There's some lengthy character development and plot up ahead that I had to reveal (at least partially). Like in most anime shows, every character has an angsty back-story. ^_^ - Kirika ****** Casualties of War Dominique D'Aubigne reshuffled today's reports into two neat stacks on her polished chrome desk, having just finished her initial cursory browse through them for anything out of the ordinary. One pile's topics were of the bland, innocuous, variety--manufacturing schedules and the progress thus far for this month's batch of medicinal products; the amounts of assorted raw ingredients expended and which ones needed to be replenished; new wholesalers to be added to the merchandise delivery rosters--the list was almost endless. However its counterpart's subject matters belonged to a business that was entirely more illegitimate than Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals' public industry--an ugly twin. That other pile contained illicit information, including a second manufacturing schedule for the latest batch of 'recreational' drugs the company produced on the sly, the current prices of the popular narcotics and amphetamines being circulated around the streets of Yokohama and the rest of the Kanagawa prefecture at the moment, and which specific 'products' the criminal organisations under Ishinomori control needed restocked so that they could continue to perform their assigned duty of distribution and sale. And that was just a minute sample of what the stack contained--the list of reports concerning Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals' illegal activities was, like its mate, also virtually never-ending. It was as one might expect from a multinational corporation operating dual enterprises, however. Two businesses running in parallel did tend to create an abundance of paperwork on a daily basis, and it wasn't as if either was any less genuine than the other; both required likewise consideration. Just because one such business was against the law didn't mean it was to be treated any differently than its partner; it merely had to have some of its own unique trade practices applied to it. Business was business. Moreover, it was what Dominique did and had been doing for many, many years. She was accustomed to sifting through mounds of documents made from enough paper to level a forest, her keen eyes singling out the relevant details from the pages while her sharp wits processed them, deliberating on what action was called for in relation to the data, if any. She would even go so far as to say she enjoyed it. It was stark and logical work, but that was what appealed to Dominique; she liked losing herself in the monotony of the facts and figures. Her mental faculties became focused exclusively on her task while everything else just flitted away into the background of her mind, where it was forgotten for a time. During that period when her thoughts were dedicated to uncluttered down-to-earth analysis, Dominique turned into an emotionless and empty being, a woman who felt and was absolutely nothing, who possessed no past, who had no memories--she simply existed. Dominique became a woman at peace, as short as that peace lasted. But the peace was counterfeit, a product of her dissociation from her mind and its reflections, not one originating from her heart. Dominique's heart no longer had the capability to ever be at peace. While Dominique continued to toil and generate sound advice in regards to the management of Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals, these days it fell on apathetic ears, leaving her predominantly in control of the conglomerate's operations. Kaede was the CEO and chief owner of the company, but she had little interest in its functions and affairs as long as it went on earning money to fund the crusade against Soldats. The child only listened to Dominique's news and counsel on the war and nothing else. Perhaps that was for the best, though. Kaede's obsession for vengeance against the clandestine organisation practically consumed her every waking moment; she would have no mentality for the tedium of corporate matters even if she were willing to take an involved role in the supervision of the firm. And so then it was left to Dominique to seize hold of the reins to her family's business and steer it along the correct course on her behalf. It wasn't as if the advisor turned stand-in company president minded in the least, however. She was suited to the job. Dominique knew the workings of Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals better than anyone alive--the rest who had were gone, now--and in addition possessed the drive to keep the company flourishing for as long as humanly possible. It had been *her* company, *her* legacy; it even had her name attached to it. If it continued to stay afloat, then a part of her would always remain thriving in this world--a form of immortality... or so Dominique liked to believe sometimes in her moments of weakness. In reality a financial empire of lifeless glass and steel proved to be a vastly poor substitute to the vibrant flesh and blood woman who had once sat at its head, and provided about as much comfort as cold hard cash did to a lonely heart. Dominique pushed her glasses up further on the bridge of her nose from where they had slipped down with a finger, and then straightened her posture in her high-backed black leather chair, her eyes straying away from the desk and the heaps of paper resting on its metallic surface. Her frosty green gaze wandered around her office, its modern and austere design of rigid steel panels and shiny silver doors a predominant theme throughout the interior of Ishinomori plaza. The multistorey building was sleek and sexy, cold and unfeeling; a forbidding tower that stood erect almost at the centre of the harbour city of Yokohama, a fortress beyond any other castle that had ever graced this ancient land before it, one that could dissuade would-be raiders from the sheer thought of invasion with a mere glimpse of its unforgiving reinforced walls. It fitted its part as the headquarters for the powerful empire that had the strength of will to oppose another, larger, and tyrannical one. It was the solitary bastion that stood against the corrupt group that Soldats had become, and was the staging point for the impending revolution that would cleanse its ranks. A bittersweet smile gently grew on Dominique's face as her eyes inescapably came to fall upon the bright, garish paintings that adorned the silver walls of her office, standing out prominently against the contrastingly lacklustre steel panels. They were abstract pictures, the kind that resembled an untamed mess of colour as if the artist had made each brushstroke purely on a whim. They were most certainly not to Dominique's refined and practical predilections... yet she adored them nonetheless. Not for their art, but because they were wild, undisciplined, passionate--so like *her*. Dominique could still recall vividly when the enchanting white-haired woman had hung them up, citing that the dull office was horribly dreary and that her friend would became depressed if she had to stare at plain chrome walls all day long. Perhaps that was the actual reason Dominique was fond of the paintings; because Hikaru had picked them out and arranged them around the office with her own two hands. She remembered that she hadn't really liked them very much at all until after her lover had passed away. Now she couldn't bear the thought of removing the pictures, despite the pain looking at them everyday brought. Dominique's eyes drifted to the framed photograph sitting near one corner of her desk, as they often were inclined to do when her disposition became wistful. It was a picture of her and Hikaru when they were younger, a snapshot of happier times that could never be recaptured. In it the two women stood sedately next to each other on a cheerful backdrop of green grass and blue skies, their shoulders touching, and with mirroring demure smiles curling their lips. But in spite of the two figures' reserved expressions the depths of their eyes gleamed with joy and contentment, the bliss they had felt at the time shining through the glass of the picture frame; an echo from the past. Dominique and Hikaru were both garbed in business suits in the photograph--the latter in white, the former in contrary black. It was an accurate visual representation of how they had lived. Their personalities had been poles apart, direct opposites of one another. Hikaru had been the flighty, creative type; her head stuck in the clouds oft times, while Dominique had been the sensible, logical one with her feet firmly on the ground and who served to anchor her counterpart when necessary. Dominique and Hikaru had been a match made in heaven--*true* soulmates--two halves that had made a whole. They had completed one another. Of course, it hadn't always been that way. When Dominique and Hikaru had first met as commerce students studying in Paris, the darkhaired woman had regarded her future love as incredibly flaky and irritating to no end; someone whose chirpy company she had found sickening and hardly tolerable to be in for any lengthy period of time. They had been so different, so unalike in manner and temperament. But it was said that opposites attract, and in this case the saying had rang true. In spite of her poor first impressions of the woman, before Dominique knew it she and Hikaru had become inseparable and the very best of friends. Not a day had went by when they didn't see each other or spend time together; sharing classes and cramming for exams, or enjoying the pleasant diversions the capitol city had to offer. Hikaru inadvertently became the sole light in Dominique's otherwise rather dismal life, her upbeat nature tearing down the dark webs that had normally ensnared the French woman's hardened heart. Hikaru's sheer presence had made Dominique feel and become a better person. After they had graduated, Hikaru had invited her best friend to migrate to Japan with her and help manage the Ishinomori family corporation that she was taking over chief ownership of from her ailing mother. It had been a proposal that Dominique had most readily accepted. She'd had no cause to remain in France; she'd had no family of her own or any other obligations to keep her in the country. Moreover, the notion of being parted from Hikaru had lain heavy on her heart and mind; regardless of what had been in France for Dominique she would have still forsaken everything to accompany her friend. By then she had developed a deep attachment to the Japanese beauty, one she eventually recognised as pure and unconditional love. Yet Dominique ignored her feelings for Hikaru and chose instead to bottle them up secretly inside her heart. She had known that her cherished friend did not possess the same sentiments as she herself did and furthermore she hadn't wanted to risk jeopardising the close relationship they already had. And so the years ticked by, Dominique acting as Hikaru's personal assistant and advisor for the workings of Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals, and also as her devoted best friend and companion... but nothing