Chapter 23 - Family Matters
Ryosuke stalked through the halls of Ishinomori Tower, his heavy boots heralding his rapid and inexorable passage with violent clomps against the floor. Anyone who happened to be in his path was quick to remedy that, darting aside as the juggernaut in black strode past, lest they be trampled. He would not care if it came to that, and those in the way knew it--the women encountered in the corridors of what was supposed to be his home were the ‘guests’ of Dominique, with the viper at the centre of the nest a guest herself, no less. Ryosuke was virtually alone in that treacherous nest, poisoned fangs and forked tongues all around, but he held no fear for himself. That wasn’t to say his heart did not harbour it--only the mad or the stupid were fearless, and he was neither--and this morning he was wholly its thrall.
The fear wasn’t for himself however, but, as usual, for his sister, afflicted as she was with the mad-induced breed of daring. It seemed Ryosuke was the last to learn of Kaede’s reckless if not bordering on suicidal intentions; too frequently was he on the bottom of the grapevine in family matters these days, where news was trickled down from eavesdropping at the right places at the right moments. No prizes for guessing why, of course. He was consigned there at the lowest rung by the one person he had been sure would at least keep his younger sister from physical danger for the time being, if not out of genuine affection then out of practical concern for an asset. Whatever motivation, Dominique had not this time. It left Ryosuke afraid, and smothered in cold fury.
The yakuza’s head started to beat in cadence with his footsteps, the jackhammer buried in his skull gradually strengthening and hastening, seeming intent on busting clean through the bone. Through the haze of pain he wondered what he was going to say to Kaede that wouldn’t just sound like his temper exploding. She would listen to him, though. She would. This was where he was different to Dominique; superior--he and Kaede had a connection the gaijin could never touch, and never hope to match.
Two of Kaede’s compulsory bodyguards--who probably took orders from Dominique over the word of their supposed mistress they protected--stood outside the door to her private apartments, dressed in their prim black suits and eyeing Ryosuke’s appearance dispassionately, as though he were the unruly neighbourhood boy come to bother them--a childlike annoyance at best. Every Soldats rebel had likewise caustic stuck-up attitudes when they weren’t being aloof; they underestimated anybody not in their little exclusive club, and treated them with matching disrespect. Humility would be a harsh inevitable lesson for them. Yesterday Noir had given them their first taste since their defeat and ousting from whichever part of Europe had originally spat them out, but Ryosuke himself would feed them the full, fatal dose one day.
One of the guards stepped in front of Kaede’s door and held her arm out with her hand raised casually, a weary gesture for him to halt. “She’s--” the woman began, compliance taken for granted. However Ryosuke did not halt.
The gangster seized the rebel’s extended arm and roughly pulled her out of his sight, into her nearby compatriot. Together the women stumbled, scandalised squawks issuing from their throats as they strived to regain their respective balances. Before that happened, Ryosuke had opened his sister’s door, audaciously unlocked, and stormed into the room the women so haplessly had defended.
Kaede wasn’t the first to live in these apartments. She followed in another woman’s footsteps, taking them over after her mother--after Ryosuke’s mother--had become mortally entangled with Soldats’ machinations. With hindsight and wisdom garnered from his years of separation lurking in the dark corners of Japan’s backstreets, it was clear to Ryosuke that Hikaru Ishinomori’s end had been preordained. Soldats was like a terminal disease; it took its time, but eventually it went for your life. And the cure…. If there was a cure, it would be found by Ryosuke and his comrades, which tentatively included Dominique and her rebels. They were taking a scalpel to it, carving out the sickness that polluted the world. The gangster did not forget however that Dominique and her women were Soldats too, and had been catalysts for his mother’s corruption and demise. It would not be over until *they* were purged from all aspects of civilization as well.
Entering the apartments still jarred the man to this day--he wished his sister would think about changing the décor. The rooms were as he remembered them as a boy, before he’d left Ishinomori Tower in disgust. The colour scheme was gentle on the eyes, while the taste in art was untamed in comparison, garish and angular. It spoke of Hikaru Ishinomori’s personality, but mere echoes of it, not enough for her son to understand. She would forever endure as an enigma to Ryosuke. A figure to be despised… and loved. He was still his mother’s son.
Kaede was in the living room, attended by her two shadows with their primped hair and made-up faces, and flexible dignity. Fumiko hovered around her owner, devoted in her attention though timid with her touches, while Claire mostly stood back, seeming impatient and begrudged to get any closer. The habitually browbeaten green-haired woman was wrapped in a simple white satin robe, while her shamelessly immoral redhead counterpart wore one of her trademark yukatas virtually sliding from her shoulders. It was blue, crashing waves on the bottom half and eighteenth century galleons navigating the currents on the top, several smashed to jagged lengths of timber; hulls cracked and masts snapped, with white sails in tatters, billowing wildly in the pictured storm. It didn’t suit her. Claire was another invading gaijin, an acquaintance of Dominique’s in some sense, and manoeuvred somehow into Kaede’s bed, slyly playing on Ryosuke’s sister’s appetites. For what purpose could be speculated at, but none containing benevolence. Claire certainly was no Fumiko; she was a wolf pretending to be a hound.
The slaves were regarded dispassionately by Ryosuke, noted and then dismissed as beneath further thought in a fraction of a second. Fumiko--and when she deigned lift a finger to assist, Claire--were dressing their mistress for the new day. That Kaede was naked before them--and before *him*--was what insisted on Ryosuke’s complete attention.
It bid the yakuza freeze for the briefest of instants, likely unnoticeable to anyone watching, but a pause, a *hesitation*, nonetheless. It had been rude to barge in unannounced, especially into a woman’s quarters, however Ryosuke was not about to back-pedal now. He wouldn’t give Dominique’s guards outside or Claire inside the satisfaction of seeing his weakness. Nor could he afford to.
Boldly the gangster slammed the door closed in the Soldats rebels’ indignant faces as the women rushed to oppose him once more, angrily this time. Had they been a second swifter he would have smacked their noses--unfortunately their sloth was his loss. He locked the door, just in time to counter frantic turns on the handle, every one of them rendered futile. The women were too prideful to resort to banging their fists against the door.
