Not Mine.
--
It was late evening and after a long day of teaching self defence Kaoru was ready for a hot bath and whichever edible food her cellar had to offer. She walked up to the door of her small cottage and gave it a fond pat before quietly unlocking it and stepping inside. Inside it was cool and dark, so dark that it wasn't until she lit the mage lights scattered artlessly about her house that she saw the yellow stamped envelope sitting on her kitchen table.
She stopped stretching sore muscles at once in favour of staring at it for a while. There were few people she knew of with access to the stamp that had emblazoned on it the royal insignia (the same insignia pressed into the red wax on the envelope) and she disliked every one of them. Unfortunately, she wouldn't have time to get used to the idea of seeing them, because she knew in that envelope was an emergency summons to the Councilla. She had seen enough of those accursed envelopes in her day to know that without opening it.
The Councilla. The group of powerful and important persons who, together, ran the country. Each Counsellor had specific duties and all were under the command of the Emperor of the State. Certain members of the Councilla ran the State Defence; these were the Counsellors whom she knew the best. They had been her bosses after all. Over all, Kaoru had spent ten years as a Soldier of the State, using her particular talents as a powerful air mage to serve her country, going from a simple kendo student under her fathers tutelage, to rising rapidly through the ranks of Soldiers and eventually reaching the top.
And now she was back at her old home. She was no longer a student, but the master, but she practised the same things she had years and years ago. Kaoru was right back where she started. Actually, looking at the envelope she wouldn't be staying here for long.
Nobody wants to face the leaders of their country covered in sweat, but Kaoru turned right back around and walked back out the door. An emergency summons to the Councilla meant that you got your ass there on the double.
---
Kaoru knew her way to the House of State very well, and she dodged street vendors and people buying their wares with ease as she made her way towards it. All around her, people were calling out to each other, children ran underfoot, and everybody went about their way without a care in the world; or if they did indeed have any cares, they didn't hold a candle to Kaoru's.
Kaoru grumbled and continued on her way. She knew it wasn't right to blame the innocent people around her, after all they had done nothing wrong, but it was so easy to do it anyways. She tried not to let the angry winds whipping around her hit any bystanders, and concentrating on that helped take her mind off other things while she took the familiar twists and turns to her destination. Even if she didn't know the way, it wouldn't have been that hard to find the House.
The House of State was instantly recognizable. It had all the things all houses had, like glass windows and plumbing and electrical lighting – although most people had at least enough power to work simple magics like light and heat, electricity was very popular because of how little effort it took; a flick as opposed to a motion and concentrated thought- but it was built to look like the building it was, the most important building in the State.
It rose imposingly above the structures surrounding it, and Kaoru knew that no building was allowed to approach it in height. One had to walk up a reasonably long staircase to approach the tall doors. Most of the House was dark-glass, designed to absorb solar power for energy and of course very hard to get, but there was enough stone for intricate carvings and things like gargoyles. The House was a mixture of new technology and old technique- a prefect symbol of the World Now.
Once Kaoru had trekked up the long stairs that led to the House of State, she had been scoffed at by the ladies attending the reception desk. She looked down at her training attire, shrugged, and pulled out the yellow envelope from inside her pocket. "I don't have an appointment, but I'm here on business."
She slapped the envelope on the desk, enjoying the way the ladies had flinched at the sound and sight of the yellow envelope on the desk.
One of the receptionists had pressed a button from under the desk, and told her to wait while a steward showed her the way. Kaoru was about to say the she knew the way very well, but after a moment decided to save her energy for the real fight. She settled back to wait in one of the convenient chairs placed in a row beside the large desk.
Almost right after she had done so, a teenaged boy with scruffy hair slouched up to her. Kaoru raised a brow at the casual attitude of the boy who worked for the people that worked for the people who ran the country. The only youngsters she liked were ones with a healthy dose of respect, and this one looked like he didn't have it. The dark haired youth stopped in front of her and cleared his throat after looking her up and down. "You're the air mage huh. I'll take you towards the Conference Hall."
He said as if he couldn't care less.
Kaoru bristled at both his tone and the once over he had given her. However, after resisting the childish urge she had to smack him with a well placed breeze, she got up without a word and followed him.
As she walked down the long hallways behind her young escort, she began to feel closed in and cold. People, straight-faced and unfriendly, pushed past her every so often but other than that she and her escort remained alone in the corridor. There was no artwork and no plants and definitely no conversation, nothing except skinny metal doors to break the uniform white paint and silence. Even the air in here was dead.
It was hard to steel herself against the loneliness of the place and its continuous halls and bright white lights and the memories triggered by it all but she was strong- or at least always tried to be- so she put her head down and practised looking indifferent. Kaoru stopped abruptly as Yahiko halted without a sound and narrowly avoided bumping him. Looking up, she realized with a start and no small amount of dread that she had reached her destination.