more. It had been somewhat saddening for Dominique to hide her love for Hikaru, but simply being near the woman's radiant spirit had been enough to placate her aching heart. In time Dominique--who had been born into the covert worldwide society known as Soldats, and desiring to have no secrets between herself and Hikaru bar the one that dwelled in the left side of her chest--introduced her friend to the organisation and to Altena, a visionary who the darkhaired woman greatly admired and whose beliefs she fervently agreed with. To Dominique's delight and relief, Hikaru grew to become a faithful supporter of Altena, and in turn put the fears she'd had that her love would reject the group and her with it to rest. But then *he* showed up. Shinichi Sakamoto. A Soldats follower of the current warped order... and the disgusting man who by some perverted twist of fate stole Hikaru's heart. It had been an utter chance encounter between the two during a scheduled gathering of all the prominent Soldats members residing in the Kanto territory, but that was all it took for 'love' to blossom. Despite Dominique's ardent labours to get her friend to return to her senses, within a year of meeting each other Hikaru and Shinichi wed. Shinichi, being the weak man that he had been, had taken Hikaru's surname in respect to her more powerful family, and consequently the union was seen by all as the Sakamoto lineage marrying into the Ishinomori clan, not the other way around. Dominique and Hikaru became rather distant after the loathsome wedding, the French woman nursing a broken heart that bled a furious hatred into her soul for her lost love's husband, a hatred that placed her at odds with the object of her affection on many instances. More years past, and Hikaru birthed two children, a daughter and son, while in the meantime Dominique descended further and further into a bleak depression as hate and despair consumed her. So caught up in her self-pity, she never noticed that Hikaru was slowly changing, too... and also for the worse. Shinichi had been a pathetic, craven man, who ultimately developed a fierce resentment for his wife and her superior status as the head of the Ishinomori family. Although he was Hikaru's husband, she was deemed as the genuine strength behind the clan. Shinichi was merely a ceremonial figurehead; he had no real authority beyond what his wife elected to give him, like tossed food scraps from the table. As a result, he had seen himself as not much better than one of Hikaru's subordinates, which had galled him terribly. Whatever affection he had held for Hikaru--which couldn't have been anywhere near the degree the divine woman had been worthy of, considering--was replaced by bitterness that he regularly made apparent to his blameless spouse. Hikaru had been a delicate flower in full bloom when Dominique had first formed a close-knit friendship with her, but Shinichi's perceived self-inadequacies effectively trampled her already withering spirit into the ground, petals crushed callously beneath his heel as they shrivelled up in an effort to protect themselves from the abuse. The playful and energetic woman Dominique had known and loved deteriorated into a mere shell of her former self. However, Hikaru's torment--while it had torn at Dominique's heart and soul when she had finally learned of it--ended up being a blessing in disguise. Following months of suffering in silence, Hikaru eventually sought aid for her troubles from her dejected best friend and business advisor... and also sought solace in old college friend's arms. Dominique wasn't precisely sure how it had happened--one minute they had been talking, the next Hikaru had been embracing her tightly, gazing imploringly into her eyes before kissing her softly on the lips--but it hadn't really mattered; the dream she had believed hopeless with her love's marriage had been at last realised. When Hikaru had revealed her feelings for Dominique that had evidently surfaced under Shinichi's mistreatment, the misery that had polluted the darkhaired woman had instantly been lifted. She had eagerly returned her friend's kiss--their first of countless--and confirmed what her heart had always felt for her fair-haired and pale-skinned angel. It had been like the conclusion of a fairytale; a happy ending at last after years of pain, long unrequited love made a joyous reality. But there had been one obstacle to Dominique and Hikaru's newfound romantic relationship--Shinichi. Hikaru had still had a husband; that she loved someone else and felt nothing for him hadn't changed that fact. Divorce hadn't been an option; it would have split the Ishinomori Empire in two--while Shinichi hadn't had any real standing in the family, he'd yet had his legal rights. Hikaru had opted to entice him to voluntarily leave the clan and annul their marriage vows with a hefty cash settlement, but as Dominique had predicted the man had been greedy and had wanted at the very least half of his wife's assets. Shinichi had been of the new age Soldats breed, after all. No, the only path Dominique had seen for the love she shared with Hikaru to come to complete, unrestrained fruition was if Shinichi were to die. Hikaru had been against it at first--she had still retained her compassion in spite of her husband's maltreatment--but Dominique had know that it had to be done. It had been times like then when she had to step in and do what her kind hearted angel could not. And step in Dominique had. Disposing of Shinichi had been a relatively simple affair; he was a notable member of Soldats but not high enough in the hierarchy to have a thorough investigation launched into his death, so an arranged 'accident' was sufficient. Through Hikaru's underlings Dominique discreetly had Shinichi's car wind up wrapped around an unyielding lamppost one night with the man inside, and then the issue of her lover's husband had been quietly resolved, leaving them free to pursue their feelings. Hikaru hadn't shed so much as a tear for her spouse following his passing, but while she had not mourned the loss of the man she had mourned his death nonetheless--her face betrayed the grieve she had felt that it had come to murder to escape him. Dominique had consoled her however, and the Japanese woman swiftly recovered and equally as quickly forgot about her disastrous marriage. And then that should have been the end of it. Dominique and Hikaru should have lived on happily ever after together, as the conclusions of fairytales usually go. And they had, for a while at any rate. Hikaru gradually reverted back to her cheerful self once again with her best friend Dominique as her lover, and the French woman herself became considerably more light-hearted thanks to her partner's infectious disposition. Hikaru even had insisted that Dominique take a more active role in her daughter and son's lives too, which the darkhaired woman had complied with, although she had been careful to hide the nature of her relationship with their mother. While their romantic association was common knowledge to Ishinomori family vassals, they chose to keep it concealed from Kaede and Ryosuke since neither had been sure how the two--who had been teenagers at the time--would handle the realisation that their mother, in spite of being a widow, was bedding someone who wasn't their father and another woman at that. Hikaru had wished to tell them once they were a little older when they could perhaps understand better, and subsequently truly accept Dominique as a surrogate parent. It had been just one of Dominique and Hikaru's many plans for the future; a future so bright, so promising... and one that had been tragically cut short. The memory of that nightmarish day still burned clearly in Dominique's mind, a permanent tattoo that marred it like a festering wound that never seemed to heal. It hurt intensely to recollect the events, and yet she inexorably did so whenever she was left unoccupied with her thoughts for too long, as if she had a masochistic urge to remind herself of why she was alone here today. It had been just another meeting, Dominique and Hikaru travelling by car with their regular escorts to a business appointment related to Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals. A simple thing, really. But then the simplicity of the situation had abruptly altered as their car had suddenly been overwhelmed with gunfire from all sides. An ambush from nearby rooftops, Dominique had later learned. The tires had gone first with almost four simultaneous bangs, sending their vehicle veering wildly off the road and to a violent stop lodged halfway in a bus shelter, the screech of twisting metal from the impact akin to otherworldly shrieks of pain. Next the driver had been taken out where he had sat stunned behind the wheel--as extra insurance that the car would be halted, Dominique's shaken mind had hazily surmised at the time--followed by the bodyguard adjacent to him in the front passenger seat. Then the gunmen had turned their attention to the two women who had still been breathing in the backseat. And then Dominique's world had been brought to an end. Thinking back now, Dominique should have seen it coming. Hikaru had always been the selfless one between them; where Dominique was rather self-centred when it came to anything but her lover, her Japanese counterpart more than made up for her deficiency. But on that day, the white-haired woman's benevolent nature had led to her downfall. Before Dominique had registered what her partner's intentions had been, Hikaru's body had been thrown over hers, pushing her down flat on the backseat. In that fraction of a second between the car crash and when the gunfire had been redirected to them by the assassins, Hikaru had decided to use her own body to shield Dominique from the incoming hail of bullets, to accept all of the pain and suffer in her lover's place. The Ishinomori family bodyguards in the other two cars that had made up their small convoy had ultimately fought off the gunmen, but for Hikaru and Dominique their achievement had arrived too late. Dominique had held her best friend and the love of her life in her lap that afternoon, watching on with agonising helplessness as she bled away her last. Hikaru had said nothing as she had lain dying, instead simply smiling up at the French woman with tearful violet eyes. There had been no final words, no declarations of everlasting love... but then there hadn't been a need of any. Both women had known how they had felt about one another, right until the very last moment. Hikaru had gently slipped away from Dominique shortly afterwards. She had died in her arms, ascending to Heaven to become the angel she had already been in life. Dominique had felt like she had died, too, except her spirit had instead descended into her own private Hell. She hadn't been able to comprehend that the woman she had loved and adored for most of her life was dead. Hikaru had been the sole person who had ever touched her heart, who had ever stirred her soul... she had been her first and only love. To lose her was on par with dying herself. They had barely had two years together as lovers; so brief, an ephemeral moment in time. Dominique