Yoko wasn't always the perfectly lovely and composed sniper we know. It has been a hard road, and even harder times are to come. (Ingredients: Clips of Yoko's past, a tiny bit of inspiration from Stephen King's Dark Tower, and a touch of the bittersweet.)
In the darkness, her fingers twist and jump, ten pale dancers twirling with metal pieces. A spring clinks lightly to the floor, and in such low light, even her youthful eyes can't find it.
Footsteps behind her, and a voice. "It rolled to the left."
"Daddy?" She winces, fear in her voice. He knew what she was doing, he'd found the gun chest she'd lockpicked... Surely he'd be furious.
"Ssssh. It's ok. Finish what you were doing."
Tears are welling up. Tiny hands are shaking now under his gaze, but nevertheless hunt the spring, and once found, slide it deftly into place. A few more motions and the gun is complete again, heavy on the oilcloth.
"How long did that take you?" asks Father. She expected rage but his voice is soft and curious.
"I... um... I dunno... I did it like you."
"How did you... you were really watching? All this time? Why didn't you just say-"
"I'" The words spill out along with sobs, but there is no reprimand. He gathers the tiny girl with the shock of red hair into his arms and rocks her.
"It's alright. It's alright." He places her gently on her feet before him. "Yoko... did you take the gun apart?"
She nods, sullen and damp-faced.
"And what did you do then?"
"I wiped the pieces with the cloth, just like you, Daddy..."
"And you put it back together?" He can hardly restrain a smile. His little girl, the firearms prodigy.
She nods again, of course.
"Do you think you could do it again?"
Another nod.
"Now?" Father lights a candle.
She blinks a few times and kneels before the weapon. Now she has the benefit of light, her hands are clever, and she dismantles it with even more agility than the first time. With only a moment's hesitation, she wipes each piece in turn. Her tongue is revealed, pressed hard between baby teeth and the furrowing of her brows gives her a funny crease between them. Despite her nerves, her hands never lose their purpose.
His mouth hangs a bit, he revels so completely in this moment - He imagines now that she will have a purpose, a real job, an honorable life. No one would ever push her into the fate of her mother, who had died as a result of the scum who made her nothing more than a plaything for male amusement. She would never be such a damsel in distress. She has no idea, he thinks, that she is rescuing herself at this very moment.
When the job is done, he asks her, "Yoko... how would you like to learn more about guns than just how to clean them?"
Her eyes widen, golden flecks in her irises catching the candlelight. Her little mind can hardly process - is he really suggesting the very thing she had dreamed of and wanted ever since she saw him shoot? Not only would she not be punished, but given this reward?
She cannot restrain herself, she shrieks with delight and jumps into her father's arms.
No one understands. She is frustrated at her own awkwardness, her body too long for her now, she has no idea how to maneuver it, and she longs for the compact form of her childhood. She brushes greasy bangs away from her face and stomps deeper into the cave, having to just-barely-squeeze or crawl through places that she once could run with abandon.
She nudges widening hips through gaps she used to hardly notice and rolls her eyes at the people back in the town. They want her to wear the traditional clothes but Her Klutziness (the nickname they think is just SO hilarious) only gets tangled in them and hates them and hates how they look and what they represent. Her chest is still flat, but she knows she could never get in here with all that bulky cloth. Moreover, she knows that she is changing and that one day, maybe soon, she will no longer be able to enter here at all.
She wants to cry.
"Remember the face of your father," She mutters. But that's just the goddamn problem. She can't think of anything but the face of her father. What comes from her throat next starts as a low growl and ends in a miserable scream. "WHAT I WOULDN'T DO TO FORGET THE FACE OF MY FATHER" She screams to no one. "Just... let me forget..."
She has reached the grotto, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes, and she stumbles to the edge of the belowground lake she found so long ago. For a moment in the dimness the face in the dark water is that child's face... but it resolves to her own long, bony, pimpled visage. She slaps the water to disperse it. She is angry at her father for losing control, angry at herself, angry at just about everything she can think of.
Angry at that stupid nickname. None of them had seen her with her father's guns. Someday they would see, and that stupid nickname would disappear forever. They would see change that takes over when she holds the guns, the steely calm and grace that her father praised. She wishes he were here and the tears flow more freely. He would never let them call her that.
It is up to her now.
The moment she lays her hand on the butt of the gun, her nerves settle, her tears stop. She curls up against the wall of the cave and slides the pistol from its low-slung holster, examining it for a moment before loading it with rounds from the leather pouch on her belt. Soon it is cocked and ready to fire.
She waits.
Hours pass, but she does not move, not an inch.
At last, a mole scampers down one side of the grotto from the small opening at the top. Her eyes narrow, hawklike as she watches. Her breathing, her heartbeat, it all goes into her lighting-quick calculation as she raises the pistol. She hears her father's voice reminding her not to pull but to squeeze. She may not be good for much, but at this she refuses to fail.
Her lips mouth the shape of what she learned as a child.
