---10:00 AM--- Priss woke up and reached over next to her to where Linna had been sleeping, but she wasn't there. She looked around the room at the recently cleaned walls and found where Linna had left the mat she'd slept on. It was rolled up and placed in the corner. She closed her eyes again to... Recently cleaned walls? She opened her eyes and looked around. All the dirty clothes she'd left lying around were gone, and the floors and walls had been cleaned immaculate. She got up and walked outside. Linna had swept the stone path leading from the house Priss' mother had left her to the road, and her dirty clothes were hanging by a line as they drip-dried after having been cleaned in a nearby stream. She'd also cleaned the outside of the house, and left a small cone of salt outside the entrance. "Damn it, what's that crazy geisha up to now?" She mumbled sleepily. As she went back inside, she could hear someone whistling a happy little tune. In the kitchen, Linna was lovingly preparing breakfast for herself and Priss. A typical Japanese breakfast of rice and miso soup was out of the question, as she didn't have access to the ingredients for the soup. She was able to make the rice, however. Having woken at the crack of dawn, she thought about the previous night she'd shared with Priss. She didn't think she'd ever been happier in her life. Last night, for the first time, she had shared her body with another person. Priss had been so tender, so passionate. It was a side of her the former geisha never would've guessed existed. As a result, the affection Linna had felt for her had bloomed into something much more profound "Linna?" Priss asked, "Linna, what is all this?" "All of what, Priss-chan?" she asked, a bit surprised at Priss' tone. "The path, the salt, the cleaning, the... chan?" "Well, I got up at sunrise, and since you were still asleep and I had nothing else to do, I thought I might as well help out a little around the house." "I see." she said, a bit taken aback. She had told Linna not to push her, and here she was practically moved in. "Oh, and the pillar of salt is for purification." "Purification?" "Hai. Back at the okiya where I grew up, we used to leave a small cone of salt like that outside the building every morning." she then looked at Priss "Are you hungry?" "Well, I guess I am a bit. But I can get myself something. You don't have to..." "Are you sure, Priss-chan? It'd be no trouble to..." "And stop calling me chan." "What? Why?" Linna asked. For Priss to act so coldly to her and to withdraw to the point where she refused to allow her to call her by the affectionate term chan, both confused and hurt her deeply. Why would she be acting like this? "Sylia used to call me chan. I'm not comfortable with another calling me that." Linna looked at her silently as she thought about that. "Did your relationship with her mean that much to you?" Priss regarded the geisha in front of her, particularly the hurt tone in her voice. Damn it, why was Linna insisting on making everything so complicated? "What I had with Sylia is between me and her, so drop it!" she said, immediately wishing she hadn't raised her voice as Linna turned away. "I'm sorry, I..." Linna was no longer listening. She now knew what was wrong. Inside, she felt a little piece of herself die. "You still love her, don't you?" she asked in a low tone of voice. "Whoa, now hold on a second. That's not true, I..." "She hurt you terribly," she said, her tone of voice betraying nothing of the emotional turmoil she was going through, "So you've tried to hurt her back in various ways, but you still love her. You wouldn't be so upset now, or so insistent I not call you chan otherwise." Priss wasn't sure what to say to that. As she was searching for a response, Linna placed the rice she'd made into a bowl, and turned back to her. "I'm not Sylia, Priss, and I never will be. I... I love you, but I won't share you with a ghost from the past." she said, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Linna, you don't understand..." "Here, you take this, I'm not very hungry anymore." she said, as she passed the bowl of rice to Priss. "I'll see you this evening at four over at sensei's store." she said, just before rushing out. "Linna, wait." But it was too late. She had already left. ---3:00 PM--- Brian J. Mason watched impatiently as the scenery went by. He'd been traveling for close to forty minutes, going over and over again in his head the offer he was about to make. "Kirkland Stables, Mr. Mason." the coachman yelled to him. As the coach stopped, he grabbed his stove pipe hat and exited with two members of the yakuza. Inside the house adjacent to the stables, Nigel was watching the new arrivals. Mackie, who Sylia had sent over on the pretext of checking up on her horses (in reality to get him away from the Silky Doll so the Knight Sabers could ride out that evening), was reading when he overheard Nigel take in a