had realised then that their fairytale had never actually ended when they had shared their first kiss; it had just begun. But it had ended there in the wrecked car that day, when two joint hearts had died as one. The time that had passed after Hikaru's death had seemed surreal to Dominique, as if she were living in a dream. But then she had been--and still was--a dead woman living beyond her days. The world became dull to her, and she listless, the shock that Hikaru was gone still not quite sinking in, even years later. Dominique had dwelled on suicide several times, but she had yet had ties to life--Hikaru's business, and her children. As well as the thirst for vengeance. Through her contacts in Soldats, Dominique had discovered that the attack that had claimed her lover's life had been a sanctioned hit ordered by the council themselves. Out of fear of Altena's imminent commencement of Le Grand Retour, the spineless Soldats council had decided to take out any influential members of the noble woman's enclave they could as a form of pre-emptive strike to delay the ritual; a list that Hikaru Ishinomori had apparently topped. Once Dominique had learned that the corrupt order of Soldats had been responsible for the murder of her lover, renewed vigour had surged into her spirit, fuelled by cold fury. There would be plenty of time to die after Soldats had fallen and been reborn... after they had paid for their unforgivable sin. Dominique closed her eyes--the orbs stinging with unshed tears beneath their lids--blocking out the sight of the photograph. She then swivelled her chair around to face the large set of windows behind her, opening her eyes again to take in the view of Yokohama in the early morning sunlight, what had been the preliminary battleground--now conquered--for the war. And it was a war. Dominique was fighting the good fight, striving to do what Altena could not--initiate Le Grand Retour and see it through to completion. Make no mistake, however; she wasn't doing it for the deceased visionary. This was for Hikaru; this was retribution. The new order of Soldats were evidently extremely afraid of returning to the old ways--of being purified--and Dominique knew that was the key to fulfilling her vengeance. But she wasn't as reckless as Altena had been to place all her hopes in the Black Hands of Soldats--Noir. It would take more than a mere two assassins to rid the globe of the present tainted incarnation of Soldats; it would take a force of immeasurable might. Furthermore the current embodiment of Noir was too volatile; the duo had after all been the ones who had killed the self-professed 'Kind Mother' and most of her followers with her, trouncing her ambitions. Noir was purely a symbolic representation of Le Grand Retour. Yet it was a vital one nevertheless. The ceremonial significance of the Eternal Darkness was the precise purpose of Ryosuke and his nauseatingly chauvinistic friend's being in Paris, France, at this very moment. There was an item residing in the possession of a Soldats member in the city that had been taken as an apparent souvenir from the Manor following Altena's demise and before Dominique's operatives could spirit it away; an item that was necessary for any replacement Noir that was named by her in the future to hold water and be regarded as official. Ryosuke and Vincent had been charged to find and retrieve that precious object. However, the French woman had always known where it was being kept, but she'd had her reasons for withholding the knowledge. In fact it wasn't until about an hour ago when she had at last disclosed the item's location to Ryosuke via telephone. Ryosuke, while being of Hikaru's blood, regrettably had inherited none of his magnificent mother's qualities bar some of her fine looks--he essentially took after his wretched father. And, like his father, he appeared to share in Shinichi's dislike of Dominique and her past close familiarity with Hikaru. When he had still been alive to plague both Hikaru and Dominique's existences with his vile presence, the spiteful man had visibly begrudged his wife's then platonic relationship with the French woman on whatever grounds his feeble brain had conjured up, be it out of typical male possessiveness for his spouse or simply plain envy at her warm rapport with her friend. But in Ryosuke's particular case, his loathing of Dominique was based on something greater than the advisor's prior chaste friendship with his mother. Even though Hikaru and Dominique had strived hard to maintain the confidentiality of their romantic association subsequent to Shinichi's demise, Ryosuke had unfortunately stumbled upon the pair whilst they had been locked in a compromising position--their arms enfolded lovingly around one another's necks while they engaged in a passionate kiss. Naturally, the two women's attentions had been immersed wholly in their intimate activities, and thus neither had noticed that they had been caught 'in the act'--in a manner of speaking--until the inferences the teenage Ryosuke had drawn from his first glimpse had been permanently engraved in his mind, unalterable regardless of what Hikaru or Dominique had then said to the contrary after the fact. Ryosuke had not taken his newly discovered insight in a favourable fashion, going so far as to abandon his mother and her supposed 'replacement' lover in disgust, taking refuge in Yokohama's criminal underworld. Hikaru had been inconsolable at this betrayal, weeping day and night for her wayward and impetuous firstborn. This pain had been compounded soon after when Kaede had left to join him, missing her elder brother although Dominique couldn't imagine why. Later Hikaru had tried to reconcile with Ryosuke on numerous occasions, but he never paid the woman's pleadings any consideration at all; the heartless, ungrateful child. Hikaru had gone to her grave thinking that her son had despised her. Dominique still hadn't forgiven him for that malicious wrongdoing. The deep-seated animosity between Dominique and Ryosuke persisted to this day. Both continually vied for Kaede's full trust, the child having inherited virtually total leadership and tenure of the Ishinomori Empire. Many times Ryosuke had beseeched his more important sister to dismiss the French 'interloper' from her primary position as advisor and personal assistant to the CEO in the family's company, before he'd realised that his efforts were being wasted. Hikaru hadn't left Dominique any portion of her substantial empire in her Will on the basis that her lover wasn't actually a member of her family--although the darkhaired woman knew for certain that she had considered her as one--but as a alternative she had made it fundamentally clear that the person who had been her best friend and partner in life was to remain where she was at Ishinomori Pharmaceuticals indefinitely and without question. With his late mother's parting wishes essentially safeguarding Dominique's place in the empire, a frustrated Ryosuke had been rendered powerless--Kaede was not apt to undermine Hikaru's biddings; she regarded her mother's last words as unbreakable law. However, the assurance of Dominique continuing to play her role as Kaede's assistant and advisor for the foreseeable future did not stop the battle of wills she and Ryosuke relentlessly fought in. Deploying the ex-yakuza clansman and his lout of a companion in Paris with the task of hunting down and retrieving the item stolen from the Manor that Dominique needed was that latest such clash... and in this specific conflict the elder competitor had prevailed almost utterly. With Ryosuke out of her hair, the advisor had been able to further her own plans for the Ishinomori Empire and ensconce herself deeper into Kaede's good graces without the boy's irksome meddling to hinder her. Yet this had been a mere secondary goal to Dominique. In addition to charging Ryosuke and his womanising idiot of a friend to find and bring the sacred artefact to Japan, she had arranged it so that they had adopted the alias of the famed Noir while abroad, under the pretence that the name would unlock doors for them in Paris that would normally have to be blown open with blazing guns. It had been easy to persuade them to follow her request and utilise the age-old title; they had been relatively sheltered living in the Asia-Pacific region from the tales of Europe's thousand-year-old Eternal Darkness; indeed, they had never even heard of the legendary assassin duo. Little had Ryosuke and Vincent known that the genuine purpose for their use of the designation was to attract the attention of French Soldats operatives, and perhaps even the true Noir who Dominique was aware were lying dormant in Paris. It had been her hope that the name would ultimately bring more harm than good, and that enemies would harry Ryosuke and Vincent throughout their search. And if one of them were to die--with preference to Shinichi's spawn, but either was fine--then that would be perfectly all right as well. But Dominique knew that that outcome would be a stretch. It wasn't as if Ryosuke and Vincent were mere two-bit hooligans lacking any talent in the martial variety, no matter what she liked to imagine them as. Moreover, if both were to somehow be killed, Dominique wouldn't obtain the object that was currently in Soldats hands she desired. The risk--albeit small, unless the true Noir awakened from their torpor to defend their rightful pseudonym--that Ryosuke *and* Vincent died during their mission was what had eventually compelled Dominique to phone Shinichi's son and inform him that the artefact was in the custody of Albert Laroque, a reasonably prominent Soldats follower of the new order. Laroque was a well-known aficionado of antiques and rare texts, and his estate in Paris boasted a sizable collection of such things within its walls--including the relic Dominique wanted. Obviously the security at his dwellings would be severe indeed, but the woman was quite confident that Ryosuke and Vincent would succeed in liberating what she sought. After all, due to Dominique's influence Kaede also pined for the artefact, and what she wanted her older brother got for her. Despite his customary taciturn countenance, it was plain to see that Ryosuke was completely besotted with his younger sister. It wasn't surprising, however; Kaede Ishinomori truly was a beautiful, captivating, and lovely child in all respects. Dominique slowly closed her eyes and allowed her posture to sag, slouching back into her chair. She smiled faintly as her thoughts turned to Kaede, her exquisite charge, the only aspect of her wretched life that gave her joy. While Ryosuke was his father's son, Kaede was most definitely her mother's daughter. She was the near spitting image of Hikaru in her younger years, the lone disparity her shorter hairstyle. Conversely their personalities were somewhat different. Kaede's mind was a little... unbalanced, which Dominique deduced was the woeful product that the trauma of losing her wonderful mother at an early age had brought--the French woman was familiar with the horrific pain the child was experiencing firsthand. As a result, Kaede--through no fault of her own--possessed a nasty streak