I do not aim with my hand
She who aims with her hand has forgotten the face of her father
I aim with my eye
I do not shoot with my hand
She who shoots with her hand has forgotten the face of her father
I shoot with my mind
I do not kill with my gun
She who kills with her gun has forgotten the face of her father
I kill with my heart.
There is only one shot, but the report slams against the walls of the chamber and echoes back again and again, the mole is dead long before the sound is done.
She reholsters the gun and draws a knife from a sheath at the back of her belt. She drops to her knees and cradles the tiny creature, silently thanking the earth for delivering it. Her blade rends its skin and spills dark blood onto its fur.
Yoko stares down at her stained fingertips and begins to follow a strange inclination. She pulls one dirty white boot from her left foot and begins to trace shapes around its base, sloping waves and sharp points. She dips her finger into the belly of the mole when the red ink on her finger runs out. When one boot is completed, she shifts to the next, the image of flames emerging where her boots meet the ground.
Her socks are wet and muddy, but she leaves her shoes off to allow the "ink" to dry. Her father had remarked on the rarity and value of baby mole blood - once noting that for reasons no one knew, it never browns with exposure - today she was to learn that he was right.
A meditative feeling has stolen over her, the first peace Yoko has felt since the death of her father. The bullet had entered through the lower jaw and exited the side of the neck. It had done most of the beheading work for her. With her knife, she completes the separation of the bony head from the body and peels the skin away from the creature's skull. It has a small crack in the forehead - had that been there before, or was it inflicted when it fell from the wall?
No matter. With the gentility of a lover, her fingers tear away the remnants of the jaw and break off the back half of skull. It is getting cold in the grotto and goosebumps have begun to spring up on her bare stomach. She concedes to herself that the traditional garb might have its purposes, but never for a moment reconsiders her stance.
Under the black surface of the lake, her hands begin to freeze, and they work quickly brushing blood and tissue from the skull, digging out pieces of brain until nothing is left. She is determined to get it as clean as possible, not removing her hands from the water until they are nearly numb, and her prize squeaky clean.
Her knees are cold and covered in dirt and pebbles that have dug into her skin, her arms and legs brushed with dust and slime from the walls and rocks of the grotto. She leans over the water again and sees her reflection now smeared with filth and blood. When had she touched her face? Examining herself, she twists the freshly-cleaned mole skull into the dangling hair near her temple. The first smile Yoko has enjoyed in weeks begins to creep slyly across her face. She is not a fan of accessories, but this seems right.
She slips her decorated boots back onto her feet and pulls herself up, brushing off her shorts and facing the crevice through which she had entered. When she returns, she will make them see. No one she loves will ever be killed that way again. They will not call her klutz, they will call her huntress, she will protect her village, and when those things return to take more the way they took her father, she will bring home their pelts.
Yoko begins to slip through the thin passageway for the last time.
The night air is cool and fresh, and the young gunslinger spies her quarry, its back exposed as it perches at the edge of a rock and surveys the pockmarked landscape below. Yoko tiptoes across the clearing and creeps up the rock, adjusting the long rifle hanging at her back. She is seemingly unheard, her target has not given the slightest inkling of turning.
She brandishes her weapon: A mug of hot tea.
"Here..."
She takes him by surprise, of course, and he whips around. She rolls her eyes inwardly. No one could sneak up on her this way. It's so naiive as to be almost charming.
"If you eat too much," she advises, "you won't be able to move around later."
His machismo is undaunted, he drinks heartily and speaks out to the world. "I've got power... Today especially."
She finds herself wishing he would look back at her.
"Yoko..."
She nods to the back of his head. Stupid.
"I'm counting on you to watch my back."
She can't help but like the sound of that.
"I'll defeat all the enemies that come from the front, so the enemies at the back are up to you."
Why won't he turn around? All at once, she follows a strange inclination. "Kamina..."
Kamina twists to show his face, and she leans in, letting the momentum carry her into a kiss - nothing profane, but more than sisterly to be sure. When she pulls away, she cannot help but think he would make a terrible gunslinger, commenting, "Your rear really is defenseless, isn't it?"
"You..."
What happens next she does not intend. His arms seem to float in slow motion around her body, and in no time, the crisp breeze is replaced by his warmth, enveloping her shoulders and chest. Her heart has been shielded so hard for so long... but perhaps she can rely on him, even if he isn't necessarily a gunslinger. Perhaps because of it. Perhaps this time will be different from what happened with her father. This time she won't fail. This time she won't let that most important thing fall. Her gun falls slack as she reaches to respond to his kiss, but nevertheless, this kiss is not what she wanted to give - this kiss is stolen from her.
"I'll return it ten times."
She tries not to blush, it is as if he read her thought.
"When I come back, I'll return it ten times. Remember that."
She smiles, and one thought drifts past her without feeling: If this time is not different, she thinks, surely her heart will tumble and fall into bottomless space for every day of the rest of her life.