“Meeting Noir is a mistake,” Ryosuke declared in a vehement growl but without fanfare, his eyes pinched as the pain in his head pounded harder reminders of its presence into his brain.
“Big Brother!” Kaede called happily, mercifully only turning her head around to greet him. She was as unconcerned with her nudity as Ryosuke… or at least as he appeared to be. The white-haired man kept his eyes level with hers behind her thick veil of bangs, never tempted to dip to anything lower. The large irezumi tattoo spread across her back and shoulders inherently drew the gaze, but he was unaffected--he had seen it before. A woman with long straight black hair clad in a white kimono and in pallid face paint rode side-saddle atop a sinuous red scaled dragon with a tan underbelly. The dragon’s paws whipped over Kaede’s flesh with abandon, talons cruel and curved. One set; the right paw’s; were silver instead of bone like the others, more akin to knives.
Ryosuke had seen the tattoo before, yes… and didn’t want to see it again. It was a stain on perfect skin, a mark of innocence ravaged. She was not meant to wear it. Not an angel like her. Kaede was never meant to have followed him.
There was more than a tattoo of the underworld to tempt the eyes, however unabashedly exhibited or not, some things were sacred. Ryosuke had not hung out with Vin long enough to become *that* depraved. He prayed he never would.
“She is quite adamant,” Claire remarked, a smooth and sultry smile coming to her lips for her mistress’s protective brother, yet anything but inviting. She moved closer to Kaede, her fingertips gliding over naked curves and dimples, the poorest pretence of a handmaiden clothing her charge. The slut knew her filthy faked affection irked him. “Frightened, are we?”
“Noir are not some street criminals playing hitmen,” Ryosuke snarled coldly. “They’re international. Old. They have a reputation.”
“I am aware of what Noir is,” Kaede said matter-of-factly, turning her head away as Fumiko helped her don her undergarments. “I even know more than you do, Big Brother,” she impishly teased, looking back over her shoulder a margin as her bra was fitted.
Ryosuke averted his eyes, and he heard Claire emit a light chuckle, probably at his expense. He forced his eyes back.
“I’ve faced them,” the yakuza persisted. He couldn’t give up. “Even you’ve seen what they can do. This is a *mistake*. Soldats must have a contract out on you, and you’re giving yourself over on a platter!” Why hadn’t Dominique stopped Kaede?!
“I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse,” Kaede quipped, before her small smile broke into wild mania.
Ryosuke wasn’t one for laughing. “They are the *enemy*. There’s nothing you have that they want. Except your life.” Unless Kaede paid for Noir’s services with Langonel’s Manuscript. It was a sound theory, even perhaps worth pursuing… if Dominique was ever inclined to let the text leave her possession. More like a hopeless theory, then. Better in her hands than in the enemy’s, Ryosuke supposed, despite the blurred line between the two. He didn’t think he could steal the tome back cleanly from wherever Dominique had stashed it anyway.
“Everyone can be bought,” Kaede said, curling two fingers underneath Fumiko’s chin. The other young woman didn’t react beyond slipping a shirt’s sleeve over Kaede’s free arm, and sweeping the rest of the garment around her owner’s shoulders. “Or coerced. Loyalty for others isn’t like what it is between us, Big Brother. Soldats has no honour.”
“Why can’t I go in your stead? Or… Dominique?” Perhaps Ryosuke could use Noir against the French woman as she had tried to use them against him and Vin. Should she be gunned down at the meeting….
“No. It’s *my* idea,” Kaede insisted fiercely, whirling around to face Ryosuke. The open shirt covered enough, provocatively though it did. “*Mine*!”
Ryosuke resisted the urge to clutch his head and squeeze his eyes shut--his behaviour would not be fodder for Claire’s measuring gaze. He wondered if Dominique *had* tried to argue Kaede out of her idea, only to have failed. His sister was so stubborn. “You’re not going.” He could be stubborn too.
Kaede’s face became someone else’s; an animal’s--a monster’s. Her features twisted from beautiful to repulsive as something dark inside took over. She repeatedly balled her hands into fists while her chest heaved frantically, her nails clawing into her palms over and over heedlessly that Ryosuke expected blood to be drawn at any second. The monster’s fury was for him, yet he looked upon it not with fear, but with pity. Inside was his sister, his *family*; this creature before him wielded her as puppet while the real Kaede screamed to get out. Ryosuke would not back down. He would not let Kaede down. He would not submit to the monster.
“I AM GOING!” Kaede screeched, lunging forward to wave her fists at her stoic brother. Behind her Fumiko slowly enfolded her arms around herself and sank to the floor, her eyes vacant yet wide and wild. Claire merely frowned and clicked her tongue contemptuously.
“No,” Ryosuke said, glaring.
Kaede trembled, grinding her teeth, and then hammered her fists against the gangster’s chest, unfazed by the steel beneath his coat. Ryosuke was equally unmoved in the face of the tirade and frenzied blows. His sister screamed obscenities never meant for her musical voice, and gibberish never meant for anyone sane, but he blocked it out. This wasn’t really her. This was Soldats’ and Dominique’s offspring.
Ryosuke slapped away Kaede’s arms then grabbed her wrists as she reeled, hard enough that it might result in bruising, but the strength was necessary against the madly flailing limbs. Her punches were nothing to him, but she would batter her hands bloody if he didn’t put a stop to it. Nevertheless, Kaede resorted to kicking and kneeing, Ryosuke’s restraint seeming to incense her all the more. Bare feet and knees were no better against steel--this tantrum needed to end.
Ryosuke spun Kaede around and crushed the young woman’s back to his chest, his arms holding her body fast and with nothing to do but shout and spit and drum heels against his armoured shins. “Enough,” Ryosuke barked in his sister’s ear. “Remember who you address.”
Ryosuke remained Kaede’s rigid prison as she wore her resistance out, the futility of acting like a belligerent child finally sinking in through insanity’s murk. Gradually she quietened, and it was a panting, limp young woman Ryosuke soon held.
