Authors: Kirika
Title: Shattered Peace
Title: An Unwelcome Briefing
Title: The Calm Before A Storm
Title: First Contact
Title: Dissolving Lives
Title: Allies and Adversaries
Title: Sinners, Act I
Title: Sinners, Act II
Title: Morning Sunlight
Title: Vendettas
Title: The Test, Act I
Title: The Test, Act II
Title: Casualties of War
Title: A Remnant of a Pilgrimage
Title: Homeward Bound
Title: Looking Beyond The Horizon
Title: Return, Act I
Title: Return, Act II
Title: The Illusion
Title: The Hourglass
Title: Dark Crossing
[Author's notes:
The twenty-first chapter. At last! Action! Plot! >_<
- Kirika
http://users.bigpond.net.au/kirika/
k_yuumura@hotmail.com
]“You’ll crease your suit lying like that.”
Mireille’s chiding tugged Kirika’s head to roll toward the bedroom’s door, herald for the towel-wrapped woman’s appearance. Mireille had declared that Kirika shower before her to allow her the opportunity to unearth suitable clothing for the imminent ‘assignment’ from the wardrobes their baggage supplied. The outcome had been the squeaky clean younger girl welcomed back from her morning wash by her slate-grey business suit and a white shirt with a red decorative cord for the collar arranged for her on the bed, and the blonde responsible for the service only now finishing her own lavations.
Remaining inert, Kirika’s eyes; exempt from her body’s indolence; moved with Mireille as the blonde strode to the chest of drawers standing against the wall to the left of the bed; and to the left of Kirika sprawled upon it; arms outstretched and her legs apart as wide as her skirt permitted. The bed wasn’t made, a match for the girl’s untidy lassitude, although the covers had been sloppily pulled to the pillows in a disheveled show of order. Idly Kirika mused whether she had creases in her clothing the same as the messy bed sheets, as per her partner’s warning. She didn’t think it would matter much to her cover if she did, but Mireille acclaimed a neat presentation of one’s self, so for that sake she hoped to have escaped a rumpling. Mireille would usually see to it herself to straighten Kirika up if not. The close, personal attention wasn’t something to really deserve shunning however, and the girl supposed it was for that particular reason that she was in no hurry to observe Mireille’s direction… for now.
Mireille grappled at the towel wrapping around her as it apparently threatened to slip and unravel, and stripped off the hood made from a second towel she wore over her head with a yank from her other hand, wet flaxen hair spilling loose in a tangled affair. Her back was to Kirika, but it was still hard to look away. There was appreciation to discover in all aspects of Mireille’s figure, and from every angle. Perhaps prolonging her comfortable view of her sculptured beloved was one more motivation to linger in lethargy.
Kirika sat up to the blare of the hairdryer going, choosing the edge of the bed furthest from Mireille to swing her legs over before her feet touched the floor. There was a threshold for how long she could shirk an instruction from Mireille. She didn’t want to get a stricter scolding after all. Moreover, there was an instinct, an inherent need, to obey her blonde partner encoded within Kirika. The longer she disregarded supervision given by Mireille, the greater the urgency to fulfill it she felt. As the rebellious seconds ticked, each was synonymous to a step toward navigating deeper into a thickening minefield. Kirika became progressively restless, on edge; her thoughts grew to focus on nothing else but her lapse, and physical irritation manifested though missing a tangible source; her skin itching in, conveniently, awkward to reach spots, and aches that weren’t there before suddenly were. Whatever activity she was doing or repose she was in was cursed, sucked of appeal and comfort.
Yet for all the penalties of defiance, seldom did Kirika suffer them. Kirika was punctual to mind Mireille’s word because she wanted to. Whether there was distinction between the innate impulse to do as she was told and the desire in her heart to, she couldn’t deduce it. It wasn’t relevant. Their goals were the same, and pleasing Mireille was the end result.
Heedless of locating and smoothing away any wrinkles in her outfit she might have, Kirika’s head crept over her shoulder, choosing the ecstasy of drinking in her love’s splendor once more, her eyes addicted to it and her heart to the woman inside who modeled it. Mireille’s stream of blonde locks were the main attraction as their alluring owner methodically ran her wooden hairbrush down their length under the heat of the hairdryer, spun gold coming to luster as the damp was gradually coaxed out. It was always that brush of rosy wood with the faded gold detail around the rim of the back face; wherever in the world Kirika and Mireille went, it traveled in their company.
Kirika had wondered before if the hairbrush carried personal importance for her partner; some keepsake of her home in Corsica, maybe? It looked as if it had a history with its dulled decorative pattern; the colour likely as bright as Mireille’s tresses at that history’s beginning. It might have belonged to her mother. If it had, it was to some extent Kirika’s keepsake too. A memento of the person who had blessed her with the seed that would bear a greater existence than the hateful one originally intended for her, even while Kirika had been at the point of extinguishing hers. Kirika could never forget her or the kindness she had shown in the face of her death, to its harbinger no less. Kirika could see her in Mireille--in heart and spirit, and even in looks. Odette Bouquet lived on in her daughter.
Mireille dedicated a prolific amount of time in the morning and even more so at night to combing her hair with her favoured brush; stroke after stroke, over and over that Kirika gave up keeping a tally of how often it parted and caressed those silken strands. Like magic the hairbrush brought out the best in Mireille’s hair; somehow polishing the mane to a glossy sheen and inspiring a buoyant bounce to the way it fell and moved. Kirika ached to brush her beloved’s hair to that brilliance. To spend the hours peacefully watching up close as her brushstrokes glided down the blonde cascade, being near enough to pick up its scent, near enough to let her fingers flow through the locks whenever she craved the divine sensation of softer than silk. If only Kirika had the daring to ask and the confidence she could brush Mireille’s hair in the proper fashion. If only. In the deficiency, Kirika had to be content at admiring the perfect beauty with a distance forever a buffer. Perhaps radiance as Mireille possessed wasn’t meant to be touched but merely treasured with the eyes… and longed for in the heart.
She could have sat staring all morning--she could have sat for as long as Mireille was there to behold--but eventually Kirika stood up from the bed, running her hands over her skirt to flatten it out this time around, just to be safe. A straightening tug on the bottom of her jacket later and she was wandering toward the bedroom’s sole window, knowing the sights it had on offer behind the shut drapes. It was a school day, after all.
With the forethought of the vigilant, Kirika eased open a break in the curtains, employing a single finger; the gap a nigh on incidental crinkle in the fabric to those on the outside of the glass windowpane, but a peephole for the orchestrating girl on the inside. The sun however, never the fool like those it shined on below, leapt on the opportunity to cast a bright limb into the room, yet Kirika had foreseen and sidestepped even its reach. It was a risk gazing out the window; any antagonist could be gazing back, and the unnecessary security breach would vex Mireille if too gaudy or possibly even out of sheer principle; but Kirika had tweaked the odds of the gamble radically in her favour. The assassin was no more exposed to a sniper scope or camera lens than she was to an onlooker’s eye. A critiquing azure look at her back was the greater peril on her mind, however Kirika trusted her canny approach would prove to mitigate that.
The window was host to the street in front of the Yuumura house below, a slice of suburban living spread out with skyscrapers of the city distant, behind the trees and power lines and neighbours’ houses. It was a threshold to what might have been; to the other world.
A gaggle of giggling high school girls roamed the pavement outside the house, tracing a path Kirika used to follow and still remembered. The uniforms were the same, although the weather saw coats worn over the blue winter version of them. Tsubaki High School went on without her. Kirika wondered what had become of her classmates. She recognised none in the group below. Were the girls and boys of class 2-4 still there? Did they speculate on where she had suddenly gone? Did they remember her sometimes? Or had it been as though Kirika had never been a part of their class, their school, and her disappearance was akin to an eraser removing a mistake--dismissed without a vestige remaining to mark her existence? It was in the realm of Soldats to have lubricated her departure once Japan had seen Kirika and Mireille’s backs; paperwork vanishing and faculty coerced into forgetting about one quiet, unassuming girl. It wasn’t as though Kirika had formed friendships in Tsubaki High School or left an impact on any of her teachers. Even in the world of light she had tread in darkness; she had been of the friendless, a shadow while everyone around her had been bright. The stigma of a killer, a sinner, was not something shed with a simple loss of memory. Kirika had never been one of them.
The girls down there… glass separated them, but they and Kirika were a world apart. Their world was not Kirika’s, just as Kirika’s world was alien to them. Their naivety to it made them safe; kept them smiling. Kept them in the light. It was better for them to not know her. Like Heaven and Hell were separated, a demon was out of place in paradise. Kirika would always see their world through a window; she’d never truly live in it. Still, she hoped that one day she might find a place of sorts in it, but Kirika’s eyes had seen too much death and her hands been wet with too much blood. The light would never wash the shadow from her, not completely.
The hairdryer switched off, and Kirika let the schoolgirls blur as she focused her gaze on Mireille’s reflection on her side of the glass, the blonde’s image overlapping the group. In the choice between light and dark, Kirika would always stand where it was blackest for as long as Mireille chose the dark--beside the woman she loved. That was her purpose this morning and the next, and for every one thereafter while they lingered in their sinister world. The girls walking to school could not allege to have an equal or more important function, and in that sense Kirika had something over them and their peaceful existence. Something beautiful flourished in the deep blackness, like a flower blooming in a land otherwise constantly ravaged by war. It was that lone flower Kirika held in her heart for succour and what caused a euphoric swelling there in her breast. She fought in support of Mireille, to ensure the darkness didn’t claim the breathtaking woman’s life--that nothing would. It was an honour made in love and upheld with love, and even if they did manage simpler, quieter lives together one day, that honour would persist. Mireille and the amazing feelings they shared was Kirika’s pinprick of light in the vast dark, but it was vibrant and clear, and couldn’t be encroached by the void around it.
Kirika watched Mireille in the window as the blonde walked over to their luggage, the girl’s brow creasing slightly as she tried hard to concentrate on her adored partner alone. The voice in her head belonged to Altena, but it didn’t speak like her. Kirika was starting to doubt if her other self had been the prodigy that she had always thought her to be; the perfect student of Altena and her enclave, robotic in following their creed. Altena had relished in submerging herself in sin; she of anybody found grandeur in it. Then again, the voice was not to be trusted. She worked to undermine Kirika, stoking her fears while gnawing at her spirit. To what end, Kirika did not like thinking about.
Mireille bent over to dig around in her bag, and Kirika discovered her eyes alighting on her partner’s upraised bottom. It turned out to be as engrossing as every other occasion her gaze loitered on it, clearing her mind of her perturbing thoughts--all thought, really. Her mind, ordinarily an indiscriminate sea of churning waves and drifting streams went quite silent and still; what always happened during the moments she was particularly mired in gazing deeply and fondly at Mireille. The towel covered most of the blonde’s posterior--it was rare to catch it exposed, and then only flashes--but in the dim outline the window-turned-mirror provided, Kirika thought she could *just* see up inside it. If only the angle were better….
It became an unnatural obsession--Kirika subtly tilting her head this way and that to see whether the new perspectives created would let her view more of the cheeks of her love’s rear. Mireille’s bottom sashaying a little from side to side while she rummaged only heightened Kirika’s level of heady enthrallment. It always moved, swayed, so… so…. Kirika didn’t have a word for how it moved, but it was nice to watch. From far, far away a tiny thought mused on why naked bottoms weren’t shown on television. Or for that matter, naked women like Mireille. That might be a program Kirika would enjoy and make an effort to see. The girl guessed it was due to propriety again; there were some places on the human body that were just hidden as a rule. Kirika would cover herself too while dressing sometimes, when she remembered. But again, it was merely because it was something she believed she was meant to do. At least when she forgot to Mireille didn’t admonish her for it, probably because Kirika was either in the privacy of their bedroom or secluded behind a curtain in a store’s changing room.
Mireille stood up straight, Kirika’s toil to see what she wasn’t meant to for naught, and the girl’s mental faculties returned to her, though how she was feeling disappointed was the first thought shaped. Kirika didn’t budge from her position however, still hopeful for more. There had never been an assignment so dangerous that could match these feelings--the sensation of spicy anxiousness, the flavour of genuine fear nearly, but fear she *wanted* to face and that tamed her breathing to a slow and measured tempo. When her gun was in her grasp Kirika was never afraid or eager for the possible exchange of fire ahead. She felt nothing. This was something else. She tingled with life inside.
From Mireille’s likeness in the window Kirika could pick out a lacy pair of black panties and matching bra in the blonde’s hand, delicate things unlike the underwear the younger girl had. Mireille’s undergarments came in an array of colours and styles, and in fabrics like satin and silk and lace. Kirika’s were so very plain by comparison--cotton mostly cut in straightforward designs, and white and pink and blue the usual shades. She supposed her underwear served its purpose well enough, but Mireille’s was pretty, especially once on the woman’s body. Kirika had even glimpsed panties that left the blonde’s bottom cheeks bare! It was strange to wear garments that looked so nice when no one got to see them under your clothing. There had to be a reason, but it was a mystery to Kirika.
Still, Kirika wouldn’t have minded so much trying on attire like that, but Mireille didn’t possess the same devotion she had choosing Kirika’s undergarments as she did the rest of her partner’s wardrobe. They were always selected in a hurry, with rarely much browsing involved. It continued to the instances when Mireille laid out her clothes for her; the woman let Kirika decide on her own what to don underneath it. This morning had been no exception; Kirika’s suit had been missing a set of underwear. The girl didn’t know why. True, it wasn’t often she thought she needed to wear a bra. She simply put on the clothes she had and it didn’t seem to make a difference lacking one. Mireille always wore one, or something like it, however she was a lot bigger up there. Maybe Kirika’s size was why Mireille didn’t bother spending the time.
Mireille paused suddenly and glanced over her shoulder, and for a second Kirika thought she was going to get in trouble for peeking out the window, or worse, caught peeking at her. Mireille didn’t like it when Kirika watched her change. Kirika was shooed away rather brusquely when she had first sat there staring after moving in with the blonde, teaching her not to look so obviously again. Kirika had undressed and dressed in the company of her classmates for gym without generating an acrid reaction, but perhaps there were different standards in school.
Apparently Kirika’s spying on both counts was overlooked or unnoticed for now, as Mireille was content to look away and put on her panties. She slipped them on underneath her towel however; the veiled approach her normal habit while Kirika was around. But after a wiggle of her hips to get comfortable in her black underwear, the towel fell from Mireille to encircle her feet, and Kirika was treated to her partner’s bare back. The dimple of perfect alabaster skin down the center that followed that sinuous curve, ending at the woman’s albeit panty-clad round bottom, only for two long, slender, beautifully toned legs to carry on the rest of the way downwards…. Kirika’s eyes didn’t want to leave. It was as close to seeing all of Mireille without the blanketing distraction of clothes that Kirika was ever privileged to. Mireille packaged herself attractively in elegant apparel, but regardless of how stylish the clothes were there was no fabric on par with the blonde’s naked flesh--her true, unadorned self.
Mireille threaded her arms through the shoulder straps of her bra, and then after fiddling with it at the front, fastened the clasp at her back. She bent at the waist again to retrieve something out of her bag, but it was for the shortest of moments. However, as consolation, when she rose her stretched underwear was pushed a little bit between the two cheeks of her bottom, creating some delightful contours.
At last Mireille turned around--side-on to at least allow Kirika to properly revere her stature in lace underwear--and she walked over to sit on the edge of her half of the bed. She gathered together what looked like a tan knot of material in her hands and reached down to her feet. When the blonde sat back up, sheer nylon was unrolled along her calves. Mireille got to her feet to pull the remainder of the elastic material past her thighs and over her hips, and then shimmied those hips to and fro as she adjusted the pantyhose to her liking, her thumbs stretching and twisting the waistband about. She grumbled wordlessly under her breath throughout--low mutterings, probably deliberately subdued so that Kirika wouldn’t hear, however they failed to be amply muffled that the girl’s receptive ears weren’t piqued--and pulled a variety of discontent expressions before finally leaving the waistband alone. Tights weren’t a favourite of Mireille’s, but her penchant for very short skirts saw them as part of her garb all too frequently. On one of their numerous fashion-related forays, Mireille had sternly educated Kirika on the topic of pantyhose being a poor and distasteful substitute for thigh-high stockings and garter belt, or even just the stockings. She didn’t remark why exactly, but her abhorrence was unmistakable.
Kirika had her theories she tossed around in her mind, of course. Pantyhose were plain--black, brown or white were the only hues Kirika had observed in her partner’s wardrobe, and with no patterns or designs to speak of--whereas Mireille was fond of pretty things. Contrary, Mireille’s stocking collection, while not having many extra colours, had lots and lots of diverse decoration. Kirika had seen stockings resembling netting; loose like a chain-link fence or tight akin to mesh; stockings with stitched butterflies, stockings with vertical stripes, stockings with horizontal stripes, stockings with checkers--then there was the lace band at the tops, and the garters too! The assortment was as great as their wearer’s taste for them.
Perhaps pantyhose had a comparable selection, but Mireille simply didn’t entertain it. Kirika wasn’t as offended by tights as the blonde; she wore a tan pair like Mireille did now, although granted it was uncommon--hosiery didn’t fall under the category of underwear according to the woman, and was typically set out for Kirika by her--but she had to agree that stockings were nicer. Kirika felt fine wearing pantyhose herself; the texture of nylon was rather pleasant to run her hands down; and they did accentuate Mireille’s legs as superbly as thigh-high stockings did, but stockings; and especially when complemented with a garter belt; had an allure unmatched by their lengthier sister. That stockings didn’t completely cover the whole leg, sparing a tantalising space of thigh above an eye-catching lace design, made them the winner in Kirika’s opinion. She got to look at Mireille’s legs attractively attired and yet still had some of her love’s skin on open display--a sampling of both beauties. And while it was correct that Kirika couldn’t catch sight of Mireille’s panties once the blonde was fully dressed, she didn’t like how pantyhose fit so high on her partner’s hips. She felt it was a shame to obscure pretty underwear of the kind Mireille had during the times it was revealed.
Kirika hadn’t had the experience of slipping on a set of thigh-high stockings of Mireille’s sort, and never a garter belt. Hers were always basic like the blonde’s tights, and cotton, and the lace was absent. Similar to her underwear in fact, which rendered Kirika musing on the secret of why Mireille didn’t handle her hosiery the same as she ministered to her undergarments. She tried, but Kirika wasn’t sure she’d ever understand fashion, or at least Mireille’s interpretation of it.
Mireille made to walk back to her bags, however she stopped when she was faced with Kirika at the window, and as though seeing the girl there for the first time, struck a rigid, officious pose; her hips swung to one side and a hand found purchase on the raised swell. She frowned like that at Kirika’s back for a second or two, her look predictably disapproving, but then resumed her course to the foot of the bed.
Once there, Mireille leaned over her luggage, hovering on one foot while the other lifted for balance behind her, and with her fingertips plucked a white shirt from one of her bags by its collar. “There must be something very interesting out there,” she remarked as she shook out the shirt. The blonde must have felt she had enough clothes on now to tolerate Kirika’s visual attention.
Even so, Kirika was sluggish in turning around and leaving the curtain, the acclimatised convention for when her partner was dressing keeping her chary while also that she had been spying making her unwilling to present herself as too keen to look. “Mmm… not so much,” Kirika said, her finger slipping from the drape. The outside didn’t beguile so much this occasion; for all its temptation it was the inside that sported the greater lure. Peace and wishes were for tomorrow; the gun and a promise were for today.
Mireille seemed grim when Kirika finally faced her head-on, the woman concentrating too fixatedly on finding the sleeves of her shirt for her arms. She tugged sharply on the shirt’s lapels, the fabric answering with a crisp snap, and then began to button it from the top downward. “We’ll be home soon,” Mireille said after she had worked about halfway down the shirt, not looking up from her fastening fingers. She had spoken of the return home seldom, yet the hope was everlasting hanging in the air amidst Kirika and Mireille, and the times she had given them voice were notable enough for the declaration to have neared becoming a mantra, or perhaps a prayer; one shared by them both.
“Mm,” Kirika nodded. She tried to draw comfort from Mireille’s assurance whenever the woman gave it; to believe her; but each time it was uttered some of its promise eroded in the girl’s heart and in her partner’s voice. Today would see if Mireille’s conviction was vindicated, or if the assuring veneer would be abraded to a false hope underneath.
Mireille finished doing up her shirt and procured a lavender skirt and jacket from her bag; a matching set. She tossed the jacket on the bed and then stepped into the skirt before pulling it up to her waist, wriggling her hips again--which Kirika took notice of, hopefully not too obviously--to ease it along. It was rather petite like Kirika had suspected, climbing high on her thighs well above her knees, and with a slit down the side of the left leg to expose more pantyhose. Although it would give more freedom of movement than Kirika’s much longer grey skirt that was cut to just beyond her knees and had its slit in the back, the girl was positive that Mireille hadn’t decided on it for its strategic good sense.
Mireille ensured that her shirt was tucked into her skirt smoothly by way of her hand feeling under the waistband’s circumference, and then walked back to the chest of drawers. It wasn’t just a place to style her hair; Mireille had set up a makeup station there on top of the drawers as well. She leaned close and stared into the little mirror she had propped up against some books, and reminiscent of an artist to a canvas, applied her special paints to her features. Her eyelashes were teased with brushes and her lips carefully coated with lipstick, powder was dabbed and then coloured pencils were used for the final touches. It looked complex and painstaking, but Mireille was packing away her cosmetics bag for another morning in no time.
Kirika hadn’t tried painting her face, at least not for the titivating aim her partner did; camouflage mix for dense foliage and black smears for especially treacherous night assignments were her colours, and the application of both were empty of the delicate diligence the blonde demonstrated with her bevy of attractive shades. Mireille had yet to introduce the practice to her either, the absence of a teacher all but ending any exploration into the ritual before it could begin. Nonetheless, Kirika didn’t feel as though she was less for not wearing makeup. She had stared into a mirror a few times, straining to imagine what her visage might look like with a glaze of cosmetics, but the face staring back at her didn’t alter a notable extent. Kirika took that as her features being fine without makeup, however it would have been nice to try wearing it once. Imagination was no substitute for the real thing, and she could have been wrong about its effect.
Mireille didn’t truly require makeup either actually, and yet following the woman’s efforts Kirika was always happy she had pursued it. Mireille looked ravishing plain-faced, but the cosmetics she put on toiled to highlight that beauty, emphasising her rich blue eyes, long eyelashes, lush lips, and flawless complexion. The blonde’s immaculate features were more… out there, for all to see. Kirika didn’t think her love was more gorgeous with makeup, just that the reality was much more obvious, even to her.
Mireille grabbed a fancy-looking spray bottle partway filled with a golden liquid off the chest of drawers, and then arched her head back, accentuating her throat. She sent out several plumes of fine mist into the air in front of her, before stepping slightly into the rapidly vanishing wafting clouds. She did similar at her left wrist, squirting a puff of not exactly sweet, but a pleasantly heady fragrance above her pulse point. Mireille replaced the perfume after that, and straight away rubbed the insides of her wrists together to spread the aroma.
Kirika had consistently found this behaviour baffling. The girl was of the belief that it would be more effective for Mireille to spray the scent directly on her body. And why the blonde was so sparing as to wipe her wrists together to anoint the odour to her neglected pulse point was awkward to rationalise too. Was perfume expensive? For as long as Kirika had known her Mireille had never been stingy with money--being a freelance assassin was extremely profitable; there forever seemed to be someone who wanted someone else dead, and the skills sought for a precise and reliable execution never came cheap. Furthermore, that guess was in dispute with Mireille not electing the efficiency of spraying her perfume straight on her body. Was it toxic in large doses? That thought was scary, even if it did make Mireille smell very… peppery, pleasingly so. Her presence was rendered all the more imposing just by that bouquet. Be that as it may, its toxicity was in question. Sometimes when Kirika roamed the cosmetics counters in stores in the company of Mireille, the combined fragrances mimicked a hostile gas attack. The girl wondered if in high quantities it would burn her throat and eyes. She hoped Mireille knew what she was doing, and wasn’t making another sacrifice for her beautifying activities.
If Mireille gave perfume up, as good as it smelt, Kirika wouldn’t mourn it too greatly. The woman’s own splendid scent was the best. If that could be bottled and its potency increased, Kirika would definitely adore her beloved’s use of perfume. With that bait, she might have even garnered the nerve to ask Mireille if she could wear some herself.
It appeared as if Mireille still had more to do at her provisional hair and makeup station when Kirika sighted her producing a series of hairpins. Mireille took up her hairbrush again, and looked into the small mirror while she gathered and combed her hair into a ponytail held in her left hand. From there Kirika started to lose track of movement of Mireille’s hair, although her acute eyesight still traced the blonde’s hand motions. The ponytail disappeared into a funnel of flaxen lacks, and Mireille stuck pins seemingly haphazardly in a forming blonde bonnet. When the woman’s hands slowed into patting loose hairs into position, Kirika could take in what she had done.
Mireille had folded her long mane somehow in upon itself, the crease visible at the back of her head. It was like two winding waves meeting and plunging together down a narrow crack, or alternatively blonde silk bubbling up from a crevice. Kirika recognised it as a bun of some style. A mound of hair coiled somewhat on top of Mireille’s head gave her extra height, but it wasn’t total neatness with a large tress allowed to lightly curl down her left cheek. It was elegant, yet the faint disarray alluded at a wilder charm. For all its complex grandeur, the style could not measure up to Mireille’s hair hanging loose and natural about her shoulders and sinuous down her back. Other styles did have their individual virtues, but Kirika liked that simple, free, unembellished style best, which providentially the exquisite woman normally retained. It was how she saw Mireille for the first time waking in the morning, and was her last vision of her when she went to sleep at night--relaxed and as herself. The classy makeup, the piquant perfume--what they afforded was appealing and not the least bit unwelcome, however it was lazing Mireille in her nightwear that Kirika remembered most.
