Ninja zEro Two

by FaceMeltor

A short snapshot of what goes down in the wake of Brush with Realities' happenings. Also writing practice after a long hiatus.

It was a dark and stormy night when doom came over a small town somewere along the coast of Japan. Actually it was not very stormy, it just sprayed down in that certain way that's more substantial than mist but less sustantial than actual rain. The mos annoying of precipitation anyway. And that it was dark goes without saying it was night after all, not like there are many options but darkness.

One way or the other. On this dark and, well, lets say moist night a small village on the coast of Japan was haunted by a creature created from dreams and nightmares, from hope and despair, from sheer insubstantiality. Her name had not been spoken once in her life and yet her adversaries knew it and she herself was aware of it too.

Ninja Zero Two never bothered to ask questions about these kinds of things. A good thing too since the people she would have for company would have been Dead Master and her kin, a crowd we should already know are not very talkative, much less inclined to share the air they breathe with anyone but themselves. Zero Two just rolled with it. She was excellent at that, rolling with things. An old Asian saying goes "If you want to truly know someone, fight them or drink tea with them". In the other world tea was not exactly common and having a sit-down was much less so, but fights were everyone's favourite past-time. Also pre-time and during-time if that analogy makes any sense (yeah they were fighting everywhere as much as they could, get used to it).

Ninjas' fighting style, well, it would be hard to call it a dance. Not because it was not graceful or fluid, it certainly was, but because a dance always incorporates flashy moves that look pretty but serve no actual purpose. Which is good of course because the entire purpose of a dance is to look pretty; if it wouldn't you might as well call it a fancy walk that gets you to your destination slower. For a fighter however, being called a dancer might very well be considered an insult.

No, Ninja was not a dancer. She could probably tango with the best of them if she had ever bothered to though. In combat, she rolled, ducked, jumped over or even in between weapons and limbs swung her way, bounced off of walls and enemies with her arms and legs and twisted and turned like a top. She could be seen as some mix between a human pinball and the schoolmaster of the worlds' best parkour artists. Like a liquid velvet cat over black satin.

Oh yeah, she also has two powered armour gauntlets over her hands that she can operate like a surgeon's scalpel and that have the crushing power of a hydraulic fireman's rescue-shears for cutting cars open. Except these can open and shut in the blink of an eye. Once again, a denizen of the other world you really don't want to get close to you. But of course that's not all, we've got a girl with a bit of a personality here. I do believe we'll have to dip into areas she herself does not know about though, so let's get started right away!

If you could make the assumption and if you would dare to make it and if you would survive making it after getting to know her you could try to say that she would be a touch playful. Just a bit though. Like getting into a close combat scuffle and ripping and tearing and bleeding and as soon as you separate you notice she's holding your hat in her fingers, with her mouth bent upwards and the corners of her eyes narrowed by such a minute degree you can't exactly tell if her face is neutral or if she's smirking at you. That kind of playful.

She was also stealthy and shifty, always looking for an unfair edge in a fight. To elaborate, to someone in our world she might be a terrifying opponent that marks the top and beyond of what you can get out of a human body in terms of performance. In the other world however, well, there are some who are so strong they can try to and fail to pick up objects as large as a skyscraper. They fail because physics still work to some degree, I mean, grab a skyscraper by the side and heft it, it will just cause that portion of the building to snap off, most of the time they would even just get two handfuls of pulverized concrete because the structural integrity is not all that great. But hey, can't fault them for trying! And these are the people Zero Two has to worry herself with every day while she herself is not that much of a powerhouse.

But as they always say, any port in a storm. So Zero set sail for Port Cranial Activity much earlier than overleveled OP characters like Dead Master did, if you remember that part. She'll hide, she'll back-stab, she'll use the terrain to her advantage, she'll fight "dirty" (whatever that means in a no-holds-barred fight to the death beat-down) and she certainly has no compunctions about running from a fight and picking a different battlefield to go to town on when she feels better.

And she has a very, very fine nose. For the happenings around her and in her world, you see. And when a certain black-green-white princess tore a hole in the fabric of their world, well, it left a wake like an ocean-liner crashing into your inflatable pool. You might say "But that only happened not a whole day ago!". Well, Ninja wants to live. She acts fast and thinks faster. Smells even faster than both of them. And her nose told her quite clearly that this would be the next big thing and she better be on top of it.