“At last. That was hurting my ears,” Claire commented irritably, earning a glower from the yakuza. The gaijin rolled her eyes and poked Fumiko callously with a toe. “It’s over. Get up.”
Fumiko did not however, staying balled up on her haunches. Like any good dog, her mood was affected by her mistress’s.
Claire released a frustrated sigh. “Whatever,” she breathed, looking up at the ceiling.
The suite’s door handle was jiggling again, the cowed guards outside probably roused to action, however fruitless, by Kaede’s outburst. But to Ryosuke’s mild surprise he heard the lock click, bestowing assess to whoever was on the other side. He wasn’t surprised when he saw who had joined the guards. When there was trouble, the children always ran for mother.
“What’s going on?” Dominique demanded upon seeing Ryosuke restraining Kaede, a keychain still in the Soldats renegade’s hand. The sight of the Ishinomori siblings together constantly rubbed her the wrong way. Kaede was not the same as her mother. There was something left of her that Dominique could not infect, no matter the whispers she fed into Kaede’s ear. Blood was still the strongest bond of all.
Ryosuke released Kaede, dropping his arms to his sides. The young woman staggered away, latching onto a loveseat to support herself. “A family matter,” the gangster said.
Dominique’s green eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. Just as she knew what buttons to push with him, Ryosuke knew which ones to push in return.
“Kaede’s staying home today after all,” Claire said with overblown cheeriness, smirking at Dominique.
“It would be safer,” Dominique stated, unaffected by the redhead’s taunting attitude. She put the set of keys into her suit jacket’s pocket casually, and then brushed her grey-streaked tresses from her shoulder. “But she will go. She *needs* to see them.”
Kaede whipped around, her face lighting up, transforming back into the sister Ryosuke had grown up with. But not for him. She bounded across the room, shamelessly enveloping Dominique in her arms and pressing a cheek to the older and taller woman’s chest, the rest of her barely clothed body following.
Claire snorted and folded her arms, finding interest elsewhere in Hikaru Ishinomori’s abstract oddities on display, yet Ryosuke maintained his deadened vigil in spite of wishing to turn away too. He had to watch this. He had to remember what was on the line. But he sought no reminder of why he loathed Dominique D'Aubigne.
Dominique became a different person too, her frosty, wooden features warming and relaxing as an indulgent smile blossomed on her face, even her eyes starting to soften and shine as she looked down at Ryosuke’s sister. The gaijin smoothed a hand over Kaede’s hair, the other in a sling gingerly going to her waist, answering the other woman’s misplaced affection. And Ryosuke watched; visions of their mother in his mind, and hate in his heart. He’d save her. He’d *be* here this time. Daughter would not become the mother; Ryosuke would not mourn Kaede Ishinomori as he did Hikaru Ishinomori.
“You cannot be serious,” Ryosuke rumbled scornfully, the torture in his head now from a new font, his migraine missed and welcomed to come back and take its place.
Dominique lifted her gaze, the pitiless, calculating eyes reappearing for the gangster. “You cannot understand,” she retorted, haughty with whatever inside knowledge she had, whatever schemes she had in motion. “Some things must be.”
“Big Brother, I’ll be okay,” Kaede naïvely assured Ryosuke, turning from her other puppeteer’s chest. “You better stay here though, Fumiko.” She broke from Dominique, walking over to the still huddled woman and squatting down to her level. Kaede touched the side of Fumiko’s face delicately; fingertips only, the gentle and compassionate girl again; although she could have slapped it and gotten no more reaction. The outside world and those in it were as figments of a faraway dream to the slave, still mesmerised by whatever ailment muddied her mind. Kaede didn’t seem to notice, or did not care. “*You* must stay safe. Not like yesterday. You’ll stay safe. Here.”
“At least wear it,” Ryosuke sighed, it feeling more and more pointless standing there. If he had to concede, at least it was not to the monster. At least he’d be with his sister this time, right by her side. Like the old days.
“Mm,” Kaede absently replied, engrossed in combing her fingers through dark green waves, tucking locks behind her pretty dog’s ear.
Ryosuke spared a last bitter glance in his sister’s direction, and then stormed past Dominique, sparing her nothing at all. Blood, *family*, was stronger than anything. He wondered how and when Dominique had become as family.
******
“There.”
Mireille didn’t stop, but walked onwards as though nothing of interest was ahead on the opposite side of the street, the woman mingling with the other pedestrians, one with their flow. The sidewalk’s throng was Kirika’s to swim as well; she let the current take her while still sticking beside her partner, two droplets in a river. They moved with the will of the mob, but the assassins’ eyes moved independently, steered past the people that hid them to what they were here for, taking every nuance all in.
Mireille’s murmur had been low; a breath, almost stolen away in the footfalls and chatter of dozens around them, and while Kirika gave no indication she had picked it up, she had heard. It was unnecessary however, although the pleasant quality of her love’s voice was never unwelcome; like caresses for the ears, tantalising the sense, the woman’s mere speech a melody in itself. Ishinomori hadn’t tried to conceal their presence. You could tell the meeting place--a café or restaurant of some kind--by the number of alike black cars parked at the curb just outside. Familiar women in black suits loitered beside the sedans too, and not in a fashion that could ever be mistaken for casual. They were on guard, and waiting--waiting for Kirika and Mireille.
Kirika wasn’t sure about this. Heading into a situation where they were literally expected at a certain time and in a certain place by people who had demonstrated they would do them harm was a serious risk. Meeting unknowing victims face-to-face was one thing; while still with its share of danger, through subterfuge and a silver tongue like Mireille’s information could be gleaned that might help bring about eventual deaths; but this was akin to stepping onto a landmine you knew was there and hoping it didn’t go off. Normally this would never be, not even entertained by the teenager’s counterpart, however the assassins’ identities, their faces, weren’t in need of protection. This enemy knew Kirika and Mireille--knew them intimately. Maybe that was why they were here, because of that intimacy. Noir was tied to this enemy, and every thread was black.
Kirika questioned meeting the Soldats rebels, but she didn’t question Mireille. The dark haired teenager’s concerns were for herself alone to ponder and fret over. She trusted Mireille. And she trusted herself if the landmine proved live.
