For seventeen years, the man formerly known as Soichiro Kiryuin had been planning.
Leaving his wife with their supposedly dead daughter had been the greatest risk he'd ever taken, but it had been worth it in the long run. He'd drafted, he'd welded, and he'd stitched as though his life depended on it – which, he supposed, it did. He'd recruited innumerable men and women to his cause, establishing hidden operations large enough to challenge REVOCS. He'd even, to his genuine regret, allowed himself to be distanced from his daughter for the benefit of them both. Today, he would bring about the culmination of what had swiftly become his life's work, and he would hopefully live to see his ultimate goal followed through.
Smiling beneath his matted beard, Soichiro – now going by Isshin Matoi – picked up a folded black sailor uniform and carried it over to the hanger he'd prepared. The eye design on its scarf seemed to follow his own eyes as he walked, but with the amount of time since its last experimental feeding, he couldn't be sure. Whatever the case, it was critical that the uniform be in mint condition, free of any noticeable wrinkles or tears; such weaknesses would be detrimental to the war effort. It took him a grand total of fifteen minutes before he was completely satisfied in its condition, and he stepped back, admiring his work.
… In retrospect, he thought, it might have been wise to sew more fabric around the midriff area.
The thought sent a strange mixture of amusement and horror through his aging system. Nudist Beach was made up almost entirely of chiseled young men in revealing combat gear, in particular his eternally luminescent lieutenant Aikuro Mikisugi. The Kamui was risqué now, so the idea of his seventeen-year-old daughter entering its transformed state around these men – around Aikuro – was more than enough to send him into a minor nervous fit. He'd have to devise a plan for that after today's events were finished.
Blocking the perverted possibilities from his mind, Isshin lumbered back to his workspace and lifted the gargantuan Rending Scissors to bear. As always, the screw was tight enough to keep opening and closing smooth without running the risk of the blades locking into place, and the edges were as sharpened as the day they'd been forged. He couldn't check the fantastically complicated inner workings without disassembling the whole thing, but he was confident enough in his craftsmanship to proceed as planned.
The Kamui and the Scissors were ready to go, but something still weighed on his mind.
Seventeen years of preparation had not solely been dedicated to offensive strategies and specialized equipment. He'd witnessed firsthand that his wife was inhumanly ruthless, and several attempts on his life had narrowly been escaped during that shaky period where he'd only had a ridiculous disguise and a helpless infant to his name. If he knew Ragyo, now would be an optimal time for a vicious strike. He only hoped that Ragyo didn't know him well enough to anticipate the elaborate ruse he'd lain down to secure the future of Nudist Beach. If the scheme worked, he was home free to wage war against REVOCS. If it didn't, the Nudists would hopefully deign to put on some respectable attire for his burial.
He silently prayed for the former, went upstairs, sat down by the sparking fire, and waited.
What if Ryuko didn't receive my message? He shivered in spite of the heat. What if seventeen years of work is all for naught because some postman failed to do his job properly?
There was still Satsuki to rely on, he reminded himself. The rebellion he'd prepared his elder daughter for would be most effective if backed by Ryuko and the Nudist Beach effort, but he'd given her enough knowledge to ensure that there could still be incalculable damage to REVOCS. From what he could glean of her situation through Aikuro's monitoring, Satsuki was putting up quite the masterful ruse to fool Ragyo, and she'd trained hard enough to potentially kill the aforementioned monster if – nay, when – the need arose.
Not that he was prepared to tell any of this to Aikuro or the rest of the Nudists. As far as they were concerned, his daughter had fallen to Ragyo's manipulations and was now a sadistic tyrant whom had to be carefully watched. If there were any moles in Nudist Beach, and he had little doubt that there were, Satsuki's plan was entirely safe and secure. As an added barrier of security, Satsuki also had no way of knowing that there was an effort with Ryuko, or in fact that Ryuko was even still alive. She would be forced to put forth her maximum strength, every ounce of which was needed to challenge REVOCS.
Isshin briefly ceased his pondering to check the security camera feeds around his home. So far as he could tell, there were no assassins creeping down the halls, and no gun-toting men about to kick his doors and windows in. Everything seemed in order.
Everything except for the figure standing on his doorstep, bathed in the shadows of the setting sun.
Isshin crept forward and waited, ready to lunge with all of his strength. If this were what he thought, then it would be the defining moment of every plan he had brought to fruition. He considered himself fairly strong, maybe even capable of taking on one or two armed men, but the other tricks Ragyo might have up her –
"Dad? Hello?"
Isshin leapt forward and pulled open the doors with all of the theatrical gusto he could muster up.
When he'd last lain eyes on Ryuko, she had been a thin, sobbing ten-year-old on her way to boarding school. Now she was almost as tall as him, and he could tell from her frame and the way she stood that she was strong enough to do serious damage to anything she disliked. Isshin tried not to think about the coldness in her eyes, and everything that must have gone wrong in her life to warrant her strength.
Ryuko looked surprised when he lurched up to her and wrapped her in a tight, caring embrace. "Whoa… Dad? What's this about?"
It took Isshin several seconds to remind himself of the tasks at hand, and what felt like hours before he could rip himself away from the daughter he'd given up everything for. "My little Ryuko… It's been far too long. There's so much that I need to discuss with you."
"Hang on, 'my little Ryuko'?" Ryuko propped herself against the doorframe, forcing Isshin to take a backward step. "When I was still living with you, you couldn't be bothered to feed me half the time. I practically lived in my schools, and whenever I came home, I came with black eyes and broken teeth. Why are you pretending to give a crap about me now?"