that frequently manifested itself characteristically in displays of ferociously violent behaviour. Yet Dominique had witnessed the compassion she had too, the compassion that Hikaru's heart had contained while it had still beat. She knew that deep down inside Kaede was her *real* self, her real persona that only every so often made its appearance with acts of unexpected kindness. Nevertheless, Dominique adored every facet of Hikaru's daughter, and that sentiment even incorporated her more... exotic... traits. And besides, those aggressive attributes of Kaede were a benefit to the campaign against Soldats, their *mutual* campaign against Soldats. Kaede wholeheartedly concurred with her assistant's hunger to avenge Hikaru's murder, although her vengeance also encompassed paying back Soldats for her father's death on top of that--she was under the impression that Shinichi was assassinated by the group as well as her mother; an erroneous fact that Dominique was responsible for. It wouldn't do to have Kaede know the truth, after all. In any case, her parents' slayings were what fed her fires of retribution, fires that raged like an inferno inside her as apposed to Dominique's icy artic blizzard. To Dominique revenge was a dish best served cold--the colder the better in fact. And at least one of them had to keep a level head in this war. It was Dominique's duty to provide Kaede with proper objective council, along with cooling her blazing spirit when it grew too unruly. It was much like the times when she'd had to compose Hikaru's spirit during the periods it became overly whimsical. Yes, Kaede certainly was her mother's daughter. They were so alike. So alike.... Dominique's eyes opened and sat up straight--her smile gone--before she rather briskly spun her black chair around to face her desk, stopping it abruptly in place with her feet. She then simply stared at the surface of the desk for a few moments, although she saw none of its contents, before shutting her eyes briefly and exhaling softly. Nothing good came of when she was left alone with just her own mind for company. Furthermore reflecting on the events of the past was a meaningless endeavour; a misuse of one's time, time better spent on worthwhile undertakings. Yes. All that thinking about the past led to was grief and pain, grief and pain that fostered errant thoughts. Dominique shook her head slightly and sighed again. Grief and pain. A pity she couldn't stop reminiscing in spite of her awareness of those dual end products. What she needed was something to divert her mind's attention so that she could return to her calm, poised self; not this miserable woman she was here and now. With that in mind, Dominique raised her head a little and reached over to lay her left hand on a yellow folder on her tidy desk, resting to one side of the two piles of business reports. It was relatively thin, but held yet more reports. Except that these reports were on the struggle against Soldats, the sort of material that Kaede was interested in. Turning her gaze away from the folder, the advisor looked at the double doors off to her right where the CEO's office was located adjacent to hers. In addition to the reports on the war, Kaede would also want to hear the so-called good news that her 'Big Brother' was returning to Yokohama momentarily. Dominique smiled to herself. It was all the more reason to pay the darling girl a visit. Getting up gracefully from her chair, the French woman--with folder in hand--stepped around from behind the desk and proceeded towards Kaede Ishinomori's office, with her mood already beginning to improve. ****** Mireille moved like a nimble cat on the prowl as she skulked swiftly down the narrow pitch-black alley where the entrance to Simon's computer shop was located, her footfalls on the old irregular cobblestones hushed and generating no telltale echoes an average person's would. But then she wasn't an average person. She lived her life by the sword--by the gun. For people like Mireille the night was when she thrived; it was her time, her realm. When darkness descended and shrouded the daylight world in its cloak of ebony, those of the black path truly awakened. Enveloped in the barren shadows that their lives were perpetually immersed in regardless of the hour, senses heightened and wits sharpened--nocturnal perceptions roused from their daytime slumber. After dusk the danger always seemed more real somehow--more tangible--that an assassin found herself or himself functioning in a state of highly acute awareness. Mireille wasn't exactly sure why that was, but nevertheless she had conjured up some theories during her idle moments. For the length of the night an assassin was a little closer to the dark paved road of murder they treaded upon--the gloom could be seen as a physical manifestation of the black path, and as such provided an intimacy that the warm sunlight flooded day could not reproduce. Simply put, a traveller of the path felt nearer to Death once the sun had set. However, in Mireille's case she knew it was all basically just a frame of mind. She was no closer to the grave than any other moment in her life, the likely hazardous undertaking she was presently engaged in notwithstanding. The day was wrought with more or less the same perils as night. Perhaps the actual cause of her sensitised psychological condition was that the shadows had the potential to harbour any number and degree of threats--it was the fresh abundance of unknown factors that were responsible for the increased anxiety. Nevertheless, one did have to be on their utmost alert when general visibility was reduced; the intensified cautiousness was not misplaced. Or maybe it was really because Mireille was heading into a situation along with Kirika that she did not find appealing a single bit. Being coerced into dealing with two of Soldats' enemies by a high ranking official like Breffort was one thing, but following the proposal of his *apparent* lackey was quite the other. The Corsican couldn't be sure that the man she and her partner had encountered in Slick Chicks honestly was part of Breffort's faction in Soldats. While Mireille was almost completely positive that 'Jacques' was a member of the worldwide society--he knew details about the group as well as certain specifics regarding her and Kirika's involvement with Breffort not to be, and furthermore possessing the knowledge that the two young women had been dubbed the true Noir awarded him extra credibility--she could not have the likewise confidence that he was under Breffort's jurisdiction. If the words of Mireille and Kirika's benefactor were to be considered sincere, the whole organisation of Soldats bar his division viewed the pair as unconditional if inactive foes. Consequently, it was entirely possible that Jacques worked for someone in Soldats other than Breffort; someone who had seen that the assassins were involving themselves in the clandestine group's affairs or at the very least returning to action, and as a result had made use of the offered opportunity to try and rub them out once and for all. Mireille didn't know what she and Kirika could expect to find in Simon's abode; Ryosuke and Vincent at large, a team of heavily armed Soldats agents lying in wait to ambush them, or simply a pimply-faced Simon and his unkempt associate playing inane computer games. If it turned out to be the latter, she mused how the hacker and Ezza would react when she and her fellow assassin burst in with guns drawn and at the ready. Whatever ensued, Simon would probably be less enthusiastic in his uncouth overtures towards Mireille thereafter. Yet even if there hadn't been any doubt that Jacques was in the employ of Mireille and her partner's backer, the woman would still be approaching the situation with an exceedingly wary mind. It wasn't as if she trusted Breffort and his men much more than the rest of the detested organisation they belonged to. The only person who had the blonde's total faith was the svelte girl silently flanking her at this precise second. Any shred of lingering doubt she'd had regarding her colleague's mental state whilst in combat had utterly vanished with the darkhaired assassin's latest performance against Millet and his now eradicated syndicate. Kirika had apparently truly returned to her old self again, the self that had fought spiritedly alongside her in the Manor months ago. Mireille stopped running and positioned herself with her back against the crumbling wall by the computer shop's door, Kirika mimicking her manoeuvre on the opposite side. The assassins' pistols were in their hands and fully loaded--lions with their lips rolled back and their sharp teeth bared. The silencers that had been affixed to them previously were removed now; beyond their preliminary advance, stealth wasn't necessary. This wasn't an assignment where Mireille and Kirika had to get in and out of a target's neighbourhood without a whisper. Besides, once they breached the entryway of Simon's domicile, there was a reasonably good chance they would be propelled immediately into a firefight. Entering through the main doorway wasn't exactly subtle. As Mireille remained stationary leaning against the wall the cool night wind funnelled through the slender alley in a low whistle, as though howling in warning of what lay ahead. Meanwhile the woman's lavender coat and long flaxen locks flapped as they rode the chilly currents, being pulled away from the doorway as if in an attempt to hold her back, the breeze knowing something that the assassin did not. Yet what really invoked Mireille's discomfort was the tart odour that wafted up from her own body to irritate her nose courtesy of the draft, the pungent aroma reminding her that she probably gave the impression of a boozing drunk who had slopped more of her liquor on herself than she had ingested. Her clothing was still infused with the biting scent of the litres of alcohol that had been spilt on her during her stay behind the bar in Millet's strip club, the reek an unwelcome and seeming unfading memento of that occasion. Mireille rather disliked it when her appearance became dishevelled, but it often happened in the course of her rigorous vocation. While it had no major drawbacks per se, she simply was uncomfortable when garbed in dirty clothes or smeared with filth--she just didn't feel like herself. She couldn't wait until this night ended so she could return to the apartment and change out of her soiled garments, before showering thoroughly and ridding herself of the bitter stench that enveloped her. Glancing over at Kirika across from her, Mireille briefly wondered if the girl could detect the smell. She wouldn't have been shocked if her partner could. Her eyesight and hearing were absolutely exceptional--why not her sense of smell on top of that to round off the extraordinary bundle? Suddenly feeling a little more self-conscious about the odour clinging to her body than she would have liked, Mireille quickly decided that it was time to get the show on the road. Dropping her hand down to the dented metal knob attached to the door next to her, she carefully grasped the battered grey lump and began to turn it slowly, the mechanism