Yahiko eyed her again, and muttered, "Here we are."
His task done, Yahiko made his way back down the hall, going to wherever all the other minions went after they had finished their jobs.
With a deep breath, she stepped through the doorway and into her past.
The huge room was just like she had remembered. The long table was still in the middle, strewn liberally with different documents of the state, and tired looking people were still arguing over them. The large chair, though she had always thought of it as a throne, was still at the head of the table and the same man sat arrogantly in it. The cacophony of many strong willed people forced to occupy the same room still grew silent when she made herself known.
She could feel the steel in her bend under the weight of many eyes but Kaoru schooled her expression and walked firmly towards the end of the table anyways. There was no chair there for exactly this purpose. Plenty of other people than she had stopped in the very place she did, some to plead their cases, some to relay information, or some to receive their next mission. Before, she had often been at the particular end of this table for latter.
Kaoru took a breath, and before anyone else could speak, she said, "I received the summons. But I am no longer a Soldier for the State. I wonder why I am here after I have been discharged from service."
Her voice fell into the silence, and Kaoru distantly acknowledged that she was trembling from nerves. She had never liked speaking in front of people.
The man in the throne let out a booming laugh. "You never did beat around the bush, Kaoru Kamiya. " His voice, as big as the rest of him, echoed slightly in the continuing quiet.
"And anyways, you may not be a Soldier, but you are still a citizen of this upstanding state of ours. You are still subject to the whims of your leaders, and right now the Leaders have need of your services."
Kaoru's composed mask almost fell. Of course, she had a strong suspicion that they would ask this, but she still hoped...
Of course, even the whims, as Emperor Hiko had put it, of her leaders had to be obeyed.
Emperor Hiko barked at another leader and Kaoru jumped, having been lost in the process of resigning herself to service. Again.
"Counsellor Tomoe! Debrief!"
An elegant woman, dressed like everybody else in the plain robes of State, stood up with a folder in her hand. She opened it and started to read the contents in a somewhat robotic voice.
"The city of Sin-Kee has been victim to terrorist attacks by an as-of-yet unknown group. These attacks have been concentrated on the mage facilities located there and at this point three major documents have been stolen. All of these documents have contained information on Magical Restraint varying from high -class to top secret. Other than the knowledge contained in these documents and the destruction of our research facilities, the specific goal of this group remains unknown; although due to the violent nature of their attacks, the casualties already beginning to pile up, and the documents stolen, it appears to be of substantial risk to the State. Because of this, it has been classified as a terrorist group."
Kaoru dreaded to ask the question, but she coughed to clear her throat and asked it anyways when Tomoe paused to take a breath. "And why are my service needed? Terrorist groups aren't- weren't, I mean- my specialty."
Another Councillor answered her question. She knew this one, and knew she didn't like him too. His arrogance was grating. And he poisoned the air when he smoked.
He stood up and leaned on the table, drawling, "This group isn't done yet. They aren't going to stop. We have more Soldiers," and Kaoru thought heard the word better in the undertone of his voice, "but right now-"
Tomoe interrupted him with a frown, saying "Counsellor Saitoh, that's enough. Kaoru Kamiya, your duty to the State is to station yourself within Sin-Kee under an appropriate alias. You are to aid the Soldiers already in place there in retrieving information and set up a Covert Citizen Protection Unit, as per your training in both Reconnaissance and Defence, until the threat is properly detained."
Kaoru's mouth dropped open in dismay and Saitoh sat down with a belligerent smirk. The Counsellors looked at her gravely as Kaoru tried to think of a suitable reason why she couldn't involve herself in what was probably going to be a long, very risky assignment.
Before she could say anything, the High Counsellor, and Hiko's right hand man, High Counsellor Aoshi stood up. He spoke quietly and without expression or inflection, but his words carried across the room.
"Kaoru Kamiya, outside the room you will find an Aid who will give you the full details of your assignment to study, as well as compensation for anything you might need while completing the assignment."
Kaoru knew this was a dismissal. Already the Counsellors had begun to shuffle their assorted papers. Alright, next item, Kaoru thought bitterly to herself. They didn't care that the life she had built had just been destroyed. Their precious State mattered more than anything else.
She walked out the door with a stiff back. Her last assignment had been just a year ago, she had just begun to feel normal, to get her life back...
---
Kaoru slowly walked back towards her home, deep in thought. First of all she carried the burdensome weight of troubling new thoughts, and on top of that she had been given supplies for her assignment. Most of it now was money, and documents she was to familiarize herself with overnight before departure the next day, but anything to do with her irksome new duty weighed heavy to her.
She passed different people occupying themselves in the shadows, and one such person materialized right beside her.
