The Order

Operating as a hidden sub branch of the Japanese Association of Assassins, the Order gathers a handful of its most formidable members. The group is capped at ten seats, though that roster has never once been filled. Within the criminal underworld its very existence borders on rumor, since the Order takes no ordinary contract work and stays out of public view; only those who have crossed paths with its agents or heard the whispers know it is real. The members answer to the JAA chairman but usually receive their orders through intermediaries.

Each operative towers over the average assassin in nearly every measure. Sakamoto once judged that if ten copies of Shin came at a single Order member they would all be dead within six seconds, and that his own smartest move on meeting one would be to feign death. A regional JAA director likewise claimed that a lone member could level an entire branch. Beyond the leadership role there is little formal hierarchy, though informal mentorships have surfaced, such as Yotsumura guiding Shishiba and Shishiba in turn shaping Osaragi. Members tend to feel little loyalty toward one another and stay unbothered when a colleague dies. New recruits have only ever entered through direct recruitment, and the pay is extreme, with figures spending hundreds of millions of yen with ease.

The Order's charge is to preserve stability in the assassin world whenever friction breaks out, a vague mandate that generally means neutralizing anyone who endangers or upends normal operations. Its members have been dispatched against the escaped serial killers Minimalist, Dump, and Saw, all of whom had been targeting assassins and their agencies, and against Kashima during the Lab Arc because of the disruption his research threatened to cause. When the Tokyo Bureau came under attack by Slur and Gaku, the operative Takamura was sent in, and the entire roster was later deployed to shield the chairman at a major exhibition and eliminate Slur.

Oki serves as the current leader, having taken the role at an unspecified point and recruited the overseas members Torres and Tanabata. The Order was originally founded by Kindaka together with Satoru Yotsumura. A wide array of figures have passed through its ranks, among them Sakamoto, who retired, Nagumo, who was expelled, and Shishiba, Osaragi, and Kamihate, who all quit. Others such as Hyo, Takamura, and Kanaguri are tied to the group across various points in its history, while later additions include the Saionji siblings Kippei and Shiina.