It was, as it happened, a dark and stormy night. the bluenette girl could hear the rain, even, as she was, trapped in a cold box under the ground, smothered by the weight of the earth. She was tired, but she felt a potency in her limbs and a sudden, unexplainable sense of urgency that allowed her to press the lid open and drag her aching bones up through the dirt and out into the fresh air and the black night and the world of the living again. A bluenette girl looked the grave and she knew where she was: the city.

No, not quite, she corrected herself. She was in the town ten miles south of the city. They buried no bodies in the city itself. A hundred years ago the city passed a law against any new burial sites and they even moved the ones they had, evicting the dead, and this town sprouted like a mushroom on the city's southern border to hold all those dear departed who no longer had a place in the city itself. It was a town of cemeteries and mortuaries, a town of coffin makers and embalmers, a town of mausoleums and headstones, where the city's dead migrated for their eternal rest. A town with a thousand occupied graves for every one occupied house. The north became the city of the living; the south became the city of the dead.

For the most part the two kept to their respective cities and existed in peace. But tonight the city in the south was sending an emissary. And her mission was to increase the population of the dead city by one. There was someone in the living city who did not deserve to be there. A bluenette girl sensed her target and knew, instinctively, who it was: A greenette blader. A bluenette girl remembered everything about A greenette blader: his voice, his face, even the way he looked her in his blue eyes. Death could not rob him of this knowledge. She would find him.

Tentatively, A bluenette tried to walk. Her legs were stiff and tired after so many years in the grave. The cold rain felt good on her face. One step at a time A bluenette learned to walk again and when she was ready she walked down the hill, away from her headstone, through the little cemetery gate and out onto the highway. Yes, this road she remembered. She could follow it north the whole way. The dark night and the rain would hide A bluenette girl's face from what few drivers and pedestrians there were.

As she walked she tried to make sense of things. She remembered dying in a far-off city in another state. Her mother must have had her body shipped back and buried here, close to home, close to the city she grew up in. Were her mother alive now? Should she look for them? No, she decided; best that they not see her like this. Best that they never know. A bluenette girl understood that a greenette was both alive and nearby. That was enough to worry about for now. She would have business with no other living person.

A bluenette had left her own cemetery behind but others dotted the roadside. If she strained her ears she could hear them, the dead men and dead women down in their graves. Most of them snored away an eternal slumber, occasionally shifting to a more comfortable position in their coffins. Some of the restless ones muttered to themselves, or even had smothered conversations with those buried nearest them. A few talked about coming up, like she had, but no one else seemed ready to do it tonight. She suspected they often talked about such things without actually doing them.

A bluenette girl did wonder, though, whether she shouldn't pause for a conversation with a few. Why, right over there Joe DiMaggio was buried. Imagine the talk they two could have. And over there was Wyatt Earp's grave, and over there was Turk Murphy, and Vince Guaraldi. Doc Barker had been buried out here somewhere too, after she died trying to escape from Alcatraz. Lily Coit, Charles De Young, even Emperor Norton himself, they were all here, and surely they wouldn't mind trading a few words with a bluenette girl? Surely they were just as lonely as she was…

But she had no time. Revenge was too precious, and had been too long coming already. So a bluenette girl slogged on, through the rain, past the graves, toward the city lights reflecting off those great shining glass towers like lighthouses for the fates. A bluenette girl had always loved those great buildings. They made her feel young again.

Something appeared then, a long, snaky, blazing apparition screaming its banshee wail into the night as it flew through the air. A bluenette girl fell, panicked, terrified, scrambling for a hiding place while the impossible thing slowed and then seemed to hover overhead. She clung to a concrete column, praying it did not see her. She tried to hold his breath only to realize it was now not only impossible but unnecessary. There was a snapping sound, and then a ball rang, and then, strangely, the sound of feet tromping overhead, like a column of soldiers marching on thin air. She dared look up and then realized what the glowing specter really was: an elevated train. The column she hugged supported the tracks. Late-night commuters filed onto the platform twenty feet overhead and when the doors slid shut again the entire shrieking assemblage streamed off into the night.

A bluenette girl felt foolish. Clearly things had changed in the years since her mother died. Once her embarrassment wore off, she realized the rail-line was a boon for her; it would lead into the city, and if she followed underneath it she would encounter fewer late-night pedestrians than on the main highway. Staying close to the lights on the tracks she followed them, into the heart of civilization, and closer to her prey.

