Two Halves

Saya

Chloe bounded up the hill to where her best friend stood, if 'friend' was the correct term for their strange situation. "Kirika!" she called, waving her arms in the air. The young Japanese girl turned around and broke into a smile when she caught sight of the other young girl. It was a strange look for her, foreign…it was a look that she only gave a few people: Altena and Chloe. "Kirika!" Chloe called again as she caught up to her friend and leaned against her shoulder. "Altena said she wanted to see you, she said you were going to get a really important mission." The strange girl sounded excited, she herself had never been on a mission before, but she eagerly awaited the day when she could go off on her own the way her friend did.

The dark-haired girl nodded and made her way slowly down to the Mansion. No matter what, she would almost never be caught running the way Chloe did…an unrefined sprint. No, everything about Kirika was elegant and refined…perfectly efficient. Chloe awaited the day when she, too, would become like that.

Curious as ever, she waited for a little while before following her friend to the Mansion and into the room in which she was sure Kirika would be meeting with the girl that had cared for them so tenderly. She was too late to hear exactly what the mission was—unfortunate, really—and was about to go back outside to wait for her friend before asking everything she could when Altena called her inside. She shouldn't have expected to have been able to sneak up on either of the girls.

"Yes, Altena?" Chloe asked tentatively, positive that she was about to be scolded.

The blonde girl merely gave a kind, knowing smile that made any fear within the younger girl dissolve. "I'd like you to accompany Kirika when she kills the Bouquets." Ah, the Bouquets…what a troublesome family. They had borne a sapling, like Kirika and Chloe, but they had refused to give her up…they were acting against the Soldats and most unforgivably, in Chloe's opinion, against Altena.

The two young girls broke out into almost identical grins; it would be nice to be with each other. After all, they were destined to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, more literally than any other person could ever put it. They were destined to become blackened by the sins of the world, to bear its sins alone…to become two halves of a whole, the two hands of the Soldats. Noir…

Chloe watched with a smile on her face as gunshots rang throughout the huge, high-ceilinged room and the Bouquets dropped one by one. She smiled blissfully as their blood ran together and seeped through the expensive tile. Such was the price of betraying the Soldats, such was the price of betraying Altena.

Before the woman could take her last breath she said something to Kirika, to her young murderer. Something that Chloe could not hear. But it certainly seemed to have shaken the young girl. She pocketed the watch bearing the emblem of the Soldats and the two girls left to make their escape back to the Mansion as the daughter of the Bouquets, the girl who would have become a sapling like them, entered the room and looked upon the massacre.

"That was amazing!" Chloe said breathlessly when they returned to the Mansion. And it truly had been. Kirika had been cold, ruthless, efficient, elegant…everything that Chloe aimed to become. But her companion said nothing as she looked out past the horizon at something no one else could see and fingered the Bouquet's pocket watch, running her fingers over the symbol imprinted on its front.

The next day, Kirika had returned to what was normal for her as once again she stood atop that hill and watched the sky. Chloe rushed to meet her friend, "Guess what?" she said as she reached the top. "Altena is sending me on my own mission. I hope I don't mess it up."

"You won't," they both knew she wouldn't, but it still made the other girl happy to hear Kirika say those words.

Chloe smiled, "Someday I hope to become as good as you, maybe better. That way, when we fight side-by-side the way Altena said we would, I won't be a burden to you." Before the other girl could say anything, Chloe sprinted back down to the Mansion, filled with anticipation for what she knew would come to pass very soon.

Kirika smiled as she pulled her hood over her dark hair and let the wind shift the ends of her long, brown cloak. They were teenagers now, and Kirika would be going on yet another mission, leaving Chloe behind with Altena. Though they trained together much more often and completed assignments together on the daily basis, their friendship had not changed.

The Japanese teenager knew that she would be gone a while for this particular assignment. She had no idea as to what gave her that impression, but she could not shake the disturbing feeling that things would change forever after that day. Chloe, too, had a similar feeling. "When you come back," she said, "I'll be even stronger than you." She had said that often in the past and so far Chloe had never defeated her companion in a fight.

The other girl smiled again at her friend and prepared to leave when Chloe held her hand out to stop her, pinky raised high in the air. "Promise me you won't forget me?" she asked solemnly, "After all, I'm your other half…" she said with a smile. Kirika hesitated a moment before locking her own pinky around her friends and giving a silent nod; it was a promise. Sadly, a promise she did not keep…

The dark-haired girl placed the fork beside the lifeless body of someone who was closer to her than anyone else had been; the object that was stained with Chloe's own blood. Kirika looked down at her friend's corpse and her hair fell over her eyes, shielding them from view. Tears dropped onto the stone on which she had laid the other girl to rest. "She was my other half…"