Back to the little town: On a nighty night and also a pretty wet one a shady character stepped out of an unilluminated, even more shady side street, her violet eyes slighty shining in the darkness. She wears what in daylight and in a much bigger town would either tag her as a leading fashionista or a gothic cosplayer but this light (or lack-of-light rather) makes her seem oh so dark and mysterious. A black, backless dress so short it would seem scandalous and present her violet-white shimapan to every other passersby if Zero wasn't wearing big black puffy bloomers instead. Ninjas have to stay practical after all. Her head is topped by a short, black mop of unruly bed-head.

Further down on her legs she wears what looks like ordinary army-issue jackboots, knee protectors and underneath it all thigh-high stockings held up by a garter-belt that leave a short strip of skin visible before the bloomers start. All in black of course because i the other world, black is the new black. Protip: it also was the old one.

Her gloves were right there on her hands. It wouldn't do to be caught unaware, now would it?

So this shady character starts making her way down the street, the tangled wires strung up above her between the lampposts glittering in the drizzle and shine of the electrical light. Her footfalls made no noise and left only wet touches on the pavement as she ducked from cover to cover to cover.

And down the street stood a police station, shone on by it's own blue-white lighting. And Zero Two could smell the cordite from here. She didn't exactly know what it was but it smelled the way death and fire were supposed to smell.

So she went and stalked in.

XXX

"Nnhuuugh" she said as she played with her bangs hanging in front of her face, almost spread-eagled on the reception desk. Tsubako was severely bored.

Not only was being the only female police officer (the new lingual guidelines said that instead of policewoman, she didn't really understand why though) out in this backwater dump a thankless job with little chances for promotion and only marginally better chances to be relocated to another posting, no, she also got to handle most of the night shifts. "There won't be anything happening anyway" her colleagues said. Well fine, it was true. They didn't have a call in the night for over half a year and that one time half a year ago was a farmer thinking there was a wolf in his barn. Turned out to be the neighbours tame and cuddly but huge dog and she got slobbered on for her trouble.

What drove her up the walls was exactly that, there was nothing to do! She became a police officer to help people, to do things, to live out her ambitions that she would never admit to anyone she had. Not to be a desk-warmer.

The desk clock flashed 04:33 into her face in glowing red letters. Not much longer nowwwww...

She needed a coffee right now or she wouldn't make it through the night. So she got up and walked over to the coffee machine which was conveniently located right in the adjacent room. Grabbing the big container, she got herself a big mug of all black with lots of sugar to give her the necessary boost. Then she went back to the desk, sat down and-

Wait a second. Did that door swing just now?

Slowly, Tsubako put her mug down. Licking her lip clean of the black energizer she got back up and took a closer look.

A tiny swing betrayed the frontal door. They didn't have those fancy armour-glass double-door airlocks that most inner city offices had, they just had a door that was open to most anyone. And either someone had just bumped the door or there was someone inside here with her, doing his best to stay silent.

Tsubako took out her keyring, stalked to the door as silently as she could and locked it. Now it was show time.

XXX

Ninja Zero Two was extremely confused with the creature. Oh yes, creature was probably the wrong word, she looked a lot like a person after all. She just felt and smelled entirely different. And the funny clothes and hat were not helping. I mean, what gaudy fool would wear anything but black and white? Well, the chequerboard patterns was a step in the right direction, maybe Zero would have to copy that, but blue colour all over? Seriously?

See, like it was earlier explained, the beings from the other world have this feeling about each other. Ninja calls it smell, Dead showed you what it was all about when she was lying face up in the dirt outside of Yomi's house. In the other world you can usually feel someone at least as much as you can see, smell, hear someone. In the outside world? Forget it, if you rely on it as much as Ninja does you might as well be flying blind.

Ninja could not... smell her. There was sweat, pheromones, a funny fruity smell that you could probably tell was perfume but Ninja couldn't; but there was not her essence there. Her identity was missing. To a human, it would be as if you saw someone with a huge hole where their face should have been. It tripped Ninjas' uncanny valley.