<You’re curious too, aren’t you? It’s natural. They’re like blood.>
Mireille turned into a store as though it was her whole purpose for being outdoors in Yokohama, and Kirika smoothly followed, the girl aware that there certainly was purpose in all of the blonde’s decisions, though it wasn’t usually what outsiders believed.
The shop sold books; rows of racks at chest height filled to bursting with magazines, comics, and books. Every publication was glossy or brightly coloured; like the magazines Mireille bought at home and that Kirika sometimes read afterwards; only with loud Japanese script on the covers. Mireille wouldn’t buy any of these if she couldn’t read them, but the woman hadn’t really come inside to browse for reading material. Over the racks lining the book store’s front window and almost directly across the street was a relatively clear view of the café. Like the book shop, the café’s front façade was clear glass, and easy to see through. Unfortunately priestesses boldly stood all but shoulder-to-shoulder in the café’s window--some facing front and some with their backs to the glass--thwarting a clean line of sight inside the building. Perhaps Ishinomori worried about gunmen or women armed with long range rifles, or perhaps it was who would soon be within the café that the group feared. They should have just selected somewhere enclosed, without windows. Was the open, public locale meant to appeal to Kirika and Mireille? Being surrounded and outnumbered wasn’t inviting; a window and plenty of bystanders didn’t change that. Maybe that was the plan; surround Noir, outnumber them, then hope to kill them. Broad daylight and in public weren’t always the shields people thought. But it was *hope* to kill them, wasn’t it. Being in public and in broad daylight wouldn’t put off Kirika either, if it came to that--if it came to defending Mireille.
The assassins joined the other customers skimming over the racks, merging with the normal, the mundane; the overlooked. Ishinomori knew they were coming and it did make it somewhat harder, but Kirika and Mireille could still blend when they desired, especially if they kept a cautious distance.
Mireille plucked a magazine from the rack; a smiling woman was on the cover, surrounded by Japanese kanji; and flicked slowly through it, her handbag left dangling from her forearm. Her eyes seldom even looked at the pictures. Instead she gazed over the top of the magazine, scrutinising the café and the Soldats renegades inside and outside of it. She was conscious of the risks as well.
Kirika quickly picked up a magazine too and opened it to a random page. She blinked when photos of girls roughly her age in school uniforms, swimwear, and underwear assailed her vision. There wasn’t anything to read, just the pictures to look at. A lot of the clothing didn’t even fit right, the way it was slipping from the girls’ bodies. It wasn’t like Mireille’s fashion magazines whatsoever. Kirika mused whether this was how people her age modelled apparel. Mireille did seem to enjoy seeing her in a variety of outfits when they went clothes shopping. Maybe the woman would like to see her in her old school uniform again, or in undergarments. Then again, the blonde hadn’t had her stand around in underwear before. Maybe Mireille didn’t like that. Kirika wasn’t sure if she liked it either; not the standing around part, but the looking itself. She actually didn’t find much appeal in her love’s magazines beyond the thought provoking though peculiar articles. If the people in the accompanying pictures weren’t Mireille, they and all the fashion they exhibited were wasted on the girl.
Fifteen minutes of tediously flipping through the photobook later; fifteen minutes past the hour Ishinomori had arranged to meet; Mireille replaced her magazine in the rack and lightly brushed her fingertips along the back of Kirika’s hand. Immediately the fine hairs there stood up, the tingle left behind from the delicate, fleeting touch enveloping the teenager’s hand, heightening its presence at the end of her wrist, as though it no longer belonged to her. Kirika couldn’t help rubbing it with her other hand, soothing the nearly painful sensitivity to something more normal.
Electrifying Kirika’s skin wasn’t Mireille’s intention; it was the signal that the blonde had seen enough of the café and they were on the move again. Kirika stuffed her thick magazine into the rack and trailed after her partner, before matching pace beside her.
They crossed the street when others did, minimising their exposure on the road, appearing in the midst of many rather than two alone. It looked like Mireille had seen nothing to have her rethink going through with the meeting. Kirika hadn’t caught anything telling either in her periodic glimpses of the café and the priestesses within and without; there wasn’t unease at Noir’s tardiness, no extra faces emerging to discuss the assassins whereabouts, no new cars pulling up--only the unceasing patience. Kirika hadn’t anticipated more, and no doubt Mireille had felt likewise. This was Soldats. Their traps sprung precisely when they meant them to.
Kirika’s and Mireille’s eyes shifted sidelong down the alley running alongside the café as they walked by it, in the split second glance filing away what they saw to memory--a rear entrance--single door--and more priestesses outside of it; four of them. The women had seen them pass, and were probably alerting everyone else via radio that Noir was here. There was no point in secrecy now in any case. The assassins were too close to continue that.
The guards by the sedans merely looked impassively at Kirika and Mireille as they approached, while neither of the young women deigned to bother looking back. Or so it might appear. In reality Kirika held the dark-clad priestesses in her peripheral vision, ready to seize her weapon should they do so theirs first. The girl’s hands were in her parka’s pockets, her right loosely around the Beretta M1934 inside.
A priestess held the café’s door open as Kirika and Mireille neared, and then let it swing shut once the pair had entered. It was eerily hush inside. Kirika’s eyes went for the threats first--the women in black scattered around the room, sitting at the round tables or standing about, mostly at the windows; the scruffy men at other tables by themselves, some slouching against the walls or the shop’s counter. And of course Noir’s targets; Ryosuke Ishinomori and Vincent Hsu, the duo amongst the men, and Kaede Ishinomori, sitting at a table with two other women; one a priestess with her arm in a sling, and one dressed very different from all the rest.
Next Kirika’s eyes saw that there were still normal customers at their own tables, their anxious faces, dead silence, and refusal to look up from their desserts revealing that they knew something was up. They ate their ice cream mechanically, likely tasting nothing. Those that had finished dared not leave their chairs, pantomiming that there was yet something more to scoop up from their empty glassware. That they were there was promising, however. Kirika would have been put more on edge if it had been just her and Mireille and the Soldats renegades. The half-a-dozen or so witnesses would have to be killed too if Ishinomori elected to attack. Again, they were a paper shield, and probably here for Noir’s comfort. Nevertheless, it was something.
