence.
He gripped the Poké Ball containing Houndour, the rare Pokémon he had gone to every possible length to obtain. With the resources he had deliberately concentrated on raising it, this Houndour was already close to evolving into Houndoom.
He had spent a huge number of Team Rocket points to obtain information on this evolutionary line