There was no more beauty to be coaxed from Mireille’s body; all that remained was to arm it, the thorns to a rose. Mireille seized her pistol and ammunition holster from where it was looped over one drawer’s handle, and then strapped it onto her torso. Her Walther P99, definitely out of place among the hair and cosmetics items, was grasped next. The suppresser was already fitted to its barrel, and subsequent to checking that there was a bullet in the gun’s chamber via a partial tug on the slide, the blonde secured it firmly in the holster against her ribs.
Observing Mireille caused Kirika to be conscious of her own pistol flush to her body stuck in her skirt behind her back and covered by her jacket, concealed, silenced, and loaded. When it was next revealed at her behest, it would be the death of at least one soul.
Mireille picked her jacket off the bed and put it on over her holster and the weapon within the leather sleeve, and fastened its two front buttons to hold it closed. She flicked her shirt’s broader collar outside over the jacket’s, inspected her cuffs, and finding them satisfactory favoured Kirika with her attention. The woman smiled a little at the younger girl, only just an arc to her mouth, and approached her, her eyes focused below Kirika’s own.
Wordlessly Mireille touched the red cord tied into a loose bow at Kirika’s throat, before deciding to tighten the knot slightly with both her hands. Kirika peered downward along her nose while Mireille did; noting that the woman’s nails neared if not matched the lavender tone of her suit.
Mireille lifted her eyes to Kirika’s when she was content with the bow, although her fingertips lingered on the girl’s collar. The blonde probed with her eyes, searching for doubt or hesitation--searching if the reluctance she had surely sensed throughout their four days of waiting had matured into something deeper. But Kirika knew there was nothing to find; even her early reservations were under control today. Despite the sadness, the wishes for home, and the longing for another day of quiet waiting, when the moment to kill arrived, it was easy to fulfill. It was the aftermath that ate at her soul to admit the darkness. But Kirika fought for Mireille; she fought to protect her. She had to hold onto that and remember why the sins were permissible. She had to hold onto it as a talisman against the creeping darkness inside herself. With that defence Kirika could do what she had to, just like she had in the Metro station, the club in Pigalle Place, and in Albert Laroque’s estate back in Paris. If it was for Mireille, Kirika could and would do anything.
Kirika’s steely reddish-brown gaze proved her resolve before Mireille’s intent eyes. The dark haired assassin gave a small brief nod, and Mireille’s lips creased into a slightly fuller smile. Compunction would trouble Kirika no more.
******
The train sped along its tracks, the latest curve jostling Mireille into a fellow passenger; a bespectacled man in a suit who accepted the shove as an inevitability, leaning with it but displaying no other reaction. Mireille, not so accustomed to these rigours, strengthened her grip on the handle attached to the railing overhead and used it to rock herself back into her tiny cubby amid the jam of commuters, her jaw set tightly as she battled mounting irritation. It was the early hours on a weekday morning--a hectic time to travel wherever you were in the world. However, the carriage seemed to be packed to capacity--and pushed rather beyond it, to the likes Mireille--albeit no veteran with merely a narrow exposure to riding public Parisian trains--hadn’t witnessed before on the Metro back home.
Businesswomen and businessmen on their way to the office and schoolchildren on their way to school made up most of the crush, with those in suits outnumbering those in uniform. Mireille and Kirika mingled fluidly dressed as they were, although the illusion might have been improved if the latter teen girl had been clothed in her school uniform.
With so many bodies crammed together like an ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle, the atmosphere was stifling. The reek of other people’s cheap cologne, the pong of those filthy individuals that hadn’t washed and then attempted to hide their stench beneath a cloying blanket of deodorant, the stinking sweat oozing from dozens of overheating bodies despite the cold weather outside the speeding train, the bad breath puffing over her shoulders from too near passengers; it all combined pungent forces into a single polluting environment bent on offending Mireille’s nose and reinforcing her distaste for public transportation. This had to be it at its worst. Japan had much too many people, or perhaps every one of them had just opted to board this train today, after also stuffing the first train Mireille and Kirika had rode on in Kawasaki.
The railway was the quickest and easiest--although that last was beginning to look disputable from Mireille’s standpoint--mode of travel into Yokohama and to its courthouse, and the assassins, seemingly just like the majority of the morning’s travelers, had chosen to make full use of it. The claustrophobic train was the third in succession the young women had stepped aboard--the first in Kawasaki, and into a similar press of people, to take the pair to the second that had transported them to Yokohama to shortly later catch the present train that would drop them in the vicinity of Yokohama District Court. The second train hadn’t been the ordeal the first was, and that the third was being; a fortunate mercy, since the time aboard had been the longest of the three up to now. The bullet train running between Kawasaki and Yokohama had contained a comfy seat for every passenger and there had been abundant vacant, qualities that had championed a quiet and relaxed transit. Furthermore, whilst it was true it had been the lengthiest leg of Mireille and Kirika’s trip to the courthouse, it had taken fewer than thirty minutes to switch cities. The luxury of the intercity carriage so soon after the cramped conditions of the local Kawasaki train had also seemed to propel the bullet train down the track at even greater velocity. Comfort could condense the longest voyage, while the want of it could stretch out the shortest… in particular if you were one of a multitude of sardines in a tin can, and one without a seat.
Although standing with almost no room to move, Mireille’s legs weren’t throbbing--she would be a miserable contract killer if her fitness was that appalling--but when the option was there, sitting down was always better than standing up in a densely crowded and lasting setting such at this. Yet Mireille had been stanch in rejecting her chance to keep off her feet. Kirika hadn’t uttered it openly, sparing with her soft-spoken voice as she was, but the blonde had sensed the girl’s insistence that she take the lone available seat when they had initially boarded the train. Mireille had had to really beat the proposition back, and even then it had been no small accomplishment given how accommodating Kirika was, and how habitually the older woman took advantage of her obliging demeanor. Mireille was aware she invited that altruistic behaviour; her passive acceptance the same as active encouragement; and thus Kirika did not turn from sacrificing her own well being to promote the blonde’s at every opportunity. Subsequent to much unsure dithering on Kirika’s part, Mireille’s eventual recourse had been to firmly fold her arms in finality and flat out state that Kirika sit down. The idea of threatening that someone would steal the seat if neither of them occupied it before long had crossed Mireille’s mind, but it would have been just like Kirika to opt to stand beside her in that case and share her level of discomfort. Mireille felt it not past her to have given her sometimes vexingly loyal companion a little push into the seat if it had come to that.
Mireille was starting to wonder at her decision now, and the occasional dubious look Kirika gave her wasn’t helping her shaky selfless resolve. Kirika was very much raring to donate her seat at a split second’s notice; she wanted to, the Corsican could tell; all she had to do was ask. However, Mireille thought of the temptation she would never--she hoped not, anyway--yield to and the unpleasant proximity of the other passengers around her as penance for earlier this morning and what's more it served as grooming for her to be the hospitable one from time to time. The woman did like Kirika’s helpful nature; like it a bit too much that she was beginning to take it for granted. That Mireille’s guilt over feeling that way and over Kirika deferring to her constantly was remote and glossed over was a sign of concern. If they were going to be in a… a real relationship, there had to be equal give and take between them… more or less.
Mireille sighed at herself. She was spoiled and bossy and she knew it. It wasn’t going to be simple or painless to break out of her self-centred habits. Being Kirika’s elder automatically put her in the commanding role too and allotted justification to her dictatorship, a position she additionally maintained in their work. But it couldn’t be the same; Mireille was in charge of assignments because she was the more capable in that responsibility. It was life and death there, not life and love. In their private life Mireille’s leadership should be exercised to merely guide and advise--not rule. Kirika wasn’t her servant; she was her partner… her lover. Her equal. It was the ideal, and would hold in spirit; however Mireille would probably always retain some dominance over the younger girl as a consequence to her age and experience. But she would see it diminish as much as it could.
Kirika took respite from pouting at Mireille; unbeknownst to the girl granting her grateful partner a reprieve as well; to turn her head around and favour the window behind her and its streaming views broken by the occasional overpass or tunnel with her doe-eyed stare for a while. Guilt smeared across the blonde’s conscience, and stern tolerance of her circumstances standing in the tight throng rose where a pit of complaint only had root before. This was Mireille’s penance as much as it was her start at a more considerate self. The blonde had immediately felt shamed upon chiding Kirika for her customary window gazing back at the Yuumura house, and the remorse had worn on her from then on. As understated as the comment had been, Mireille was cognisant that she had intended there be sarcasm; sarcasm Kirika likely hadn’t figured out going by her response. That innocence in the face of the Corsican’s callousness could have brought a lump to her throat if she’d been a less disciplined woman. But Mireille could no longer tame her heart when it concerned her beloved partner, and it was shown no such leniency. It hurt. She was trying to make amends in her tacit fashion; amends for a slight Kirika probably wasn’t even aware of; but it still hurt. Perhaps it was because it was penance more to soothe herself, seeing as Kirika was ignorant to her wrongdoing. Moreover, she was causing her partner some added distress too in not sitting down in Kirika’s seat like the girl desired, even though it was secretly for her benefit. Mireille had never been good at apologies--she’d had little practice at it given that her conscience seldom bothered her to make any. But it was something, and Mireille was nothing if not a woman who took responsibility for her actions… when they harmed someone who mattered to her.
Mireille believed the tension of the morning was the culprit for her prickly mood earlier--being in Japan under Breffort’s conditions grated on her relentlessly--though the time to shake Soldats and the conniving man off her and Kirika’s backs was now. But their being here wrested a toll from Kirika too. Every traveller of the black path had their method of coping with its severity and adversity; some smoked compulsively, some drank for numbness; some found peace with family or in the arms of lovers, others in the euphoria of mind-altering substances. Kirika had her windows and whatever vista she saw through them. It was a tiny and simplistic vice for one so tortured. The girl had pursued another pastime before in painting, but leisure that involved people not on the path had a tendency to steer them toward it, and normally not of their own volition. That lesson had been inked in pain inside Kirika.
Mireille shouldn’t get in the way of her partner’s unobtrusive diversion--she couldn’t interpret it herself, nevertheless what her lover saw from her windowsill roost had to be meaningful and worthy of interest--although before this morning she’d seen no reason to meddle. That reason today of course had been baseless and uncalled for--there could be dangerous eyes outside their safehouse, but Kirika was not some amateur hired gun; she was arguably the finest professional killer in the world. She knew perfectly well what to be on guard for when indulging in her usually harmless window-watching fetish, and her precautions were no doubt impeccable. Kirika was not some young girl--she was an assassin just like Mireille.
And as for Mireille’s distractions, she was partial to shopping in boutiques and dining out at fine restaurants, these days with Kirika to join in on her pleasures. The company certainly improved upon the outings, not to mention having someone else to buy clothes for. There were many cute ensembles that Mireille had always fancied, but she knew would not suit her. Kirika’s body and general air was not so fraught, to Mireille’s great delight and continued entertainment.
Mireille smiled faintly to herself, gazing down at Kirika. Even while they were closing in on another meeting with opposing travellers on the black path, the feelings Kirika drew from her could still keep her warm. She’d always have that console, no matter how dire the twists and how barbed the turns on the dark road became. Something beautiful took the journey with Mireille; something pure and good that couldn’t be corrupted in the immorality surrounding her life, something private just for her… and for the girl who made that beauty possible. It made the difference in the Corsican’s days. Mireille hadn’t really lived until falling in love.
Simply looking at Kirika rubbed away the passenger cage, pushing it back; well back; to some place behind Mireille’s senses. The annoyance the train generated became an equivocal sentiment; the reason for even having the feeling a developing mystery the blonde didn’t care to study. As Kirika watched the passing streets and buildings outside the window Mireille watched her, and discovered the view just as enchanting.
Suddenly Kirika’s eyes veered from the glass and in the next fraction of a second her right hand shot out while her body stretched to catch up, seizing something behind Mireille. The something gasped as Mireille jerked into full wakefulness, and the woman turned, her own hand thrust inside her jacket for her firearm and with no time to curse her daydreaming.
Kirika had caught a man’s wrist, his hand, rigid and trembling in the assassin’s white-knuckled grip, kept mere inches from touching Mireille’s rump. There was no weapon in his grasp, but in his other was a briefcase. On inspection he appeared an everyday businessman in suit and tie; albeit with a face drawn and horrified; a commuter in a host of commuters on his way to work.
Mireille blinked a few times, it taking a moment for her would-be assailant’s intention to sink in. He’d wanted to grope her. He’d wanted to grope her… *her*…!
Mireille shuffled her rear as far as she could from the outstretched claw, cold death in her blue eyes for the petrified pervert owner. The audacity! She wasn’t certain if she wanted to let go of her gun, but eventually she removed her hand from within her jacket and signalled to Kirika in the form of a grudging scowl to release her almost molester. Mireille wagered her partner’s crushing fist was sufficient castigation while being appropriately lowkey, unlike what the Corsican *wished* she could inflict. She knew his offence didn’t warrant getting shot--well, except perhaps if the wandering hand…. She shooed that image away--but at the minute nothing seemed too brutal. Mireille let her emotions go swiftly however; her violence was not without temperance, and, for that matter, was not unnecessarily sadistic when employed. Still, she hoped the man was right-handed. He’d find today at the office rather pain-ridden and frustrating.
As the groper disguised as a businessman clutched his injured wrist and melted back into his camouflage of passengers before anyone noticed his vile action, Mireille was reminded it wasn’t just people’s odours and their pooled heat that posed problems in these close quarters. There were dangers in a crowd; it held the potential to be as treacherous as a stormy ocean. A weapon could very circumspectly be drawn and continue to go unnoticed within a swarm of oblivious people, and the target for that weapon in the swarm could be approached with all secrecy under a mimicked air of casualness. When the body fell amongst the maze of feet and people started to stir from apathy, the slayer would by then have blended into the sea of faces, the corpse her or his only sign of being there. Mireille had had her brushes with killers in crowds and had been one herself more than once, but the lecher could have been another rival assassin with her demise in mind; the one that had succeeded if not for Kirika’s steadfast vigilance.
Kirika studied Mireille’s face for a moment before leaning back into her seat, however she seemed to find it a task leaving her partner’s features alone for longer than a couple of seconds.
Mireille’s chin dropped, and her eyes were pushed askance from Kirika’s prying looks. The warped contours of her lips articulated her displeasure, but it was not for the girl before her. Mireille had been concerned about the problems her partner’s sentimentality could bring to their business, yet it looked as if it was her own she needed to begin seriously cracking down on. Affectionate behaviour in front of those who could use it as a tool against them was the bounds of the blonde’s worries for how Kirika might handle the changes between them, but nothing to give validation to that concern had transpired. Granted, it was still very much the beginnings of their romantic relationship, and still in private Kirika had yet to branch out from being the quiet and withdrawn girl Mireille knew her as. Regardless, in the meantime Mireille was an ever-ripening tumult of emotion. Tender emotion she had grown to adore, but there was a time and a place for the feelings, and when working was neither. Kirika had kept her head about her; Mireille must have no less focus, or *she* might become the one to commence the inappropriate intimate touches whilst adversaries looked on, if her carelessness didn’t see her dead first.
The blonde blanched and then cringed at the thought--at the thought of being rendered unable to keep her hands off Kirika, that was to say; it was a nightmare for some reason more demoralising than being killed for negligence--and blew the flaxen tress suspended by her cheek out of her face, just for it to fly back into its former spot. Mireille’s hair was done up in a French twist--part of her small effort to alter her appearance from her norm. Ryosuke and Vincent could recognise her on sight; even a slight variation to her looks would help to ease their eyes over and past her. The clump of hair in her face obscured her features a little too, and if not for that Mireille would have considered donning glasses to give further doubt to her identity. Nothing she could do would hold up to a close inspection however, and her being a foreigner who stuck out did much to counteract her masquerade as an insignificant court attendee.
Kirika, her face known by their prey too, had difficulties as well with her cover despite being Japanese--she was a high school aged girl and might cause attention wandering the courthouse because of that. However, she wore a suit like Mireille to blend in and such tactics had worked in the past. Perhaps onlookers saw Kirika as simply a short woman, or as a youth with familial grounds to be in court. Still, up close she would easily be identified also. It was hard to overlook such a cute face.
But the Corsican assassin didn’t intend for them to get near enough that either of the men or their personnel could distinguish her or Kirika as Noir, not until she decided to at any rate. And then whether they recognised them or not wouldn’t matter.
More distaste kept Mireille’s expression sour and poor Kirika perturbed as the seated girl divided her time staring at her and trying not to. Like it or not, that was what Ryosuke and Vincent and those they had spread the information to regarded Mireille and Kirika as--Noir, the hands of Soldats. Severed hands, if the men had believed the Corsican when she had denied the association with the organisation. In any case, her and her partner’s label was unlikely to change now, and the woman had to put up with it if not celebrate being saddled with the title. It was the truth at the end of the day, for all of Mireille’s dislike and refusals. She and Kirika had earned the name like no other who had adopted it before, and it was not so straightforwardly renounced. At the very least, the reputation that came with the name should put fear into their quarry and any who would join Ishinomori’s side. Fear was a good edge to have. A terrified target made irrational mistakes and hesitated when confronted with the face of their fear, and a fleeing target put up paltry resistance. Mireille had no reservations against shooting someone pleading for their life.
Mireille could tell that it wasn’t in Ryosuke’s nature to beg, however. Vincent, maybe…. Yet each man had faced down Noir with cool composure and blazing gunfire. The Corsican assassin recognised talent when she saw it, and this pair had enough to keep her sharp. They knew the path and had treaded it for a long time. But Ryosuke and Vincent were still going to die.
There were others apart from Ishinomori’s crew to watch for. The courthouse would probably have descended into a hubbub of activity over Kaede’s Ishinomori’s high-profile attendance, with media presence thick. That meant people with cameras, a weapon as prospectively lethal to anonymity as a gun was to a human being. Mireille and Kirika would have to be sure to stay clear of their shots as though they were bullets, at least when the real bullets started to fly. Photographic evidence linking them to the hit being plastered over tonight’s news generated renown Mireille would rather not have.
There were the closed circuit cameras of the courthouse itself to avoid whenever possible as well, although even knowing where each was thanks to Jacques’ blueprints, it would be quite a game of hide and seek to win. The cover of the crowd and the young assassins’ ability to become one with it would be their defence if caught on either type of film; as long as they appeared innocuous in the background, seemingly distant from events, they were virtually inoculated to exposure. That said; nothing more than cooling bodies and harmless empty bullet casings was the preferred calling card.
The Japanese police would be out in force like the media, and manning select chokepoints equipped with metal detectors and x-ray machines. The courtrooms themselves, particularly the one where Kaede’s trial was to be held, would be all but inaccessible to someone carrying a firearm, but the bigger hindrance was the security station screening all visitors that ventured outside the lobby area to access more of the courthouse. Smuggling a Walther P99 and a Beretta M1934 past that would border on impossible. But of course, a professional assassin didn’t voluntarily wander through a metal detector or into a waiting frisk when it wasn’t in her interests, and there was never merely a single way to enter and move around in a building, irrespective of how fortified it was. Jacques’ blueprints had spared no detail.
The train slowed down, and Mireille braced herself for the coming jolt as the bed of air she had been riding began to feel more and more like solid ground. The parroting chirp of the announcer from a speaker somewhere overhead declared the approaching station twice over--sweet relief for some, and a welcome milestone for those remaining. It was Mireille and Kirika’s final stop too, but while their relief might flow sweeter than most for more reasons than just escaping the cramped conditions, bitterness was there to dampen it. They shouldn’t be here, but here they were. Nothing could help that now, though. At least the days of difficult waiting were at an end, and Mireille and Kirika had the chance to shape their own fate at last.
Mireille looked at Kirika, and her partner returned the stare. Their eyes were the same. There was nothing more to say or to think about--except going home. The blonde assassin hadn’t forgotten about Langonel’s Manuscript, but the stolen tome could be buried with Ryosuke and Vincent for all it mattered now. Whatever intentions they had for it would die with them. The book had importance, and Mireille would have scooped it up into her own safekeeping if given the opportunity, but it wasn’t vital in the sense she and her partner must go out of their way to retrieve it. Let it be lost again, an overlooked relic amongst a dead family’s possessions.
The jolt Mireille had been anticipating arrived, staggering her slightly, and the station’s platform rolled to a dead stop in the train’s windows. The carriage’s doors opened with a whoosh, and Kirika got to her feet to stand close beside Mireille.
Noir had a court date to attend.
******
The column of black sedans and one limousine carved through the Yokohama morning traffic with the conviction and resulting ease an outward portrayal of authority sanctioned; the bumper to bumper line of expensive and important-looking vehicles forbidding enough for the average motorist to give the right of way to. Conduct yourself like you are meant to be where you are and doing what you are doing, and only those with mettle questioned your being. Ryosuke believed the motorcade could push through red lights and teeming pedestrian crossings if willing. Strength was uncommon among the mundane and complacent masses. They would rather bend in the wind than throw themselves against it and risk snapping.
There was none of that wretched sort in this car--at least those that mattered were not. Vin sat on Ryosuke’s right, dressed in a yellow suit and red tie that spoke loudly of his probable aspiration of trampling all over the district court’s decorum. He fiddled with his new knife; a butterfly knife to succeed the switchblade left behind in a mansion’s library in Paris; flipping its bite handle open to expose the length of sharpened steel for a second and then snapping his wrist in the opposite direction, letting momentum close the two handles together again over the blade.
“Just like in the movies,” Vin muttered, before thumbing off the handles’ latch and spinning the knife edge into view once more.
Ken was at Ryosuke’s left side, occasionally glancing at Vin while he played with his latest toy. He sat stiffer than his laidback habit, his many ring-adorned fingers--the nine that could--clutching his parted knees. He was probably worried about Kaede and her fate, but he needn’t have. This appearance in Yokohama District Court was a formality, and Ken was aware of it. He was a worrier by nature, though.
Ken had clothed himself smarter than usual for the occasion in spite of its redundancy--a crisp white suit and Hawaiian shirt of giant orange blossoms on cream was prim for him. He would always look the gangster no matter what he wore, but sometimes Ryosuke thought he embraced the yakuza stereotype and fed on that image. The older man likened it to a peacock’s show of fanned feathers; it had its uses as warning to the weak and lure to the curious, although Ryosuke doubted Ken was as lucrative with the ladies as Vin. Only certain kinds of women considered an openly dangerous and brash criminal a thrilling romantic liaison for long.
Taking up the black leather seats across from Ryosuke and his brothers were three women who likely preferred the company of gangsters, although Ken still had no chance with any of them, even before Ryosuke’s objections. Kaede sat in the middle directly opposite Ryosuke, fashionably clad in one of the pantsuits she seemed to like. Ryosuke recognised Dominique’s hand when he saw it. The girl he knew had liked skipping about in colourful floral summer dresses, not the severe and rigid business attire of today. It pained Ryosuke that she had become like him. Kaede was as strong as anyone he knew, but he had never intended for her to live his life.
The mother hen in a skin to pair her to her chick, except a skirt and stockings substituted for the pants, sat alongside Ryosuke’s little sister, their legs pressed against one another despite the spacious seating. Ryosuke was sure Dominique had arranged herself that close to Kaede just to rankle him. Kaede’s decline had started with that woman and it would end with her. No matter what she liked to think, Dominique wasn’t family. She was a foreign invader in Ryosuke’s hate-filled eyes, and a Machiavellian puppeteer, and he would find a way to cleanly extricate her deeply sunken claws from his only remaining kin before she completely destroyed all that his family had accomplished… and destroyed Kaede, too. She was Soldats, and just as accountable for his mother and father’s passing as the other Soldats members they were fighting. Watching Dominique’s influence twist his sister into a sick protégé of hers became more grueling every day. Dominique loved to parade Kaede’s prevailing affection for her in front of him, such that even steel’s patience would start to bend.
Spotting the attention, Kaede grinned at Ryosuke and mouthed ‘Big Brother’ before giving him a little wave, her crumbling mind that of a simpleton’s to her sibling’s troubles. Ryosuke merely stared back while Dominique shot Kaede a sidelong disapproving look and irritated frown. There was still hope.
The last woman in the back of the limo was Fumiko Morita, sitting on the other side of Kaede. She could have been mistaken for a mere friend of Kaede’s, albeit a shy and reclusive one. The young woman was clothed as Kaede would have been in a better time; in a straightforward moss-green dress under a white shawl, and a white sunhat with a garland of black and white ribbon and lace atop her green locks. She looked pretty, but Fumiko always was. That was *all* she was--a pretty thing to look at. Fumiko had amounted to nothing greater since Ryosuke first saw her, but in her defence opportunity for becoming something more had been cut from her destiny. Still, it wasn’t an excuse for being weak and pathetic. Courage and strength was best found during adversity, and Fumiko lived her harsh life in just such a realm.
It was demonstration of the depth of Fumiko’s captivity that she was here in the limo today, outside and unshackled in the free world--outside, yet a caged animal still. The bars of her prison traveled with her now wherever she went. Ryosuke wondered if Fumiko ever toyed with the thought of escape these days, or if she had accepted what her life was now. The woman had tried to flee when initially awarded to Kaede like a wad of banknotes; however her keeper was fond of her, and was unyielding in demanding obedience. It hadn’t taken many recaptures and subsequent punishments for Fumiko to stop running away and submit herself to Kaede’s wants. She had been domesticated, a dog that came and sat at her mistress’s direction.
