Disclaimer – I wish I owned these bishojo, but I don't.
Note: This takes place mid-series, during the episode during which Mireille and Claude have their face-off.
------------------------------
(Claude's POV)
I'm feeling thoughtful tonight as I disassemble my Glock and oil it meticulously, Papa taught me well and my core kit remains the gun he thrust into my hands as he hurried me to the waiting van with Mireille. His trusty pistol has served me well. With it I have maintained the Bouquet name in the underworld, kept our proud legacy alive, if only as a tiny flame. I may only be a skilled artisan rather than an influential controller in my own right, but still the name lives on.
I slide the magazine into the gun and cock it, chambering a round. I sigh. Tonight's work is likely to be vulgar, and that depresses me – but then as a professional one does the job however one can. Besides, is this courage and mental strength required for the upcoming battle of wills not the true spirit of my work?
On the one hand I relish this challenge, a pure rush. So few people these days have the requisite talent to make me work hard. Since my opponent is my darling niece Mireille, half of the notorious Noir, a force that has taken out more Soldats than any other professional team I am also saddened. Her pure art is wonderful; she does her family proud, inadvertently carrying out her father's dying wish to avoid our influence. I only wish she could avoid the path ahead – even if she survives she cannot win.
We two are the best in France, following the great example of our Napoleon and once we were so close. At once I wish to enfold her in my arms and be her uncle, like old days, yet I also know what must be done. I know I am a pawn, but I cannot resent it. I relish this chance to see her so intimately, to see my little girl grown up into the woman I once saw in her.
I smile and bend my head to bury my nose in a cluster of freesias. Whatever the outcome, somehow I know we both understand.
(Mireille POV)
I stand over the body of my beloved uncle and cannot find it within myself to resent him. We both knew how this would have to end and from his smile I knew his decision had been made for the right reasons.
He was not sullied in my mind by his involvement with the Soldats. His attempts to warn me, to keep me away from this were touching. We both knew it wouldn't work, but he had to anyway. We're both Bouquets, it is in our nature, but I still feel as if another piece of my innocence has been stripped from me and I know who to blame.
'Desole, Oncle.' I stand from where I had knelt and turn away, leaving him on his bed of flowers.
Kirika looks at me oddly as I return, but somehow she understands. It is funny how we killers have such ways of tacit understanding. We walk out to join the battle.