emitting only the faintest of squeaks. She was hardly surprised when she encountered no resistance. The hour was late and she had thought that Simon would have closed his bootlegging business by now; that his door was still unlocked imparted credence to the first two hypothesises she had envisaged earlier. The prospect of a gunfight exploding on the other side of the door had just taken a step up. Mireille raised her head from the doorknob and favoured Kirika with a final glance. The slim girl was a mere vague outline in the jet-black alley, almost insubstantial against the shadows surrounding her. It was as if the icy gust of wind that had travelled through the passageway moments before could have just blown her apart like a dust statue until she became impossible to tell apart from the murk, lost in its depths. The Corsican couldn't even hear the withdrawn girl breathe despite their relatively close proximity. Oddly, the sight was somewhat unnerving to Mireille and she found her glance unexpectedly transform into a prolonged stare. "Mireille?" Kirika whispered, an ephemeral breath of air that gently floated to Mireille's ears. Mireille instantly snapped out of her trance at the soft, sweet melody of Kirika's voice uttering her name. Correspondingly, her former thought was swept to the bottom of the swirling ocean that composed her mind, blending into the other currents of the ever-moving sea as new tides rose, engulfing it and taking its past place of dominance. By the time her partner had spoken the last syllable of her name she had already forgotten about the sight of Kirika standing in the dark, and the sentiment it had reared. Mireille didn't answer Kirika's query, but instead cautiously pushed open the door to the shop with her hand, her mind now focused once again on what she and the girl had come here for, all other superfluous thoughts banished. She quickly pulled her arm back behind the cover of the wall as the door swung open with an audible creak of its hinges, lest the exposed limb receive a bullet from any alerted assailant or assailants who stood vigilant inside. Light spilled out from the opened doorway and into the darkened alley, but the assassins kept out of its borders, opting to remain lurking in the shadows while they listened intently for any hint of movement inside the building. After it was clear that no barrage of gunfire was forthcoming, Mireille and Kirika both ventured a peek inside Simon's computer store façade, poking their heads past the doorjamb just enough to get a decent view of the interior. It took only a fraction of a second to realise that the room was empty, and appearing much the same as it had during their previous visits. But even so, neither Mireille nor Kirika judged the area as simply automatically safe to wander into. The images one's eyes afforded to you could be misleading, and to trust them implicitly was to dice with Death. Not until they had crossed the threshold and inspected every corner of the room could they deem it as clear and subsequently treat it as such. Mireille drew back her head and straightened as Kirika did likewise, the young women meeting each other's gazes. The light escaping from the shop's open doorway touched their faces now, dipping one side in brightness while shadows streaked across the other, but bestowing enough illumination to lay bare their divergent features and expressions--fair and dark, stern and solemn. Yet despite their disparities both assassins possessed eyes that glimmered with the same hard resolve; blue and brown united in a single purpose. Mireille lifted her Walther P99 up towards her chest and Kirika raised her Beretta M1934 in a similar fashion a second later, their weapons glinting dully in their hands. Kirika nodded to the blonde as she cocked the hammer of her firearm. They were set. With that, Mireille dashed into the computer store, her head turning sharply to survey the blind spot to the right her initial glimpse inside had revealed, while her gun covered the region in front of her. Kirika followed in behind the woman an instant later, checking the left hand side of the room, her pistol remaining raised but motionless as she let her keen eyes scan over dusty shelves and tables laden with obsolete technology. It took less than two seconds to verify that the shop façade indeed did not contain a solitary soul save for the pair who had just rushed inside. That left only one other place to investigate. Noticing that the basement door at the opposite end of the room was slightly ajar, Mireille wordlessly signalled to Kirika with a tilt of her head that they were proceeding onwards. The slip of a girl nodded her understanding, and then they both quietly trotted over to the door, each taking up a position on either side of it much like the arrangement they had adopted when faced with the alleyway entrance. Mireille gingerly opened the basement door the rest of the way, and then hazarded a look inside. The wooden staircase that led down to the underground room where Simon's true enterprise was housed was as usual drenched in gloom, with the customary electric glow of buzzing computer monitors bathing a section of concrete floor at the bottom of the steps in a puddle of weak, pale light. From her vantage point above, the Corsican contract killer couldn't catch sight of any silhouettes in motion breaking what she could make out of the pool of light, but nor could she hear the chatting voices of immature teenagers or even the rapid tapping of strokes on a keyboard drifting up the stairs. Dead silence was all that was presented to her and her partner. It was the worst kind of silence. After inhaling a deep breath to fortify herself--although she in reality needed no such bolstering--Mireille slinked through the doorway and started to tentatively descend the shadowy basement staircase, wincing slightly with every tiny groan the wooden planks made beneath her boots. She released the breath she held gradually and inaudibly as she treaded softly down the stairs, a calming action to help maintain her strict concentration so that she didn't inadvertently put too much of her weight on a step and betray her imminent arrival to any possible armed threats lying in wait below her. She sensed Kirika to her rear, but it was a purely instinctive awareness; she couldn't pick up the slightest physical sign of movement behind her. The shorter girl was extremely light on her feet, as if she walked on air itself, and her composure very seldom waned... excluding during special circumstances not unlike recent lamentable events, naturally. In spite of her stunted emotional development, Kirika's feelings did seem to govern her general wellbeing with considerably greater impunity than most people's did. Then again, perhaps her deficiency in that facet of herself was in fact to blame for the strong link. With such limited psychological maturity coupled with a subdued personality as a probable product of that, it could be no wonder Kirika sometimes reacted to certain things with quite different emotional responses than other girls her age did. Whatever the cause of the relation, all of this was material about her diminutive counterpart that Mireille was already conscious of, and already attempting to assuage... if that were possible. Altena's abuse had certainly inflicted considerable mental damage on poor Kirika, damage that may not be repairable. Still, Mireille would try. By the time Mireille and Kirika reached the bottom of the steps, their feet hitting concrete, it was readily apparent that the basement hideaway of Simon was as devoid of life as the room overhead... but in a more literal sense. Once their roaming eyes had ensured that the dim light and dark crannies of the vicinity weren't concealing any enemies that had initially eluded their notice, their gazes were immediately drawn to the three unmoving bodies sprawled in a likewise number of varying positions across the middle of the basement. Mireille recognised one of them instantly by the tuft of faded green hair sprouting from the top of his head and by his resting place at his desk--Simon, with the remaining forms residing in the shadows surrounding him resembling Ezza and one of the two teens' seeming acquaintances. It was indisputably clear that all of them had met with rather violent, bloody ends. The blonde woman sighed, relaxing her stance and lowering her gun as it dawned on her that she had overlooked a fourth scenario; Ryosuke and Vincent long departed but leaving behind Simon and anybody who had been with him at the time dead in their wake. "They've gone," Kirika said as she followed Mireille's example and let her pistol drop to her side, easing the primed hammer of the weapon back to rest with her thumb. "If they were even here at all," Mireille retorted, although there was little doubt in her mind that the basement bloodshed was the false Noir's handiwork. No other possibility made much sense. To her knowledge Simon didn't--or hadn't, as was the case now--mixed with the type of people--barring herself, of course--who would have had the brazenness to actually kill him and his associates, even if they'd had what they perceived as just motive to do so. The computer expert's clients had been college students and petty felons, not hardcore murderers. The Corsican was quite positive Soldats wasn't responsible either, since she didn't have a clue what the organisation would gain from killing a bunch of insignificant juvenile delinquents. That only left one other possibility, or more accurately *two*--Ryosuke Ishinomori and Vincent Hsu. The real question was *why* they had done it. Moreover, why had they even troubled themselves with tracking down Simon in the first place? Why had they dragged their sorry carcasses out of whatever hole they had been hiding in just to find and kill him? Or had they made use of his special talents before slaying him? And, most importantly, where were Ryosuke and Vincent now? Mireille bowed her head slightly and shut her eyes for a moment before sighing yet again, this time in annoyance. "How bothersome," she quietly remarked to herself. "Let's hope that they have left more for us than just an unsightly mess to sift through," she then said as she raised her head, speaking in a louder voice. "Their trail is getting colder by the minute; I'd like to prevent it from becoming as dead as the one at Millet's club apparently was." Kirika turned her head to look at Mireille, and out of the corner of the blonde's eye she noticed that her partner's expression was strangely pensive, her mouth opening partly as if she wished to say something. But then a second later the introverted girl turned her gaze back to the three corpses in front of them and she nodded in acquiesce, a murmur of acknowledgement accompanying the gesture. Mireille and Kirika walked deeper into the circle of feeble light emanating from the computer monitors, their pistols staying securely in their grips for safety's sake. They past by Simon's display tables packed with pirate CDs that were still neatly arranged in rows, untouched--further evidence that this had not been a robbery or anything of the like; it had been an execution. The woman with her