To Ryosuke, Fumiko was one of the feeble masses in the streets outside the limo, taken into a world too unkind for her. Had fear trapped Fumiko in her cage? If she was that desperate for freedom, Ryosuke believed nothing would keep her from striving for that hope. But there were no more escape attempts from her, no more screaming and bawling; no more defiance for a very long time. She had given up. Was it fear, or did Fumiko like it? Did she like serving? Would she become as disgusting as Claire, a willing whore who moaned in ecstasy in her slavery? Or had Fumiko already become as filthy, deep down inside?
Ryosuke wanted to hate her, despise her and spit at the thought of her as he did Claire--who Kaede had thankfully left behind at Ishinomori Tower, against Dominique’s suggestion that the slothful and pampered redhead should accompany her. Ordinarily Ryosuke abhorred frailty as Fumiko possessed with every fibre of his indomitable being, but he kne
[End notes:
Author’s ramblings:
This has got to be the longest chapter I’ve ever written! I’ve very glad to have finally finished it. T_T
Satsu = Yakuza slang for cop.
]Title: Chapter 22 - These Lives
[Author's notes:
The twenty-second chapter. Plot stuff.
- Kirika
]Chapter 22 - These Lives
“Twenty-two people. *Dead*. Most of them linked with your family’s company-- bodyguards, right?--and two I *know* run with *your* group; your… ‘Kanagawa Kotetsu’.” The young inspector sucked on his cigarette--Ryosuke hadn’t bothered to catch his name when he’d announced it after flashing his badge, waving the thing around with the arrogance authority afforded, like a kid with a toy no one else had--and breathed smoke into the air out through his nose, in the manner of a snorting bull caricature. His eyes darted back and forth through the slowly rising wispy grey plumes to where yakuza still loitered, although under the wary scrutiny of more police officers.
Ryosuke stared at the ashen nub that lit up in the man’s fingers during his drag. The courthouse’s no-smoking rule didn’t apply to the inspector it seemed. But of course--he belonged to the rule makers.
“The rest were civilians,” the inspector blathered on, big shot for a day. He was making the most of his soapbox time. “And *cops*. Good men that didn’t deserve it. Men with families. Men with *worth*, unlike you and your punks!” Another jittery puff on his cigarette, and the scent of smoke teasing Ryosuke’s nostrils, mocking his deprivation. “I know you know what’s going on. Yokohama’s turned into a… a…” he shook his head and flicked some ash onto the lobby’s floor, “…an American city. Homicides are becoming the norm, and they’re being committed with firearms. *Illegal* firearms. Not just the peashooters I know you scum have, but serious hardware. For fuck’s sake there was an RPG attack out there!” The inspector gestured heatedly toward the foyer’s exit and the cordoned off street that lay beyond, flinging ash and embers. “Shit like that had to come from somewhere, and *someone* is doing the killing with them.”
The cop bent down to Ryosuke, wagging the two fingers with the cigarette in the seated gangster’s face. “And I know you know something. The gangs are pretty much sitting back, except for *yours*. The victims are random; lowlifes to law-abiding salarymen. Solitary murders to massacres of scores of individuals. And now your little pharmaceutical company’s ‘employees’. A lot of bodyguards to bring to a trial. Were you worried about something? Or just wanting to put on airs? Nice coincidence they were actually needed. Not so nice for them though, eh?” He blew smoke in Ryosuke’s face, but the stony killer didn’t so much as bat an eye. “Who was it, Ryosuke? Who’s doing this?” The inspector had lowered his voice; secretive and coaxing, as though Ryosuke was some two-bit thug who sang to the Satsu after they applied the slightest pressure, or after they pathetically pretended to be a sympathetic ear.
“You’re the police. It’s your job to protect the people and investigate, not beg me for answers,” Ryosuke murmured. In the panicked crowd apparently no one had seen him draw his firearm, apart from the woman he was aiming for. Without that, the cops had nothing on him--if they had, they’d have sent a senior inspector to lean on him, not this young pup.
“They tried to kill your sister. Your *sister*,” the inspector continued to push. “That’s your entire family, isn’t it. They’re going to wipe you out, just like your mother and father.” He sneered now, low and mean; no longer a friend.
“Enough with your feeble rhetoric. We’re both in the dark,” Ryosuke responded coolly, the jabs concerning his late parents obvious in their intent and weak in carrying it out.
The inspector scoffed and straightened. “Why don’t I haul your ass down to the precinct and give you a *proper* interrogation? Check to see if you and your pals are packing? Is that how you want it? Maybe one of the bullets we dig out of the corpses here will match one of your guns, hmm?”
“You’re wasting your time,” Ryosuke said evenly, unflappable. “I didn’t kill anyone… today.”
The policeman scoffed again. “You think you’re hot shit, don’t you.” Seeming to realise the futility of harping on to Ryosuke, he began to walk away to find better use for his time. “Maybe next time I see you I’ll be covering *you* with a sheet.”
“If it must be so,” Ryosuke said softly, mainly to himself. He sat forwards, elbows on his knees, and took out a cigarette and his lighter, sparking a flame into life.
“Hey,” the inspector called, turning back. He smirked obnoxiously. “There’s no smoking here.”
Ryosuke snapped his lighter shut and watched the cop finally go, smoke ribbons following after him. He’d never met a cop he liked, and it seemed today wouldn’t be changing that. But they were on different sides of the law; lived in different societies--it was the natural order of things.
Ryosuke stared blankly ahead, however the scene around him was at odds with his disinterest. Cops in suits clustered in small gatherings spread across Yokohama District Courthouse’s lobby; every once in a while one leaving and a new one joining, the latter typically snapping off latex gloves or pocketing a notebook as they did. Their uniformed lessers had their hands full keeping the curious public and media outside and the courthouse staff from getting underfoot… and also ensuring Ryosuke’s brothers didn’t inexplicably create some kind of fuss in the lobby’s lounge--unbeknownst to them a very easy and ultimately unnecessary duty. Natural order of things, Ryosuke wearily reminded himself.
Paramedics killed time on the courthouse steps, probably awaiting the word to cart off the bodies once the police had done whatever it was they were doing. Forensics and chalk outlines if they still did that sort of thing. They’d be drawing them for a while.
The inspector hadn’t mentioned them, but there had been plenty of wounded for the ambulance personnel to treat and several to rush to hospital sirens blaring, however everything had cooled down in the last hour. All court affairs had been cancelled and rescheduled for another day too, voiding the majority of the building, although Ryosuke suspected some of this morning’s visitors still remained, providing witness statements to the Satsu. He bet their interviews were being conducted more cordially than his and his fellow yakuza’s had been, but in any case he was sure they had given up little more useful information to the cops than he and his tight-lipped gang had. Ryosuke wondered if Dominique’s Soldats rebels had been interrogated and what they had said, if any had survived to be questioned that was. It was the dead that had all the answers the police were looking for. Wasn’t that always the case.
The lobby’s lounge was where the Kanagawa Kotetsu’s second found himself, waiting with his comrades but sitting alone. Most of Kaede’s Kanagawa Kotetsu entourage had been sent home to gang offices or back to Ishinomori Tower; the remaining few stuck by Ryosuke out of dedication or the mildly insulting belief he needed the protection--yet understandable considering the morning’s events--and two no longer had the life in them to walk out of here.
“Yo.”
Ryosuke’s eyes swung to and focused on Ken as the man hobbled up to him, his right pant leg bloodied and split down the outer side. He had been among the people that the paramedics had ministered to in the backs of ambulances assembled in fleets on the street outside. Thankfully Ken’s injury was not in the ‘rush to hospital’ category which put survivability up in the air. He had acted courageously and selflessly, plucking Ryosuke’s sister from what should have been death; his own death would’ve been a regretful cost for his noble actions, and undeserving. He’d never say it openly, but Ryosuke was indebted to him. However, Ken’s behaviour wasn’t a new marvel. For him, the gang, and its boss, came before anything, even if it landed him in trouble meant for them.
Ken dropped onto the couch beside Ryosuke, slouching slovenly into the cushions. The pant leg fell open as he sat, bandages wrapped around his thigh peeking through.
“How’s the leg?” Ryosuke asked.
“This? A scratch. Had worse after that night in Shibuya with Jun. Remember that? She was a beauty. Too good for me, but she was charitable.” Ken grinned lopsidedly and nudged Ryosuke with his elbow. He was in high spirits for almost getting killed. “I’ll have a limp for a couple of days, maybe,” he said, sobering up a tad. “Nothing that’ll slow me down.” He fingered the surgical cut made along his trouser leg by the ambulance personnel. “Bitch that they had to trash my suit. It was one of my favourites.”
“I’m sure you have plenty more like it.” It was too stereotypical yakuza for him not to.
“Well, yeah,” Ken admitted, almost sheepishly. “But that’s not the point. It’s mine. And it wasn’t cheap.”
For Ken, he hadn’t had a choice in staying with Ryosuke or leaving, owing to the cops dragging him off behind the doors of the lobby’s security office straight after he’d been patched up. The grilling the Satsu had given him had probably been severe; certainly more so than the fairly brief bullying Ryosuke had received. Ken had been missing for nearly two hours, that alone telling of the police’s keen interest in him. He’d been one of the rare survivors directly involved in the violence, and if not a chief suspect in several of the murders, then a chief witness. Ryosuke was surprised the cops hadn’t held him for at least twenty-four hours. He was surprised they hadn’t held everyone from his gang just out of spite.
Ken rubbed the black fuzz on top of his head. “I lost all my guns. Good thing, I guess. I’d nothing incriminating on me. Just an innocent bystander who got lucky; that’s me, heh. The Satsu that saw me bust through the checkpoint are dead too, which helped. Dead men tell no tales, eh, aniki?”
“No. They don’t,” Ryosuke said. “Can the guns be traced back to you?”
“Nah. Serials filed off, standard stuff. Jokers don’t have my prints, either.”
Ryosuke didn’t need to ask Ken if he’d mentioned anything the cops could use against them or even Dominique’s people. If offered the choice earlier, Ken would have been among those who stayed at Ryosuke’s side, gunshot wound be damned.
Ryosuke sighed. “Takeo and Nobuo?”
Ken released a longer, more forceful breath. “They died well.”
No, Ryosuke thought, they had just died. Dead was dead--whatever honour they had earned meant nothing to them now.
“I’ll tell their families,” Ken said, sombrely taking on the duty this time. He’d go personally, into homes often where the bitter abuse of heartbroken parents and siblings waited, or worse, sobbing wives or girlfriends and confused children. It was sadder still when the fallen had no kin or lover to mourn their passing, where family had been the gang itself. Ryosuke liked to think that he and his brothers had provided those lonely men with something before the grave, but sleepless nights featuring old faces rising from his memory spoke of his doubt.
Too many times Ryosuke and Ken had had to darken families’ doorsteps as bearers of bleak news no one wanted to hear. Too many dead, and too many for no good reason. Word on the streets was the Kanagawa Kotetsu was bleeding, and it looked mortal. No young men came to the group’s offices seeking recruitment, and those whose loyalty or nerve was flagging ended up disappearing one day. Ryosuke and Ken disciplined those they managed to track down with a han-goroshi--a vicious beating--but Ryosuke’s heart wasn’t in it, and afterwards he let them go without looking back. He understood. The smart ones ran far, far away… to the country, or to Kansai, or south to Okinawa. Anywhere Soldats was less in the open and not on the warpath. The men who still stood by Ryosuke and the Ishinomori family were to be lauded. Their guts and faithfulness were unique. Men like Takeo and Nobuo had been.
“How did you know there was trouble?” Ryosuke quizzed Ken out of the blue, recalling that he himself hadn’t heard the opening gunshots whilst hanging around mere metres from the courthouse’s front entrance.
Ken barked a sour laugh. “I wasn’t totally sure there was, at first,” he explained. “I heard gunfire--*real* faint, but damn if I don’t know gunfire when I hear it. I didn’t think about it; I just reacted. I took off past the security checkpoint with Nobuo and Takeo, and who knows who else followed us.” He smirked cynically. “It was lucky we weren’t shot by the cops. I guess the other guys who heard me shout and ran after us didn’t make it through like we did.” He fell quiet for a moment. “Maybe it would have been better if Nobuo and Takeo hadn’t either.” Ken turned his head to look squarely at Ryosuke. “I should have called you, aniki. I’m sorry.” He dipped his head.
“You reacted,” Ryosuke remarked impassively, neither approving nor disapproving. He had brought Kaede out, that’s what was important.
“Hey,” Ken grunted, attracting Ryosuke’s attention as he nodded towards something in the foyer.
Vin wandered over to them, hands in his pants pockets, his dishevelled yellow suit spattered with burgundy spots--dried blood. “Everyone okay?” he glibly inquired.
“No,” Ryosuke rumbled back.
Vin seemed taken aback. “Huh? Is Kaede okay? I… misplaced her in the mess.”
“It’s cool, man,” Ken succinctly assured him, not possessing the arrogance to elaborate on his pivotal role keeping Ryosuke’s family alive.
“Two of ours gave their lives,” Ryosuke detailed. “Furthermore there was a second attack outside, on the motorcade. Many civilian casualties.”
Vin sucked a breath in through his teeth. “Shit, that’s going to cause some bother.” His anxiety was not for the dead and maimed innocents, just for the extra attention from the public and police they would inspire. Like slaughtered sheep, no one mourned them but other sheep and the shepherds. “The cops are already all over me. As usual they threatened to deport me and did everything short of a cavity search… and there wasn’t a single woman among them.”
“Hah!” Ken chuckled. “You wouldn’t date a cop.”
“Sure I would. If she was cute,” Vin clarified, true to his predictable, shallow protocol pertaining to the fairer sex. “And if I *was* going to get a cavity search, I’d want a woman doing the violating.”
Ken slapped his knee at that, his laughter charming several of the Kanagawa Kotetsu men to draw closer and see what had their senior brother in sudden merriment against the tone of the day.
“Oh yeah…” Vin reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pinkish object. “Here.” He tossed it into Ken’s lap. “Leaving pieces of yourself everywhere….” He sighed like he was the other man’s longsuffering mother. “It wasn’t easy to snag. Fortunate for you I had the opportunity. Just don’t ask me where I hid it.”
Ken’s mirth was cut off despite Vin’s additional joking as he juggled with the object on his lap. He picked it up and blinked at it, then quickly looked at his left hand. “Damn, I didn’t realise…” he whispered, staring at the pinkie stump where the prosthetic should be.
“So you lost more than just your weapons,” Ryosuke stated. A prosthetic specially designed for yakuza found at the scene of over half-a-dozen murders was definitely traceable evidence. Ken was too careless too often.
“It’s not like I can feel this thing,” Ken protested, screwing the fake finger back in its place beside the three real digits and then rapping it against one of his thick gold rings on his other hand. “It usually doesn’t come off so easy.”
“Your nose,” Ryosuke said, looking at Vin as blood languidly spilled from a nostril, stemming at his split upper lip, and serving to let Ken off the hook from further reproach.
Vin gingerly touched his face, over bruises and cuts, and then wiped away the blood under his nose. “That little brat fucker,” he vehemently cursed, the ferocity of his hateful expression matching the violence exhibited on his pummelled visage. He glared at the red smear on his finger. “It was *them*,” Vin snarled, his amber gaze lifting to bore into Ryosuke with boiling intensity.
“‘Them’, who?” Ken queried, out of the loop on France’s resident assassins.
Ryosuke merely nodded to his foreign friend; filling in Ken was for a later time in a safer environment. Noir. He’d personally seen the French woman on the street in front of the courthouse, and with Vin’s scuffle against her Asian cohort all doubt was removed--they had followed. Dominique’s blunder and Ryosuke’s fears were made flesh. He didn’t ask if the girl was at least dead--Vin’s anger wouldn’t be what it was if she wasn’t still kicking around. Ryosuke had had a feeling they wouldn’t be let off that easy.
The standalone rooftop attack on the motorcade might have been Noir’s work, or Soldats. Or were they one in the same? The rockets had been suspiciously timely, coinciding with Noir’s assassination attempt and turning the best escape route for Kaede and her escort into a firestorm that could have seen the young woman killed if not for Ken’s loyalty to Ryosuke first, over Dominique and her goons. The French assassin had said that Noir were not aligned with Soldats, however it could be Ryosuke had caught her in a lie. Why else were she and the other girl here? For a book of strange medieval poetry? Dominique gave the impression that Langonel’s Manuscript was extremely precious, and perhaps Noir knew what she knew about the tome, which had spurred their trip across the sea. They had seemed to want it back in that mansion in Paris. Or more rationally they were with Soldats from the very beginning, and had joined their ally in the street war here in the Kanagawa prefecture, their desire for the Langonel’s Manuscript being just an excuse, or simply to deny Dominique something she sought.
Whatever Noir’s reasons, they mattered to them only. Ryosuke could have done without the renowned contract killers targeting him and his comrades, but fate had decided differently. The women had skills and plenty more rumoured talent for their underground trade--but they were just another enemy, lumped with Soldats, marked for death. Noir would die just as easily as anybody else would under the gaze of a gun.
There was one pleasantry to be found in Noir’s appearance. Dominique and her associates had suffered the brunt of the assassins’ arrival, the massacre of her people at last along the same vein of what Ryosuke’s losses had been combating Soldats in prior weeks. Ryosuke could almost smile. Dominique herself had nearly become a fatality, and for a too short instant of mixed bliss at the thought of freedom from her and dismay at not inflicting her ruin himself, Ryosuke had believed it true. But alas he had subsequently witnessed her stumble away with his hopes, led in paramedics’ and her soldiers’ arms, from the battered armoured limousine to later whisk Kaede off home. That woman’s time would come. No one lived forever on this side of the law, and old age was rarely the reaper’s instrument.
Ryosuke flipped his cigarette between and over his fingers, before tossing it to his mouth, catching it between his lips. “Time to go,” he said unceremoniously, the cigarette bobbing up and down with his speech. Vin was the last of Ryosuke’s men to be accounted for, and fortunately was alive. Meeting Noir delivered no guarantees, even for one of the Luen Kung Lok triad’s best.
Ryosuke stood up and lit his cigarette, then proceeded for the exit, his hands stuffed in his coat’s pockets. He felt his brothers at his back, trailing after him. Through the glass doors at the courthouse entrance he noticed the paramedics were gone, surely wheeling out bodies on gurneys in either black bags or under white sheets; sort of the carrion birds for a modern city.
The police inspector that had questioned him glowered as he and his outlaw group sauntered by, as though it were a shock that Ryosuke was smoking in the face of consequences. He was young and yet to realise that they were his rules, not Ryosuke’s. Ryosuke was meant to defy them; he only chose when. There were no angels in disguise where Ryosuke tread; there was no grey area, no romantic misunderstood heroes, no matter what anybody liked to think. On his side, in *his* society, there was only the dead and those that had done the killing, and everyone was guilty. People *chose* this life, and they lived ruthlessly by it. And thus the police killed criminals, criminals killed the police, criminals killed each other, and the rest got in the way. Nearly every outlaw like Ryosuke ended their life bloodying a bag or a sheet, or staring at four walls of a prison cell. None could help it. It was the natural order of things.
******
Dominique cradled Kaede’s head in her lap as the sedan traversed an uneven part of the street, bouncing its passengers in their seats. The car made short work of the road home, barrelling through red lights and stop signs as smoothly as it could, bogged on occasion by unavoidable pedestrian interferences. A police squad car paved the way ahead and another tailed the sedan, their presence providing license for the hasty and uninhibited drive through the city. It wasn’t the manner Dominique would have chosen to return to Ishinomori Tower in, but if she’d had the luxury of choice she wouldn’t be where she was right now. Besides, to be returning at all felt like luxury aplenty.
Approximately an hour earlier Dominique had woken up to the faces of paramedics hovering over her, and the sensation of hard, rough tarmac digging into her back. And then the pain had come. It was later reported to Dominique that her motorcade had been the subject of two RPG hits-- doubtless presents courtesy of Soldats; it was too crude for the surgical instruments Noir are. The blast had knocked her off her feet and into unconsciousness, but fortune had orchestrated her escape from serious injury or even death. Bumps, bruises and a concussion, and not to mention the bullet hole through her arm--that was the woman’s tally of injuries for the morning. Not too severe, considering she had met Noir face-to-face. The thought did nothing to dampen the aches and pains, however.
Her sisters had assisted in dragging her away from the wreckage into further paramedic care waiting in one of the ambulances that were suddenly crowding the street along with police vehicles. Some of those sisters had had wounds of their own, but a larger number were beyond what modern medicine could administer. It was not pretty, but the women had died for their cause; Dominique was certain they were at peace in the afterlife.
Her arm was bandaged and in a sling, her deepest cuts had been cleaned and plastered, and a hearty dose of numbing painkillers had been injected into her veins. She had been uneasy throughout the ambulance personnel’s attention and dismissed a visit to the hospital, fearing successive attacks from Noir or Soldats while she was out in the open and vulnerable, however none came. Still, Dominique had gathered her able-bodied sisters to guard her, and, chiefly, to watch over Kaede and bring the girl to the safety found at her side. Noir had tested that safety and revealed it to be far from absolute, but it was still the best Dominique could offer. Better than what Kaede’s brother and his rabble could muster, in any case.
Dominique’s agitation remained with her; she didn’t feel it would depart until she had Kaede within the walls of Ishinomori Tower again. The car they were in was meant to be one of their escort vehicles, not one they actually travelled in. The limousine, while intact despite its fiery and explosive encounter and probably still drivable, had been impounded by the metropolitan police for ballistic tests or for evidence or some such annoyance. Dominique would have liked its armour shell around her and Kaede instead of the much more lightly reinforced chassis of the sedan, however better the latter than riding in one of the police patrol cars chaperoning them, as some of her sisters were forced to do. They would stand no chance against a determined Soldats assault, just as their occupants would not.
Fortuitously the police’s intrusion stopped there. Nobody that Dominique vouched for had been taken aside to be interviewed in spite of the major incident on official city property and her sisters’ obvious bearing of arms and intimate involvement. Mentioning the need for a multitude of translators for all the foreigners in her employ had probably persuaded the law some--and of course her so sadly having no translators she could lend to aid them with their inquiries--but with the paid off courthouse officers, none wearing a badge were likely eager to detain her or her sisters and perhaps have their payoff come to light. The results of the interviews would invariably bring up questions that the public would look to the police to answer, and then their corruption would only be evaded so long. Dominique didn’t expect to have to talk to the police at all.
With her unbound hand, Dominique teased a lock of Kaede’s hair behind her ear. It was a miracle the girl was here with her now, without as much as a scratch. Dominique wished she could credit Kaede’s good health and survival to the loyal defence her sisters’ had put up, but she was not the type to delude herself with misplaced optimism. The women had played their part, however it was luck that had been Kaede’s greatest ally. And *that* had Dominique very scared. At any moment in the maelstrom she might have lost the child; a helpless babe no less; to a twist of fate that would collide her with a bullet, or have her caught in an explosion. It had been a mistake to bring her outside of her home. Kaede’s appearance had been necessary at the district court, but Dominique should have thought of a way around it, to--!
Dominique took a breath, and released it slowly. It was futile getting worked up after the fact. Kaede was all right. They would be home momentarily. She had to think forward; focus on the future that *could* be changed, and utilise the wisdom garnered from past experiences to improve that future.
Kaede dozed, snuggled into Dominique’s lap, unresponsive and docile since the attack. Dominique wondered if the girl had any understanding of what had occurred, or if recollection of the events had been ripped asunder somewhere in that muddled mind of hers. Such memories were best suited for forgetting; Dominique wouldn’t shed a tear if Kaede could not remember this morning.
Dominique touched her thumb to one pale cheek and drew it lightly downwards. The skin beneath dimpled; it was so soft and silky--so perfect, like hers had been. Kaede’s fate would not be like her mother’s. Dominique wasn’t confident she would survive a second hell.
She glanced surreptitiously at the other backseat passenger, that Dominique wasn’t alone with Kaede tainting their quiet time together and the French woman’s similarly quiet reflection. Most occasions it was challenging to remember that Fumiko was there; like she was part of the décor or a faceless servant taken for granted; however that the pretty plaything of Kaede’s was here in any measure had Dominique’s attention, small amount that it was. That Fumiko had lived through Noir’s barrage of gunfire was a marvel in itself, but contrary to the drenching of dried blood over her clothes and more caked on her face and caught in her tangled hair, the young woman was astoundingly even without any injury. She sat demurely with her hands in her lap, unfazed by the jarring gory image she presented. She still even had her hat, its frayed bullet-ridden remains placed neatly beside her. It was too bad Fumiko hadn’t been wearing it when those holes were created. Kaede could do far better than her.
“Who were they?”
Dominique rubbed her hand over Kaede’s neck, letting the girl’s heartbeat press rhythmically against it, and then kneaded the flesh between her fingers and palm. The child was awake, in the sense that she was liberated from her deranged torpor for the moment, judging by the steadiness of her voice. Dominique could always tell when it was the real Kaede speaking over the insanity that possessed her; there was a quality to her voice and gestures that harked back to her mother’s strong and astute character. In these painfully ephemeral periods of lucidness Dominique wished Kaede would rethink her avid abstinence from drugs; there could be hope for her contained in a pill bottle somewhere, some medication to hold her from the edge of madness. The woman had tried talking her charge around to the benefits of modern medicine, but opposing Kaede too vigorously was a precarious undertaking, even for one as entrenched at her side as Dominique was. Kaede instinctively threw up resistance whenever pushed, and sooner or later resorted to violent means of defiance if continued to be harassed. The child’s mind was a mercurial mess, yet changing it when set was almost impossible.