Finally it was the shop itself. Iced treats were the only thing the patrons ate; the counter at the far end of the shop was full of trays containing various flavours of ice cream. Appetising pictures of cones stacked high with scoops of ice cream and sprinkled with a range of toppings were the walls’ decorations, and above the counter a picturesque menu spoke of the cool desserts on offer. It was an ice cream parlour.
Two guards stepped in front of Kirika and Mireille, barring their way onwards. The rebels held their tongues, but the assassins understood what they sought.
Mireille raised an eyebrow and then her arms, her handbag suspended prudishly from her fingertips in her left hand. A priestess felt along the outstretched limbs--unnecessarily so, Mireille’s arms were left bare by her top--earning a glower from the blonde, then her hands followed the curve of the armpits to Mireille’s torso, smoothing over her chest and hips. Mireille didn’t look pleased. It was pretty obvious nothing could be secreted inside her skin tight outfit, unless it was a small handgun or blade under her short skirt, high on the inner thigh. But that would be kind of awkward to reach in a firefight. Regardless, the priestess even checked under there.
The other priestess looked down at Kirika, and the petite girl merely looked back, her face blank. Kirika’s hands stayed in her pockets. With a hint of apprehension--scarcely there, but there nonetheless--the woman began feeling over Kirika’s slight shoulders and down her arms, then fit her hands in the space between the limbs and the teenager’s body, patting over her ribs. Eventually the priestess arrived at the parka’s pockets and Kirika’s hands within, pressing her fingers over the bulge at the girl’s midsection. Kirika kept her hand covering her small pistol, and subtly manoeuvred it away from wherever the woman’s searching touches landed with her middle finger and thumb, so all the guard encountered was more flesh, bones, and parka. She didn’t need her gun to protect Mireille; however surrendering it before she had to was irrational. Better to have it than not.
<You’ll need it. One day.>
“Open the bag. Please.”
Kirika glanced over at Mireille and saw the guard with her gesture at the blonde’s pink and white striped handbag. The guard would have no bother finding what she was looking for in there. Mireille wouldn’t like that.
“You invited us, and this is the reception? I’m sure you’ve all kept your party favours,” Mireille said matter-of-factly, but with an edge.
Kaede and the bespectacled priestess sitting at the table beside her bent their heads close to one another, whispering. A moment later, a snap of the priestess’s wrist shooed the guards away from Kirika and Mireille. The women complied immediately, swiftly retreating without a word or further harassment against the assassins. Kirika looked back to the greying priestess who had given the order and marked her as someone important--a priority target.
“Oi~!”
The man’s outcry brought most heads turning to him, although he said no more. He was seated beside Vincent, with Ryosuke leaning against a pillar nearby. He, and the rest of the men in the ice cream parlour, doubtlessly came from Ryosuke Ishinomori’s yakuza family, the Kanagawa Kotetsu. It was Ryosuke himself who had quietened the almost bald gangster’s hostility against Noir keeping claim of their weapons, rapping two knuckles on his shoulder, looming over him.
One of the heads that hadn’t turned was Vincent’s, even though he was the closest neighbour to the yakuza. Instead he was fixated on Kirika, his gaze never moving from her. The girl recognised the hate in his eyes… and the day old cuts and bruises on his face. She regarded him emotionlessly, neither afraid nor provoked by his angry glare. She had seen it before, in many eyes; eyes that saw no longer. They’d shared the same experience in the courthouse; however Kirika didn’t feel anything of the sort for Vincent. She didn’t feel any emotion whatsoever when she looked at him. He was just a man. Just a man she’d yet managed to kill. He’d die one day, like everyone else had, his ire proven worthless.
<Everyone dies. It’s the universal fate.>
“Come here, come here!” Kaede enthusiastically beckoned, motioning Kirika and Mireille to approach with waves of her hand. There was a pair of empty chairs at Kaede’s table, reserved for Noir.
Mireille sat down with much more subdued enthusiasm than what Kaede displayed, knees together and her handbag held with both her hands on her lap. Kirika plopped herself down in the spare chair without a thought, although her eyes freely roamed the other women across the table.
Naturally Kaede Ishinomori was the strongest lure for her gaze. Kirika had seen her at Yokohama District Court, however not this close up. The gangster was smiling at the girl, occasionally spooning somewhat runny vanilla ice cream into her mouth from a dish in front of her. Snow white bangs curtained her eyes, the same shade as her melted dessert. Kaede had shed her suit for a coat like her brother’s, jet black with a high collar and sporting dozens of buckles and straps. The assassin wondered if the coat was a sister to Ryosuke’s as well, parallel in more than just looks.
Propped against Kaede’s chair, tricky to notice behind the table and veiled under the woman’s dark coat tails, was a black curved sword in its sheathe. A katana. Kaede’s, Kirika suspected with near absolute certainty. Edged weapons could be deadly in the right hands; that was true for almost any object; but a sword’s stroke was no competition against a bullet. Weapons evolved with the times; those people who didn’t do the same soon became as dead and gone as the past. For Kaede to still wield a katana she had to surely be a master, or simply waiting to be put down by a better armed adversary. Most likely Kaede was looking at those adversaries right now.
The strange clothing on the woman sitting on Kaede’s right attracted Kirika’s curiosity rather than the woman herself drawing the assassin’s critical dissection. Kirika had seen the clothing only in magazines and on television shows before, and solely those from Japan. It was like a robe, like something Mireille was prone to don after showering in the mornings and evenings. Kirika wasn’t positive, but it felt out of place here in the city. The black and blue robe was striking however, vividly portraying a rough ocean and boats being tossed around.
The woman herself had dark red hair the colour of crusted blood that tumbled from her head to just past her shoulders in opulent spirals, as though she were wearing fiery bees’ nests. Her makeup was abundant and loud, dominating her features rather than accentuating--Mireille could teach her much. Her perfume too was overwhelming, heavy and pungent that Kirika could smell it from across the table, and wasn’t a scent she cared to smell at length.
