00Qwaser
Discalimer: I do not own Seikon no Qwaser.
Author's note: Chapters edited. I don't intend to hurt anyone's feeling, just in case some of you might find one or two lines offensive.
Qwasers. Nobody knows who they are, what they do, where the name comes from but, if you were to scream "Hey you!" in a crowded square, Qwasers would be the only one not turning around.
Qwasers. If you're thinking, "Yeah, yeah, old story. They're alchemists with the power to manipulate elements by assimilating Soma from women's boobs blah-blah." Funny, I thought that too.
Qwasers. Their missions are classified. Sometimes even the heads of their Organization can't recall what team is on which mission. But it doesn't matter, Qwasers never fail their missions. Always clean jobs.
Qwasers. They work in pair. A pair is composed by a Strategist and a Warrior. It couldn't be any other way. Put a Strategist next to another Strategist and you'll have two women fighting over the best way of action. Put two Warriors together and there won't be any strategy at all, just corpses everywhere.
There are three top-rated Qwasers amongst Athos' ranks, the coolest no-profit 'gonna-save-the-world' Organization ever. If there were a hurricane somewhere on the planet, be sure the butterfly which caused it would've already been captured by the time you finish this sentence. And if you were still unaware of the lack of butterflies of these past years, you now know who to blame.
There are three top-rated Qwasers amongst Athos' ranks. I won't tell their names since Mafuyu, Sasha and Hana said those are confidential. Where's Ekaterina, you ask? This fiction was too bland to her taste, so.
Sasha is Mafuyu's Warrior. Hana works alone. She's had several partners, one new for each mission Athos' assigned her to, but Hana's finger has always been heavy on the trigger, faster than her partner's ability to elaborate a strategy. And that's why she's been dumped every single time.
Things are different for Sasha and Mafuyu. The two Lovebirds complete each other perfectly, almost as if they have one mind split in to two bodies, which is not a good thing despite how romantic it may sound. When Sasha joined Athos, Mafuyu and Hana were the only Qwasers willing enough to get to know him. Maybe it was because of his foreign looks, maybe because of his behavior, like a chihuahua actually, or one of those always-barking, small sized dogs you feel sympathy for when they quiver on their frail legs and you just want to squeeze them and put an end to their miserable lives. Sadly, Hana didn't have a chance to show him her deadly affection. Soon enough, Sasha revealed his own potential, a talent with juggling big blades and a particular fondness to jiggling Mafuyu's bigger breasts.
Athos' Canteen – 5.50 p.m.
"I don't get it. Why won't they send me on my own?" Hana said as she scrubbed off the dirt underneath her nails with the tip of a dangerously sharp blade. "I mean, this would be what? My fiftieth mission? Yet, they still can't see that I work off better alone. What's wrong with Yuri? Seriously, that guy is all talk, 'But, of course Hana-san, I'll see what I can do about it'," she went on complaining. "You know what he did?" She looked straight into Mafuyu's unmoved eyes. "A GODDAMN NOTHING."
"Hana, you still haven't met her. Maybe this time-"
"What? She'll dump me before we even get inside my fucking car?"
Mafuyu remembered what'd happened with Hana's last partner.
"You shouldn't have sabotaged your mission because you wanted to go see the kids in the school playground. She's still badmouthing you."
Hana glanced behind her back where Mafuyu hinted. A girl with black, thick glasses and an even darker tress was sitting few tables away from theirs, leaning with her mouth against some guy's ear while pointing a finger in Hana's way.
"She was just jealous because she's not my type." She smirked amused with herself, but Mafuyu's severe look told her she would take none of her joke that night.
"Hana, you can't go solo because you're impulsive. Keep following your 'drive' and it'll only get you in a pithole of trouble."
"I don't care about getting in trouble. I just don't want to hear anybody telling me what to do. What's wrong with bursting into, massacring everyone then taking a relaxing shower afterward?"
"The part where you massacre everyone. Last time you shot the hostages."
"Well, nobody told me there were civilians inside the building."
"Your Strategist knew it. You just didn't listen to her orders. Have you got any ideas how hard is it to clean up your mess? Or how difficult it was to come up with a good explanation to the victims' families? "
Hana shrugged. "I saved the day. Losing one or three lives is only part of the process."
"Come on. Just say you were wrong. You've never killed a civilian before. Remember that little girl you saved from-"
"Oh, I miss my Lily-chan so much."
Three months before the Warrior had put her life at stake to save the youngest daughter of a wealthy family. Unfortunately, nobody could save the girl from Hana.
Hana grabbed her friend's hands and asked with bleary eyes, "Why? Why did they take her away from me?"
Being the good Strategist she was, Mafuyu knew the Warrior was incredibly touchy on the topic. Reason why she approached her in the best way she could think of.
"You're a pervert, Hana."
"I'm no perv. I didn't do anything she didn't want me to."
"I doubt she knew what you were doing."
Hana pouted her lips. "But I asked her, 'Lily-chan, can I kiss your-mhh."
Mafuyu prevented her from going any further by putting her hand over her mouth.
"That's exactly why they took her away from you," she hissed coldly. "It's what came after that that I still don't get. Why did they go easy on you? A day of rehabilitation. A day, Hana?"
Hana clicked her tongue.
"It's not like they can do anything. They need me more than they want to admit. It would go against their interests to assign to other people the missions they usually entrust to me."
"You're way too overconfident. One day you'll find someone who'll erase that smirk off your face."
Hana stretched her arms and crossed them behind her head.
"If she's one of those bitches I've been with 'till now, there's no chance it'll happen any time soon."