Kaede’s question came somewhat as a shock, but Dominique masked it effortlessly, carrying on massaging the girl’s neck while chewing over how to answer her. The psychotic haze that had gripped Kaede during the gunfight had not been barrier enough for her attackers to escape memory, or for her to recognise they warranted singling out from the standard Soldats agents. It was not the mercy Dominique had sought. For a second she considered glossing over the details concerning the two assassins that had captured the girl’s attention, but relented quickly. She kept things from Kaede when she had to, but it was not too early to reveal the existence, the *true* existence, of Noir the way Soldats knew it to the curious child. It was important for Kaede to understand the peril that Noir was, now that the maidens were apparently united with Soldats in an abomination against everything Altena had valiantly strived for--the peril that Noir was, and the holy avengers they were born to be.
Indeed, hiding Noir’s significance might inflict the greater harm.
“They are the Black Hands of Soldats,” Dominique narrated just above a murmur. Everybody in the sedan bar Kaede and Fumiko were aware of what Noir was, and with the latter woman’s eavesdropping insignificant, talking quietly was unnecessary. However, speaking of the timeless killers invoked hushed reverence, obligatory and inevitable when the speaker *truly* knew them, as Dominique and her sisters did. Noir had appeared as enemies before her and her allies, but they were always worthy of honour and respect. “For nearly as long as there has been Soldats, there has been those that carry out our--their--will with the sword. But they are greater than mere soldiers; more than simple murderers; and more divine than the most devout among us. Their kingdom is death, and they reign over it with an iron fist like no one else can.”
“Tell me everything,” Kaede said.
******
“…was crazy! Like something out of a movie! I didn’t know what was happening at first, then suddenly, ‘boom’! The loudest thing you can imagine! I ran.”
“It was terrible. I saw people running outside, and, ah, I thought it was a fire, maybe even just a drill, you know? Then those explosions. Those people…. It was terrible.”
“Where the hell are we, the Middle East? I’m so sick of the damn yakuza bringing their feuds into the streets and getting innocent people involved. Some dumb gangster got himself shot near my apartment last week. I thought *that* was bad. The police have no control over organised crime in this city.”
“Witnesses had plenty to say, however the police have yet to comment on this morning’s *incredible* violence that took place inside *and* outside Yohohama District Court. Speculation is rife on the perpetrators and the purp--”
Mireille bent down and switched off the television set, shutting up the dramatic reporter, and tossed the remote that had gagged her back onto the kotatsu. She didn’t want to hear about this morning right now. It had been far from Mireille and Kirika’s slickest operation, but Soldats’ stunt had ensured an explosive and brazen finish to it. Breffort had promised her that it was Noir’s show here in Japan….
She sighed grimly. Had she actually believed his word for even a second?
She should count her blessings--she and Kirika had gotten out cleanly; always a plus on any assignment. There were plenty of witnesses to Soldats’ interference, however no one had seen her or her partner’s face to her knowledge; none that could link them to the shootings anyway, or who didn’t already know what they looked like. And Yokohama’s police could scour all the courthouse surveillance tapes for as many hours they wanted too; they wouldn’t find the recordings starring their killers. Noir were as good as ghosts.
The situation had become too hot after Soldats had slapped Ishinomori’s motorcade with a couple of rockets, shaking the streets and the Corsican assassin, and by the time the fire engines had started pulling up, Mireille had left the wail of their sirens far behind. There had been a tense few minutes of waiting at the train station for Kirika, each assassin taking their own unique route to the rendezvous point to disassociate themselves from one another in case of tails or onlookers, however the girl had wordlessly appeared beside her tousled but standing. There had been no reason to think her partner wouldn’t otherwise, yet Mireille had felt the stress of the wait acutely before reuniting with Kirika. These days Kirika seemed all the more younger and vulnerable, and the danger Mireille put her in all the more menacing.
From there on out, Mireille and Kirika had travelled back to Kawasaki the way they had come; silently in each other’s company. With a shared look both had told their respective tales in their longing eyes, of missed chances and narrow escapes; of hearts still beating that should have ceased… and the memory of their faraway home.
Kirika, kneeling on the floor, looked from the blank TV screen to Mireille. “It’ll rot your brain,” the blonde quipped, pushing the first aid kit on the kotatsu closer to where her partner was and placing the small basin she had just filled with warm water next to it.
Kirika turned back to the television, warily inquisitive, as though it were a rattlesnake that had suddenly shaken its rattle. Mireille wondered what strange thoughts she had ignited in that mop-haired head. Kirika had a tendency to take things she said too seriously, or misunderstood them completely.
Mireille smirked wryly to herself. She supposed that was something of the girl’s charm.
Mireille stood up and unbuttoned her lavender jacket and shook herself out of it, letting it drop off her arms onto the floor, and then pulled her shirt out of her skirt. Her pantyhose she had already removed immediately after returning to the Yuumura household--they were scrunched up in the kitchen’s bin, streaked with runs, of course. Mireille had never worn a pair that hadn’t become a casualty midway through an assignment; she much preferred the sturdier and less intrusive classier alternative of stockings with or without garters. The constrictive nylon trappings were the only option for hosiery as the hem of her skirt climbed, however.
The woman knelt beside the stubby table. “Kirika,” she beckoned.
Kirika dragged her bottom across the tatami mats with her arms until she was kneeling in front of Mireille. She was still dressed in her grey suit and her tights--and with not a single tear in the flimsy sheer material. If that wasn’t testament to the girl’s slick ability in combat she didn’t know what was, Mireille thought dryly.
That said, even experts met with injury some of the time, and Kirika had seen a little roughing up during this morning’s affair. It was nothing more serious than a bleeding nose, a few bumps and bruises, and a slightly grubby face, but Mireille felt it serious enough to merit her close attention. Needless, the woman’s mind had spoke, a waste of time. Pointless mothering to a bloody nose already dried and bruises she could do nothing for, and dirt that the shower could and would better handle. Yet Mireille had still gone through the motions throughout the diatribe, preparing the water and fetching the medical supplies. There was such a thing as thinking too much.
Mireille undid the buttons closing Kirika’s jacket and pushed it off her passive partner’s shoulders, before taking it away and laying it on the kotatsu. She told herself it was for Kirika’s comfort, or even to facilitate her ministrations. When she didn’t think about it, it seemed plausible, and the only truth.
The blonde tugged loose the ribbon at Kirika’s neck that held her tight collar together, and undid several buttons down her shirt, stopping before it felt as though she were undressing the girl. Mireille lightly soaked a cotton ball in antiseptic retrieved from the first aid kit, and wiped it under Kirika’s nose, cleaning the small traces of crusted blood there. Warm water replaced the antiseptic after Mireille had swabbed what trifle facial wounds Kirika had, and the woman painstakingly washed her partner’s soiled face with sodden cotton and tender rubs.
Kirika blinked lethargically under the care, shading reddish-brown eyes that grew glassier with every moment and loving wipe. Mireille cradled the girl’s chin in her free hand to hold Kirika’s slightly lolling head still, and smoothed the cotton wool along her jaw line that framed her cute face. The blonde had realised that her partner was cute the first time she had seen her picture on her laptop’s screen so long ago, but up close it dawned on Mireille that she forgot that Kirika was exceptionally pretty…. Beautiful. Staring at her, looking past the youth, the docile nature and the naïve manner, the partner and the colleague, Mireille finally *saw* Kirika. *Truly* saw her, as the gorgeous young woman she was.
Mireille was attracted to the person Kirika was, not particularly to the girl’s physical makeup. It was her personality she had first fallen for, her heart and soul and everything else inside that made Kirika, Kirika. On the outside Kirika had been simply ‘cute’; Mireille had been conscious of the fact her newly acquired partner wasn’t ugly or unattractive, but it had been taken for granted, distant knowledge never genuinely explored. The girl’s looks weren’t the typical type to ‘woo’ Mireille, or so the woman had believed at the time; for that matter, Kirika hadn’t been her type in any shape or form whatsoever. Her type had habitually been beautiful mature and feminine women around her age or slightly older; independent women like she was, and sometimes even more strong-willed than her with a dash of overbearing. But had they made her happy? Had Mireille really known what she’d wanted at all?
When she thought back to the days and nights of ephemeral relationships and no-strings encounters, Mireille didn’t miss them and recognised that she had garnered nothing else but the physical solace from them. What she had with Kirika was so much deeper and more rewarding than the physical realm’s fleeting delights and transitory connection; indeed, the two young women had yet to delve that domain to any real degree and still Mireille felt more fulfilled than she ever had with any acquaintance or outright stranger. Of course, she hadn’t loved any of them.
Mireille’s desire for Kirika stemmed from her heart, but gazing upon the captivating visage before her, that desire unearthed a new font, though one equally laden with guilt and shame at its implications--perhaps even more so, being that much more base… more bodily. Nevertheless, the beauty persisted in front of her, tempting her, stirring her. The feelings were a sibling to those in her breast; they meshed together, different but part of the same, like the raging currents sweeping over the top of deep, still waters underneath. They fed off each other, stoking each other, the desire stronger with the love, and the love enriched by the desire. Glorious…. Without her rational mind telling her so, Mireille would have never known them reprehensible.
Mireille brushed her thumb across Kirika’s cheek, just under the girl’s partially lidded eye, taking away a stray droplet of water. A touch of makeup would look terrific on her; nothing too heavy that would cloud her already fine features, just a little to bring that innate beauty into clearer focus. Kirika’s hair could be styled a bit too, or grown out; that look would be interesting to see. But the adjustments were absent-minded ideas, brought on by Mireille’s own pursuit in cosmetics and fashion. If Kirika were to somehow be frozen in time just the way she was now, perfection would last forever in Mireille’s eyes.
The cleaning, if that’s what it still was, descended to Kirika’s neck. The girl’s eyes had closed, which was perhaps just as well as Mireille avidly watched warm water roll down the contours of her partner’s neck to her chest, then dribble lower still. There were no bra straps on Kirika’s shoulders, Mireille acutely observed inside her half-open shirt. That sort of thing simply wasn’t proper; however objections were difficult to come by while Mireille sat staring.
Kirika’s eyes inched slowly open, seizing Mireille’s breath as the younger girl gazed back into the eyes that ravished her. What was going on in Kirika’s head was a mystery as usual, but that mystery was a blessing right now. Or did Kirika even understand the heat she saw in her partner’s gaze? That thought had Mireille feel even greater discomfort.
The doorbell broke the tension, at least the tension building in Mireille, and it was with zest that she stood up to answer it. That enthusiasm dipped considerably when it occurred to her she and Kirika shouldn’t be receiving visitors at the safehouse. A benign though grating solicitor waited behind the front door, or there lurked someone that knew who resided in this house--someone that Mireille might have to greet with her gun.
The door chimed again, summoning Mireille to hasten answering it. She quickly took off the harness holding her gun and its ammunition to her body and after drawing the Walther P99 from the holster, threw the leather straps out of sight. If it really was a door-to-door salesperson or the like, it would not do to spook them with the sight of the pistol harness, something usually only law enforcement wore.
Her gun at her hip, Mireille opened the door a crack; half as far as the security chain allowed; ready for the police, an Ishinomori assassin, or any woman or man with a weapon. However her caution was unneeded, although her hostility might still be in order--it was Jacques on the doorstep.
Mireille lips twisted, but she undid the chain to let him in before walking away, leaving the man to see himself inside. Her frosty reception exposed her back to a Soldats lackey, but Kirika had him in her eye, alert and fully awake now--the blonde wasn’t really exposed at all.
“I thought I’d drop by,” Jacques said as he shut and locked the front door and flicked off his shoes with his thumbs. “Just to see that you’d settled in.”
“How thoughtful,” Mireille said, purposely as banal as the Soldats operative’s explanation. Jacques had his briefcase, and he was Soldats; a social call was as far-flung as his homeland. The Corsican hadn’t expected to see him ever again. “But no housewarming present?”
“I…” Jacques looked surprised for a second, the idiot taking Mireille too seriously, but collected himself while adjusting his trademark black sunglasses on his face. “It… didn’t go like we’d foreseen,” he said, discarding the congenial airs and getting down to the real reason for his visit. “Plenty of collateral, yet none of the priority targets.” He paused deliberately. “Targets we wanted dead.”
Mireille sat down beside Kirika, and laid her Walther P99 in front of her on the kotatsu. Since leaving the city she had been trying not to think about what had happened in Yokohama; trying not to let what little was accomplished and the subsequent second guessing that always cropped up sooner or later with assignments of a personal nature eat her up inside. Jacques’ appearance put an end to that, but she had to confront reality eventually. She just would have preferred if it had been on her terms, and especially not when she was valuing her privacy with her partner.
“I realise that,” Mireille admitted acidly to the interloper. “You saw fit to even try yourself with that ham-fisted attack. It wasn’t a help and it wasn’t the agreement.”
“That wasn’t us,” Jacques said, sitting down at the table, across from the blonde. He quietened for an instant, and Mireille mused whether behind his dark lenses he was gauging the open medical kit on the kotatsu and its implications. “None of my employer’s, at any rate. We would never be so public,” Jacques went on, making no further indication that he saw the kit. “Plus we keep our word.” Mireille almost laughed at that one. Bitterly and on the inside, anyway.
“And besides, we know how capable you both are by yourselves. I mean, we *thought* you…” Jacques trailed off for his own benefit, with the sense to appear uncomfortable. “Alas, an opportunity I doubt we will get again has slipped through your--*our*--fingers,” he continued somewhat more carefully, his diplomacy still shaky. “They’ll lock Kaede Ishinomori in that tower of hers for weeks and won’t let her peek out a window even.”
“Then we’ll take her there,” Mireille said evenly. “As soon as possible.”
“Don’t you think *we* would have done that if we’d assessed it feasible?” Jacques argued. “Not with all her allies. The level of security there is just--” His voice raised and one hand swept across the table in exclamation; however he calmed when he realised his excitement. “And it’d be *worse* for you. They *know* you…. They all do.”
Mireille looked away and chewed on her lower lip for a moment before restraining herself. She could feel Soldats’ grip tighten around her; suddenly feel the strings on her limbs that had always been there. It didn’t unnerve her--it was too familiar to. But it did anger her.
“You understand now why her empire, her supports, must be taken out piece by piece,” the tool of Soldats spoke. “If just to simply make Ishinomori vulnerable. But her hierarchy isn’t strictly a pyramid; pop off the cap and the foundations crumble--every rebel beside her could be another Kaede Ishinomori should she die; another anarch for the zealots. Le Grand Retour…” Jacques shook his head, looking down at the table. “Naïve fools. The world became too complex for that.”
“Maybe they aren’t completely wrong,” Mireille said. She turned back to Jacques, staring directly at his sunglasses. “I know the world would be a better place without *you*.”
Jacques snorted. “The world would be chaos without us. The peace we have now is as realistic as paradise gets. It’s the people, you see. You should know this, in your line of work. Wherever there are people, there is conflict. It’s human nature. And damned if I don’t prefer it that way; I’d rather be a brute than lobotomised like the Retour advocates.”
Mireille smiled faintly; coldly. “You’re all the same to me.”
Jacques smiled wanly back. He opened his briefcase, producing a dossier that he slid across the kotatsu to the blonde. “Updated reports on our situation. With your stay indefinite, you’ll need them.”
“No.”
Jacques frowned, confused. “Trust me, the information inside is price--”
Mireille looked at Kirika, who favoured the blonde with her deep soulful stare. “No,” the woman uttered again, holding her partner’s look. “We’ve done enough. We attacked, we killed; it’s enough.” She took a breath and turned her head back to Jacques. “We’re going home.”
It felt awkward as soon as Mireille announced it; going against her plans, her nature; her good sense. It was a spur of the moment decision determined by emotion; dangerous and not without its price; but what choice didn’t have danger? There were *degrees* of risk, her rational mind advised, yet at that second logic seemed to demand unreasonable things from her. She was tired of being pulled where Soldats led; she was tired of Kirika being dragged along with her to share her fate. Mireille’s instincts screamed at her; screamed about loose ends, vengeance for Paris, about the possibly fatal ramifications. But none of it seemed worth giving up the control over her life she had just reclaimed, nor did she deem that any of the consequences were insurmountable. She could only focus on her independence, and how it would bring her and Kirika home.
Kirika was giving Mireille a new look, obviously mildly taken aback by her partner’s uncharacteristic ‘retreat’ as it were; however the blonde was positive Jacques on the other hand couldn’t interpret past the girl’s stoicism, and moreover certainly not while wrapped up in his own much more flagrant show of shock.
“It’s *not* enough,” Jacques spluttered, his eyebrows lifting above the upper rim of his shades and his hands slapped flat on the kotatsu, as though he were about to lift himself up too. “Y-You’re not serious, are you? My employer expects results, I mean, you can’t just *leave* a job unfinished!”
“This was never a ‘job’. This was Soldats sticking their fingers in lives they should have known to leave alone.” What would keep Breffort from insisting that the Soldats council still needed more proof of where Mireille and Kirika’s loyalties lay? Soldats would have Noir fighting their battles in Japan until there was no one left they wanted dead to kill, if they had their way. Instead of Altena pulling the Black Hands’ strings, it would be Breffort and his ilk. Noir had fought Soldats’ enemies; they had killed some. They had punished for the improper use of their mantle. In the eyes of reason, they had done enough. If Soldats wanted more, then their true intentions were beyond doubt… and there wasn’t a chance Mireille would abide them.
“You must realise the consequences,” Jacques persisted. “You can’t just-- just--! Not even *you* could hope to live longer than a month, two months, tops! Because that’s how long you’ll buy! You’ll be on the run until they *choose* to erase you from their world!” His protests were clearly heartfelt; Mireille wondered if he felt his own life would be at stake if she and Kirika left Japan permanently. But what he spoke of were still the same vague ‘hammer of God’ threats Soldats were good for. Mireille had heard it all before, and from more powerful people than Jacques.
“We’re not a part of Soldats, and we never were,” Mireille said. “If they think to dispute that…” She fingered her pistol. “Then as you said, they’ll know were to find us.”
Jacques was shaking his head from side to side, gaping, and had started to perspire, a sheen developing across his forehead. “You’re smart,” he croaked, rubbing his sweaty hands over his suit sleeves. “Be smart about this. It’s not just us, but Ishinomori too who’ll be out for your blood. They know you just as we do. They’ll come for you too, eventually. You….”
He sighed heavily and stood up with his briefcase. “It’s not good that I come here too often,” he muttered quickly. He kept his head down, avoiding looking at Mireille or Kirika. “I’ll send further updates via email. I’ll see myself out.”
Jacques strode to the genkan and hurriedly put on his shoes. He opened the front door, but stopped with it ajar and his hand on the handle. “You are *them*… *Noir*,” he breathed. “You’ll always be until you’re both dead. You’re part of this world, and Soldats…” He exhaled slowly, and at length. “Soldats *is* the world. That makes Soldats part of you. Each of us figures that out, soon enough.” He stepped outside, shutting the door after he’d gone.
Mireille looked at Kirika. The girl knelt there, unfazed. She’d follow Mireille into hopeless odds if the woman asked. She’d face the world itself in a violent opera sang with guns and in a bullet ballet danced by killers, as Mireille had considered herself once before when her young partner’s life and heart had been at risk… when both of their lives and hearts had been at risk. However to face the world was no hyperbole; Soldats indeed was everywhere, rooted in every level of society and in every nation on earth. All death was certain sooner or later, by the bullet or the blade or blessed old age, yet openly calling down Soldats upon them was tantamount to suicide, or at best sentencing them to live a life even more constrained by peril than the one Mireille and Kirika lived now. In her pursuit of freedom, Mireille might instead throw away the cherished amount she and her partner had.
******
There was history in every item; a unique history unheard of among the ranks of most scholars and historians, even the most learned and respected; a saga no less, stretching from the Dark Ages to this modern day and age. The privileged knew it in some shape or form; at least those who had been privileged for long enough; but people like Dominique and her sisters knew it better than anyone. It was people like her and her sisters who had recorded it.
This room was as close to the Manor as any in Dominique’s fold could venture; this monument to an illustrious ideal that had rung around the world--would ring again. Encased behind glass were fraying tapestries, faded paintings, tattered books, discoloured weaponry, battered shields, decaying documents--rotting relics from time immemorial, and their worth far more than all the precious metals on earth combined. This room was an alien and ignoble resting place for them, but time had proved it could reach even a timeless place. Some had felt it blasphemy to remove the artifacts, however Dominique and others who had possessed the same fears and reverence as her had taken it upon themselves to save what they could from the Manor, smuggled out under Soldats’ noses at extreme risk. Who knew what the old men might have done, when they’d had the gall to lay siege against that sacred ground’s unswerving defenders? The Manor and its surrounding buildings and everything within could be pulled down to their foundations now, with the rubble collapsing and sealing off the subterranean levels, and nearby vineyards put to the torch and the blackened soil thereafter salted. Dominique had apologies for no one.
With the importance of the items inside, naturally the room was off limits to anybody who wasn’t a sister, even Kaede, despite it being on the penthouse floor where she lived. The glories of Soldats, the *true* Soldats, and their holy warriors weren’t for defiling by commoners’ eyes, of which there were regrettably many residing in or frequenting Ishinomori Tower.
Dominique would never demean Kaede by lumping her in with the rest of the rabble-- namely her brother’s ragtag group and Japan’s criminal element that she’d had no choice in allying herself with--she was certainly no commoner; she was a sister by her righteous deeds if not already by blood. Yet a sister in all but name was still not truly a sister. In another life she probably would have risen officially to the full title, following in her mother’s footsteps, but in this one it was a loftier legacy that saw Kaede’s informal early admittance to Soldats’ annals. The world didn’t need another sister--it needed its champions.
“The world was in turmoil when Soldats was conceived,” Dominique said, admiring her predecessors’ accomplishments with a fond smile as she walked between the rows of display cases. It was sunset, the flagging golden light filtering through the blinds painting each relic with a deserving hallowed aura. The woman enjoyed touring the room at this time of day just for that. She’d wanted Kaede to experience the same sights, feel the same veneration, and as such had held off slaking the child’s thirst for knowledge until now. Temperance and her charge was fickle and trying, however the feat was made significantly easier with Dominique’s arm in a sling; Kaede’s resultant sympathy and anxiety producing a girl more willing to listen, and accept.
“War in every corner, famine, plague and persecution everywhere else. Religion had failed to unite, but rather was the cause of many of the troubles. We saw that kingdoms could not govern themselves without harming their neighbours, or their own people. We saw religion as an excuse for conflict. We saw wealth as the moral defiler.” Dominique stopped where a painting hung, the dull oils depicting a short-haired weasel of a man peeking around behind a throne, whispering into the ear of a contemplative monarch resting his chin on his fist. But lurking behind both, in the shadows barely visible, was a face belonging to a third party. If the work had a title it was lost to the ages, but its meaning was obvious.
“And thus, someone had to govern *everything* as a whole, unbound from Rome’s meddling and stifling edicts, and incorporeal, incorruptible, that not the sword or the pen or the coin could interfere. Benevolent--*supreme*.”
“I’ve heard this story,” Kaede said, making her own path through the display cases. She touched her hand to one glass pane housing stacks of parchment that declared secrets that could rewrite history books. Squeaks erupted as she walked onwards dragging her hand behind her on the glass. “And I know how it ends.”
Dominique smiled faintly, as a teacher would for a conscientious pupil. They’d write their own story, rekindling the triumphs of the first. Their names would be remembered, and their achievements recorded in ink and paint and put on exhibition just as the successes of old were now around them. However, neither woman cared for fame or the past. It was vengeance that drove the change currently consuming Soldats--hatred and sorrow, raw and human. Change was a means to their end.
“Yes,” Dominique acknowledged. “Ideas can be incorruptible, however the people behind them….” She combed her fingers down through her hair, and swept the long tresses back over her left shoulder. “People disappoint.”
The French woman walked over to where a crude wooden mannequin stood; shielded by glass of course; dressed in familiar garb she had worn herself and still had in her possession. Robes of white under lilac and white over lilac again, gold trim and turned up cuffs and a lighter lavender scarf at the neck. It was present day’s livery for the loyal, for the most pious, although it had evolved into this appearance at least a hundred years prior.
“There are always those that have to die for the greater good that they refuse to or are too blind to see. The knife in the dark did its job, but we needed something beyond the crude murderer. Killers as incorruptible as our ideals, yet who did not balk at debasing themselves with the sin they cleansed. Killers who bred such fear that the knife never need be drawn.
“So it was that we grew hands. Black Hands. That was--is--their name. Noir.” The rapture on her face was there before Dominique knew it, and in her eyes she saw the past as those sisters before her must have done, wonderful and full of promise--sublime.
“So they’re French?” Kaede gathered.
“Not as a rule, but it’s accepted the *vision* of Noir was first perceived in what would become France,” Dominique said, the child’s voice fetching her back to the present. “I apologise but some details are sketchy despite our records, however where the first Noir was conceived there is no doubt.” She flourished her good arm around at the artifacts about them. “These items came from that place. The Manor. Ruins now, but back then it had been much more.
“Other buildings sprung up around it as the need arose; living quarters, a grand arena. But the Manor was constant. Yet it hadn’t made its start as a manor house; it had been a convent, founded in a remote and rather barren region at modern day France’s border, but even there the wars reached. It tore at the hearts of the nuns dwelling there, and at their faith. Faith in God, and in Soldats, for every one of them believed in the ideal. They wept, they prayed. Finally, in their reverie, they saw what was needed. What the world needed.”