partner in tow proceeded to the body that stood out the most, despite only lying partially in the light. The corpse stretched out flat on its back off to the right of the network of computers was of Simon and Ezza's unknown acquaintance--a shabbily dressed male in his teenage years--and his cause of death was clearly identifiable. What remained of the boy was reclining in the vast majority of his body's own spilt blood, the source of which was the multiple gunshot wounds to his chest and a single one to the thigh. The body was quite frankly a gory ruin, a portrayal of overkill at its most gruesome. Whoever had carried out the murder had evidently revelled in the brutality of it. A stone cold killer they were not; this was the work of enthusiasm, zeal. The traits of an archetypical homicidal maniac. "9mm casings," Kirika observed from beside Mireille, where the pair were situated a sensible foot away from the prolific blood splatters staining the floor. She pointed to a cluster of copper coloured hollow cylinders scattered about in the red pool, bathing in the result of their lethal payloads. "Evidence of one half of our warped 'reflections' past presence here, perhaps," Mireille noted, recalling that one of their target's weapons of choice were two Beretta M92F Elites, which took 9mm ammunition. Yet it wasn't as if it were the sole model of gun that used such a bullet type. The calibre had a widespread utilisation across numerous makes of firearms all over the world. Nevertheless, when tied together with Jacques' alleged message from Breffort that had advised Mireille and Kirika to come here, the ejected casings were in support of the false Noir's involvement in Simon and his associates' deaths. Vincent, the wielder of the Elites, almost irrefutably held claim to this particular victim. A homicidal maniac indeed. "The concrete walls must have muffled the shots," Mireille presumed as she looked up from the cadaver at the black ceiling above. Nonetheless, she didn't believe anyone would have come to the hacker's and his colleagues' rescue even if they had heard the gunfire. This neighbourhood was known for its problematic crime rate, and the occasional crack of a gun discharging was like the crowing of birds to the locals, simply an everyday background noise. "Vincent obviously relished his free reign," the blonde assassin continued as she returned her gaze to the body of the slain adolescent. "But at least we can expect that the authorities won't be turning up on the scene any time soon." "Mm," Kirika concurred, nodding while her eyes remained affixed to the corpse. Mireille shifted her attention to the dead boy's face, it red and swollen, seemingly having been battered rather severely before his demise. His identity was foreign to her, not that she really paid much heed to every one of Simon's childish acquaintances she encountered. The Corsican mused who he had been to the hacker, however. A late customer? A so-called friend? A contact? Mireille exhaled slowly, her ice blue eyes narrowing and a frown creasing her brow; her expression hardening as the sentiments borne from her being a professional killer for years came to fore. Did it really matter who the victim had been? He was dead and gone, and she didn't have the time to spare for baseless speculation on his personal history. The longer she and Kirika lingered the further Ryosuke and Vincent slipped through their fingers. Mireille sought to clench their fist tightly around the men tonight if she could, and crush them in it. But that would be unlikely to occur without knowing their current whereabouts. She prayed that the false Noir had left behind some sort of pointer as to where they had headed next, yet it would be the product of sloppiness on their part if they had. And as could be imagined the idea of Ryosuke and Vincent--who, from what the Corsican had seen, were very able killers--being careless was an implausible one. Still, everybody regardless of how skilled they were made a mistake sooner or later. With any luck, this night had been the instant that Mireille and Kirika's quarry had slipped up. Mireille looked over her shoulder at the L-shaped desk and the body slumped upon it to the rear of her and colleague, her countenance becoming a tad grimmer. She then briskly strode towards Simon without hesitation, Kirika lagging behind her. As soon as Mireille had entered the basement and witnessed the carnage, she had known that Simon was dead. He was hunched forwards in his chair, collapsed over one of his keyboards, the back of his head coloured with a thick dark red pigment that clashed garishly with the green dye tinting the rest of his brown hair. More of the crimson colorant oozed down the hacker's cheeks and had collected in the groves between the keys of the keyboard, while a large amount had been splattered against a smashed computer monitor's screen, droplets dripping lazily from the jagged glass. Simon had taken a bullet to the back of the head, a classic execution. The shot must have been fired at close range, too, the round evidently having passed straight through his skull to shatter the monitor screen in front of him. "Are you okay?" Kirika's voice from close beside her startled Mireille a bit, the woman's shoulders jerking slightly as she was jolted out of a stare she hadn't realised she had been entranced in. She looked away from the corpse of Simon to her partner's sombre face, a single blonde eyebrow raised in puzzlement on an expression that had somewhere along the line softened. "Of course I am," Mireille said as though it were obvious, favouring Kirika with a perplexed look. She then frowned, looking at the girl askance. "Why wouldn't I be?" Kirika lowered her head, her eyes shifting to Simon's remains. "I'd only met him a few times, but he was your friend," she said quietly, before she lifted her head to look up at Mireille woefully. "You knew him...." Mireille merely blinked at Kirika for a couple of moments as she tried to wrap her mind around what the feeling-hearted girl was getting at. When she finally succeeded, her frown disappeared as she regarded her partner with mild bemusement. "I may have known him, but it wasn't as if we were friends," she explained. She turned her head back to the teenager whose know-how in computer network security she had sometimes taken advantage of... and never would be able to again. "He was nothing more than a...." Her visage hardened yet again, the harsh, cold mask her sort often donned fitting once more over her face. "...Than an acquaintance." An acquaintance. A contact. A source. Mireille had sadly learnt early in her life as a contract killer that it was wisest to keep your business associates as strictly that; they were solely individuals you conducted transactions with, nothing more. The relationship between all parties should idyllically be as dry as possible... and not only for the obvious security precautions. If one strayed from that paradigm, all that awaited her or him was unnecessary pain and guilt, anguish that could have been avoided. An assassin whose heart contained even the slightest speck of compassion couldn't afford to have friends, only acquaintances. Friends die, but acquaintances merely... drifted apart from you. An assassin's heart had to be hard, an unfeeling lump of rock supplanting the fragile, easily bruised organ in their chest. There was no other means to stomach the job. Yet even the stoniest of hearts had its fissures. No matter how strong the shell one encases their heart in, certain people have a way of weeding beyond it and into the soft centre it had been trying to protect. Acquaintances could become friends before one even realised it, and by then it was too late--the heart does not let go easily. It's good while it lasts--friends help share the burden of one's life, and for an assassin that life's burdens are weighty indeed. But friends are akin to a ticking time bomb, or perhaps an addictive drug that eventually runs out. There sooner or later comes a day when your very relationship with them results in their premature fall into a grave, and then when the grief and guilt arrive afterwards it's almost overwhelming. It's better to prevent the friendship from the onset, before your heart is wounded. In Mireille's experience the wounds of the heart tended to cut the deepest. Needless to say, the woman had very few friends. Most of the ones she'd had were dead now, and she wasn't looking to replace them. And besides she had Kirika, quite possibly the greatest example of how someone can surreptitiously delve into a frozen heart while it remained utterly oblivious to the incursion, and to its subtle defrosting that ensued. However Kirika was a special circumstance. She was an assassin like Mireille, a partner in arms who trudged along the black path in unison with the woman. Kirika knew the danger, but unlike Mireille's now dirt-napping friends, she had *lived* the danger and was still living it to this day. The quiet girl understood the score like no outsider could, and moreover possessed the expertise in the art of murder to survive it. The blonde could rest assured that Kirika would never follow in her late friends' footsteps and succumb to the perils of her--of their--unforgiving existence... or at least not easily, and not without Mireille having anything to do about it. With that--albeit slightly tentative--assurance, the woman could permit herself to maintain her present level of closeness to her partner with the prospect of furthering it, free of the usual apprehension that came with bonding to people who were strangers to the trade. It could be said that Kirika was Mireille's ideal friend, the only kind of companion truly suited to the Corsican's hazardous lifestyle. But the girl far outshined any friend she'd ever had. Kirika had become more significant to the blonde than a thousand friends for she had touched the woman's heart in a way like no other, exposing her to feelings she'd never experienced before, emotions that were different than those of friendship, which appeared as mundane alongside them. She had never believed there would be any place for love in her life apart from the empty physical kind, and yet here it was, standing beside her at this exact moment in the inconspicuous form of a teenage Japanese girl... who held a gun. Maybe, as in friendship, only a fellow assassin had the capability to claim Mireille's frequently standoffish heart. Or perhaps only Kirika herself could, the woman's 'fated' other half. When she thought about it, Mireille couldn't envision herself feeling the same way for anybody else; Kirika was unique, and her heart could accept no one else, as though it had been made precisely to match up with the girl's. Quite possibly the legend of Noir had some truth behind it after all. Mireille looked back at the departed Simon and at what he had been reduced to--a murder victim in his own home, simply another fatality in a bad neighbourhood--and found it a struggle to preserve her aloof stance she laboured to adhere to. Slivers of guilt began to coil around her heart, squeezing it and endeavouring to rupture its cool armour. An acquaintance the hacker may have been, and a grating one