The woman sat with her arms folded under her chest, her big breasts pushed up and nearly out of her robe. She didn’t seem happy to be here, and barely paid Kirika and Mireille more than a cursory once-over. She sat beside Kaede though, which meant she was important, just like the priestess who had Kaede’s ear at her left.
“I’m glad we could meet in a more civilised manner,” the priestess remarked, her speech precise and devoid of passion.
“Fortunate for you we could meet again,” Mireille said, smiling thinly.
Kirika’s brow furrowed a little. Her partner and this woman had history. Kirika looked closer at the priestess’s sling; a scarf printed with the likeness of peacock feathers in actuality; and the arm it cradled, musing if the wound the limb bore was a gift from her love.
“Yes,” the priestess replied simply, the reciprocating smile barely present on her lips. “I am Dominique D'Aubigne. I’m sure you recognise Lady Kaede Ishinomori.”
“I’m Claire. A pleasure,” the redhead brusquely broke in, before turning her head away again, staring off at the posters of ice cream while Dominique shot her a momentary withering look.
“You are Soldats,” Mireille abbreviated.
Kaede’s fist crashed down upon the table, shattering her ice cream dish, pieces spinning off onto the floor. Shocked gasps arose from several customers, before their outbursts were quickly reined in. Kirika almost drew her pistol, and in the corner of her eye she saw Mireille’s hand halfway inside her handbag.
“WE ARE *NOT* SOLDATS!” Kaede raged, her fist remaining on the table, grinding the glass underneath, white vanilla streaks trickling down her black glove.
“Calm yourself, child,” Dominique said evenly, but her face was pale. “They do not know.”
Slowly, Kaede’s fist uncurled and her arm drew back from the table. “I need more ice cream,” she said softly. “Big Brother!” she pleaded, turning in her chair towards the parlour’s counter, where Ryosuke was. When Kaede turned back, it was to face Kirika. “Do you want some?”
“She doesn’t want any,” Mireille answered. Wary of poison, Kirika guessed. She was right to be cautious. The ice cream probably didn’t taste as nice as that found in Paris anyway.
“Doesn’t she have a tongue? You speak for her?” Kaede said, the rage easing back into her voice and mannerisms, her expression stiffening with every word.
Mireille’s mouth opened to respond, but then Ryosuke came, the blonde’s eyes darting to him, watching carefully. He was armed with only a fresh dish of vanilla ice cream however; three scoops. He slid it across the table to his sister, and went back to his men without pause or a look back.
Kaede’s grin widened and she seized the spoon sticking out of one scoop to dig into the rest, her accusations for Mireille apparently forgotten.
Claire grunted, but when Kirika looked at her she appeared as though she hadn’t uttered a thing or moved a muscle.
“You… are Noir,” Dominique said, unflustered by Kaede’s take to distraction. The priestess’s tone was almost faraway, light and dreamy. “Corsica’s Daughter, and….” Her gaze went from Mireille to Kirika. “…You.”
Had Kirika ever had a name before awakening? Had anyone known it?
<It doesn’t matter. The nameless can’t be found. They don’t exist. They are untouchable by anything. *Anything*….>
The voice was Altena’s, but the tone was unlike hers. It wasn’t a spirit of a dead woman who spoke to Kirika. It was the reflection of herself--the nameless. The darkness.
“This is not a destiny that was ever intended for you,” Dominique continued. “Whatever happened in the Manor… with Altena….” She turned her head away, down at her injured arm, touching her elbow for a moment. “This is not your path. You are… *greater* than this. The old men are unworthy of you. You--”
“We aren’t here because of them,” Mireille interrupted, coldly. It wasn’t strictly true, but Kirika understood. They lived for themselves. They tried to.
<Freedom? There will never be freedom. Family is forever.>
“No? You seem to do as they would bid.”
“You came to *us*. *Noir* came to us,” Mireille said, her eyes shifting to Ryosuke and Vincent at the other side of the ice cream parlour. Kirika could detect the icy fury building in her partner. “Before *then*, we didn’t care.”
“A misunderstanding,” Dominique explained away, her voice layered in silk. “But you’re here now, and a side must be chosen. We are not the Soldats you know. We are…” She glanced at Kaede, and Kirika glanced at the young woman as well. She was still eating her ice cream. “We… want to bring them down.”
“And change the world, I presume? You sound like them.”
“But we are not them,” Dominique serenely assured the antagonistic blonde. “*We* see the sin they carry. They have let themselves become affected by the world they were entrusted to govern. They have forgotten why they hold the position they do. They have become the sinners. If the world must change for it to be righted; for them to be *punished* for their betrayal; then so be it.” Her emerald eyes were alight for the first time since the meeting began, Kirika noticed. The woman believed what she’d said.
<They always did. They always believed they were right. The greater good is a sinner’s excuse. A noble goal is not noble if it’s reached from the black path. Sometimes sin simply must be done; dressing it as virtuous is self-delusion. No one is righteous, least of all those who command sin be cleansed with sin. Their hands may not be stained, but their souls are.>
“We don’t want to change the world,” Mireille said softly, unmoved by the priestess’s quiet passion. “We just want to live in it.”
“You are an important piece of the gameboard. You cannot be ignored by either side,” Dominique gently insisted. “You have to decide where you will stand.”
“We know where we stand--*alone*.”
The Soldats rebel’s shook her head slightly, her long glossy sheets of black hair; marred by a handful of grey threads; catching new light and shimmering. Her eyes were almost pained, glistening with sympathy. “You don’t have to be. Come back to us. We are your home.”
“I *had* a home,” Mireille darkly declared. “It was taken from me.”
“We’ve all lost something; someone….” Dominique began, attempting to commiserate. Kirika recognised it was useless. There was cold hate in Mireille’s eyes, and it was not impotent like other people’s feral anger. There was a vow in it, and Kirika knew her partner was capable of living up to that vow.