Dominique moved to a tapestry, one of her favourites if not the most. It showed two women in flimsy robes wielding swords against a huge army, the soldiers, both on foot and mounted, decked out in plate and mail in clear weighted comparison. Hopeless odds, yet looking at it one felt the women would emerge victorious.
“The first were two women; an abandoned urchin and an orphaned noble girl. Why? Do not ask. Perhaps the convent also maintained an orphanage. Perhaps the sisters felt that women’s hearts could feel the plight of the world more deeply. Whatever the reason, the Black Hands have traditionally been young women without parents. Saplings to be nurtured into strong trees. The sisters kept them, trained them, and the Mother Superior loved them. The girls would face scorn for their bloody role, lose their innocence, but in the Mother Superior’s tender arms they could regain it time and again, murder after murder. The Kind Mother.”
Dominique looked over to two crossed tarnished swords erected on a stand. The blades were straight, and long and slender. And still sharp--Dominique had retrieved them from the Manor herself.
“Noir fought armies, or so it was written. Certainly their crusade slew several armies’ worth of men and women. When they fell another incarnation was reaped. Noir was immortal.”
“Why two?” Kaede asked, stepping nearer to peer at the swords. “Why not three then, or ten, or a whole army?”
“Why not? Two is better than one.” Dominique sighed, realising she had dodged the question, and not nimbly.
“But--”
“They had to be connected,” Dominique revealed in a rush, wondering if this was the one secret that might have been better to keep from her charge. Too late to second guess now. “It-- it was the key. The crucial thing that kept them pure in the darkness when the Kind Mother’s affection was not enough. They had to care for each other; their hearts had to be connected. As friends, as siblings…. As lovers was best. With that link, they became an army unto themselves.” Dominique was intimate with the strength love could muster. While the girl’s understanding was different, she was positive Kaede knew as well.
The room fell silent as its two visitors reflected on their respective understandings, and on the deeds they had yet to fully see through. Oh yes, Kaede knew.
Dominique cleared her throat. “The sisters of the convent slowly… ‘reworked’ their faith. Christian paraphernalia was replaced by weapons and other tools of battle, and with celebrations of their creation’s exploits,” she said, walking towards the centre display case. “They’d found something more reliable to believe in--‘Noir. This word designates since a distant epoch the name of destiny. The two virgins reign over death. The black hands protect the pea
[End notes: Author’s ramblings: This chapter was pretty much for plot stuff, and to get characters firmly on the right and believable track, especially Mireille/Kirika. The Noir/Soldats history stuff I just pulled out of the air. I hope it is acceptable! ^.^]
Title: Chapter 23 - Family Matters
[Author's notes:
The twenty-third chapter. Some necessary plot stuff before the crunchy centre.
- Kirika
]Chapter 23 - Family Matters
Ryosuke stalked through the halls of Ishinomori Tower, his heavy boots heralding his rapid and inexorable passage with violent clomps against the floor. Anyone who happened to be in his path was quick to remedy that, darting aside as the juggernaut in black strode past, lest they be trampled. He would not care if it came to that, and those in the way knew it--the women encountered in the corridors of what was supposed to be his home were the ‘guests’ of Dominique, with the viper at the centre of the nest a guest herself, no less. Ryosuke was virtually alone in that treacherous nest, poisoned fangs and forked tongues all around, but he held no fear for himself. That wasn’t to say his heart did not harbour it--only the mad or the stupid were fearless, and he was neither--and this morning he was wholly its thrall.
The fear wasn’t for himself however, but, as usual, for his sister, afflicted as she was with the mad-induced breed of daring. It seemed Ryosuke was the last to learn of Kaede’s reckless if not bordering on suicidal intentions; too frequently was he on the bottom of the grapevine in family matters these days, where news was trickled down from eavesdropping at the right places at the right moments. No prizes for guessing why, of course. He was consigned there at the lowest rung by the one person he had been sure would at least keep his younger sister from physical danger for the time being, if not out of genuine affection then out of practical concern for an asset. Whatever motivation, Dominique had not this time. It left Ryosuke afraid, and smothered in cold fury.
The yakuza’s head started to beat in cadence with his footsteps, the jackhammer buried in his skull gradually strengthening and hastening, seeming intent on busting clean through the bone. Through the haze of pain he wondered what he was going to say to Kaede that wouldn’t just sound like his temper exploding. She would listen to him, though. She would. This was where he was different to Dominique; superior--he and Kaede had a connection the gaijin could never touch, and never hope to match.
Two of Kaede’s compulsory bodyguards--who probably took orders from Dominique over the word of their supposed mistress they protected--stood outside the door to her private apartments, dressed in their prim black suits and eyeing Ryosuke’s appearance dispassionately, as though he were the unruly neighbourhood boy come to bother them--a childlike annoyance at best. Every Soldats rebel had likewise caustic stuck-up attitudes when they weren’t being aloof; they underestimated anybody not in their little exclusive club, and treated them with matching disrespect. Humility would be a harsh inevitable lesson for them. Yesterday Noir had given them their first taste since their defeat and ousting from whichever part of Europe had originally spat them out, but Ryosuke himself would feed them the full, fatal dose one day.
One of the guards stepped in front of Kaede’s door and held her arm out with her hand raised casually, a weary gesture for him to halt. “She’s--” the woman began, compliance taken for granted. However Ryosuke did not halt.
The gangster seized the rebel’s extended arm and roughly pulled her out of his sight, into her nearby compatriot. Together the women stumbled, scandalised squawks issuing from their throats as they strived to regain their respective balances. Before that happened, Ryosuke had opened his sister’s door, audaciously unlocked, and stormed into the room the women so haplessly had defended.
Kaede wasn’t the first to live in these apartments. She followed in another woman’s footsteps, taking them over after her mother--after Ryosuke’s mother--had become mortally entangled with Soldats’ machinations. With hindsight and wisdom garnered from his years of separation lurking in the dark corners of Japan’s backstreets, it was clear to Ryosuke that Hikaru Ishinomori’s end had been preordained. Soldats was like a terminal disease; it took its time, but eventually it went for your life. And the cure…. If there was a cure, it would be found by Ryosuke and his comrades, which tentatively included Dominique and her rebels. They were taking a scalpel to it, carving out the sickness that polluted the world. The gangster did not forget however that Dominique and her women were Soldats too, and had been catalysts for his mother’s corruption and demise. It would not be over until *they* were purged from all aspects of civilization as well.
Entering the apartments still jarred the man to this day--he wished his sister would think about changing the décor. The rooms were as he remembered them as a boy, before he’d left Ishinomori Tower in disgust. The colour scheme was gentle on the eyes, while the taste in art was untamed in comparison, garish and angular. It spoke of Hikaru Ishinomori’s personality, but mere echoes of it, not enough for her son to understand. She would forever endure as an enigma to Ryosuke. A figure to be despised… and loved. He was still his mother’s son.
Kaede was in the living room, attended by her two shadows with their primped hair and made-up faces, and flexible dignity. Fumiko hovered around her owner, devoted in her attention though timid with her touches, while Claire mostly stood back, seeming impatient and begrudged to get any closer. The habitually browbeaten green-haired woman was wrapped in a simple white satin robe, while her shamelessly immoral redhead counterpart wore one of her trademark yukatas virtually sliding from her shoulders. It was blue, crashing waves on the bottom half and eighteenth century galleons navigating the currents on the top, several smashed to jagged lengths of timber; hulls cracked and masts snapped, with white sails in tatters, billowing wildly in the pictured storm. It didn’t suit her. Claire was another invading gaijin, an acquaintance of Dominique’s in some sense, and manoeuvred somehow into Kaede’s bed, slyly playing on Ryosuke’s sister’s appetites. For what purpose could be speculated at, but none containing benevolence. Claire certainly was no Fumiko; she was a wolf pretending to be a hound.
The slaves were regarded dispassionately by Ryosuke, noted and then dismissed as beneath further thought in a fraction of a second. Fumiko--and when she deigned lift a finger to assist, Claire--were dressing their mistress for the new day. That Kaede was naked before them--and before *him*--was what insisted on Ryosuke’s complete attention.
It bid the yakuza freeze for the briefest of instants, likely unnoticeable to anyone watching, but a pause, a *hesitation*, nonetheless. It had been rude to barge in unannounced, especially into a woman’s quarters, however Ryosuke was not about to back-pedal now. He wouldn’t give Dominique’s guards outside or Claire inside the satisfaction of seeing his weakness. Nor could he afford to.
Boldly the gangster slammed the door closed in the Soldats rebels’ indignant faces as the women rushed to oppose him once more, angrily this time. Had they been a second swifter he would have smacked their noses--unfortunately their sloth was his loss. He locked the door, just in time to counter frantic turns on the handle, every one of them rendered futile. The women were too prideful to resort to banging their fists against the door.
“Meeting Noir is a mistake,” Ryosuke declared in a vehement growl but without fanfare, his eyes pinched as the pain in his head pounded harder reminders of its presence into his brain.
“Big Brother!” Kaede called happily, mercifully only turning her head around to greet him. She was as unconcerned with her nudity as Ryosuke… or at least as he appeared to be. The white-haired man kept his eyes level with hers behind her thick veil of bangs, never tempted to dip to anything lower. The large irezumi tattoo spread across her back and shoulders inherently drew the gaze, but he was unaffected--he had seen it before. A woman with long straight black hair clad in a white kimono and in pallid face paint rode side-saddle atop a sinuous red scaled dragon with a tan underbelly. The dragon’s paws whipped over Kaede’s flesh with abandon, talons cruel and curved. One set; the right paw’s; were silver instead of bone like the others, more akin to knives.
Ryosuke had seen the tattoo before, yes… and didn’t want to see it again. It was a stain on perfect skin, a mark of innocence ravaged. She was not meant to wear it. Not an angel like her. Kaede was never meant to have followed him.
There was more than a tattoo of the underworld to tempt the eyes, however unabashedly exhibited or not, some things were sacred. Ryosuke had not hung out with Vin long enough to become *that* depraved. He prayed he never would.
“She is quite adamant,” Claire remarked, a smooth and sultry smile coming to her lips for her mistress’s protective brother, yet anything but inviting. She moved closer to Kaede, her fingertips gliding over naked curves and dimples, the poorest pretence of a handmaiden clothing her charge. The slut knew her filthy faked affection irked him. “Frightened, are we?”
“Noir are not some street criminals playing hitmen,” Ryosuke snarled coldly. “They’re international. Old. They have a reputation.”
“I am aware of what Noir is,” Kaede said matter-of-factly, turning her head away as Fumiko helped her don her undergarments. “I even know more than you do, Big Brother,” she impishly teased, looking back over her shoulder a margin as her bra was fitted.
Ryosuke averted his eyes, and he heard Claire emit a light chuckle, probably at his expense. He forced his eyes back.
“I’ve faced them,” the yakuza persisted. He couldn’t give up. “Even you’ve seen what they can do. This is a *mistake*. Soldats must have a contract out on you, and you’re giving yourself over on a platter!” Why hadn’t Dominique stopped Kaede?!
“I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse,” Kaede quipped, before her small smile broke into wild mania.
Ryosuke wasn’t one for laughing. “They are the *enemy*. There’s nothing you have that they want. Except your life.” Unless Kaede paid for Noir’s services with Langonel’s Manuscript. It was a sound theory, even perhaps worth pursuing… if Dominique was ever inclined to let the text leave her possession. More like a hopeless theory, then. Better in her hands than in the enemy’s, Ryosuke supposed, despite the blurred line between the two. He didn’t think he could steal the tome back cleanly from wherever Dominique had stashed it anyway.
“Everyone can be bought,” Kaede said, curling two fingers underneath Fumiko’s chin. The other young woman didn’t react beyond slipping a shirt’s sleeve over Kaede’s free arm, and sweeping the rest of the garment around her owner’s shoulders. “Or coerced. Loyalty for others isn’t like what it is between us, Big Brother. Soldats has no honour.”
“Why can’t I go in your stead? Or… Dominique?” Perhaps Ryosuke could use Noir against the French woman as she had tried to use them against him and Vin. Should she be gunned down at the meeting….
“No. It’s *my* idea,” Kaede insisted fiercely, whirling around to face Ryosuke. The open shirt covered enough, provocatively though it did. “*Mine*!”
Ryosuke resisted the urge to clutch his head and squeeze his eyes shut--his behaviour would not be fodder for Claire’s measuring gaze. He wondered if Dominique *had* tried to argue Kaede out of her idea, only to have failed. His sister was so stubborn. “You’re not going.” He could be stubborn too.
Kaede’s face became someone else’s; an animal’s--a monster’s. Her features twisted from beautiful to repulsive as something dark inside took over. She repeatedly balled her hands into fists while her chest heaved frantically, her nails clawing into her palms over and over heedlessly that Ryosuke expected blood to be drawn at any second. The monster’s fury was for him, yet he looked upon it not with fear, but with pity. Inside was his sister, his *family*; this creature before him wielded her as puppet while the real Kaede screamed to get out. Ryosuke would not back down. He would not let Kaede down. He would not submit to the monster.
“I AM GOING!” Kaede screeched, lunging forward to wave her fists at her stoic brother. Behind her Fumiko slowly enfolded her arms around herself and sank to the floor, her eyes vacant yet wide and wild. Claire merely frowned and clicked her tongue contemptuously.
“No,” Ryosuke said, glaring.
Kaede trembled, grinding her teeth, and then hammered her fists against the gangster’s chest, unfazed by the steel beneath his coat. Ryosuke was equally unmoved in the face of the tirade and frenzied blows. His sister screamed obscenities never meant for her musical voice, and gibberish never meant for anyone sane, but he blocked it out. This wasn’t really her. This was Soldats’ and Dominique’s offspring.
Ryosuke slapped away Kaede’s arms then grabbed her wrists as she reeled, hard enough that it might result in bruising, but the strength was necessary against the madly flailing limbs. Her punches were nothing to him, but she would batter her hands bloody if he didn’t put a stop to it. Nevertheless, Kaede resorted to kicking and kneeing, Ryosuke’s restraint seeming to incense her all the more. Bare feet and knees were no better against steel--this tantrum needed to end.
Ryosuke spun Kaede around and crushed the young woman’s back to his chest, his arms holding her body fast and with nothing to do but shout and spit and drum heels against his armoured shins. “Enough,” Ryosuke barked in his sister’s ear. “Remember who you address.”
Ryosuke remained Kaede’s rigid prison as she wore her resistance out, the futility of acting like a belligerent child finally sinking in through insanity’s murk. Gradually she quietened, and it was a panting, limp young woman Ryosuke soon held.
“At last. That was hurting my ears,” Claire commented irritably, earning a glower from the yakuza. The gaijin rolled her eyes and poked Fumiko callously with a toe. “It’s over. Get up.”
Fumiko did not however, staying balled up on her haunches. Like any good dog, her mood was affected by her mistress’s.
Claire released a frustrated sigh. “Whatever,” she breathed, looking up at the ceiling.
The suite’s door handle was jiggling again, the cowed guards outside probably roused to action, however fruitless, by Kaede’s outburst. But to Ryosuke’s mild surprise he heard the lock click, bestowing assess to whoever was on the other side. He wasn’t surprised when he saw who had joined the guards. When there was trouble, the children always ran for mother.
“What’s going on?” Dominique demanded upon seeing Ryosuke restraining Kaede, a keychain still in the Soldats renegade’s hand. The sight of the Ishinomori siblings together constantly rubbed her the wrong way. Kaede was not the same as her mother. There was something left of her that Dominique could not infect, no matter the whispers she fed into Kaede’s ear. Blood was still the strongest bond of all.
Ryosuke released Kaede, dropping his arms to his sides. The young woman staggered away, latching onto a loveseat to support herself. “A family matter,” the gangster said.
Dominique’s green eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. Just as she knew what buttons to push with him, Ryosuke knew which ones to push in return.
“Kaede’s staying home today after all,” Claire said with overblown cheeriness, smirking at Dominique.
“It would be safer,” Dominique stated, unaffected by the redhead’s taunting attitude. She put the set of keys into her suit jacket’s pocket casually, and then brushed her grey-streaked tresses from her shoulder. “But she will go. She *needs* to see them.”
Kaede whipped around, her face lighting up, transforming back into the sister Ryosuke had grown up with. But not for him. She bounded across the room, shamelessly enveloping Dominique in her arms and pressing a cheek to the older and taller woman’s chest, the rest of her barely clothed body following.
Claire snorted and folded her arms, finding interest elsewhere in Hikaru Ishinomori’s abstract oddities on display, yet Ryosuke maintained his deadened vigil in spite of wishing to turn away too. He had to watch this. He had to remember what was on the line. But he sought no reminder of why he loathed Dominique D'Aubigne.
Dominique became a different person too, her frosty, wooden features warming and relaxing as an indulgent smile blossomed on her face, even her eyes starting to soften and shine as she looked down at Ryosuke’s sister. The gaijin smoothed a hand over Kaede’s hair, the other in a sling gingerly going to her waist, answering the other woman’s misplaced affection. And Ryosuke watched; visions of their mother in his mind, and hate in his heart. He’d save her. He’d *be* here this time. Daughter would not become the mother; Ryosuke would not mourn Kaede Ishinomori as he did Hikaru Ishinomori.
“You cannot be serious,” Ryosuke rumbled scornfully, the torture in his head now from a new font, his migraine missed and welcomed to come back and take its place.
Dominique lifted her gaze, the pitiless, calculating eyes reappearing for the gangster. “You cannot understand,” she retorted, haughty with whatever inside knowledge she had, whatever schemes she had in motion. “Some things must be.”
“Big Brother, I’ll be okay,” Kaede naïvely assured Ryosuke, turning from her other puppeteer’s chest. “You better stay here though, Fumiko.” She broke from Dominique, walking over to the still huddled woman and squatting down to her level. Kaede touched the side of Fumiko’s face delicately; fingertips only, the gentle and compassionate girl again; although she could have slapped it and gotten no more reaction. The outside world and those in it were as figments of a faraway dream to the slave, still mesmerised by whatever ailment muddied her mind. Kaede didn’t seem to notice, or did not care. “*You* must stay safe. Not like yesterday. You’ll stay safe. Here.”
“At least wear it,” Ryosuke sighed, it feeling more and more pointless standing there. If he had to concede, at least it was not to the monster. At least he’d be with his sister this time, right by her side. Like the old days.
“Mm,” Kaede absently replied, engrossed in combing her fingers through dark green waves, tucking locks behind her pretty dog’s ear.
Ryosuke spared a last bitter glance in his sister’s direction, and then stormed past Dominique, sparing her nothing at all. Blood, *family*, was stronger than anything. He wondered how and when Dominique had become as family.
******
“There.”
Mireille didn’t stop, but walked onwards as though nothing of interest was ahead on the opposite side of the street, the woman mingling with the other pedestrians, one with their flow. The sidewalk’s throng was Kirika’s to swim as well; she let the current take her while still sticking beside her partner, two droplets in a river. They moved with the will of the mob, but the assassins’ eyes moved independently, steered past the people that hid them to what they were here for, taking every nuance all in.
Mireille’s murmur had been low; a breath, almost stolen away in the footfalls and chatter of dozens around them, and while Kirika gave no indication she had picked it up, she had heard. It was unnecessary however, although the pleasant quality of her love’s voice was never unwelcome; like caresses for the ears, tantalising the sense, the woman’s mere speech a melody in itself. Ishinomori hadn’t tried to conceal their presence. You could tell the meeting place--a café or restaurant of some kind--by the number of alike black cars parked at the curb just outside. Familiar women in black suits loitered beside the sedans too, and not in a fashion that could ever be mistaken for casual. They were on guard, and waiting--waiting for Kirika and Mireille.
Kirika wasn’t sure about this. Heading into a situation where they were literally expected at a certain time and in a certain place by people who had demonstrated they would do them harm was a serious risk. Meeting unknowing victims face-to-face was one thing; while still with its share of danger, through subterfuge and a silver tongue like Mireille’s information could be gleaned that might help bring about eventual deaths; but this was akin to stepping onto a landmine you knew was there and hoping it didn’t go off. Normally this would never be, not even entertained by the teenager’s counterpart, however the assassins’ identities, their faces, weren’t in need of protection. This enemy knew Kirika and Mireille--knew them intimately. Maybe that was why they were here, because of that intimacy. Noir was tied to this enemy, and every thread was black.
Kirika questioned meeting the Soldats rebels, but she didn’t question Mireille. The dark haired teenager’s concerns were for herself alone to ponder and fret over. She trusted Mireille. And she trusted herself if the landmine proved live.
<You’re curious too, aren’t you? It’s natural. They’re like blood.>
Mireille turned into a store as though it was her whole purpose for being outdoors in Yokohama, and Kirika smoothly followed, the girl aware that there certainly was purpose in all of the blonde’s decisions, though it wasn’t usually what outsiders believed.
The shop sold books; rows of racks at chest height filled to bursting with magazines, comics, and books. Every publication was glossy or brightly coloured; like the magazines Mireille bought at home and that Kirika sometimes read afterwards; only with loud Japanese script on the covers. Mireille wouldn’t buy any of these if she couldn’t read them, but the woman hadn’t really come inside to browse for reading material. Over the racks lining the book store’s front window and almost directly across the street was a relatively clear view of the café. Like the book shop, the café’s front façade was clear glass, and easy to see through. Unfortunately priestesses boldly stood all but shoulder-to-shoulder in the café’s window--some facing front and some with their backs to the glass--thwarting a clean line of sight inside the building. Perhaps Ishinomori worried about gunmen or women armed with long range rifles, or perhaps it was who would soon be within the café that the group feared. They should have just selected somewhere enclosed, without windows. Was the open, public locale meant to appeal to Kirika and Mireille? Being surrounded and outnumbered wasn’t inviting; a window and plenty of bystanders didn’t change that. Maybe that was the plan; surround Noir, outnumber them, then hope to kill them. Broad daylight and in public weren’t always the shields people thought. But it was *hope* to kill them, wasn’t it. Being in public and in broad daylight wouldn’t put off Kirika either, if it came to that--if it came to defending Mireille.
The assassins joined the other customers skimming over the racks, merging with the normal, the mundane; the overlooked. Ishinomori knew they were coming and it did make it somewhat harder, but Kirika and Mireille could still blend when they desired, especially if they kept a cautious distance.
Mireille plucked a magazine from the rack; a smiling woman was on the cover, surrounded by Japanese kanji; and flicked slowly through it, her handbag left dangling from her forearm. Her eyes seldom even looked at the pictures. Instead she gazed over the top of the magazine, scrutinising the café and the Soldats renegades inside and outside of it. She was conscious of the risks as well.
Kirika quickly picked up a magazine too and opened it to a random page. She blinked when photos of girls roughly her age in school uniforms, swimwear, and underwear assailed her vision. There wasn’t anything to read, just the pictures to look at. A lot of the clothing didn’t even fit right, the way it was slipping from the girls’ bodies. It wasn’t like Mireille’s fashion magazines whatsoever. Kirika mused whether this was how people her age modelled apparel. Mireille did seem to enjoy seeing her in a variety of outfits when they went clothes shopping. Maybe the woman would like to see her in her old school uniform again, or in undergarments. Then again, the blonde hadn’t had her stand around in underwear before. Maybe Mireille didn’t like that. Kirika wasn’t sure if she liked it either; not the standing around part, but the looking itself. She actually didn’t find much appeal in her love’s magazines beyond the thought provoking though peculiar articles. If the people in the accompanying pictures weren’t Mireille, they and all the fashion they exhibited were wasted on the girl.
Fifteen minutes of tediously flipping through the photobook later; fifteen minutes past the hour Ishinomori had arranged to meet; Mireille replaced her magazine in the rack and lightly brushed her fingertips along the back of Kirika’s hand. Immediately the fine hairs there stood up, the tingle left behind from the delicate, fleeting touch enveloping the teenager’s hand, heightening its presence at the end of her wrist, as though it no longer belonged to her. Kirika couldn’t help rubbing it with her other hand, soothing the nearly painful sensitivity to something more normal.
Electrifying Kirika’s skin wasn’t Mireille’s intention; it was the signal that the blonde had seen enough of the café and they were on the move again. Kirika stuffed her thick magazine into the rack and trailed after her partner, before matching pace beside her.
They crossed the street when others did, minimising their exposure on the road, appearing in the midst of many rather than two alone. It looked like Mireille had seen nothing to have her rethink going through with the meeting. Kirika hadn’t caught anything telling either in her periodic glimpses of the café and the priestesses within and without; there wasn’t unease at Noir’s tardiness, no extra faces emerging to discuss the assassins whereabouts, no new cars pulling up--only the unceasing patience. Kirika hadn’t anticipated more, and no doubt Mireille had felt likewise. This was Soldats. Their traps sprung precisely when they meant them to.
Kirika’s and Mireille’s eyes shifted sidelong down the alley running alongside the café as they walked by it, in the split second glance filing away what they saw to memory--a rear entrance--single door--and more priestesses outside of it; four of them. The women had seen them pass, and were probably alerting everyone else via radio that Noir was here. There was no point in secrecy now in any case. The assassins were too close to continue that.
The guards by the sedans merely looked impassively at Kirika and Mireille as they approached, while neither of the young women deigned to bother looking back. Or so it might appear. In reality Kirika held the dark-clad priestesses in her peripheral vision, ready to seize her weapon should they do so theirs first. The girl’s hands were in her parka’s pockets, her right loosely around the Beretta M1934 inside.
A priestess held the café’s door open as Kirika and Mireille neared, and then let it swing shut once the pair had entered. It was eerily hush inside. Kirika’s eyes went for the threats first--the women in black scattered around the room, sitting at the round tables or standing about, mostly at the windows; the scruffy men at other tables by themselves, some slouching against the walls or the shop’s counter. And of course Noir’s targets; Ryosuke Ishinomori and Vincent Hsu, the duo amongst the men, and Kaede Ishinomori, sitting at a table with two other women; one a priestess with her arm in a sling, and one dressed very different from all the rest.