He fell into step beside her and his red hair glinted in the torchlight. She ignored him as much as she could – she knew this man very well, a fellow Soldier, although a different specialty; Attack- and walked on without pause. After a few moments of strict silence on her part his body bumped against hers; purposefully, she snarled silently to herself as they stood aside to let an especially boisterous group go by.
"So you took the job?" his silken voice sounded in her ear.
She shivered, and wished he had missed the motion. He didn't of course, because he never did.
"Of course I took the fucking job. It's my duty, isn't it?" Kaoru said angrily, because she was doing several things she hated: working for the State, preparing to leave her cozy, safe home and jump into danger, and talking to Kenshin.
Kenshin laughed lightly. He lithely draped an arm around her shoulders because her arms were full and he knew she wouldn't want to cause a scene.
"Oh, but darling, don't you know you'll be working with me?"
He placed a quick kiss to her cheek and vanished in the crowd before she could free her hands to smack him. Kaoru spun around, cursing him and at the same time wondering how exactly they would be working together. She was brought back to the present when a stranger bumped into her and apologized. After bowing back to the stranger, she shook her head at Kenshin's antics and started covering the last block to her home.
Kaoru let herself back in and lit the mage lights again. She dumped the folders she was carrying on the kitchen table, and, thinking of the envelope that had been there and what the items currently there were for, resolved to not do anything until she had had her bath. Nice and hot, with lots of bubbles, just the way she liked it.
After filling the steaming water to just the right amount, and injecting puffs of air into the jet of water –maybe the most useful thing she had ever been taught to do, Kaoru considered sarcastically- to make bubbles, Kaoru sank into the water until she was completely submerged up to her neck. She let out a grateful sigh. It felt good after being on her feet all day.
She dimmed the mage lights to set the mood, leaned her head back, and tried her very best not to think for a while. It didn't really work. Whenever she closed her eyes the assorted folders painted themselves on the backs of her eyelids, and even with all her practise in meditation, questions still swirled actively in her head. Kaoru stuck it out for fifteen more minutes until she relented. She reluctantly scrubbed herself clean, washed her long, thick hair, and drained the water.
Once she had dried herself off, wrapped her hair in a towel and gotten ready for bead, Kaoru fetched the folders from the kitchen.
There were four. She cracked open the first one and peeked inside. There were various types of currency, and also a ticket for her to take the Train, the only one in the State still running. She closed it and set it on her bedside table.
The next one held information on her fellow operatives.
She leafed through the papers and their accompanying pictures. Most she had already worked with on State Defence missions, although she stopped dead when she came to a picture of the scruffy haired kid from the House of State.
Looking at his papers she saw that he was fourteen, orphaned, and a fellow mage, although quite weak, comparatively, and with only a general gift. She frowned, because she should have sensed his power, and then decided she had been understandably distracted. Still, she shouldn't have let herself go like that. Kaoru made a mental note to practise sensing auras on the Train to Sin -Kee. Moving on, Kaoru made sure she knew the history and appearance of all the operatives she was to work closely with, rolling her eyes when she got to Kenshin, and moved on to the next folder.
It was her assignment details. The assignment was, as Tomoe had said, to aid any other Soldiers retrieving information on the terrorist group, and to set up a Covert Citizen Protection Unit. She was to strategically place key operatives- numbering around ten- in the city, make sure their alias' were accepted, and help set up plan and practise strategies for defence. She was also to handle security for the remaining untouched mage facilities and any high profile public events.
Kaoru groaned and rubbed her temples. Just thinking about the headache that would give her was causing her a headache. Sighing, she put that folder aside for the moment, and reached for the next and last one. This one contained everything and anything she would need to know about her alias.
A paragraph into it, and she realized why Yahiko was going to be accompanying her to Sin-Kee. He was to pose as her sick brother and act as an alibi should the need arise. She thought back to the looks he gave her and decided that he probably already knew of his future assignment when he had shown her to the Conference Hall.
Probably only a part-timer in the House of State, she bet that he was resenting the fact that he would be spending an important mission supposedly bed –ridden. Oh well. Whatever personal problems he had with her and his assignment, as long as it didn't interfere with either of their jobs, well, it wasn't her problem to deal with.
As Kaoru finished reading through the last of the information, the last of her questions were answered. Kenshin was to head the Attack and Retrieval Unit, and her and another Soldier she knew well – this time one she liked- Misao, head of the Information Unit were to work closely together and to ensure that all teams were in harmony and that the assignment was being completed with optimal efficiency.
She let out a relieved breath. The man had made it seem like so much more than that.
Kaoru went over everything several times, and started drawing up several plans and strategies, and finally, when she could no longer fight the urge to close her eyes and when it was light out again, she went to sleep.