at that, but even Mireille knew deep down inside that he hadn't deserved an ending like this. Part of her--the callous part, the part that she had cultivated during her existence as an assassin--said that he had been aware of the risks, that he had been aware of the shady and potentially dangerous business he had chosen to involve himself in. She should not feel guilty when he had brought Death upon himself. However he *hadn't* been aware of the risks, not the ones that had led to him receiving a bullet in the brain anyway. Mireille had neglected to enlighten the teenager to the threat the men she'd had him search for posed, opting to keep the degree of information he was privy to on a need to know basis, as was a normal practice of hers. But if she had relented, maybe Simon would have exercised more caution and then he and his associates would be alive and well right now instead of lying around slaughtered in a dismal basement of a ramshackle slum. The only vaguely plausible motive the Corsican had been able to come up with thus far for Ryosuke and Vincent's visit to and execution of Simon and his cohorts was that by some miracle one member of the hacker's professed network of informants he was apparently able to utilise--likely the mystery youth whom had been shot repeatedly in the chest a short distance from the desk--had stumbled upon the two hitmen's new accommodations. There, the men had noticed him before he unknowingly led them to the computer store, where in a lethal fashion the pair had proceeded to show him, his employer, and Ezza their displeasure at being watched. If this depiction of what had taken place here was accurate, even somewhat, then the blonde's guilt may be justified. Yet on the other hand even if Mireille had informed Simon of the danger, she suspected it wouldn't have changed the grisly outcome at all, barring the case where the hacker turned down the assignment out of fear. His informants' hunting methods were probably as slipshod as the come, and when up against skilled individuals such as the false Noir, the chances of their scrutiny--even if it only lasted for an instance--being detected was high indeed. On top of all that, Simon's traditional enthusiasm in pleasing Mireille probably hadn't helped the situation either. Too much eagerness can foster carelessness, and when coupled with the hacker's already lax snitches, it made for a surefire treacherous mix. But then there was Simon and his acquaintances' ages. They were young, Simon not much older than Kirika, while the presumed informant might even have been of comparable age to her. The fact that they'd had their lives snuffed out so early on was what mainly provoked the guilt that strived to slither into Mireille's heart. That, and because they were so close to her partner's age bracket--she didn't enjoy being reminded of Kirika's mortality, peerless combat prowess or no. Regardless of someone's age--be they a child, adolescent, adult, or older--none were exempt from possibly becoming a victim, from possibly becoming prey for the predators that walked this earth. The black path paved its road with countless victims, and not all were travellers of its dark route. "Mm," Kirika mumbled uncertainly at Mireille's clarification, still looking up at the woman with doleful eyes. "But--" "We shouldn't dawdle," Mireille interrupted rather firmly, marching past Kirika towards Ezza's body as the lithe girl turned after her, her mouth open but her words prematurely silenced by her partner's frank brush-off. The blonde knew that she was being abrasive to the one person that should be spared such treatment, but the atmosphere of the murky basement was beginning to feel oppressive. The stench of Death hung in the air, a gradually rising, gradually gathering scent that seemed to slowly smother her from all sides. The odour was normally not something that bothered her, and yet.... The moment when Mireille left this... this *tomb* and breathed in the fresh night air outside couldn't come soon enough for her. Mireille briskly treaded across the room while Kirika trailed after her, putting the computers on the desk and their lifeless operator to her back. Ezza's corpse was ahead of her, slouched against a wall and shaded in the darkness, his form indistinct where it sat outside the light, almost swallowed up completely in the gloom. As the Corsican assassin stepped out of the puddle of monitor glow to join the carcass in the shadows, she felt something strike the toe of her boot, a rasp coming from the floor. Pausing, she looked down and noticed what resembled a mobile phone at her feet. It appeared to be a very expensive model, the kind that could acquire a signal practically anywhere and had peripheral functions galore. Mireille found it odd that Simon had had the funds to pay for such a pricey device, but then he had been able purchase and maintain a top of range network of computers; perhaps he had diverted some of his cash from their upgrades for the phone. However it had got there, it was nothing more than a paperweight now. The mobile phone was severely mangled; its black plastic casing split and twisted, exposing a cracked circuit board with crushed microchips inside. "Maybe they tried to call for help," Kirika suggested as she halted slightly behind Mireille, also looking upon the smashed communications device that had waylaid the blonde. "If they had, then whoever killed them didn't take kindly to it," Mireille replied, picturing Ryosuke or Vincent viciously stomping on the mobile phone and its unfortunate user's hand with it. Moving onwards, Mireille and Kirika approached Ezza, arranging themselves on either side of his still body. He sat with his back against the wall, his legs straightened out in front of him... or one of them at any rate. His left leg was bent at an unnatural angle below the knee, the joint ruined by most likely a gunshot, or by an extremely brutal blow with a heavy object that had ruptured the flesh and dislocated it. Sighting no other external wounds below his neck, Mireille shifted her gaze higher, settling it on Ezza's head. The youth's chin rested on his chest, his lank hair drooping downwards in greasy waves and obscuring his face from view. Pressing the barrel of her Walther gingerly against his forehead, Mireille carefully tilted his head back upright, and revealed what she had already guessed was there--the mortal injury that had resulted in his death. But this injury was no mere bullet to the brow; this was on par with a concentrated shotgun blast directly to the face. The woman involuntarily found herself grimacing in revulsion at the hideous mess of dripping blood and shredded flesh Ezza's visage had been turned into. A single gory yet visible hole tunnelled through the centre of his disfigured countenance; a bullet wound, but most definitely one created by a powerful pistol. Yet Mireille had never seen an entry wound of this ferocity caused by anything other than rifles; even handguns of the .357 class fell short of achieving this effect. "A high calibre round," Kirika said softly, her opinions on the same vein as her partner's. "At extreme close range." Mireille merely muttered her agreement and let Ezza's head drop back to its former position. As she did, she glimpsed something that had escaped her notice previously--the hair at the back of his head was matted and appeared wet; the shot to his face had passed entirely through his skull. A hand's breadth splash of blood soiled the concrete behind Ezza's head where the bullet had delivered the fluid with its exit; only now that Mireille's eyes had adjusted to the darkness could she discern the telling stain. Her keener gaze additionally picked up a gouge in the wall nestled in the discharged blood that enclosed it--the hollow where the fired slug had burrowed deeply into the solid concrete. Truly a powerful pistol. Mireille's scowl intensified as she turned around to face the centre of the basement. There were no clues here, no signs to direct her and Kirika to the next segment of Ryosuke and Vincent's trail. No slip-ups, just bodies, corpses of boys who had died much too young. The false Noir--false as they may be--evidently possessed enough talent and prudence not to leave any tracks behind that could be traced. "There's nothing," Mireille said with clear displeasure, voicing her beliefs... and concerns. She feared the trail had been ice cold before she and Kirika had even shown up. "Mm..." Kirika murmured unhappily, bowing her head and looking down at the floor. But then a moment later her head suddenly snapped up and she blinked, before turning to favour Mireille with a somewhat enlivened expression. "The video camera," she said a little breathlessly. A still frowning yet curious Mireille turned her head to Kirika, the Corsican assassin wondering what had gotten the quiet girl worked up. She merely blinked at her partner's hopeful face for a second as Kirika simply looked back at her, before it finally sunk in. The video camera. Of course! Simon kept his basement abode under surveillance! Mireille gasped in realisation, her scowl vanishing, and--with Kirika accompanying her--hurried back to the desk, searching among the monitors for the unique one that displayed the output of the camera mounted covertly in one dark corner of the room. "Let's hope that he actually recorded the feed," she said as her eyes scanned anxiously over the cluster of screens while she wracked her brains, trying to recall its position. During her hunt she noticed that one of Simon's PC towers had a couple of bullet holes marring its front, the blemishes just above the floppy disk drive. It was peculiar since she didn't believe that the false Noir's shots would miss their marks while up against trapped and unarmed teenagers. Maybe it was for intimidation reasons. Following a handful of seconds spent looking for it Mireille located the video camera's monitor, its television-like exterior betraying the different purpose it had to its mates. Like a few other screens it was switched off, a black square that could easily be overlooked in the dim light as Ryosuke and Vincent had apparently done together with missing the camera. The blonde assassin didn't know why the monitor wasn't on, but whatever the grounds it had worked in her and Kirika's favour. That is, if the camera it was connected to wasn't switched off as well. Not willing to wait any longer to find out, Mireille switched on the monitor. It flared to life, and presented the welcome black and white image of her and her partner standing in front of the computer desk, the basement stairs at the top of the screen behind the figures. Despite the lack of colour the picture was exceedingly clear; Simon had seemingly opted for a camera and monitor that both operated at a high resolution, perhaps even forgoing traditional cassette tape for a purely digital recording medium. There were controls to directly manipulate the picture on the monitor below the screen that supported the digital theory and which Mireille used to attempt to rewind the recording to the time when Simon and his cohorts have been paid a deadly visit. To her relief, an animated time selection slider bar appeared on the