Next Kirika’s eyes saw that there were still normal customers at their own tables, their anxious faces, dead silence, and refusal to look up from their desserts revealing that they knew something was up. They ate their ice cream mechanically, likely tasting nothing. Those that had finished dared not leave their chairs, pantomiming that there was yet something more to scoop up from their empty glassware. That they were there was promising, however. Kirika would have been put more on edge if it had been just her and Mireille and the Soldats renegades. The half-a-dozen or so witnesses would have to be killed too if Ishinomori elected to attack. Again, they were a paper shield, and probably here for Noir’s comfort. Nevertheless, it was something.
Finally it was the shop itself. Iced treats were the only thing the patrons ate; the counter at the far end of the shop was full of trays containing various flavours of ice cream. Appetising pictures of cones stacked high with scoops of ice cream and sprinkled with a range of toppings were the walls’ decorations, and above the counter a picturesque menu spoke of the cool desserts on offer. It was an ice cream parlour.
Two guards stepped in front of Kirika and Mireille, barring their way onwards. The rebels held their tongues, but the assassins understood what they sought.
Mireille raised an eyebrow and then her arms, her handbag suspended prudishly from her fingertips in her left hand. A priestess felt along the outstretched limbs--unnecessarily so, Mireille’s arms were left bare by her top--earning a glower from the blonde, then her hands followed the curve of the armpits to Mireille’s torso, smoothing over her chest and hips. Mireille didn’t look pleased. It was pretty obvious nothing could be secreted inside her skin tight outfit, unless it was a small handgun or blade under her short skirt, high on the inner thigh. But that would be kind of awkward to reach in a firefight. Regardless, the priestess even checked under there.
The other priestess looked down at Kirika, and the petite girl merely looked back, her face blank. Kirika’s hands stayed in her pockets. With a hint of apprehension--scarcely there, but there nonetheless--the woman began feeling over Kirika’s slight shoulders and down her arms, then fit her hands in the space between the limbs and the teenager’s body, patting over her ribs. Eventually the priestess arrived at the parka’s pockets and Kirika’s hands within, pressing her fingers over the bulge at the girl’s midsection. Kirika kept her hand covering her small pistol, and subtly manoeuvred it away from wherever the woman’s searching touches landed with her middle finger and thumb, so all the guard encountered was more flesh, bones, and parka. She didn’t need her gun to protect Mireille; however surrendering it before she had to was irrational. Better to have it than not.
<You’ll need it. One day.>
“Open the bag. Please.”
Kirika glanced over at Mireille and saw the guard with her gesture at the blonde’s pink and white striped handbag. The guard would have no bother finding what she was looking for in there. Mireille wouldn’t like that.
“You invited us, and this is the reception? I’m sure you’ve all kept your party favours,” Mireille said matter-of-factly, but with an edge.
Kaede and the bespectacled priestess sitting at the table beside her bent their heads close to one another, whispering. A moment later, a snap of the priestess’s wrist shooed the guards away from Kirika and Mireille. The women complied immediately, swiftly retreating without a word or further harassment against the assassins. Kirika looked back to the greying priestess who had given the order and marked her as someone important--a priority target.
“Oi~!”
The man’s outcry brought most heads turning to him, although he said no more. He was seated beside Vincent, with Ryosuke leaning against a pillar nearby. He, and the rest of the men in the ice cream parlour, doubtlessly came from Ryosuke Ishinomori’s yakuza family, the Kanagawa Kotetsu. It was Ryosuke himself who had quietened the almost bald gangster’s hostility against Noir keeping claim of their weapons, rapping two knuckles on his shoulder, looming over him.
One of the heads that hadn’t turned was Vincent’s, even though he was the closest neighbour to the yakuza. Instead he was fixated on Kirika, his gaze never moving from her. The girl recognised the hate in his eyes… and the day old cuts and bruises on his face. She regarded him emotionlessly, neither afraid nor provoked by his angry glare. She had seen it before, in many eyes; eyes that saw no longer. They’d shared the same experience in the courthouse; however Kirika didn’t feel anything of the sort for Vincent. She didn’t feel any emotion whatsoever when she looked at him. He was just a man. Just a man she’d yet managed to kill. He’d die one day, like everyone else had, his ire proven worthless.
<Everyone dies. It’s the universal fate.>
“Come here, come here!” Kaede enthusiastically beckoned, motioning Kirika and Mireille to approach with waves of her hand. There was a pair of empty chairs at Kaede’s table, reserved for Noir.
Mireille sat down with much more subdued enthusiasm than what Kaede displayed, knees together and her handbag held with both her hands on her lap. Kirika plopped herself down in the spare chair without a thought, although her eyes freely roamed the other women across the table.
Naturally Kaede Ishinomori was the strongest lure for her gaze. Kirika had seen her at Yokohama District Court, however not this close up. The gangster was smiling at the girl, occasionally spooning somewhat runny vanilla ice cream into her mouth from a dish in front of her. Snow white bangs curtained her eyes, the same shade as her melted dessert. Kaede had shed her suit for a coat like her brother’s, jet black with a high collar and sporting dozens of buckles and straps. The assassin wondered if the coat was a sister to Ryosuke’s as well, parallel in more than just looks.
Propped against Kaede’s chair, tricky to notice behind the table and veiled under the woman’s dark coat tails, was a black curved sword in its sheathe. A katana. Kaede’s, Kirika suspected with near absolute certainty. Edged weapons could be deadly in the right hands; that was true for almost any object; but a sword’s stroke was no competition against a bullet. Weapons evolved with the times; those people who didn’t do the same soon became as dead and gone as the past. For Kaede to still wield a katana she had to surely be a master, or simply waiting to be put down by a better armed adversary. Most likely Kaede was looking at those adversaries right now.
The strange clothing on the woman sitting on Kaede’s right attracted Kirika’s curiosity rather than the woman herself drawing the assassin’s critical dissection. Kirika had seen the clothing only in magazines and on television shows before, and solely those from Japan. It was like a robe, like something Mireille was prone to don after showering in the mornings and evenings. Kirika wasn’t positive, but it felt out of place here in the city. The black and blue robe was striking however, vividly portraying a rough ocean and boats being tossed around.
The woman herself had dark red hair the colour of crusted blood that tumbled from her head to just past her shoulders in opulent spirals, as though she were wearing fiery bees’ nests. Her makeup was abundant and loud, dominating her features rather than accentuating--Mireille could teach her much. Her perfume too was overwhelming, heavy and pungent that Kirika could smell it from across the table, and wasn’t a scent she cared to smell at length.
The woman sat with her arms folded under her chest, her big breasts pushed up and nearly out of her robe. She didn’t seem happy to be here, and barely paid Kirika and Mireille more than a cursory once-over. She sat beside Kaede though, which meant she was important, just like the priestess who had Kaede’s ear at her left.
“I’m glad we could meet in a more civilised manner,” the priestess remarked, her speech precise and devoid of passion.
“Fortunate for you we could meet again,” Mireille said, smiling thinly.
Kirika’s brow furrowed a little. Her partner and this woman had history. Kirika looked closer at the priestess’s sling; a scarf printed with the likeness of peacock feathers in actuality; and the arm it cradled, musing if the wound the limb bore was a gift from her love.
“Yes,” the priestess replied simply, the reciprocating smile barely present on her lips. “I am Dominique D'Aubigne. I’m sure you recognise Lady Kaede Ishinomori.”
“I’m Claire. A pleasure,” the redhead brusquely broke in, before turning her head away again, staring off at the posters of ice cream while Dominique shot her a momentary withering look.
“You are Soldats,” Mireille abbreviated.
Kaede’s fist crashed down upon the table, shattering her ice cream dish, pieces spinning off onto the floor. Shocked gasps arose from several customers, before their outbursts were quickly reined in. Kirika almost drew her pistol, and in the corner of her eye she saw Mireille’s hand halfway inside her handbag.
“WE ARE *NOT* SOLDATS!” Kaede raged, her fist remaining on the table, grinding the glass underneath, white vanilla streaks trickling down her black glove.
“Calm yourself, child,” Dominique said evenly, but her face was pale. “They do not know.”
Slowly, Kaede’s fist uncurled and her arm drew back from the table. “I need more ice cream,” she said softly. “Big Brother!” she pleaded, turning in her chair towards the parlour’s counter, where Ryosuke was. When Kaede turned back, it was to face Kirika. “Do you want some?”
“She doesn’t want any,” Mireille answered. Wary of poison, Kirika guessed. She was right to be cautious. The ice cream probably didn’t taste as nice as that found in Paris anyway.
“Doesn’t she have a tongue? You speak for her?” Kaede said, the rage easing back into her voice and mannerisms, her expression stiffening with every word.
Mireille’s mouth opened to respond, but then Ryosuke came, the blonde’s eyes darting to him, watching carefully. He was armed with only a fresh dish of vanilla ice cream however; three scoops. He slid it across the table to his sister, and went back to his men without pause or a look back.
Kaede’s grin widened and she seized the spoon sticking out of one scoop to dig into the rest, her accusations for Mireille apparently forgotten.
Claire grunted, but when Kirika looked at her she appeared as though she hadn’t uttered a thing or moved a muscle.
“You… are Noir,” Dominique said, unflustered by Kaede’s take to distraction. The priestess’s tone was almost faraway, light and dreamy. “Corsica’s Daughter, and….” Her gaze went from Mireille to Kirika. “…You.”
Had Kirika ever had a name before awakening? Had anyone known it?
<It doesn’t matter. The nameless can’t be found. They don’t exist. They are untouchable by anything. *Anything*….>
The voice was Altena’s, but the tone was unlike hers. It wasn’t a spirit of a dead woman who spoke to Kirika. It was the reflection of herself--the nameless. The darkness.
“This is not a destiny that was ever intended for you,” Dominique continued. “Whatever happened in the Manor… with Altena….” She turned her head away, down at her injured arm, touching her elbow for a moment. “This is not your path. You are… *greater* than this. The old men are unworthy of you. You--”
“We aren’t here because of them,” Mireille interrupted, coldly. It wasn’t strictly true, but Kirika understood. They lived for themselves. They tried to.
<Freedom? There will never be freedom. Family is forever.>
“No? You seem to do as they would bid.”
“You came to *us*. *Noir* came to us,” Mireille said, her eyes shifting to Ryosuke and Vincent at the other side of the ice cream parlour. Kirika could detect the icy fury building in her partner. “Before *then*, we didn’t care.”
“A misunderstanding,” Dominique explained away, her voice layered in silk. “But you’re here now, and a side must be chosen. We are not the Soldats you know. We are…” She glanced at Kaede, and Kirika glanced at the young woman as well. She was still eating her ice cream. “We… want to bring them down.”
“And change the world, I presume? You sound like them.”
“But we are not them,” Dominique serenely assured the antagonistic blonde. “*We* see the sin they carry. They have let themselves become affected by the world they were entrusted to govern. They have forgotten why they hold the position they do. They have become the sinners. If the world must change for it to be righted; for them to be *punished* for their betrayal; then so be it.” Her emerald eyes were alight for the first time since the meeting began, Kirika noticed. The woman believed what she’d said.
<They always did. They always believed they were right. The greater good is a sinner’s excuse. A noble goal is not noble if it’s reached from the black path. Sometimes sin simply must be done; dressing it as virtuous is self-delusion. No one is righteous, least of all those who command sin be cleansed with sin. Their hands may not be stained, but their souls are.>
“We don’t want to change the world,” Mireille said softly, unmoved by the priestess’s quiet passion. “We just want to live in it.”
“You are an important piece of the gameboard. You cannot be ignored by either side,” Dominique gently insisted. “You have to decide where you will stand.”
“We know where we stand--*alone*.”
The Soldats rebel’s shook her head slightly, her long glossy sheets of black hair; marred by a handful of grey threads; catching new light and shimmering. Her eyes were almost pained, glistening with sympathy. “You don’t have to be. Come back to us. We are your home.”
“I *had* a home,” Mireille darkly declared. “It was taken from me.”
“We’ve all lost something; someone….” Dominique began, attempting to commiserate. Kirika recognised it was useless. There was cold hate in Mireille’s eyes, and it was not impotent like other people’s feral anger. There was a vow in it, and Kirika knew her partner was capable of living up to that vow.
“I don’t care about what you’ve lost. *You* took my home away.” The blonde’s nails were digging into her handbag. Kirika’s right hand, still in her parka’s pocket, closed around her Beretta. It would be a perilous fight, driven on pure reflex and skill, lasting ten to fifteen seconds at the most. Kirika was all but destined to be bleeding by the end of it--the space was too open; the opponents too many. Mireille on the other hand…. The girl would see her love through unscathed somehow. “You killed my family.”
Dominique’s words momentarily seemed to run out. She blinked once in the abrupt silence, but that one time was telling of her surprise. Perhaps she didn’t think Mireille would remember; the woman had been young. But even Kirika had come to remember, and she had been younger. Their earliest exposure to murder, to the darker world underneath the innocent one they had been born into and had believed reigned before that moment; the day their lives had been shaped in its sinister image--of course they would remember. Kirika didn’t want the memory; even though it was not truly hers, and even though Mireille had forgiven her, it still stung. Forgiveness had lessened the hurt, but it had not healed it utterly. She would carry it forever, just as she carried Odette Bouquet’s last words with her, in her heart.
“The… Bouquet’s…” Dominique murmured, frowning, somewhat unsure.
“Nothing you say can make me forget I loved my parents and brother.”
“Yes, your parents…. Unfortunate. It pains me. I recall if only they had not been so attached, learned to let go for--”
“They were *parents*,” Mireille cut in harshly. “They loved their daughter as they should have. And they died for it.”
“The Manor…” the priestess breathed, maybe finally realising the root of the blonde’s bitter enmity. “Altena--”
“--Sealed your fate long ago,” Mireille finished. “I didn’t come to negotiate. You’ll always be *them*. You may dress different, but underneath you’re the same--the same as *her*. All blind conviction and ‘justified’ *evil*. Did you ever think that the world doesn’t *want* your change?”
“You’ve fallen farther than I could ever have imagined if you’re siding with them,” Dominique breathlessly proclaimed. Claire was grinning at her, seeming to at last take an interest.
“We don’t have a side,” Mireille said, briefly turning her head to look at Kirika. Afterwards the woman stood up slowly, careful to keep their watchers’ weapons in their holsters. “But at least they knew to leave us alone.”
Kirika got to her feet as well as the blonde turned to go. She kept a grip on her pistol and her eyes everywhere. It only took one priestess or yakuza to reach for their weapon.
“Family--you’re stuck with what you’re dealt.”
Kirika looked back over her shoulder and saw Kaede wiping wayward ice cream from her mouth with the back of her hand. Her posture was different; less hunched over the table and more upright; and her smile was smaller, sly and controlled. Her voice was firmer too.
“Repeating the same mistakes,” Kaede went on. She carefully put the spoon still in her hand down, resting it on the ice cream dish. “Your family will be the death of you.”
Mireille didn’t react beyond a glance; icy and uncaring.
“I suspect this will be the last time we’ll see each other,” Dominique remarked, her aloof composure regained.
“No. You’ll know when it’s the last,” Mireille replied ominously, and then headed for the exit.
The priestesses minding the sedans kept their eyes on Kirika and Mireille’s backs as the two young women departed the ice cream parlour and the doomed meeting. Kirika stayed wary, but felt relieved to be outside on the street again. The meeting, however unconstructive, had gone favourably in the girl’s opinion--it hadn’t broken out into shooting. It was the best anyone could have hoped for. Mireille would never compromise with Soldats; the Soldats Altena had birthed, that was. It was strange she had even bothered to accept the invitation, but the blonde had had her reasons, whatever they had been. She hadn’t shared them with Kirika, and the girl didn’t expect that to change after the fact, nor did she venture to ask. Mireille’s motivations were no whimsical thing but important to the woman, well thought out and ultimately for the greater good. She wouldn’t have taken this risk lightly. Kirika didn’t need to understand everything to trust her partner, and shield her should her motives lead her into danger.
“So it’s that simple--revenge.”
Kirika and Mireille stopped in unison at the ice cream parlour’s alley, looking straight ahead as other pedestrians filed past. They had known he was there, waiting for them. Kirika’s thumb pulled back on the hammer of her Beretta, and she subtly shuffled half a step backwards, just enough to line the barrel up with the man slouching against the passage’s wall, past Mireille’s abdomen. She aimed for his temple, where black leather didn’t cover.
“I knew this wasn’t about a book.” Ryosuke sighed and blew a wisp of smoke through tightly pursed lips. “Sometimes I think revenge is what makes our world go round. Not money, not power, but simply an eye for an eye. Old as dirt.”
“If we could let go that easily, we wouldn’t be human,” Mireille said, her faint smile rueful.
“No, we would be angels,” Ryosuke replied, before bringing his cigarette to his mouth again. “You killed my people.”
“You killed mine.”
Ryosuke snorted gruffly. “And so it is again. The cycle.”
“We’ll see you at its end,” Mireille said, before walking onwards into the crowd, becoming part of them. Kirika joined her.
Mireille’s forgiveness was a precious thing, not easily given. Kirika had it; maybe she was the only person who could ever say that--the blonde granted it to no one else the teenager had seen or known. Mireille was ruthless in her judgment, and just as apt in delivering it.
<And yet she forgives you. How? How…?>
The fading voice sent unpleasant tremors through Kirika’s stomach, leaving her queasy. The girl knew the answer, but the darkness warped it, inciting questions she never thought to ask, bringing up emotions that weren’t hers. Her other self had the insight of a longer life, but a bleak, hollow life that it tried to fit into Kirika’s like a serrated blade fit into flesh, cutting the image of herself the girl had with every attempt, forcing it ragged. They were two different people.
Kirika hoped that were really true.
******
“Be careful of the dry ice inside,” Mireille said while bent over to unzip her black leather boots, Kirika already in her socks trotting ahead into the living room with the ice cream.
“Mm,” the dark haired teenager mumbled as she put the crinkled white paper bag on the kotatsu and sat down, shimmying forwards so her crossed legs were under the table.
Mireille hadn’t overlooked Kirika’s quiet fondness for the creamy dessert, and during the deliberately convoluted way back to the safehouse the blonde had popped into the next ice cream parlour she’d seen to treat the girl, no doubt to make up for her missing out at the Ishinomori meeting. Kirika felt her partner sometimes got so wrapped up in her thoughts that there wasn’t any left in the blonde’s head for her, yet it was these moments that demonstrated how far from the truth that was. Mireille did remember. She did care. Every time Kirika realised it once again, it was like a renewal of self; her existence validated, her place in the world marked out indisputably. Mireille was all she lived for. Mireille didn’t have to feel the same, but when it showed that she did, it made the life Kirika had dedicated to the woman wonderful, and worth living.
Kirika unrolled the top of the bag and opened it, before lifting out the two tubs of ice cream one at a time. Cookies and cream was for herself, and strawberry was for Mireille. Mireille didn’t often indulge; that she would be joining Kirika in the girl’s small joy was a treat in itself. That they would be experiencing the same thing at the same time in each other’s company; somehow it was thrilling to Kirika. Sharing something together, however ordinary, caused her to feel inexplicably closer to the blonde. That they were the same in some way, maybe. That there was something connecting them.
Kirika took the pair of plastic pink spoons out from the bag and laid one on top of the strawberry ice cream tub, then pushed the tub to the left side of the kotatsu for Mireille’s arrival. The woman walked over unhurriedly, tiredly rubbing the back of her head and mussing her flaxen locks slightly, before placing her handbag on the table and sitting down, tucking her legs underneath her. Her bare toes tickled Kirika’s knee ever so lightly, but like all of her love’s touches, it was cherished and all-consuming.
Kirika gingerly prised the lid from her ice cream tub while Mireille wasn’t as tender handed, flicking her ice cream lid off with an impatient thumb. They ate at their leisure, savouring their respective flavour and the tranquillity found in quiet. Kirika wished her life would always be like this, but she wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t recognise that was becoming more and more a permanently unreachable dream. Sometimes the two worlds intersected however, the light and the darkness, letting her have these peaceful moments. Kirika didn’t take a second of them for granted.
“Let me have a taste of yours.”
Kirika blinked several times at the request, looking at Mireille then down at her ice cream, then up at the blonde again. Chagrined to have dithered, Kirika hastened to pick up her sweating container and raised it tentatively towards her partner.
To Kirika’s shock, Mireille rocked her body forwards and captured the end of Kirika’s spoon in the girl’s other hand in her mouth instead, before leaning back again, her red lips dragging smoothly along the spoon, taking with her the dollop of ice cream that had been there.
Mireille’s lips rubbed together, white vanilla smeared between them as she contemplated the cookies and cream. “Mine’s better,” she concluded, licking her lips a little.
Kirika stared. She had used that spoon. It had been in her mouth before Mireille’s. And now…. Kirika looked at her spoon, shiny not with ice cream but with her love’s saliva.
The blonde piled a helping of her own ice cream onto her little spoon, and brought it to Kirika’s mouth. “Try mine,” she irresistibly invited.
Holding her spoon and her ice cream tub in her hands, dumbfounded, Kirika’s lips all but instinctively parted. Mireille eased the spoon into her mouth, angling it slowly and gently to the contours of the girl’s closing lips and lifting tongue, before sliding it gracefully free. Kirika tasted rich and sweet strawberries, but she wanted the other flavour, the one behind the ice cream, the one surely sweeter and more enchanting than any dessert. There was a hint of it; what she thought was a hint of it--what she hoped was. Her eyes had closed.
“I told you,” Mireille said.
Kirika’s eyes lazily opened to the sight of her love scooping more of her strawberry ice cream into her own mouth, her cheeks sucking in slightly as she teased the pink dessert around inside to melting using her tongue. Kirika watched her throat work as she swallowed.
“It’s not just for me,” Mireille said softly, her gaze elsewhere as she dug up another spoonful. “It’s not only my past.” She ate the scoop peacefully, rolling it around in her mouth again before swallowing. “I had to see if they were the same. That it… felt the same.” She stabbed the spoon into the remaining frosty pink hills and left it there, putting her hands on the table, her head and gaze lowered. “They took the life I should have had away from me. They took the life *you* were meant to have away.” Mireille raised her head and looked at Kirika. “It… hurts when I imagine what they did to you.” Her expression hardened. “It’s unforgivable. I want them to know they can’t get away with it; that I haven’t forgotten or forgiven them. I want them gone. Erased completely.”
Mireille loosed a heavy sigh and rested her head back, staring at the ceiling, her features relaxing. “My family has been dead for a long time. But you…. With you, what they did is everlasting. Every time I look at you, I’m reminded. They’re Altena’s rotten fruits, those women. Her legacy. They’re like her. They *knew* what Altena had done, but they didn’t care to stop it. I… can’t go on while they still do.” Her head turned, her eyes capturing Kirika’s. “Do you understand?”
Kirika smiled, small and shaky, her eyes burning as her vision blurred. “I understand.” Mireille didn’t have to explain; Kirika would follow her anywhere. But that the woman had, that she’d opened her heart for a moment, let slip the mask, permitting Kirika to *see*…. Kirika loved her so much. And Mireille loved her. The woman’s heart was clear to the teenager. Mireille’s forgiveness was Kirika’s because of that love; the girl should never forget that. The blonde *really* cared about her. There wasn’t an agenda behind it, it wasn’t to manipulate or use Kirika--it was simply because. It was how Mireille felt.
Kirika wished she could find the words to tell her that she felt it too; somehow will her tongue to be that graceful, that forthright. Mireille had to have known, though. The words didn’t really matter; it was what they *did* show that counted. The look in Mireille’s eyes only Kirika comprehended, the look just for her; the small touches, delicate, barely there, yet full of meaning. But words still held their niceties when they *were* uttered; when it was laid bare, bereft of subtlety or ambiguity. Kirika wished….
“I…” Kirika wrestled with herself, her breathing shallow.
“It’s going to melt.”
Kirika glanced down at her cookies and cream ice cream. Mireille had been right; her strawberry really was better. “Can I have more of yours?”
Mireille smiled; the kind of smile only the girl got to see. The woman lifted her spoon to her love’s waiting lips.
******
To be continued….
[End notes:
*Claps hands together* Okay, Japan intro arc is done, and time to really get stuck into the real meat of everything now… although I think I might have said that before. ^.^;;; Up next should be beach fun, some slick assassination action, and the focus all but permanently on Mireille/Kirika from now on. It’s *so* hard to limit the Mireille/Kirika affection. It’s going to be *such* a release when I’m finally able to up the physical intimacy to maximum.
Irezumi = Those big tattoos you see yakuza people wearing all the time in movies.]Title: The Professionals Vacation
The resort hotel’s lobby was as open air as it could be while still having walls and a ceiling. Its rear outer doors were fixed open to admit sea breezes as readily as it did its guests, and its windows were tall plate glass below the shade of individual canvas canopies outside, such that the view of the beach and the ocean that stretched to the horizon after it was always a backdrop. Inside there were almost as many potted palm trees and other tropical plants as there were outside growing in the soil and sand, and the furniture was primarily wicker, padded with pale khaki cushions decorated with the stock motif of leaves or colourful flowers in bloom. The resort’s staff however had escaped the tropical treatment, dressed professionally as one would generally expect--in suits for the desk staff or in white shirts and waistcoats for the room staff. Flamboyant Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops had their place with the tourists, and there were plenty of those, despite the temperature starting to drop slightly below perfect and the weather hinting at souring, owing to the lateness of the season. All in all the resort wasn’t too upscale, but not a dump either--popular with the upper middle-class. And dominating the alluring beachside as it did, dwarfing lesser hotels on this side of the Okinawan coast, it was a tourist magnet. A western face wouldn’t stick out here.