large gasp of air. "Nigel? Nigel, is anything..." "Mackie, stay inside the house." "What? Nigel, what's wrong?" "Look, kid, just stay inside and don't ask so many questions. And no matter what you see, don't come out." "Ummm... O... Okay." Mason had his two men stay by the coach as he strode up to the house, holding his hat down with one hand while he carried his cane in the other. As he got closer, he stopped when the front door opened and a tall Japanese man, dressed in traditional dark hakama pants with a plain white kimono tucked into them slowly started coming toward him. He noticed the man had his long hair pulled back into a ponytail and was smoking a cigarette. As he got closer, Mason realized he wasn't Japanese at all. He began to chuckle. "Nigel? Nigel, it's good to see you again, but this?" he said, smiling as he pointed at Kirkland's choice of attire, "I never would've thought you'd go native." "What do you want, Mason?" Nigel asked coldly. "Mason? My, we are being formal. Time was when we were on first name basis. You, me, and Steven were..." "Dr. Steven Stingray is dead, you black-balling bastard. Now tell me what you want, or get out." "I see... Very well, Kirkland, I think we both know why I'm here." "I won't talk. You can kill me if you want, but..." "Oh please. Drop the martyr act and stop being so naively old fashioned." "Come again?" "You know what your problem is, Kirkland? You want to be a hero." "Heh, really? That's my problem? I want to be a hero? You traveled all the way to Japan to tell me that? Thanks. Now that you've explained that to me, I guess we can go another thirteen years without seeing each other again, huh?" Mason frowned. Nigel was apparently determined to be obnoxious. Still, he'd come to give his sales pitch, and he'd be damned if he was going to let Nigel's boorish behavior get in the way. "Yes, Kirkland. You want to be a hero. The problem, of course, is that heroism is now an anachronism. We live in the age of telephones, telegraphs, steamships and railroads. Time is leaving you behind. You, the naturalists, the underdeveloped lands, and those night warriors or whatever the hell you call them. The age of heroes is over. There is no Sir Galahad, no dragons left to slay, and no fair damsels left to save. This is the industrial age; the age of man, the age of the machine. The future belongs to... now what is it the newspapers in the States call us again? Oh yes, the robber barons." "So you say." he answered coldly. "Damn it, Kirkland, think! What is personal heroism in the face of cannons, repeater riffles, or the gatling? Or... In the face of Dr. Stingray's..." "Hmmm... I was wondering when we'd get around to Stingray's invention." "Listen to me, will you? Very soon, certain events are going to take place, events which will make it rather dangerous to be a European here in Japan." "Really? Tell me more, you fascinate me." Nigel said sarcastically. "You know where Stingray's gun is, don't deny it. We want it. I want it. Genom International, in return for the gun and Stingray's papers, will see to your personal safety, and see you back safely to Europe if that is what you so desire." "If it becomes dangerous for me, I'll deal with it when the time comes. And if I die, at least I'll have died taking Dr. Stingray's secrets with me." "So we're back to Saint Nigel Kirkland, Martyr? Be reasonable. There are no Saint Stephens anymore, no saint Ignatius. Martyrdom doesn't pay well. Genom does. Very well, in fact. And when the time comes, you'll come to me, to us." "Get off my property, Mason. And take your goons with you." Nigel waited until he saw the coach go over the hill, then turned around and went back inside. Back in the coach, Mason was quietly seething at his treatment by Nigel. Finally bringing his temper under control, he turned to the yakuza in the coach with him. "Well that didn't bode too well. Any word yet from our spies?" "Yes, Mason-sama. She is here just as you guessed. She runs a women's clothing store called the Silky Doll." "Good work. We got nowhere with the good doctor's former partner, perhaps we'll have better luck with his daughter." ---7:30 PM--- The crowded streets of the Kiyosumi-Shirakawa district were slowly emptying, as vendors began closing up shop in the evening's sunset. As the beginnings of a chant from the nearby Buddhist temple began, they first heard it; the sounds of marching and of drums. As those still in the street turned south to where the noise was coming from, they saw a large group of armed British soldiers slowly marching toward them. Thinking a parade was occurring, men and women began coming out of their homes to see. That's when the soldiers in the front opened fire on the crowd. "Death to the Orientals!" the men disguised as British troops began to yell. Those closest to the troops fell like dominoes as those behind them started running for cover. "Kill them all!" their leader shouted. "Kill..." he