Mafuyu let the conversation drop. It'd be worthless arguing with Hana, especially since they've had this talk almost every time Hana returned from a mission which, most of times, she and Sasha had to take over because all of her friend's Strategists decided to call themselves off. She took a sip from the cup of tea sitting in front of her and savored the feeling of the hot liquid down her throat. She glanced cautiously sideways at her own Warrior. Sitting by her side, Sasha was flipping through Athos' newspaper.
"You never read, Sasha."
"This one has a nice article on breast enlargement. With pictures."
Mafuyu snatched it out of his hands and shredded it, throwing flakes of paper all around them.
"You know there are not articles of sort in newspapers, right?" He smiled sardonic.
"You know you'll dream of mine for the time being, right?"
"No, you can't, Mafuyu."
Mafuyu lowered her gaze on her chest, then felt her breasts.
"Probably, it's for the best for me, too. I don't remember them being this big before you-"
She noticed Hana grinning at Sasha and Sasha returning it with smug eyes.
"Anyway," she switched back to the original topic. "Hana, you were saying about your new mission?"
Hana felt a wave of anger. The idea of being teamed up - yet, again! - with some Strategist she would hate from the very beginning, the idea of taking orders from somebody who was not herself or - in the least, worst-case scenario - Mafuyu, made her want to be an even bigger pain in the ass than she was last time. She folded her arms upon her chest.
"I know nothing of the mission, just my Strategist's name. You should've seen Yuri's grin when he told me. I really don't understand why it only seems to bring him pleasure when I'm forced to do something I don't want to do."
Mafuyu exchanged a perplexed look with her partner while their friend went on rambling about how miserable her life was.
"Well, does she have a name?" Sasha asked.
"Everybody has one, genius."
Mafuyu put her hand on Sasha's leg and squeezed it in a silent warning. No need to respond to Hana's provocation or they would no get out of this quickly, and they still had their bags to pack. Mostly, she just wanted to avoid another meaningless fight between her lover and her best friend.
"And that is?"
"I'm not sure. Katerina?"
Hana saw her friends staring back at her in shock.
Mafuyu exchanged a brief look with Sasha as if searching for a confirmation to her thoughts. When he nodded solemnly, she sighed deeply. She wondered what could possibly be bringing Yuri Noda to assign Hana to a Qwaser of the likes of 'Katerina' for, well, many reasons.
"Are you talking about Ekaterina Kurae?"
"Do you guys know her?"
This time it was Sasha's turn to speak. "You mean, you've never heard of her?"
"What's there to hear of?"
Mafuyu lowered her voice and crouched over toward the center of the table. The two Warriors followed her lead.
"Ekaterina Kurae," she whispered. "Is a top class Strategist. Even better than I am."
"She top scored the final test, totally got 100/100 marks and commented it with a side note, 'A waste of my time'," Sasha jumped in.
"I thought we were the top rated Qwasers, guys."
"We work in the field, Hana. She's the best mind behind the desk. The only reason why she's still not allowed, or wasn't allowed before today, to step outside and take the action in her own hands is-"
"Wait? You telling me they're sending me out there with a noob?" Hana gleamed. 'Noob' a synonymous of 'I can do what the heck I want'.
"Don't be too happy. I've heard she made the examiners cry on her finals," Sasha told her.
"I've attended one of her seminaries last week, actually," Mafuyu remembered. "She was keeping this interesting lecture about the importance of collaboration and trust between partners and-"
"Guys, guys, sorry to interrupt your fangirling but, why are we still whispering?" Hana asked out of clue.
"Because you don't say her name out loud." Mafuyu's voice was nothing more than a hiss.
"Why not?"
"Because, well just watch."
The Strategist cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Then, in a higher pitch than normal she said, "Ekaterina Kurae!"
All the heads turned in their way. Hana watched more than a hundred pairs of eyes going from worried to scared within seconds. There were some whispers from the closest tables, few comments, some questions about the Strategist's whereabouts but, mostly, the noisy sound of chairs being dragged on the floor while half the population of the canteen fled the place for safer locations.
"You see why?"
Having as future partner somebody whose name alone had the power to terrorize some of the greatest agents in the world made Hana dislike the girl even more. After all, that's what she's been aiming at since... ever.
"So? I'm gonna get teamed up with Ekaterina Kurae. What's the big deal? She'll dump me as soon as she realizes she can't control me." She snorted, then checked her watch. "Anyway, I'm later than usual." She stood up. "I guess I'll see you around and let you know how the meeting went."
"Actually, we're leaving for Egypt in a couple of hours." Mafuyu joined her for a hug. "You'll tell us if we're back."
"When you're back." Hana looked in Sasha's way. Whenever the pair would leave, she would entrust her best friend to her partner. She knew he would protect Mafuyu at all costs, so there was no particular reason in exchanging that look, but it was something they did naturally.
"Bring me a souvenir when you do, though," she told her, already heading toward the exit of the canteen.
"Like what?"
Hana smiled deviously, turning around one last time.
"I've never tasted an Egyptian-"
"Enough," Mafuyu shouted.
"Tea," Hana grinned. "Egyptian tea, Mafuyu."
Athos best Qwasers observed their friend leaving the room. They were still gathering their belongings when Hana burst into the place with an agitated look on her face.
"FUCK!" She pointed at the end of the hallway "EKATERINA KURAE IS COMING THIS WAY, EVERYBODY."
Mafuyu could've never imagined the general delirium those words could've possibly caused, but she sure could picture Hana's laughter as the girl walked away after setting panic among their colleagues. She turned to Sasha.
"You know what, though? I regret we won't be there to see her face when she meets Ekaterina."