“I’ll check us in,” Mireille said, leaving Kirika to loiter in the lounge with their bags while she approached the front desk. Perhaps it could be said that the resort hotel was below her usual standards, but in her business her tastes had to be variable; adaptable. Whatever fit the job was what she liked best. As for Kirika... the girl was not one to complain.
“Hello,” the desk clerk slurred in accented English as he looked up from his computer to Mireille. “Welcome to--”
“I’d like a room for two. I don’t have a reservation,” the blonde declared with slight briskness in Japanese, standing expectantly before the lobby’s main desk.
“Ah.... Let me just... check here...” the desk clerk responded in likewise Japanese, though with less certainty than when he had spoken in English. His eyes lowered to his computer screen as he fiddled with the mouse, but occasionally they would flick up to regard his hotel’s prospective new guest with a mixture of hesitation and admiration. “You speak very well,” he eventually braved to comment.
Mireille smiled faintly but politely, having predicted the interest. Perhaps she should have feigned ignorance with the local language to appear more the regular oblivious sightseer and beach lover, but even with the Okinawan slant on the mainland Japanese tongue she understood and was too used to speaking it to pretend otherwise. A subterfuge would have proved tiresome sooner or later, and probably wasn’t worth the trouble. While the Corsican’s fluency had the potential to single her out, she couldn’t be the only foreigner around with a penchant for languages. Nor was it a dead giveaway for her profession. It helped to know a place’s vernacular if you travelled across borders, simple as that.
Mireille smirked suddenly, prompting the desk clerk to look up at her again curiously, but the smirk was directed at herself; a nostalgic and melancholy thing. That had been her uncle’s tenet. He, and the tutors he had hired for when business took him abroad, had drilled into her various languages and dialects just as he had drilled into her his flawless ability with a pistol. Uncle Claude had focused on European languages as that continent had been where his black path had largely winded through; it had been left to Mireille to learn Japanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. While she was confident in her eastern tongues, in some ways they didn’t come as naturally to her as the languages her uncle had taught her did.
“Yes, we have some rooms,” the desk clerk spoke up, breaking Mireille’s reverie. “Would you like a twin, or a queen, or maybe a suite?”
Mireille allowed herself to look back over her shoulder as she pondered the question that shouldn’t have needed pondering; an indulgent look that she should have curbed, yet couldn’t see the harm in at the moment. Her blue gaze found her partner sitting gingerly on the end of a wicker armchair encircled by their luggage, the mop-headed girl watching the hotel staff and guests come and go. As though sensing the scrutiny she was under, Kirika turned her head to Mireille, expressionless as usual, but her doe eyes full of feeling for those that knew what to look for... and that felt the same.
“A queen,” Mireille answered before rational thought could balk. It was a personal pleasure that should have been curtailed. A big one. One that carried with it red flags. This was not her apartment, nor was it the safehouse; people might take notice of her sleeping arrangements with Kirika. Mireille should have gone with the customary twin room, even if it meant her petite companion would be condemned to restless nights separated from her side.
“Would you like a room with a view of the ocean?”
“Why not,” Mireille conceded in a sigh.
“Alright... I need you to fill this out and provide your passport or some other identification,” the clerk said, laying a form out in front of Mireille and a pen on top. “I’ll need a credit card for extras as well.”
“There won’t be any extras,” Mireille said as she quickly scribbled where she had to, and then offered her passport with the completed document. Credit was a bonfire in the night where cash was barely a struck match. Seldom did the blonde pay for anything with a card unless there was no other means, even if she wasn’t on an assignment. It had become a habit, but a habit that kept you safe was a good one to have.
The clerk checked everything over, and then smiled as he handed the passport back. It was a forgery, very expensive, and virtually perfect. It had to be these days. If France’s and Japan’s airport security hadn’t faulted it, a lowly hotel desk clerk wasn’t going to be hit by a sudden revelation. “Thank you, Ms. Theroux. And how long will you be staying with us?”
Mireille took a deep breath, smelling the sea salt carried by the cool air that gently brushed her flaxen locks from her shoulders. “I’ll let you know.”
Mireille didn’t have the patience to wait for hotel staff to assist with bringing the bags up to their room; better in her and Kirika’s hands than in anyone else’s anyway. An elevator brought the young women to the fifth floor and a keycard the desk clerk had given the blonde opened the door to room 1256. The hotel room had all the standard fittings and amenities inside, and thankfully the wicker furniture had been confined to the lobby.
“Yoisho,” Mireille heard Kirika mumble under her breath as the girl dumped her bag on the queen size bed.
Mireille favoured her partner with a fond look before she hefted her suitcase onto the provided baggage rack. Kirika didn’t outwardly show that she was happy about Mireille’s room choice, but the Corsican didn’t have to search for a cue to know that she was. That didn’t deter Mireille from fishing for a reaction, however. “Looks comfy, doesn’t it,” she casually remarked, though a smile danced on her lips.
Kirika looked up from the bed to the woman and nodded solemnly, as if she’d been asked a life or death question. “Mm,” she hummed.
Mireille smiled a little and walked over to the windows at the far side of the room, opposite the entrance. The desk clerk had been true to his word; there was certainly a view. From the fifth floor the ocean met the sky in two hues of blue, and the beach filled the rest of the vista. It was a peaceful picture; the wispy clouds and the seabirds calling from among them, and the rhythmic rush of waves caressing the sand smooth. Mireille let it sweep her away for a few moments; let the gulls’ harping relax and the ocean soothe; and then grasped the curtains to tug them closed. She valued her privacy, and was aware of the dangers that could arise from not having it. Binoculars and telephoto lenses saw far, just as far as a sniper’s scope. Finding a vantage this close to the shoreline and at this angle for surveillance or more would be tricky without standing plain as day on the beach or out on the water in a boat, but assume a master of their craft was out there somewhere waiting for a mistake and it would keep you alive and under the radar. A simple closed curtain would stop a professional just as effectively as a casual voyeur. It was just good sense. Home was a different case; it was home, not a foreign land, not a place where she couldn’t be Mireille Bouquet. Here Mireille didn’t see windows as something to gaze out of, but rather something that other people gazed through from the reverse side.
Mireille hesitated, and then let her arms fall to her sides. She turned her head slightly, enough to see Kirika out of the corner of one eye. It would be a shame to hide the view behind curtains. There was such a thing as being overzealous. Paranoid. The world wasn’t always watching, though Mireille knew well that the world *did* have eyes, and they were dark and conniving indeed. Just this once, then. Just this once a little light let in to brighten the room and those within it. She was paying good money for the view after all.
“The beach looks nice,” Mireille enticed, turning away from the window to face Kirika. “I might even have a dip in the ocean.”
Kirika simply looked at the blonde in that inquisitive way of hers, oblivious to the woman’s agenda. “Mm...” she eventually said, cocking her head to one side uncertainly.
“Do you want to join me?”
“Mm,” Kirika said, firmer this time and with some enthusiastic nodding.
Mireille grinned knowingly. Of course Kirika wanted to come with her. There was barely a moment when they weren’t together, and when they were apart, the darkhaired girl always hastened to reunite with her. It was funny to think that at one time the clingy behaviour had been grating to Mireille; like an unwanted puppy following her around. But like with a puppy, it had a way of growing on you; a way of sneaking into your heart, until the next thing you realised you had a pet. Or in this case a lover.
“You’ll need a swimsuit.” Mireille had taken her partner to the beach in past, however back then Kirika had been less of a partner and more of a grudging necessity, and the blonde hadn’t cared what her new Japanese acquisition got up to in their quiet periods, as long as it didn’t bother her. It was a chance to make up for it now.
“I have a swimsuit,” Kirika said. Noticing the woman’s surprise, the girl unzipped her travel bag and dug around inside it for a few seconds. What she pulled out caused Mireille’s throat to dry.
“That’s...” Mireille began as she stared at the navy school onepiece swimsuit, complete with class number labelled on the front from when she had attended Tsubaki High, but couldn’t find the words to continue. It would serve its purpose, yet in good conscience Mireille couldn’t allow Kirika to frolic on the sand and in the water clad in that outfit. It was just... wrong. The sight would probably attract a fair share of gawkers... but what chiefly concerned the blonde was that she might be among them. “We’re--” She swallowed to stop her words from sticking in her throat, and tried again; calmer and clearer. “We’re going shopping. We’ll get you something new, alright?”
Kirika looked at the swimsuit she held up in one hand, her brow creasing and her soulful eyes batting as she no doubt mused why the outfit wasn’t up to scratch. There were some things that just couldn’t be explained. Or rather, better off left alone.
******
The barman slipped his tray under his arm and bowed, before leaving Mireille and Kirika to their drinks. Mireille picked up her raspberry vodka and cranberry juice cocktail from the table between her and her partner’s loungers and took a long and decadent sip through its straw. The cool sweetness of the combined fruit flavours and the slow-building buzz of vodka was nectar from heaven, and with the setting--the lulling banter of the calm ocean’s tide, the not-too-warm sun gently toasting the sandy beach from a beautiful sky overhead--it all worked to knead the worries from her mind and loosen the knots from her muscles. She reclined further back in her seat, her body usually always in a state of readiness; taut and mistrustful; finally relaxing that last inch, becoming limp.
Here on this resort’s beach Mireille was a tourist like everybody else. Her concerns were tourists’ concerns--her purse being stolen; misplacing her hotel keycard; sunburn. In the back of her mind the assassin’s instincts persisted, preaching of the perils behind every corner, of extraordinary dangers an everyday citizen would never contemplate. But for now Mireille was a part of the everyday, and no one unless they knew her would think any different. She blended in not because she had to, that it was some sort of cover, but because she was one of them, of the masses, simply living her life as normal. On this beach there weren’t targets to stalk and remove nor authorities to shun or threats to evade or terminate. If people with ill intent watched, then they watched harmlessly from afar. It was too public to make a move here, and although the risk of the sniper was constant, it wasn’t a very real risk. It was too early in the game for an aggressive move like that from any of Noir’s enemies. Besides, Mireille and Kirika didn’t travel without covering their tracks and watching their tails. Another beneficial habit.
Mireille turned her head to peer at Kirika though her sunglasses, the girl looking a bit awkward sitting there on the lounger an arm’s distance away. She sat stiffly; back straight despite the lean of the lounger; staring out across the sea. As long as she was with Mireille, snipers or anyone else would never get the drop on them. Though the Corsican could dial it down a notch, Kirika never switched off, never relaxed; not really. It was who she was. Perhaps it should be admired, however Mireille just felt it was sad.
Mireille looked again at her partner, banishing the bleak contemplations and instead focusing on something more pleasant--Kirika’s new swimsuit. It was a onepiece, dark blue with a pair of parallel white stripes up each side--not much unlike her school swimsuit Mireille abruptly realised, and with some discomfort. It could have been worse... or was that better? There had been much skimpier choices at the hotel’s swimwear store; much too skimpy for the innocent likes of Kirika. Yet Mireille had *almost* succumbed to temptation, allowing her runaway imagination to clothe her partner rather than have reality wisely call the shots. She’d had several bikinis in her hand no less, from the modest to downright itty-bitty things, for Kirika to just ‘try on’ before she’d come to her senses. Harmless it had seemed initially, although her conscience had had something else to say about it. And Kirika would have tried them all on without a word either way said; indeed, she had acted far too used to modelling at Mireille’s leisure that it had become rather unsettling to the blonde--the girl had come to expect it, going so far as to take the--fortunately innocuous--outfits from Mireille’s hands before the woman had even brought up the subject of change rooms. No doubt Kirika would have worn anything on the beach the blonde might have purchased for her, indifferent or more likely oblivious to the scandalous display she’d put on. Or maybe it would be only scandalous to Mireille’s too familiar eyes. Ultimately the woman had sided with fair judgement and was glad of it, despite the twinge of regret she felt gazing upon her partner now.
The onepiece swimsuit did so cling though, sticking to and outlining the contours of Kirika’s trim body. It was still a pleasure to look upon... but deep down Mireille was conscious that to her it was the person wearing it that truly had all the charm.
Mireille took a last mouthful of her cocktail and put it down on the table, then adjusted her lounger until it was lying flat. With a blissful sigh she rolled over onto her stomach, a turned cheek resting on her folded hands. Her lazy gaze was half-lidded, and was free to clandestinely stare at the girl across the way as much as she desired behind the tinted veil of her sunglasses. For a while she watched Kirika as she sipped dispassionately at her fruit juice, expressionless, seeming gone from this world. She began to feel herself drift off in the girl’s stoicism; the poignant, yawning reddish-brown gaze; the calm and unaffected aura. It took an effort to snap back into full wakefulness, and when she did Mireille reached down at the side of her lounger for her handbag. She opened it and blindly felt around inside, touching her Walther P99 and extra magazine briefly while on her quest for something else much more mundane and that only protected... yet in her case had the potential to still be dangerous. However, Mireille’s conscience that had been strong earlier in the swimsuit store was muffled now--or maybe she was just not willing to listen this time. It wasn’t a big deal anyway, she told herself. Yet she knew she would make it feel like it was. Still, Mireille kept searching through her handbag, and when she found what she was looking for she pulled it out and held it towards Kirika, her arm outstretched.
“Do my back, would you?” the blonde said, as though it were an everyday request. It was of course, but not for them. Not for her, and how she felt. How they felt. Her eyes were closed now, her body still limp, but it was a feigned relaxation. Inside she questioned herself furiously; argued; scolded. Was it her heart or was it her body that had taken control? Or again, was it both in concert, conspiring, joining together for a common goal; a common need? Did it matter?
Kirika, while characteristically nonplussed, naturally obliged, taking the sunscreen lotion from her partner’s grasp. She put her juice glass down and moved closer, vacating her lounger for the edge of Mireille’s. For her part Mireille resettled herself, getting as comfortable as she could given the circumstances--circumstances that were entirely her own doing, she was painfully aware. She tried not to fidget, however she had become very conscious of what she was wearing. On any other day, at any other moment, in the company of anybody else, the woman would not have been the type to be insecure about how she chose to cloth herself. But this was today, *this* moment, and in Kirika’s company. The girl had been spared a revealing bikini, but that was not to say that Mireille hadn’t pampered herself. The blonde currently wore her new acquisition--a white bikini; not terribly indecent, however there was only so much skin small triangles of cloth and strings could cover. It wasn’t about what Kirika could see though; rather what she would be able to touch... to *feel*... and what it might provoke inside Mireille.
Mireille swallowed, her eyes still squeezed shut. She could sense her partner hovering over her. Each second that past without Kirika’s hands upon her left a growing tingling sensation inside the blonde, her nerves animated in united anticipation. And just when Mireille was starting to feel young and foolish for playing the part of the giddy maiden, Kirika’s fingertips gently brushed against the nape of her neck. Immediately whatever muscles that weren’t already rigid Mireille tightened. But it wasn’t the beginning--Kirika’s fingers scoped underneath the silky straw-coloured bundles of hair that lay across Mireille’s back and moved the mane out of the way, over one creamy shoulder. The beginning finally came when Mireille felt the cool lotion against her hot skin, guided by tentative, slender fingers.
Kirika began at her neck, and then glided her hands outwards to her shoulders, smearing the sunscreen as she went. By the time the girl’s hands reached Mireille’s shoulder blades her fingers had become bolder, firmer, plying the flesh and the muscles underneath with increasing confidence. Less did Mireille feel the lotion, and more the warmth and pressure of her partner’s fingertips and hands all over her back. The woman hadn’t intended it to be a massage, but it started to feel like one. And it felt good. Who would have known that Kirika had a talent for it? Her touch was gentle, soothing, yet hard enough to entice muscles to ooze into submission beneath her pressing fingertips. Hands so accustomed to hurting, to killing, shouldn’t be this soft and calming. It occurred to Mireille she had scarcely considered what other skills the young assassin might possess beyond that of dealing death. She wondered what other traces of the girl that had been lingered like a ghost within Kirika, behind the manufactured assassin--before the killer.
Kirika worked her way down Mireille’s back, navigating around the woman’s bikini top’s straps, the fingers apparently still retaining some shyness as they did not dare slip underneath. A wild thought gambolled through Mireille’s head to reach behind and loosen those straps to embolden her partner. If the blonde hadn’t felt like it was impossible to move an inch while Kirika’s hands were upon her the thought might have lived for longer, instead of being anxiously snuffed out.
Minutes or hours may have gone by; for Mireille it could have been an eternity or a blink of an eye. There came a moment where she forgot to be apprehensive or guilty, and simply lay there, drifting, enjoying the kiss of the sea breeze and the whispering of the undulating waves--and most of all Kirika beside her, rubbing and soothing. She became addicted to Kirika’s touch; a willing doll for the girl to play with; but only distantly was the blonde aware of the change. She kept drifting, accepting it, and with it came closer to escaping from the world. From her world. It wasn’t an emptiness; not a black void; but there was peace there. She smiled softly as she touched it.
Kirika’s hands reached the base of Mireille’s spine... and the hem of the woman’s bikini bottoms. Her hands stopped there, rousing the blonde. “All over,” Mireille mumbled groggily.
There was a lengthy pause, however Kirika eventually obeyed, and Mireille didn’t so much as flinch or tense or even slightly feel the cold and hollow pangs of guilt in the pit of her stomach when the girl shifted her hands lower, smoothing them over her rear. The bikini contained only half of the blonde’s bottom at most, resulting in the other half bare and squeezing out of the sides. Dutifully Kirika applied sunscreen to the cheeks, yet spent no longer there than anywhere else, soon moving on to the backs of Mireille’s thighs and calves. The darkhaired girl’s small hands ran the length of Mireille’s legs, coating them with lotion and making the Corsican’s skin glisten under the sun, a match for the woman’s already treated back.
The hands ceased their soothing once again, and with effort Mireille revived herself. She turned over onto her back; although it was more a cross between a flop and a roll; and became limp again, as if it had taken all of her energy to perform that small manoeuvre. She hadn’t even opened her eyes. “You can do my front now,” Mireille murmured nonchalantly. There obviously was no reason she couldn’t take the sunscreen from Kirika and do the rest herself. In fact that would have been the proper and sensible course of action; not this... indulgence... this... *exploitation*. Kirika didn’t know any better--couldn’t know--it was obvious to anyone but her. Mireille was taking advantage of Kirika and her naivety. Anyone else would have read Mireille’s true motivation plain as day, seen right through her and her desire, but not Kirika. The girl was too innocent for that. Mireille knew this, and yet.... Doubts popped up, accusing her of being like those that had twisted and abused Kirika for their own gain. It was different though, she argued with herself--she loved Kirika. Moreover, she felt remorse... even if it didn’t always make her reconsider. Mireille tried not to think too much on it. Again however, that was for her benefit--the more she dwelled, the more she second guessed herself, and the more likely she was to abandon her selfish ploys and suppress her desires. And Mireille didn’t want to.
When the woman felt her partner’s slick hands return to her, any scrap of regret or shame evaporated under that tender kneading. Again Kirika began at Mireille’s neck and shoulders, spreading lotion on the areas that had been overlooked the first time around. From her shoulders Kirika slid her hands down Mireille’s bare arms; resting there at the blonde’s sides like dead weights and infinitely pliable to the girl’s manipulation. Kirika took Mireille’s hands in her own; each in turn; cupping them from above and below. Gently she rubbed; the palm first, then her fingers mingling with the woman’s, interlacing, the sunscreen smoothing the many unions. It seemed like a simple thing, a small affection, but having Kirika hold and minister to her hands in such a way was a surprisingly tranquil experience to Mireille.
Then the girl moved on to her chest. Mireille’s bikini top was just as lacking as the bottom, and with her breasts slightly splayed thanks to her supine position on the lounger, no doubt little was left to the imagination. Nevertheless Kirika’s hands went to explore the fresh territory as it was, without so much as a hint of timidness. Kirika started high, coating the tops of the blonde’s breasts that the bikini didn’t cover, and then whatever else was exposed, her fingers easily dimpling the supple flesh as she edged around the white cloth and strings. Mireille mused what was running through her partner’s mind as she worked at something that bordered on the erotic--or was. She had much more up there than Kirika did. Was the girl comparing in her head? Mireille was almost tempted to open her eyes a tiny bit, slits at most, to see Kirika’s face. But Mireille knew there wouldn’t be answers to be had upon that pretty visage, or even in those soulful eyes. Likely Kirika felt nothing. It was a job to her, a task that had to be done. That it was Mireille’s breasts she was feeling up was inconsequential.
And what did Mireille feel? She felt Kirika’s soft hands... but that was as far as she was willing to delve.
Eventually Kirika’s hands came together in the centre of Mireille’s bosom, running down her sternum until progressing on to the woman’s tight stomach. Her hands circled the blonde’s navel, greasing the span around it, and then dodged the shallowly cut bikini bottoms as she spread the lotion further on to Mireille’s thighs. Once more Kirika lavished the Corsican’s legs one after the other, her fingers slipping around to massage the inner thighs and behind the knees, finally traversing the calves to reach Mireille’s feet. She pampered them, handling them like she had the woman’s hands, her firm yet gentle fingertips sending tingles of delight straight through Mireille’s entire body. Mireille wasn’t sure if she might have let out a moan or not, but she definitely breathed heavier.
Kirika’s pinched fingers slipped off the toes of Mireille’s right foot, leaving the woman’s body for the last time. Rapture melted slowly back into a not-so-bad reality, and Mireille let her eyelids drift open. All she could do was smile gratefully at the girl sitting in front of her. But it was enough, and Kirika understood, smiling quietly back.
“It’s your turn now,” Mireille jauntily announced, sitting up and snatching the lotion from her partner’s grasp before she could react with anything except befuddlement. The blonde cocked her head towards the other lounger. “Sit over there.”
While Kirika did as she was told Mireille internally steeled herself. The blonde seemed picture perfect, what with her encouraging smile, the sparkle in her shaded eyes, and overall blasé demeanour. However Mireille could look a variety of things on the outside; it was a talent. Presenting falsehoods to the outside world was part of her trade. But honesty--now that was something else. And if she was honest with herself, then she was nervous; perhaps more so now than when she had been lying down before Kirika, under the girl’s hands and open to whatever ministrations she’d had in mind. Mireille didn’t often let nerves get the better of her... but also she didn’t often let her heart lead the way.
It was Mireille’s turn to sit on the edge of Kirika’s lounger, except she sat slightly further down, where the girl’s feet reached. She squirted a dollop of sunscreen lotion into one hand; almost pressing too hard and sending a deluge into her palm before catching herself. She was taking advantage of Kirika again--that’s how she felt, anyway. Was this worse than earlier? Mireille was simply returning the favour.... It sounded feeble even in her head. She could beat herself up over her conduct and wallow in self-reproach later--she had come too far now. Another weak excuse, but Mireille was happy to seize upon it.
Mireille’s fingers pushed in between Kirika’s toes, sawing back and forth for a bit, before she smoothed her hands over the tops of both the girl’s bare feet, spreading sunscreen. The woman grinned at her partner as she ran a teasing fingertip down the sole of one foot that had Kirika twitch her leg and jerk it back a little. Kirika was ticklish, was she? Mireille couldn’t help doing it again with the girl’s other foot, inciting a similar adorable reaction.
Mireille rubbed her way up both of Kirika’s lithe legs at the same time, each of the blonde’s hands circling around the calves vigorously, feeling the hard tone of trained muscles beneath surprisingly soft skin. When she reached her partner’s thighs she took them on one at a time, her fingertips pushing sunscreen lotion all the way up to where the girl’s swimsuit began at her crotch and behind. The woman’s fingertips toyed at the bikini line--more than they should have--however she kept the pretence up, soon stopping to squeeze more lotion into her hands.
Mireille stole glances at Kirika’s face, thankful for her sunglasses doing well to hide her eyes. She hoped to gauge her reaction, to see if she stirred anything in her... and to see if maybe the girl was wise to her advances. Kirika had closed her eyes, leaning back in the slightly upright lounger. Did that mean she was enjoying it? Or was she merely mimicking how Mireille had behaved? At least her eyes wouldn’t be upon Mireille as she did this. Kirika’s gaze hadn’t been accusing before her eyes had shut, but it made it easier nonetheless.
Mireille lifted Kirika’s left arm in one hand and with the other coated the limb with sunscreen from wrist to shoulder, stroking back and forth several times until she was satisfied. With the girl’s hand she paid particular attention to repay her for earlier; Mireille spent minutes tenderly massaging in between the array of bones and between her partner’s slim fingers, and spent more rubbing spirals with a thumb upon her palm. She watched Kirika’s face throughout, trying to tell whether it felt as delightful as it had to her. However at most it seemed like Kirika was having a pleasant dream, her face relaxed yet primarily emotionless. Maybe Mireille wasn’t doing it right. It wasn’t as if she had experience giving massages.
The woman smiled ruefully to herself. There was no mistaking this was absolutely a massage and not the clinical application of sunscreen she professed it to be. Kirika wouldn’t know the difference though. Mireille sighed, unsure how she felt about that.
Mireille switched sides on the lounger so she could get at and treat Kirika’s right arm as she had the girl’s left, and then focused on her partner’s neck. Kirika’s swimsuit had a scoop neck, however barely any part of her chest was left open to the air. Nevertheless the blonde relished what she had before her, painstakingly rubbing sunscreen with her fingertips across delicate collar bones up to Kirika’s neck, and gently sliding her hands around the slender throat. Mireille’s left hand then slipped down from the nape of Kirika’s neck, over her shoulder to the naked skin the swimsuit’s open, though shallow, back exposed, while with her right she touched the girl’s hip, coaxing her to rise and sit upright.