“I don’t care about what you’ve lost. *You* took my home away.” The blonde’s nails were digging into her handbag. Kirika’s right hand, still in her parka’s pocket, closed around her Beretta. It would be a perilous fight, driven on pure reflex and skill, lasting ten to fifteen seconds at the most. Kirika was all but destined to be bleeding by the end of it--the space was too open; the opponents too many. Mireille on the other hand…. The girl would see her love through unscathed somehow. “You killed my family.”
Dominique’s words momentarily seemed to run out. She blinked once in the abrupt silence, but that one time was telling of her surprise. Perhaps she didn’t think Mireille would remember; the woman had been young. But even Kirika had come to remember, and she had been younger. Their earliest exposure to murder, to the darker world underneath the innocent one they had been born into and had believed reigned before that moment; the day their lives had been shaped in its sinister image--of course they would remember. Kirika didn’t want the memory; even though it was not truly hers, and even though Mireille had forgiven her, it still stung. Forgiveness had lessened the hurt, but it had not healed it utterly. She would carry it forever, just as she carried Odette Bouquet’s last words with her, in her heart.
“The… Bouquet’s…” Dominique murmured, frowning, somewhat unsure.
“Nothing you say can make me forget I loved my parents and brother.”
“Yes, your parents…. Unfortunate. It pains me. I recall if only they had not been so attached, learned to let go for--”
“They were *parents*,” Mireille cut in harshly. “They loved their daughter as they should have. And they died for it.”
“The Manor…” the priestess breathed, maybe finally realising the root of the blonde’s bitter enmity. “Altena--”
“--Sealed your fate long ago,” Mireille finished. “I didn’t come to negotiate. You’ll always be *them*. You may dress different, but underneath you’re the same--the same as *her*. All blind conviction and ‘justified’ *evil*. Did you ever think that the world doesn’t *want* your change?”
“You’ve fallen farther than I could ever have imagined if you’re siding with them,” Dominique breathlessly proclaimed. Claire was grinning at her, seeming to at last take an interest.
“We don’t have a side,” Mireille said, briefly turning her head to look at Kirika. Afterwards the woman stood up slowly, careful to keep their watchers’ weapons in their holsters. “But at least they knew to leave us alone.”
Kirika got to her feet as well as the blonde turned to go. She kept a grip on her pistol and her eyes everywhere. It only took one priestess or yakuza to reach for their weapon.
“Family--you’re stuck with what you’re dealt.”
Kirika looked back over her shoulder and saw Kaede wiping wayward ice cream from her mouth with the back of her hand. Her posture was different; less hunched over the table and more upright; and her smile was smaller, sly and controlled. Her voice was firmer too.
“Repeating the same mistakes,” Kaede went on. She carefully put the spoon still in her hand down, resting it on the ice cream dish. “Your family will be the death of you.”
Mireille didn’t react beyond a glance; icy and uncaring.
“I suspect this will be the last time we’ll see each other,” Dominique remarked, her aloof composure regained.
“No. You’ll know when it’s the last,” Mireille replied ominously, and then headed for the exit.
The priestesses minding the sedans kept their eyes on Kirika and Mireille’s backs as the two young women departed the ice cream parlour and the doomed meeting. Kirika stayed wary, but felt relieved to be outside on the street again. The meeting, however unconstructive, had gone favourably in the girl’s opinion--it hadn’t broken out into shooting. It was the best anyone could have hoped for. Mireille would never compromise with Soldats; the Soldats Altena had birthed, that was. It was strange she had even bothered to accept the invitation, but the blonde had had her reasons, whatever they had been. She hadn’t shared them with Kirika, and the girl didn’t expect that to change after the fact, nor did she venture to ask. Mireille’s motivations were no whimsical thing but important to the woman, well thought out and ultimately for the greater good. She wouldn’t have taken this risk lightly. Kirika didn’t need to understand everything to trust her partner, and shield her should her motives lead her into danger.
“So it’s that simple--revenge.”
Kirika and Mireille stopped in unison at the ice cream parlour’s alley, looking straight ahead as other pedestrians filed past. They had known he was there, waiting for them. Kirika’s thumb pulled back on the hammer of her Beretta, and she subtly shuffled half a step backwards, just enough to line the barrel up with the man slouching against the passage’s wall, past Mireille’s abdomen. She aimed for his temple, where black leather didn’t cover.
“I knew this wasn’t about a book.” Ryosuke sighed and blew a wisp of smoke through tightly pursed lips. “Sometimes I think revenge is what makes our world go round. Not money, not power, but simply an eye for an eye. Old as dirt.”
“If we could let go that easily, we wouldn’t be human,” Mireille said, her faint smile rueful.
“No, we would be angels,” Ryosuke replied, before bringing his cigarette to his mouth again. “You killed my people.”
“You killed mine.”
Ryosuke snorted gruffly. “And so it is again. The cycle.”
“We’ll see you at its end,” Mireille said, before walking onwards into the crowd, becoming part of them. Kirika joined her.
Mireille’s forgiveness was a precious thing, not easily given. Kirika had it; maybe she was the only person who could ever say that--the blonde granted it to no one else the teenager had seen or known. Mireille was ruthless in her judgment, and just as apt in delivering it.
<And yet she forgives you. How? How…?>
The fading voice sent unpleasant tremors through Kirika’s stomach, leaving her queasy. The girl knew the answer, but the darkness warped it, inciting questions she never thought to ask, bringing up emotions that weren’t hers. Her other self had the insight of a longer life, but a bleak, hollow life that it tried to fit into Kirika’s like a serrated blade fit into flesh, cutting the image of herself the girl had with every attempt, forcing it ragged. They were two different people.
Kirika hoped that were really true.
******
“Be careful of the dry ice inside,” Mireille said while bent over to unzip her black leather boots, Kirika already in her socks trotting ahead into the living room with the ice cream.
“Mm,” the dark haired teenager mumbled as she put the crinkled white paper bag on the kotatsu and sat down, shimmying forwards so her crossed legs were under the table.
