Noir is owned by Ryoe Tsukimura, Bee Train Production, and Flying Dog. The English language version, produced by A.D. Vision, is owned by FUNimation Productions. All other trademarks and copyrights are the intellectual property of their respective owners.
FPS Kirika
A Noir story
Kirika Yuumura ran, trying to avoid the hail of bullets raining down on her. Turning to face her attacker, she let loose with a long burst from her carbine. The gunfire seemed to repel the shooter, but danger came from another quarter. She turned.
Too slow.
She caught a bullet in the lower torso. She saw red, and her pace slowed. Worse, the carbine was almost empty, and she didn't have time to change the magazine.
She switched to her sidearm, drawing a pistol. She turned and fired. The bullets hit home, but not before the enemy fired a shotgun at close range.
Kirika took a shotgun shell to the chest and fell to the ground. Her eyes widened in shock. Colour faded to black and white.
She was dead. It was over.
"Defeated. Don't let this happen again!"
"Fuck!" Kirika cursed at the monitor, which displayed "Defeat" in red text.
"What's wrong?" Mireille Bouquet asked from around the corner, in the kitchen.
"I got killed again and lost the round," she complained, gesturing to the screen, which now showed her killer's point of view as he came around a corner with a shotgun and fired on her. Her onscreen avatar crumpled and fell to his knees, the wound resulting in an inexplicable fountain of American banknotes.
"Ah, don't worry about it," Mireille called out. "It doesn't matter. There's always next round."
Kirika let out a soft sigh. Her team was well behind that round, but she was still irritated at being that round's winning kill. "Ah. You're right."
It had been a week after arriving back in Europe from that job in North Africa, and there was nothing to do but wait for Kirika to recover. As suspicious and distrustful of her as she was, Mireille felt bad for Kirika while she was effectively housebound, so she bought a 17-inch gaming laptop for her to use. The result was that Kirika could look at all the cat pictures and J-pop music videos she liked while Mireille still had her all-in-one PC.
She also bought a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for her to pass the time, and Kirika had taken to it with surprising gusto. Mireille had long since gotten used to the sound of simulated gunfire and sighs and grunts of annoyance in the apartment, and more than once, the afternoon had been interrupted with a shriek of "Fucking noobs!" or "That was bullshit!" It was quite a contrast to the otherwise soft-spoken and taciturn Kirika Yuumura.
Kirika's choice of username raised an eyebrow: whitekittycat94. More than once, Mireille had wondered if she had been affected by that Russian job, but Kirika had showed nothing, as usual, following their departure from Russia. Did she feel guilty, and was this a subtle way of expressing it? Unlikely, Mireille had thought, dismissing the notion; maybe she just really liked that cat.
Peeking over Kirika's shoulder, Mireille was somewhat surprised at the amount of on-screen trash-talking by players, interspersed with the odd hackusation. It was somewhat amusing, but she found herself almost wincing at some of the more biting comments.
As she emerged from the kitchen, looking over at Kirika, Mireille wondered if this new pastime of hers would go anywhere.
From the author: My first serious attempt at humour (see what I did there?). This is the result of an idea I had once, that I ended up typing out. Unlike my other stories, there's no preplanned outline or direction, just a few ideas for 'scenes'. This might go somewhere, it might not. Please let me know what you think by way of reviews. Thanks for reading!