Kirika did, though she stayed asleep and dreaming. Mireille held her near, leaning close that their cheeks almost brushed, and caressed the last measure of lotion onto her back in steady, concentric circles. Perhaps onepiece swimsuits weren’t entirely a lost cause.
Mireille held Kirika to her for longer than necessary, continuing to rub even though the lotion had long been spread into nothingness. The woman looked past her love’s shoulder, at the palm trees and sand, at the blue sky and serenity. It *was* paradise... but the people--or rather person--you shared it with made it so.
Mireille gently eased Kirika back onto the recliner, and the girl awakened, staring up at her. “Now neither of us will burn,” the blonde said. She took a last bit of lotion and swiped it along the bridge of Kirika’s nose, smiling lopsidedly.
Kirika peered down at her nose and the creamy streak it wore and rubbed at it, wiping the sunscreen over her cheeks.
Mireille went back to her lounger and retrieved her cocktail. She needed the drink more than ever--she sucked on the straw until the bottom of it crackled that her cocktail had become an empty glass. A swim in the cool sea seemed the next best thing. But neither craving was due to the heat of the tropical sun above.
******
Kirika observed Mireille as the woman picked up a big prawn from the seafood salad in front of her. Pinched between her thumb and forefinger, she daintily dipped it in some sort of pinkish sauce collected at the centre of the salad before bringing it up to her lips, the rose-hued cushions closing around the ocean morsel, and two delicate bites with perfect white teeth later only the apparently inedible or bad-tasting tail of the prawn was left. Mireille disposed of the tail on the rim of the plate that cradled the salad bowl, and plucked another prawn from the crowd buried in ice and fresh fruits, destined for a fate that was captivating to Kirika sitting on the other side of the round table.
The darkhaired girl could almost overlook the other people around them. But she and Mireille weren’t really alone, and her instincts, honed over her lifetime, would never let her forget it no matter the distraction before her. The hotel’s restaurant was all hustle and bustle, everyone predictably wanting something to eat now that it was lunchtime. They came in droves to plunder the outdoor buffet and lay claim to other tables, and although Kirika didn’t focus her gaze on them, she saw them. The other diners looked like harmless tourists on the outside--but so did she and Mireille.
The open air restaurant was attached to the hotel; a terrace with canvas coverings overhead jutting out from one side onto the beach; and as such the majority of the diners still had on their swimsuits or beachwear from their seaside recreation. Kirika and Mireille did too, fitting in. The girl’s navy swimsuit was darker than usual; still damp from when she had followed her partner into the ocean’s waves; as were her arms and legs still soaked, and hair still dripping. She hadn’t swum before, let alone ‘taken a dip’ in the ocean, as Mireille had described it. Yet the strokes to stay afloat had come naturally, and the sensation of buoyancy had been familiar and not at all disconcerting. For a moment Kirika had believed she had stood waist deep and surrounded by water in the past, but then the belief had slipped through her mind, just like the water had done through her fingers, returning to an indistinct ocean of memories. No doubt her body *did* have experience swimming, but for Kirika body and mind were two separate things. For *her*, it had been her first time in the sea. Her first time to swim for no other reason than ‘just because’. And for certain her first time swimming with Mireille.
The blonde had taken delight in splashing Kirika, as if the girl having to wipe water out of her eyes was somehow funny. Kirika had noticed other people doing the same however, everyone seeming to derive enjoyment from the frolic. Tentatively she had tried splashing Mireille back, and had discovered that it made her smile too seeing the woman attempt to writhe away from the spray, or blubber in the aftermath. Why, Kirika didn’t know. But she did know she had liked it, and that had been simple enough motivation to keep playing, continuing the addictive game until Mireille had begged off any more watery assaults.
The pair had come back to the beach smelling of the sea. It wasn’t a bad odour--Kirika did in fact find it pleasing, like everything else here. She liked the warm and soft beach sand sinking beneath her feet and the limitless sighing ocean where she could stare towards forever. It was the edge of peace, beautiful and unspoiled. She wished for solitary instead of sharing it with dozens of other people, but realised it was impossible. Perhaps they felt the same as her? Perhaps they too felt at the edge of peace, as if all that blue was on the verge of swallowing them up and whisking them somewhere else, somewhere... quieter. Kirika wondered if Mireille had parallel feelings. Sharing the empty seaside with her would have been okay. No... being there with just her would have perfected it. Solitary was for the past; it was for a different Kirika. When the girl thought of being alone, she wasn’t really alone. There was always someone else included in the isolation. Noir was a name for two. It was the only gift she had been given by Altena and Soldats, yet was the greatest of gifts--what she’d always wanted.
Mireille tipped her head back, an oyster sliding into her mouth from the half-shell she had cupped in her hand. They were strange and ugly creatures, seeming not meant for eating, yet watching the woman’s throat work as she eventually swallowed the slimy greyish slug had Kirika want her to devour more of them. Mireille’s skin glistened, the woman wet from head to foot as Kirika was, droplets of sea water dotting her body and catching the sunlight a myriad of fresh ways whenever she moved. Some broke free every so often seemingly by their own impulse, running down her naked arms and chest, the latter bound for the inescapable furrow there. Her blonde hair was darker, sodden, but still hung in beautiful long waves and curls about her shoulders, impossible to diminish with a little dunking in the ocean. No, to Kirika this was just another angle to the jewel; another perspective. And yet... something had changed.
Kirika’s appreciation for how her partner looked and moved wasn’t a new discovery, but there was more to it now. It had... sharpened. The woman before her, who was always at her side, had become... more... *real*. Kirika had forever looked on; her eyes bathing in the creamy skin and gentle curves, the rich blue gaze and beautiful visage it stared out from; treasuring every detail, committing them all to memory to relive in her mind when the woman was no longer within her sight. However, every time Kirika had looked on it had been from a distance either great or small, but always a distance. Eyes couldn’t know the softness of that creamy skin or the sensation of those gentle curves. Mireille still wore her new swimsuit, an outfit that revealed a lot of her body. Kirika hardly ever saw so much of it except when Mireille changed clothes, and during those instances the blonde wasn’t favourable to her peeking. Now however Mireille’s body was openly exhibited; Kirika was free to look, to stare, for as long as she liked. It was bliss for her eyes, a rare pleasure--and yet it was nothing, an image in a mirror only compared to what she had... felt.
Kirika’s hands were like someone else’s. Ordinarily that would be cause for panic, but there wasn’t anything sinister about the sensation. Her hands were tantalised, sensitised; sacred all of a sudden; so much so she didn’t want to touch anything else with them. How could hands so *black*, so *tainted*, feel this way? But these hands had been on Mireille. They had been on an angel. They had been on the woman she loved; touching and feeling. They had run almost all over Mireille’s body, learning it, finally putting reality up against the reflections Kirika had had about the shape and the suppleness. Her imagination could rest, proven inferior to the real thing and no longer needed. Kirika would never forget how it had felt--how *Mireille* had felt. The girl wondered if it was a privilege that she would not get again. There would be other beaches, wouldn’t there? It was a new reason to like them. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a surprise to her that she couldn’t help but stare blatantly across the table; playing the memory in her head; and musing whether staring was all she would have once more. Moreover, Kirika wondered if her hands would still feel blessed rather than cursed as the days went by and the blood and sin inevitably came back.
Kirika’s hands weren’t the only parts of her body that felt special. Mireille had touched her too. The woman had considerately applied sunscreen to her arms and legs and wherever else the sun could strike, in return for Kirika doing the same to her earlier. For Mireille it had probably been an everyday activity, something shared between friends or people you knew, and not another thought given to it. However to Kirika it had been... something more. Something else completely. It wasn’t the same as Kirika putting her hands to Mireille’s body, but it had been just as unique, just as special. Just as memorable.
Mireille would likely not think too well of Kirika reading so much into what was probably simple contact between two people to her; she’d think her foolish maybe, or naive. But the fact remained that Kirika had really liked it. She’d liked touching Mireille and being touched by her. The girl wondered if other people ever felt this way when they touched another person. Or when they touched someone they cared about; someone they loved. Was that it? Was it love that made Kirika feel like this? Was it normal then? Did Mireille feel the same then? Did the same feelings bombard the woman as they did Kirika now? Had Mireille felt what Kirika had when their hands had been on each other?
Staring at the blonde, Kirika wasn’t sure. Mireille seemed the same. Whereas Kirika was confused and excited; thrilled and amazed to have come across something so wonderful and longing for it again, while at the same time worried that she wasn’t experiencing it as she was supposed to--that what felt natural wasn’t natural to anybody else. She wished she could talk about it. But the words... she didn’t believe she had them, nor did it seem like something she could voice to Mireille. She loved her, and knew she probably could talk to her about anything... and yet... she couldn’t imagine talking about this with her.
Even Altena, or the entity that used her voice, had nothing to say about how Kirika felt. It was eerily silent, and had been since arriving in Okinawa. No cynical mocking, no foreboding messages--nothing. Dead silence, as though her other self didn’t even breathe, wasn’t even aware of what had happened. Was she asleep? *Did* she sleep? The respite was welcome whatever the cause, although a little advice from Kirika’s more worldly self might not have been so bad right now.
“Why don’t you try one?”
Kirika blinked and met Mireille’s encouraging gaze as the blonde downed another oyster.
“They’re an acquired taste,” the woman explained after the mouthful was gone. “They’re meant to be an--” She stopped, as though suddenly lost for words. “They’re a delicacy,” Mireille soon continued.
Kirika eyed the tray layered with ice and with about half a dozen raw oysters atop, the creatures wallowing in moist black and white shells, waiting to be scooped out. If this were a survival situation she wouldn’t have hesitated, but there were far more appetising foods on the table that she could eat instead. It was for Mireille, though.
Tentatively Kirika’s hand crept towards the tray.
Mireille sniffed, attracting Kirika’s attention, and she saw the blonde smiling in amusement. “You don’t have to try one if you don’t want to.”
Kirika hesitated a moment longer, and then took a prawn from the salad near her partner instead. Mireille’s smile widened and she shook her head slightly, closing her eyes for a brief moment. She reached for an oyster.
Kirika munched on her prawn, the curled and ribbed pink seafood tasting not much like anything. Regardless, she was glad it wasn’t one of those strange shellfish. Her interest was still in Mireille however more than the lunch on offer; she resumed watching the lovely blonde, savouring the way she arched her neck as she tilted her head back to consume another raw oyster, and how her chest pushed out a little while she did.
There were others who savoured the sight, the woman, also. Kirika saw whenever a look was directed their way--*Mireille’s* way. They weren’t exactly predatory glances, failing to trigger an intuitive defence in the young assassin; however they didn’t feel benign either. They came from men, young to old, from the corner of eyes or under the guise of a passing look, or over a newspaper or even openly without any sort of subtlety undertaken. Kirika didn’t like how those people stared at Mireille. There was something about the stares, something behind their eyes... not intent to harm or kill, yet... still something unsettling. Not every man did it, and women seemed to oddly be exempt judging by Kirika’s observations. The ones who did look seemed to admire Mireille as Kirika did... but admire her *too* much, if that made sense. Kirika just didn’t like it. Did they feel what she felt for Mireille? Did *she* stare like that? Were they enjoying the blonde’s new swimsuit and abundance of bare skin just like Kirika was doing?
All of a sudden Kirika thought that the pair of white triangles that consisted of Mireille’s swimsuit top didn’t cover enough. They clung too much, emphasising her chest and exposing the shape of it; something that shouldn’t have been so easily deduced. The swimsuit hardly concealed anything at all, in fact. Mireille was practically in her underwear. Perhaps there was something important about propriety and clothing after all. These people didn’t even know Mireille, yet they looked at her body, relishing its beauty and charms that they weren’t worthy of. Was Mireille aware of the looks? Of course she had to be. Had she expected them? Was she used to them? The blonde didn’t appear bothered by the attention she was receiving. Maybe Kirika should just ignore them too... there wasn’t anything she could do about them. There were other women around wearing swimsuits like what Mireille had on as well, and they seemed similarly dismissive. It was peculiar how Mireille could be so accepting of stares when she was in a swimsuit, but when she was in underwear of practically the same style, it was intolerable. Were those other scantily-clad women given to the same weird behaviour?
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like how it tastes?” Mireille asked.
Kirika looked down at her half-eaten prawn and shook her head.
“You don’t like it?”
“I like it,” Kirika clarified, taking a bite to finish off the seafood.
A bemused smirk appeared on Mireille’s face as she picked up her glass and took a drink of the red liquid inside. “What would you like to have for dinner?” she said, staring vacantly over the rim of her beverage off into the distance. There was something a bit melancholy in the stare. “Something you’d enjoy. A favourite food.”
“I like ice cream,” Kirika provided. Mireille should have known that.
Mireille turned her head to her, her glassy gaze no more as she raised a wry eyebrow. “I think we should keep that as a dessert,” she said dryly. “What do you like to eat the most besides that? A favourite meal?”
Kirika’s brow knitted and her head lowered, her eyes staring at the table but not seeing the food on it. She thought hard on the question. There were few things in this world she ‘liked’. There were few things in this world her kind was permitted to like. She liked ice-cream; the coolness in her mouth and smooth texture on her tongue, and the sweet yet mellow flavours. It was soothing to eat, coating memories in that sugary haze for as long as it melted in her mouth. She had liked to draw once, to create for once instead of destroy, however its charm had been stained by her very own hands, and she knew too well that blood never really washed out completely. She liked animals, big and small, and their simple existences; the freedom in it. And they were cute.
Then there was Mireille. Kirika liked... loved... her. There wasn’t anything about the woman that she didn’t love. The sight of her, the smell... her voice, her mannerisms.... Kirika could go on forever.
Food, though.... Kirika thought about the French cuisine she’d had frequently with Mireille in Paris, but none of it stuck out in her mind as a favourite. Some foods tasted good, some foods tasted okay, and some foods tasted bad. Ultimately it was all merely fuel for her body, or had been considered as much before meeting Mireille. Alone, Kirika had eaten whatever was on hand; whatever had been in the fridge in the house she had woken up in, and when that had run out, whatever had been on the first shelf at her local conveinience store. As long as her nutritional requirements had been fulfilled, as long as the assassin kept functioning, the taste hadn’t mattered.
Conversely Mireille had treated meals as something special, something to be savoured and enjoyed, worthy of care and deliberation. Kirika had dined on whatever Mireille had been eating, and later in their relationship when given a choice, had picked the first thing the woman had offered for her plate. Kirika didn’t have a preference. Kirika didn’t *have* preferences. She... had not been meant to think like that. Independent thought, yes, but only so far as her bullets travelled. ‘Trivial’ things; ‘fun’ things--they were not for her. Weapon maintenance was supposed to be her hobby; her favourite food was whatever rations were provided for her. Killing was meant to be her passion, and death was meant to be her lover. Altena had desired it that way. Altena had designed her life to be never-ending darkness--to be black.
“That’s alright,” Mireille said softly as Kirika’s hesitation showed no sign of relenting. There was sympathy in the blonde’s voice; genuine sympathy from her heart. Only Kirika ever got to hear it; only she ever inspired such feeling in her partner. It should have made the girl feel better, yet it only emphasised how different she was from everybody else around her. She had never been meant for *this* world--the world of fine dining and relaxing mornings on a beach. Mireille knew it too. “I’ll take you somewhere nice.”
Mireille breathed out heavily and turned her head towards the ocean again. She took a slow drink of her cocktail. “I was thinking of going out of town for dinner. To Kadena.”
Kirika looked up, perfectly aware of what she meant. Inside the girl’s mind the assassin took a breath, rousing--awake. After all, *this* was her world. And Kirika supposed it was her own as well.
******
Mireille sidestepped a trio of noisy and overly chummy men who tottered onto the street arms over each others’ shoulders and didn’t seem to have even seen her, and pushed open the door to the bar behind them--‘The Locker’, the sign in English. Immediately she was assaulted by loud music and more raucous voices, stopping her there in the doorway as her senses got to grips with it. Kirika edged in around her, taking in what could be intimidating revelry to many people with her usual aplomb, despite being underage for a house of liquor and smoke and as a result clearly the only teenage presence. The ceiling was obscured by a sky of roiling grey clouds, the stale and heavy scent of nicotine death inescapable even at the entrance with the street and its open night air at the two young women’s rear. The tables were awash with men and the occasional woman; too many chairs crammed in around; and the tabletops themselves unsurprisingly with pitchers of beer and mugs and glasses amid spills and cigarette butts. The bar somewhere on the left was lost behind a screen of stools and customers, only identifiable by the steady stream of the latter that came with nothing and left with drinks in their arms. It didn’t look like food was served beyond the complimentary peanuts, but Mireille and Kirika weren’t here for that. Their dinner was still fresh on their tastebuds, enjoyed at a quaint restaurant several blocks away and far removed from this kind of atmosphere. They weren’t here for dessert either, or the blonde for a nightcap. Being in this dive wasn’t for pleasure. Pleasure had ended with the last bite of their meal.
Mireille felt she’d be hard pressed to get a chardonnay she favoured in this pit anyway. She had known that before entering; the Corsican assassin had done her research, although without it she could have summed up the place in seconds from the pavement outside. The dull roar she had heard on the street that she was facing full force now hadn’t been vocal Japanese--the voices were English, of one particular accent. The faces at the tables and leaning over the bar were Caucasian--Americans. The bar was for them and their tastes. Even the music was western mainstream. Mireille bet the booze was as well. The Americans weren’t tourists, however; they were pilots, technicians, medics--soldiers in the broadest word. The majority were out of uniform, off duty and free to make brash fools of themselves under an alcohol spur, released from the shackles of military discipline for a time. They were attached to the US air base that dominated the town, a controversial holdover from World War II. Mireille and Kirika wouldn’t have been in The Locker, or Okinawa, if not for Kadena Air Base... and Soldats’ love for intrigue.
Mireille’s eyes scanned the room, searching for a face she recognised in the boisterous crowd. Jacques had arranged the meet--the first step in picking apart the Soldats rebels’ operation--emailing the details to her, along with a picture of Colonel Chad Dickson. Dealing with unfamiliar third parties, especially when relying on them to facilitate some aspect of a contract, seldom made the blonde happy; too often a ‘hitch’ or two would eventuate--a ‘small’ problem that became anything but--or outright betrayal, simply because they were an unknown in what was meant to be a binary equation. Mireille trusted her *own* sources and her clients when embroiled in a contract, no one else bar a petite Japanese girl, and even her clients she still tended to watch like a hawk; after all, they had hired her to kill someone; morals and loyalty were unlikely traits they prized in themselves. Having more than one or two people aware of the impending hit just wasn’t wise either. Trust was a dangerous notion in this business; having too much of it could kill you just effortlessly as too little could. At the end of the day experience and instinct were the best things to put your faith in--that was, if you didn’t have a partner. But Mireille didn’t think anyone else had a partner of Kirika’s nature; a person who had no true concept of treachery, let alone had the potential for it. For other partnerships egos could chafe, money could tempt, affection could sour, but Noir would stand the test of time. *Had* stood the test of time. Mireille might not like the title and where it had come from, but the principle behind it she embraced. She couldn’t imagine continuing her life as it had been before Noir... before love.
Mireille walked into the bar, careful whenever she had to squeeze past someone. Not to save their beverages or for courtesy, but for her own health. In such a public locale with so many people around the odds and logic said that nothing would happen, but even when you were ninety-nine percent sure of something, that one percent had a way of defying probability and spitting in the face of reason. Mireille didn’t need a knife slipping past her ribcage from a stumbling ‘drunk’ to teach her that one percent chance still meant a chance.
A few whistles and catcalls followed the blonde the deeper she got into The Locker, where the smoke and odour of alcoholic breath was most pungent--at least she hoped they were for her and not for Kirika trailing after her. Mireille pretended the obnoxious men didn’t exist of course; the best course of action for handling loud-mouthed louts; and moved her search to the bar itself. At the distant end of it, where the screen of customers inexplicably didn’t reach, sat a lone man nursing a shot of dark liquid. He knocked it back in a single curt motion, and then flicked the empty glass across the bar towards the sizable collection he was garnering in front of him. He ordered another without pause.
Mireille’s lips moved into a barely there smile, one of satisfaction and cold humour. He was their man. It was no wonder the other base personnel avoided this part of the bar when one of their commanding officers had staked it out, and with the Colonel tossing back the hard stuff like that. The soldiers were off duty and relaxing, but they weren’t suddenly stupid, even with all the drinking. Some lines were just never crossed. At least Noir and their contact would be granted some privacy in this otherwise hectic place.
The Corsican assassin appeared beside Colonel Dickson just as the bartender dubiously poured another shot--whiskey--and slid it to him. The Colonel was in his late forties perhaps and a touch overweight, his stomach hanging somewhat over his pants. His blonde hair, the thin amount he had left, was turning platinum with all the grey streaked through it, but it matched the lined and rugged face beneath. He was still in uniform, albeit dishevelled and sans cap, his jacket unbuttoned and his shirt collar and tie loose. The sweat on his brow was profuse, either from the alcohol or for another reason. Mireille suspected she knew that another reason.
“Something bothering you?” Mireille lightly taunted in English.
Colonel Dickson turned angrily, likely expecting an inferior being cute, but all authority drained from his demeanour at the sight of Mireille and Kirika. So he recognised them, or at least knew the name Noir and what it signified. He was almost certainly Soldats, or someone close to them that was privy to their world, the *real* world, and all of its terrors. Mireille supposed he felt he was face to face with one of those terrors.
“I.... Nothing, nothing,” the man downplayed; quick to adopt a hospitable, if nervous, manner in her and Kirika’s presence. “Can I get you and, ah....” He looked at Kirika, seeing a girl where someone older should have been. “...Can I get you a drink?” he went with, his invitation for assassins over the age of twenty only.
“Tonic water and lime,” Mireille said in Japanese to the lingering bartender. “Two of them.”
The Okinawan bartender nodded, and shuffled off to get the drinks.
“I’m sorry we had to meet somewhere like this,” the Colonel remarked, shooting glowers at his disorderly personnel, as though waiting for them to fall quiet despite being far from Kadena Air base and the chain of command. “I wanted it to be inconspicuous.”
“They’re just blowing off steam,” Mireille said graciously while accepting her tonic water from the returning barman. “Everyone has their method of coping with their life.” She turned her head to Kirika beside her, looking on fondly as the girl took an experimental swallow of her drink and pursed her lips a tiny bit at the bitter kick in the aftertaste.
“Hmph. Maybe,” Colonel Dickson replied, his agreement obviously lipservice. He threw some scrunched up yen bills on the bar for Mireille and Kirika’s refreshments, which the bartender appeared glad to snatch up so he could move on to customers in more jovial moods.
The blonde woman smirked coolly and had a sip of her drink herself. “How is Base Commander Hamilton?” she said coyly afterwards, studying the Colonel with a sidelong look.
Initially her remark seemed to stun Colonel Dickson, leaving him sitting there next to her silent and covered in his suddenly increasing sweat, but an instant later he was in control. “Not long for this world,” he whispered hoarsely, and gulped down his latest whiskey shot.
Major General Miles Hamilton, the current commander of Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. And like his second here, in league with Soldats. But not the Soldats that would have ensured he live past next week. The good Major General had sided with Ishinomori and her revolution, his disloyalty laid bare in Jacques reports, likely penned from a myriad of spies’ and infiltrators’ intelligence work, maybe Colonel Dickson included. The Major General was using his position and the air base’s location and facilities to supply military grade weapons and the ammunition to go with them to the Soldats rebels. Was it for a profit, for his greed? Or was he a true visionary, believing that reform for the ancient clandestine organisation was in its, and the world’s, best interest? His reasons hadn’t been detailed, which likely meant they hadn’t mattered to Jacques--to the Soldats of old. Only his guilt... and the penalty.
“Why now?” Mireille asked; all hardness now that the pleasantries were dispensed with. Clearly cutting off Kaede Ishinomori’s armament deliveries would hurt her offensive, forcing her to eventually rely on smaller, lower grade arms that were more readily available on the blackmarket--a far cry from military hardware. Why hadn’t Hamilton been removed sooner? Had Breffort been waiting for Noir to do the job right? Had the Major General simply covered his tracks well up until this point? It didn’t add up. Soldats were better than this.
“It’s the most opportune time,” Dickson said, misunderstanding... or had he? He signalled the barman to give him another shot.
“That’s not what I meant.”
The Colonel waited for the bartender to fill his glass and leave, before turning to Mireille, his agitation reaching a higher notch. “Look, I don’t have any answers. I just get you in there.”
Mireille inclined her head with deliberate slowness, courteously accepting his ignorance for the time being. Perhaps he really didn’t know anything. Perhaps he simply was that third party; the middle man; the facilitator. He seemed frightened enough to be a nobody in Soldats’ grand scheme.
Colonel Dickson glanced to his left and then to his right, and then over his shoulder, apparently checking whether the coast was clear although by doing so probably had made himself *more* noticeable. Regardless, he appeared satisfied and furtively put his hand inside his blue jacket, taking out a USB drive. He put it on the bar between himself and the Corsican assassin, a finger lingering on it. “Maps you’ll need.”
Mireille put her index finger on the drive and started to drag it over to her, only to be stoppe
[End notes:
Author’s ramblings: I hope I got the US military stuff right! Gomen if I didn’t~!
I hope the assassination was acceptable too. I guess they can't all degenerate into massive shootouts with crazy bodycounts... unfortunately! ^_^]