The woman was industrious and even quite attentive. After noticing that she didn't leave a "smell" to her Zero Two correctly assumed she would not be able to "smell" Zero either and was proven right soon after as the woman came back out of the other room and did not notice Zero crouched on the bookshelf behind her. The sense of each other that people in the other world usually had made sneaking very hard; even if they didn't know exactly where you were, they generally knew that you were there at least. Even worse were those who had honed the skill to perfection. A fight against a blind seer once left Ninja in extremely bad condition. Ninja usually abused the attack of someone else to either mask her presence or to distract from it.

As soon as she realized that this one would be blind to such manoeuvres she assumed that she would have easy play. But no, the woman actually picked up on the tiny clue she had left. But then, she did something unexpected: she went and locked the door. She barred the exit instead of fleeing! Ninja was not a prideful person but she knew what she was capable of. Killing this woman would be a flick of her hand. Even if the intruder had not been her, it would be very dangerous to lock oneself in with an unknown factor. So why would she...

Something clicked then. The weird clothes, the isolated position, the late hour, the important-looking building, the smell of fight on her and most importantly the risqué behaviour. This was some sort of a guardian. She was here to stand guard or to watch for intruders or to do anything but let people through easily.

Se was the perfect opponent to play a bit cat-and-mouse with. None of the danger with all of the exhilaration. Except in this case Ninja would be both cat and mouse at the same time.

She made one of those half-not-really-smile faces as the woman pocketed the key. Then she jumped up silently with calculated momentum that brought her to the zenith point of her jump bare inches off the ceiling, then she stretched out her arms and legs and locked herself in the air jammed in between two girders. One could have heard a pin drop throughout the entire maneuvre. Then she waited for what the woman would do.

XXX

Tsubako turned around and surveyed the reception. No, everything the same. Whoever did this had to be further inside the building already! She had to act fast. She locked the coffee lounge first then with big steps marched down the corridor that would take her to the Evidence Locker, the Riot Room, the Detective Offices and the Locker Room.

XXX

Ninja took the chance she could when he woman turned aside to lock he room she had aken her hot drink out of. There were only two other doors and one led to a waiting room. Zero Two wasted no time and immediately went for the other one. A jump and a grab and she was at the door.

Above it, of course.

Then the woman opened it and stepped inside, the Ninja dropping to the ground behind her soundlessly and gently, only to be disturbed by a slight click of the powered gauntlets. The woman twitched and Ninja flushed pink in the face. This would be good. This would be fun.

Ninja immediately dove forward through the open door, staying just outside the field of vision of the whirling woman. Half a second after the click, she was behind the woman's back, off balance. The woman was staring at the door that just that moment fell into its lock. If she'd turn around immediately now Ninja would be caught without a chance to dodge again-

But she didn't. She let out the breath she had been holding while Ninja righted herself again and found her centre of balance. While the woman turned back down the corridor, Ninja again manoeuvred herself behind the woman's back. Zero was breathing heavier than usual and it wasn't the exertion. This was just what she had always wished for, a fun game to play with someone who wouldn't or couldn't hurt her. Ninja wasn't much of a killer. Sure, she'd done it before and would do it again, but it's usually been out of the understanding that the person she was fighting against would have no problem doing it to her later on. It was some form of pre-emptive self-defence and although that excuse would get laughed at in the courts of man in the other world it was a very valid excuse.

But this woman? Never ever. She was no threat, past, present or future. So Ninja could risk being much more playful than usual. Silently, she reached for the keychain attatched to the back of the womans' pencil skirt and scooped it out of it's carbine hook while she was already walking without her noticing a thing.

So this key she used for the front door, and this key she used for his corridor, and that key she used for the drinks room. There are three doors here, so let try the first!

Ninja disengaged from the woman and stopped at the first door The first key she tried didn't work but the second opened the door and she stepped inside, taking care to leave the door open and leaned in slightly. She did want the woman to stay close on her trail after all~ Nothing else would be just as much fun~

XXX

Down the corridor and about five steps later, Tsubako noticed that the jingle of keys against her hip had stopped and her belt had become lighter on that side too. She looked down.

Keys. Gone.
What-

She turned around and noticed the evidence room door standing slightly open, with light shining out. Her eyes widened. Did someone take the keys right under her-!?

Her hand immediately went for her revolver, then chose her baton instead. Whoever did this seemed more like a thief than a robber so se might be able to overwhelm them with bodily force. She was stronger than she looked, she'd been training.