screen that through the controls allowed her to replay the recorded events that had taken place in the basement before she and Kirika had arrived, and in turn shed some light on exactly what had happened. The position of the camera only captured a small section of the basement, but it was enough to grant Mireille and Kirika a general idea of how Simon, Ezza, and the other juvenile had been slain. Jacques had evidently been working for Breffort after all; Ryosuke and Vincent had indeed come to the computer shop and were responsible for its young occupants' murders. Nearly everyone remained partly or totally off screen for the most part, with the sole exceptions of Ryosuke and Simon, the former of which mainly stood like statue a couple of feet from the staircase while the latter sat at the desk. While the hacker's abuse and subsequent execution by Vincent had been recorded in graphic detail--the only death to be--their was only two things that interested Mireille; what Ryosuke had said to him shortly before his demise that'd had him nodding his head in fervent compliance, and who had phoned the hitman to seemingly prompt him to speak to the youth. Unfortunately, there was no sound mixed in with the pictures of the recording, leaving the Corsican and her partner pretty much out of luck. "He... he wants an address," Kirika told Mireille out of the blue in a hesitant voice, her eyes riveted to the monitor as the woman repeated the part of the recording where Ryosuke spoke to Simon. Mireille paused the playing images to look at the withdrawn girl in surprise. "How do you know that?" she asked, her voice and expression both quizzical. "That is what he said," Kirika expounded, turning her head from the screen to return her partner's thrown look with her typical sober countenance. "The way his mouth moves." Mireille blinked languidly at Kirika--her expression rather astonished--and then glanced at the monitor, before turning her head back to her counterpart once again. "You mean to say you read his lips?" she eventually said in amazement, staring incredulously at her partner as the unassuming girl simply stared back at her. "That you can read lips?" "Mm," Kirika emitted with a nod, as if she were merely confirming that she could skip or do something equally routine, rather than perform a pretty impressive feat. Mireille closed her eyes as she shook her head gently in bewilderment, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards in the beginnings of a pleasantly surprised smile. So Kirika could read lips. The woman half-jokingly wondered if that applied to every language she spoke... but knowing Kirika, it probably did. She was an unassuming girl indeed. The Corsican assassin could see the handiness of having such a gift, as Altena no doubt had too. Being able to know what guards, targets--anybody really--were speaking of from a distance could privy one to useful intel... much like in this precise situation. "You certainly are a deceptive package," Mireille declared with as much wryness as she could muster given their grim surroundings. She opened her eyes and smiled faintly at Kirika, her expression remarkably tender in relation to its past harsh appearance. "But I suppose I was already cognisant of that," she then added a little playfully, angling her head to look at the girl sidelong, the smile remaining on her lips. "Still full of surprises, even now." Kirika lowered her head slightly at Mireille's words, dropping her gaze from the blonde. Mireille smirked a little at the reaction--she just might have embarrassed the introverted girl. While she hadn't known her reserved counterpart to ever openly blush--although the woman did hold onto the hope that one day she would witness the no doubt *very* cute action--Kirika did have her own endearing ways of displaying her discomfit that the Corsican had identified and hence could normally spot, as in this case. Yet on this occasion the girl's face somehow seemed sadder than it had a few moments ago. Mireille chalked it up to a trick of the meagre light; she was quite sure she hadn't said anything that Kirika could have construed the wrong way. Mireille's visage reverted back to its former serious guise--warm to cold--as she refocused her attention on the video camera's monitor, her and her partner's fleeting interlude of light-heartedness over. After all, it was difficult to be cheerful when in the presence of corpses who had once been people you knew. "Can you make out the address he wants?" Mireille posed to Kirika as she restarted the recording. Her eyes flicked to the two bullet holes in one of the computer towers standing upright on the desk, now understanding the full story behind the punctures. Although the camera had captured Vincent firing the rounds just before he and his colleague had departed the basement--dismissing the notion that they had been stray shots--the blonde hadn't known why he had done so. But with the recent information of Ryosuke desiring Simon to dig up an address for him, it now all made sense--the shots were to destroy the evidence resident in the hard disk of the computer used to find the address, and in turn hide any trace of his and Vincent's visit while also preventing anyone from tailing them. However, they obviously hadn't counted on the sharp young Japanese girl at Mireille's side. Kirika looked up and turned to the monitor, studying its high-resolution screen intently for a couple of minutes as the logged scenes played out. She then shook her head. "He never says it. But he does say somebody's name," she notified the blonde. Kirika's brow furrowed in concentration as she closely scrutinised the image of Ryosuke's moving lips as they noiselessly formed words, the girl frequently requesting Mireille to repeat one portion of the recording which the woman dutifully did. "Al... Albe... Al... ber... bert. Albert..." Kirika mumbled softly to herself as Mireille watched on in fascination tempered somewhat by her current dark mood, the woman's fingers moving automatically on the monitor's controls to replay the segment of footage, her mind all but wholly captivated by her petite partner. She scarcely drew breath lest she disturb the girl's focus; people's names were apparently trickier to read from lip movements alone than general words. "Lar... o... Laro... ka? Laro... Laro... que. Laroque." Kirika turned her head to Mireille, the said blonde regarding her slightly uncertainly. "Albert Laroque," she then stated simply, her reconstruction of every silent syllable of the name uttered by Ryosuke complete. "Albert Laroque?" Mireille echoed, knitting her brow. The name didn't ring any bells, but she trusted Kirika's conclusions implicitly. The notion that perhaps the darkhaired girl had mispronounced the name didn't even enter her mind. Abandoning her efforts to try and remember if she were familiar with 'Albert Laroque', Mireille instead let her hard mask slip again for a second and cast a small, fond smile Kirika's way in a gesture of approval. "Well done," she praised quietly, although the girl merely responded with her usual impassive look; her version of dismissively shrugging one's shoulders, the blonde thought wryly. "What about his phone call? Can you tell what he says?" she then asked as she rewound the recording to that exact part. Kirika shook her head as she regretfully murmured in the negative. "He doesn't move his lips enough," she said. "But I think he's speaking Japanese," she then helpfully offered instead. Mireille absently nodded. The phone call wasn't really relevant anymore; she and Kirika had already found the elusive breadcrumb that revealed the next branch of the false Noir's trail. And it came in the form of a name--Albert Laroque. Simon's and his colleagues' murders had clearly not been without gain after all; even in death the hacker had provided valuable information, just like a well-paid contact--a well-paid acquaintance--should. "We're finished here," Mireille announced unfeelingly, more to the air than to her partner. She then walked away from the L-shaped desk in the direction of the basement stairs, Kirika obediently at her heels. When she reached the bottom of the steps, Mireille abruptly stopped and looked back over her shoulder, bringing up her pistol in the same motion. Aiming for the video camera's monitor, she squeezed the trigger of the Walther and destroyed it with a single shot, before unleashing the remainder of the weapon's magazine into rest of Simon's computer equipment, making certain it was all damaged beyond repair. Mireille and Kirika would leave here without a trace, unlike their warped other halves. The blonde's bullet casings were unmarked, and the fingerprints she and her partner had left behind weren't an issue--to the Corsican's knowledge neither hers nor her Japanese counterpart's existed in any record anywhere in the world, let alone in Paris' metropolitan Police department's databases. Mireille's history was as clean as they come which had consequently never warranted her fingerprints to ever be taken, while Kirika was more or less a ghost existing outside of society's radar. Yet, come to think of it, Kirika hadn't touched a solitary object in the building so far. Mireille had neglected to notice that until just now, a credit to the girl's subtlety and skill as an assassin. Mireille ejected the empty clip from her gun and placed it in one of the ammunition pouches on the harness strapped under her coat, before reloading. She then resumed her exodus of the basement, climbing up the creaky wooden stairs and making no attempt to mitigate the noise of her footsteps. Kirika's own ascension of the staircase was still hushed however, maintaining stealth likely an unconscious act for the talented girl. Mireille pulled out her mobile phone from her coat's inside pocket with her free hand, and begun dialling the number for one of her many sources who could ascertain the address of Albert Laroque; the address where Ryosuke and Vincent were doubtless at this very minute. Time was still of the essence; the Corsican didn't want to miss the two men and end up chasing them around fruitlessly until morning, one step behind. She wanted to end this 'assignment' of Breffort's tonight, end her and her partner's relation with him and Soldats for good. She wanted her and Kirika to be utterly free of the organisation forever and simply live their lives in blessed privacy together. It was all within grasp tonight, within Mireille's tightening fist. She imagined she should be thankful to Simon for his sacrifice; quite possibly his last service to her was the greatest. But despite that, as she strode up the stairs to street level she didn't so much as cast a last look back into the dark basement that had become Simon and his associates' grave. After all, Simon had merely been an acquaintance of hers... and they had drifted apart. ****** To be continued.... Author's ramblings: Dominique's section certainly dragged on a bit, but I didn't want to keep everyone in the dark for too long. The plot needed to have some flesh put on it. Apologies to people who dislike reading about original characters too much in a fanfic.
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