Even though he'd expected it, Isshin still had to purse his lips and bite them to keep the paternal sting at bay. "I won't pretend that I was a fantastic father, Ryuko, but I think you're exaggerating the past just a-"
He was cut short when Ryuko returned his embrace.
It lasted less than ten seconds before she withdrew, and when Isshin stared at his daughter's face in confusion, he found it twisted into an unreadable mix of emotions. "It's almost been a decade, Dad," she whispered. Isshin thought he saw a tear in her eye, but it was blinked away before he could be certain. "Don't expect me to make much sense for a while."
Isshin nodded slowly, and as he did, he noticed something that should have been obvious from the start. "The stripe in your hair. Has it brightened since we last spoke?"
Confused at the sudden subject change, Ryuko lifted a hand to her crimson hair stripe, which stood out in the faint sunlight. "Um… I haven't dyed it recently, so I don't know what you mean. Haven't had the money for those kinds of luxuries."
"Ryuko, do you remember ever actually dying your hair that color?"
Following a silent moment of reflection, an even stronger wave of confusion passed over Ryuko's face. "No, but don't we have more important things to cover right now? For instance, why you left me for so long and called me back out of nowhere?"
As I thought. Her infused Life Fibers are starting to bloom and mature. Hopefully you enjoy the results of your work, Ragyo, while you watch her tear you limb from limb.
"We'll get around that eventually, Ryuko." Isshin stepped back, allowing Ryuko through the doorway. "Right now, we have to talk about quite a few important subjects… and meet quite a few people."
Mako Mankanshoku skipped cheerfully down the grimy alleys that led to her home, humming a confusing tune about Hell that she'd heard from one of the Club Presidents. Today, nothing whatsoever could dampen her spirits. It was absurdly difficult to do that on most days, but this day was especially special.
She wondered, in between random interludes about the various things that caught her eye on the journey home, what her parents would be doing this year. Since this was an especially special day even compared to the other special days, they would probably go all-out to make her happy. She didn't ever have the heart to tell them that she would be content with a plate of buns and a gift of a single yen, as long as everyone was present to enjoy the day with her.
Not that expensive gifts and food hurt the celebration.
She'd caught Mataro eyeing an antique television set that was always on display nearby, so it was likely that he'd be stealing it for her at some point in the day. Half of the fun of the celebrations was hunkering down together to hide from angry, gun-toting shopkeepers out for whatever her best present turned out to be. Knowing Mataro, he might also just steal and present the cables from the set. That would be fine, too. In that case, the shopkeeper would only come out with a knife or ancient sword.
Her mother would also be spending the day baking some kind of cake, which in every case so far had turned out to be an amalgamation of buns and discarded One-Star leftovers. She always devoured the end product and enjoyed every bite of it. Still, she'd always wanted to try some of the food from Osaka, which she'd heard was divine. She'd ask for that on her seventeenth birthday if it didn't slip her mind again.
What her father was doing was always a surprise. Last year, he'd given her a slightly polished human skull that he said he'd conveniently found in his operating room. She'd lost the skull to a bunch of robbers the next day, but she always had the memory. And the year before that, she'd come home to a crayon-scribbled permit that allowed her to take the family truck out for a day; in the messy aftermath, she'd gained the valuable life knowledge that angry mobs were even more fun to outrun than lone shopkeepers.
Finally, after hours of skipping, humming, and loudly relaying exposition to herself, Mako rounded the corner to her family's doorstep and barreled through in seconds. "Mom! Dad! Mataro! Guts! Everyone guess how old I am!"
She was greeted with unfamiliar silence.
Her mother lay flat against the back wall, pale as a ghost, cradling a cut across her midsection that was dripping all over the floor. The wall was bent against her weight, making her look like someone as strong as Gamagoori had thrown her from the doorway. She didn't react at all when Mako pitched forward in surprise.
Across the room, her father lay on his back, crushing something that looked like the smoldering remains of a television set. Something about him was different, but Mako's mind was slowing down, and she couldn't put her finger on it. She realized without truly understanding that her finger was on it; the cold, pudgy object her hand had landed on was the bit of her father that went in the ragged space between his shoulders.
Mako's lips moved, but for once in her life, no words came out.
A sharp cracking noise resonated from the bedroom, accompanied by Mataro's panicked voice screaming something that she could not make out. Blocking out the scene in the main room, Mako rushed through the flimsy door, reducing it to splinters and not giving any thought to the pain of the splinters.
Mataro was curled in the corner, eyes twitching between her and another figure in the center of the room. Guts lay beside him, his head bent at an angle Mako thought to be impossible.
The figure Mako didn't recognize was a very young girl with a surreally wide smile. Her enormous blonde pigtails and frilly pink dress were both stained a bloody crimson, not that she seemed to mind. In her slender, elaborately manicured fingers, the girl was stretching a tape measure, which was lined with gleaming razor blades and coated yet more blood.
"Hiiii!" The girl waved cheerfully with her free hand. "I was just asking your family where I could find Soichiro Kiryuin! I already know he's been visiting this house, but…" She paused to tilt her head with such alarming smoothness that it seemed to detach. "Your mama and papa made things harder and kept lying! Do you know where he is, birthday girl?"
In the next second, the girl moved, and in a split second she was holding Mataro with the tape measure to his throat. "Come on, just tell me! You're too cute to join the rest of your family!" One of her hands lifted, and Mako felt it somehow brushing through her hair. She was too shocked to recoil at the touch.
Mataro grunted and started to cry.
The girl moved the tape measure nearer to his skin, smiling all the way.
Then Mako took a step forward, and everything blurred.