was cut off by an arrow going through his throat. "It's those damn Knight Sabers!" one of the men yelled, as the troops quickly let off another volley into the terror stricken crowd. Pandemonium began to set in, as people began to trample each other to get away. Arrows now began to rain down on the fake soldiers, as Priss charged in swinging madly at anything her blade could come into contact with. Sylia began throwing smoke bombs and lit sticks of dynamite at them. The troops now found themselves the scared and confused ones, as explosions broke up their ranks. "Come on, damn it! There's only three of them, you stupid... Holy shit!" he shouted as he saw a new figure in green armor charging towards him. Linna, now entering her first battle as a Knight Saber, pushed her steed to a full gallop. Once her horse was up to speed, she realized something; Sylia had never taken the time to teach her how to ride a horse. She could get it to charge easily enough, but had no idea how to stop it. There was no time to worry, however, as the chaos around her grew. She gripped as hard as she could with her legs as she took the reigns and, raising her faceplate, bit down on them with her teeth. Her hands now free, she reached behind her to the two swords in the sheaths strapped to her back. As bullets and arrows whizzed around her, she drove her horse forward with her heels, her hands each now wielding the deadly blades." "Shit! There's a fourth one!" "What the..." Slicing and stabbing at all around her, she looked over to her left at some people crowded into an alley. "What are you waiting for?" she yelled, the reigns falling from her mouth, "Run!" In another part of the battle, Nene looked about ten meters to her right, to see a young three year old girl, separated from her parents and crying out of fear. She quickly got off her horse and ran to the child. Grabbing her, she began to run back to her steed, only to see the horse gunned down by a group of the soldiers. "Oh shit." She gasped, finding herself stranded. ------ Emperor Meiji walked down the long corridor, feeling greatly disturbed. At first he thought he'd just been imagining things, but not any more. Day by day, his personnel and staff were slowly changing. New and unfamiliar faces were meeting him in every corner of the palace. As he was brooding on the changes, his eyes met a familiar face. When Emperor Meiji had ascended to the throne and the shogun had stepped down from power, only about one-sixth of Japan reverted to imperial control. The rest was held onto by the feudal lords known as the daimyo. There had been two hundred and seventy-six daimyo, each exercising his own rights of legislature over his domains, each commanding his own samurai, and some even having their own navies. In the slow, painful transition from feudal agricultural society to industrialized constitutional monarchy, some daimyo, seeing the writing on the wall, stepped down gracefully. Some, reluctantly. Some only giving up their titles by forced coercion. Then there was this man who was now bowing before the emperor in the hall leading to his conference chamber. Kiyoshi was quite possibly the wickedest individual the Emperor had ever met. He taxed his peasants into poverty, and had his way with the young girls unlucky enough to be born in his lands. When the time came to give up his property rights to the young Emperor, the daimyo actually had the nerve to join in a plot to assassinate him. Begging mercy of the Emperor once the plot was uncovered, Meiji had banished him, not just from his sight, but from all of Japan. So what was Kiyoshi now doing here in the Imperial Palace? Among all the... unfamiliar faces? "Raidon, Masazaku," the Emperor called to his two advisors, "follow me." The two men whose advice Emperor Meiji trusted most followed him quickly into the conference room. "My Emperor, what's wrong." Raidon asked. "Gentleman," the Emperor began, "I'm afraid we're all in great danger." ------ Nene ran as fast as she could, the small girl screaming in fear as she clung onto the pink Knight Saber. Behind and around her, bullets flew. Reaching into a compartment in her armor with her right hand as she held the child with her left, she withdrew a shuriken, throwing it at the nearest trooper. "Aaaa! My fuckin' shoulder!" he yelled, as he dropped his riffle. Nene, not stopping to admire her handiwork, began to think back to her childhood growing up a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. "Theotokos (Orthodox title given to Mary), help me!" she screamed in Russian. As she looked up, she saw Linna, her armor covered in the blood of the fallen, quickly reaching back to sheath one of her swords. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of Nene, and swung her and the girl onto the horse behind her. She then somehow managed to turn the horse around and galloped away from the soldiers. In another part of the square, Sylia placed herself between a group of civilians and four of the heavily armed soldiers. Seeing the woman in her samurai armor, they began to laugh. There were four of them, and one of her. As she sheathed her sword, they thought she was going to surrender. Unfortunately, they didn't notice her armor had gun holsters at each hip. She beat them to the draw, dropping the four of them before they could even aim. She then turned back to the scared people behind her. "Find cover, now!" she ordered. Elsewhere, Priss was in the heat of the battle, but her mind was elsewhere. Why couldn't Linna understand? That term of affection, chan, held nothing but pain for her. That and love. You tell someone you love them, or they tell you they love you, and it's all downhill from there. Why in the hell would that damn stupid geisha think she still loved Sylia? The whole idea was stupid. Wasn't it? She shook herself out of it as she saw Linna riding at full speed with Nene and a small child clutching onto her from behind ride past her. As she watched her racing her steed, she realized two things; she had to do something quickly, or she was going to loose her, and she couldn't bring herself to imagine not having Linna with her. The sound of a trumpet announced that the real British troops had arrived. Linna was able by some means to get her horse to stop, as Nene passed the girl down to a group of locals hiding behind a statue. "Good grief, Linna. The way you rode this thing, a person would think you'd never been on a horse before." "Well, now that you mention it..." "Fall out!" Sylia called, as both she and Priss now rode by them. The British troops now engaged the fake soldiers in battle, much to the confusion of the native population. As they rode off into the darkness, Linna tried to tally in her mind the number of men she'd just killed, and felt sick to her stomach. True, if they hadn't shown up, an even greater slaughter would've taken place, with the British garrison taking the blame. It didn't make the taking of life any easier for her. She then remembered the young blond clutching her from behind. "Nene-san, you okay?" "I will be once I get off this horse. You're crazy, you know that? Riding into battle when you've never been trained to ride..." Linna smiled as Nene continued to berate her the whole way back to headquarters. ------ "Kiyoshi? Are you sure my Liege?" Masazaku asked. "You don't forget the face of a scoundrel like that." "Yes, I too remember Kiyoshi." Raidon said. "Funny, I never noticed the similarity before." "Gentleman, it's worse than just Kiyoshi. Slowly, over the past few days, old and familiar faces in the halls and corridors of the palace have given way to strangers. I can't put my finger on it, but something's going on. Something most serious." "Sire," Masazaku began, "Shall we get the Imperial Guard to escort you to a place of refuge such as..." he was cut off as the door to the chamber burst open, and the staff outside the room, including Kiyoshi, began slowly making their way in. "What is this impertinence?" the Emperor demanded. "I demand an explanation." "Emperor Meiji," a European said as he walked into the room and stood in front of the gathered mass of men before the Emperor, "I'm afraid I have to ask you to come with us. You are now our prisoner." "How... How dare you?" Masazaku asked, shaking with rage. Turning to the men in the room, he began to verbally assault them. "Traitors! Murderous scum! You betray the Son of Heaven, the descendent of the Divine Amaterasu to a gaijin! You..." Masazaku stopped suddenly, before coughing up blood and falling to the floor, a dagger in his back. Emperor Meiji looked to see who had killed him, and was shocked to find Raidon standing there, Masazaku's blood still on his hands. Turning back to his captors, and the gaijin in particular, he stood straight as he tried his best to assume the air of dignified authority becoming an Emperor. "As long as I am your prisoner," he began, trying to keep his voice from trembling as he looked back down at his once trusted advisor, "Might I have your name, at least, so I might know what to call you?" "Mason. Brian J. Mason." "Brian J. Mason? Mason, do you fully understand the ramifications of what you have done, or what you're about to do? Do you realize what will happen should word get out that my abduction was masterminded by a European?" "Yes, Emperor." Mason said, smiling. "In fact, I'm counting on it." ---To Be Continued--- End Notes: Okay, so it wasn't quite as violent as I thought it was going to be. It will be more so as the series progresses, though. Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed this little story of mine. I hope you all stick around 'till the end. Historical info came from The Pageant of Japanese History by M. M. Dilts, as well as various other library and internet sources.
Back to Bubblegum Crisis: Meiji Index - Back to Bubblegum Crisis Shoujo-Ai Fanfiction