Mireille hadn’t overlooked Kirika’s quiet fondness for the creamy dessert, and during the deliberately convoluted way back to the safehouse the blonde had popped into the next ice cream parlour she’d seen to treat the girl, no doubt to make up for her missing out at the Ishinomori meeting. Kirika felt her partner sometimes got so wrapped up in her thoughts that there wasn’t any left in the blonde’s head for her, yet it was these moments that demonstrated how far from the truth that was. Mireille did remember. She did care. Every time Kirika realised it once again, it was like a renewal of self; her existence validated, her place in the world marked out indisputably. Mireille was all she lived for. Mireille didn’t have to feel the same, but when it showed that she did, it made the life Kirika had dedicated to the woman wonderful, and worth living.
Kirika unrolled the top of the bag and opened it, before lifting out the two tubs of ice cream one at a time. Cookies and cream was for herself, and strawberry was for Mireille. Mireille didn’t often indulge; that she would be joining Kirika in the girl’s small joy was a treat in itself. That they would be experiencing the same thing at the same time in each other’s company; somehow it was thrilling to Kirika. Sharing something together, however ordinary, caused her to feel inexplicably closer to the blonde. That they were the same in some way, maybe. That there was something connecting them.
Kirika took the pair of plastic pink spoons out from the bag and laid one on top of the strawberry ice cream tub, then pushed the tub to the left side of the kotatsu for Mireille’s arrival. The woman walked over unhurriedly, tiredly rubbing the back of her head and mussing her flaxen locks slightly, before placing her handbag on the table and sitting down, tucking her legs underneath her. Her bare toes tickled Kirika’s knee ever so lightly, but like all of her love’s touches, it was cherished and all-consuming.
Kirika gingerly prised the lid from her ice cream tub while Mireille wasn’t as tender handed, flicking her ice cream lid off with an impatient thumb. They ate at their leisure, savouring their respective flavour and the tranquillity found in quiet. Kirika wished her life would always be like this, but she wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t recognise that was becoming more and more a permanently unreachable dream. Sometimes the two worlds intersected however, the light and the darkness, letting her have these peaceful moments. Kirika didn’t take a second of them for granted.
“Let me have a taste of yours.”
Kirika blinked several times at the request, looking at Mireille then down at her ice cream, then up at the blonde again. Chagrined to have dithered, Kirika hastened to pick up her sweating container and raised it tentatively towards her partner.
To Kirika’s shock, Mireille rocked her body forwards and captured the end of Kirika’s spoon in the girl’s other hand in her mouth instead, before leaning back again, her red lips dragging smoothly along the spoon, taking with her the dollop of ice cream that had been there.
Mireille’s lips rubbed together, white vanilla smeared between them as she contemplated the cookies and cream. “Mine’s better,” she concluded, licking her lips a little.
Kirika stared. She had used that spoon. It had been in her mouth before Mireille’s. And now…. Kirika looked at her spoon, shiny not with ice cream but with her love’s saliva.
The blonde piled a helping of her own ice cream onto her little spoon, and brought it to Kirika’s mouth. “Try mine,” she irresistibly invited.
Holding her spoon and her ice cream tub in her hands, dumbfounded, Kirika’s lips all but instinctively parted. Mireille eased the spoon into her mouth, angling it slowly and gently to the contours of the girl’s closing lips and lifting tongue, before sliding it gracefully free. Kirika tasted rich and sweet strawberries, but she wanted the other flavour, the one behind the ice cream, the one surely sweeter and more enchanting than any dessert. There was a hint of it; what she thought was a hint of it--what she hoped was. Her eyes had closed.
“I told you,” Mireille said.
Kirika’s eyes lazily opened to the sight of her love scooping more of her strawberry ice cream into her own mouth, her cheeks sucking in slightly as she teased the pink dessert around inside to melting using her tongue. Kirika watched her throat work as she swallowed.
“It’s not just for me,” Mireille said softly, her gaze elsewhere as she dug up another spoonful. “It’s not only my past.” She ate the scoop peacefully, rolling it around in her mouth again before swallowing. “I had to see if they were the same. That it… felt the same.” She stabbed the spoon into the remaining frosty pink hills and left it there, putting her hands on the table, her head and gaze lowered. “They took the life I should have had away from me. They took the life *you* were meant to have away.” Mireille raised her head and looked at Kirika. “It… hurts when I imagine what they did to you.” Her expression hardened. “It’s unforgivable. I want them to know they can’t get away with it; that I haven’t forgotten or forgiven them. I want them gone. Erased completely.”
Mireille loosed a heavy sigh and rested her head back, staring at the ceiling, her features relaxing. “My family has been dead for a long time. But you…. With you, what they did is everlasting. Every time I look at you, I’m reminded. They’re Altena’s rotten fruits, those women. Her legacy. They’re like her. They *knew* what Altena had done, but they didn’t care to stop it. I… can’t go on while they still do.” Her head turned, her eyes capturing Kirika’s. “Do you understand?”
Kirika smiled, small and shaky, her eyes burning as her vision blurred. “I understand.” Mireille didn’t have to explain; Kirika would follow her anywhere. But that the woman had, that she’d opened her heart for a moment, let slip the mask, permitting Kirika to *see*…. Kirika loved her so much. And Mireille loved her. The woman’s heart was clear to the teenager. Mireille’s forgiveness was Kirika’s because of that love; the girl should never forget that. The blonde *really* cared about her. There wasn’t an agenda behind it, it wasn’t to manipulate or use Kirika--it was simply because. It was how Mireille felt.
Kirika wished she could find the words to tell her that she felt it too; somehow will her tongue to be that graceful, that forthright. Mireille had to have known, though. The words didn’t really matter; it was what they *did* show that counted. The look in Mireille’s eyes only Kirika comprehended, the look just for her; the small touches, delicate, barely there, yet full of meaning. But words still held their niceties when they *were* uttered; when it was laid bare, bereft of subtlety or ambiguity. Kirika wished….
“I…” Kirika wrestled with herself, her breathing shallow.
“It’s going to melt.”
Kirika glanced down at her cookies and cream ice cream. Mireille had been right; her strawberry really was better. “Can I have more of yours?”
Mireille smiled; the kind of smile only the girl got to see. The woman lifted her spoon to her love’s waiting lips.
******
To be continued….