Then she called out, as procedure demanded.

"This is the Hinamizawa Police Department speaking! Whoever you are, show yourself and surrender and you will be treated fairly! You are under arrest!"

XXX

Ninja heard the woman call to her about surrender and police and immediately felt even more giddy than before. This little creature had spunk! She already liked her.

This room she was in now was funny though. Many items lay on shelves, all wrapped in see-through foil and hung over with tags with scratchy writing on them. Nothing really caught her eye though.

She heard steps approaching and regained that tiny skip on her step. She bounded behind the door just as it was kicked open. Taking a breath of surprise she immediately jumped again and ducked, landing crouched and cross-legged on the top edge just after it slammed into the wall.

The woman stormed in, holding a shiny telescoping metal baton in one of her hands and a can of something in her other. She looked left and right, then noticed the door leaning on the wall. And leaning slightly to the side.

She looked up.

Black cloth. Chalk white skin. Huge brutal metal hands. Jackboots. Jackboots. JacKBOOTS COMING RIGHT FOR HER FACE AAAAAH-

They didn't. Ninja calculated her fall with utmost precision again and er booted feet flipped right past Tsubako's face to the left and right and Zero planted her buttocks square into Tsubako's chest and slammed her to the ground with the same move. Now she was basically sitting on the policewoman that just had the wind knocked out of her. She drew her legs up and took Tsubako's neck into a crosslegged lock, causing her to choke and open her eyes, then prised the baton and the metal can out of her hands. She smelled the can. Spice. Fire. Burn. Ohh, an incapacitating but not lethal weapon. That was extremely rare in the other world and she wanted to keep it. Shoving it into the side of her bloomers she lifted up the baton. Chromed metal with a rubber ball at the top. After feeling it she concluded that there was a metal ball inside the rubber one. A pretty toy but still nothing but.

Ninja relaxed the leg-hold so the woman could look at her. At first she was just sputtering and wheezing though. Gosh, were these creatures really that fragile? She would have to pay better attention not to damage her. When the coughing subsided she gently tapped the woman's cheek. Wow, did she have soft skin. Were they all like this?

XXX

Tsubako opened her eyes after recovering from a face full of bloomers and looked death in the shape of a loli in the face. The...criminal in front of her held up Tsuba's baton, then snapped the outermost telescoping part off, then the next, then the one closest to the grip. She gave her a catty smile and dropped the bundle of thick steel piping next to her head with a loud clanging.

What she just did should have been hard to do with a bolt cutter, yet she did it with... metal gloves on? Were they hydraulic or something? Tsubako didn't have much time to think because then the girl hopped off of her, landed above her in a balanced split position, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her right up with her. Now they were standing together in the Evidence Room, in some sort of close hug. Which then became an actual hug when the girl shifted one arm to Tsubakos lower back and the other to in between her shoulder blades. Then leaned her backwards.
Then kissu kissu~

XXX

Okay, it wasn't a real, deep kiss. It was more like a chaste peck on the lips. It made Tsubako blush fiery red though anyway, to go with the pink tinge of her assailants' cheeks that she only just now noticed. Then she was pulled upright again, grabbed by her hand, spun into a pirouette down the evidence room aisle and then suddenly let go. After crashing into one of the cupboards and righting herself again she took a moment to catch her breath. She caught herself licking her lips.

Tastes like blueberry. God damn. And she was alone again. She ripped the matte silver snub nose revolver out of its holster. Playtime is over.

She ignored the voice in the back of her head telling her 'But it had been so much fun...'. What she couldn't get out of her head though were the girls' shining violet eyes.

Just a bit like Tsubakos, weren't they? Now that she thought about it, even their haircuts were somewhat similar...

She also noticed how her hat was gone. THE LITTLE-

XXX

Ninja couldn't hold herself back over how happy she was. She was playing, playing, and the woman was playing along! Okay, maybe not exactly voluntarily but if that blush was any indication she was still having fun just like Ninja was! Oh, this day could really not get much better! She even got a nice hat with black and white chequerboards going around it!

She thought, as she skipped into the Riot Room. Also known as the Armoury.

She wasn't very impressed but the equipment seemed designed to cover about twenty people from head to toe in protective plastic and padding. And a cabinet labelled "Roller Delayed Blowaway, property of the Chief". She wondered what that was about for a second before she pried it open. Inside was an old submachinegun with a silencer installed on it. A nerd might tell you it's an MP5SD in 9mm Parabellum but since Ninja was not a nerd that went unsaid. She immediately loved it and slung it around her shoulder, then stuffed the full magazines behind it into her pockets. Well, into the rubber of her bloomers but whatever works, right?

She was only interrupted by a loud click from the door. She turned around and got a nice look down the woman's gun to her face full of furrowed brows and narrowed eyes.

This was it, she though. The big finale. Better not screw this up now.

Then again, she had already laid the groundwork for an excellent escape, hadn't she?

She spread her hands out to either side and sowed her empty hands. Okay, so she was packing like crazy by now and her hands were murder weapons in and of themselves but its the thought that counts. The she took a step towards the woman. And another. And another.

"Stop right there!" the woman yelled at her; "Not one step closer!". But of course, she didn't. That was the plan after all. And when she was in pouncing distance, about five meters / yards, she pounced.

She crouched to floor level and Tsubako pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through he space where Ninja had been a moment before. She could have never dodged the bullet itself, but she could dodge the slow aiming of the guns' operator. Then she leapt and nailed the woman right into the midsection.

XXX

Once again, The girl was on top of her and once again, Tsubako felt her weapon being removed from her fingers. 'This is it' she thought. 'I may have amused this crazy bitch earlier but I just tried to kill her. It's over.' She couldn't even see from her bangs getting into her face.

But all she heard was a clatter of her gun being tossed into a corner. Then she had the weirdest of all feelings; she felt how the weight on top of her shifted and made itself comfortable on top of her. To crown the weirdness her hair moved out of her eyes.

The almost supernaturally swift and strong predator was using her huge claws to play with Tsubako's hair; their faces bare inches from each other.

'This is too close', she thought. But she didn't move to get her off. Was it because she had realized the futility of it or was it because she didn't really want to get her off after all? She herself had trouble telling. Then the girl shifted until their aces were right on top of each other and their bodies aligned.

'Well' she thought as she swallowed on a dry mouth. 'At least I still have bigger breasts than you do'. The shining violet eyes of her hunter bored right into hers, getting closer and closer. They would have seemed cold if there still hadn't been that pink tinge right underneath them.

Then the kiss began. And there was tongue.

About a minute later it stopped. Tsubako was completely out of breath and her world was spinning; the girl was just putting more small pecks all over her face, leaving warm marks everywhere. She had very soft lips...

Tsuba only thought about moving again when the warmth on top of her pulled away. To her own embarrassment, she immediately raised her hands and tried to stop the girl from moving away. She was standing t the door already though, leaving Tsuba alone and cold on the floor with a dejected look in her eyes.

XXX

Ninja didn't really want to leave but she had to, the sun was about to come up and she needed a good, deep shadow to vanish back to her home again. But seeing the woman looking sad on the ground there moved something inside of her. So she lifted her and and curled her forefinger. Come.

The woman stood up immediately. Not fast enough however because Ninja was already back at the reception desk. When the woman reached it, the front door was just swinging shut and the keys were in the lock. She immediately dashed outside to find Ninja dangling from an overhead electrical wire.

Ninja Zero Two pointed at the woman. Then she pointed at the sunrise coming up behind her. Then she extended thumb, forefinger and middle finger of her free hand. And then she pointed at the mountain a ways off from the village. Then she pointed with her thumb to herself.

'You. Three days. Mirror Peak. Meet me there.'.

Tsubako understood. She looked right into her shining violet eyes and told her "I will be there at midnight. But you need to know..." The girl looped around the wire once, then balled herself up and launched off of it, into the trees and off into the darkness of the forest.

The last thing Ninja Zero Two heard was "...GIRLS CAN'T LOVE GIRLS!"

She allowed herself a smirk. Silly girl. Girls loving girls is the purest form of love.

XXX

Can girls really love girls or is it forbidden love? Has Tsubako been ruined for marriage? Is it an OC if the character was made by the original author but never used for anything? Does kissing your alter ego copy count as masturbation, incest, twincest or something completely different? Post your opinions in the review section and I promise I will respond to everyone, no matter when or with what opinion you post!