The pouring rain made rivers and streams of everything. She was glad that it seemed to be relieving her of the grave smell. The city by night was a strange thing: dark and vacant but still teeming with artificial animation, with the glare of electronic lights and the low whine of tires on asphalt. She did not belong here; the people of A bluenette girl kept in their place. It was the unspoken law of the dead. But tonight the rules bent. A bluenette girl scampered beneath overpasses, through alleys, along ditches and across vacant lots. Those few people who saw her took her for another homeless vagrant in his shapeless, foul-smelling clothes. The heavy rain hid face from them. She was tracking using senses she did not realize she had. Maybe it was the spirit of revenge itself that guided her. She came to one block, one street, one house. It was one of the tall warehouse. Yes, this was the sort of warehouse a greenette blader would live in. A greenette blader was a wild and fearsomely strong lion blader, so powerful that he was never punished even though everyone knew he'd battled A bluenette twice.

A bluenette girl crept up to a window streaked with rain and squinted into the soft yellow lamplight inside. The living room was filled with boxes, and the floor lined with newspapers that suggested painting project. Of course, a bluenette girl thought, that explains why I've come back tonight: that guy has only just come to live here in the city. A bluenette girl smeared the glass with her mocha fingers, rage welling up in the hollow of her chest where her heart once sat. There was movement in another room. She clamored over a fence and into a side yard, creeping up to a bedroom window. Yes, there she was! A bluenette girl felt poisonous joy at the sight of her enemy.

A greenette blader picked through the rooms of new warehouse, feeling the stacks of boxes with his hands. But how weird he was! He'd become gray and bent in the years since a bluenette girl last saw him. And what was this? A greenette blader's hands moved over everything with such delicate care. It's blinding, a bluenette girl realized, blind and all but helpless. But why the lamps? Then a bluenette girl spotted the tire tracks in the wet driveway. Someone else lived here too. A caretaker, or a friend? Whoever it was, they surely wouldn't leave that guy alone for long. a bluenette girl wanted to break through the glass and seize a greenette blader, to break his bones and twist his limbs. His body was tired and clumsy but strong, terrifyingly strong.

But no, she had a better idea: She'd get a greenette blader to open the door for her. Yes, open the door and invite her in, never realizing that she was bringing doom into the place. A bluenette girl went to the front door and knocked as loudly as she could. The door opened, just a crack, and a voice said:

"Who is this?"

For a moment a bluenette girl could recognise that voice, but when she opened her mouth the words came, though they sounded strange. "Kyoya." a bluenette girl said in her clear voice, "Thank god. The rain has wet me to the bone. If you don't mind, I'd like permission to rest a while here on your porch, and hopefully dry out a bit."

The slim yellow line that indicated the door opening wavered for a second, as if the warehouse itself were pondering. Then the door opened and Kyoya beckoned her in. "Can't have you freezing out there. Come on in and dry yourself off properly."

The basement was warm. A bluenette girl felt the change in temperature vaguely, as if it were happening to someone else and she was only observing it. "I have not moved in yet." Kyoya said.

"The first night in a new house is always the loneliest," a bluenette girl, following Kyoya deeper inside. She walked slowly, the other to find her way. Even Kyoya walked faster than a bluenette girl did.

"Tell me about it," Kyoya said. "But when you get to be my age, any night can be a lonely one. I find I'm loneliest of all when someone is with me which I don't team up with anyone."

"It's the same with me," a bluenette girl said. She dripped rainwater on the hardwood floor, water black and green with the residue of her body. The rain, she knew, would cover the smell of her moldered flesh even to the her sensitive nose, but not for very long. That was all right. She would not need long. a bluenette girl could hear footsteps, a sound approached near the door, she cocked her head to one side. Kyoya put a finger to his lips as a signal: Shhhhh. A sound stopped.

A bluenette girl sighed softly. Kyoya leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "What are you doing here?" a bluenette said.

Kyoya told her about what happened.

A bluenette girl was quiet for a moment. Then she said: "So, a blackout town called Thirteen and a poor little girl named Carol."

Kyoya closed his eyes.

He began to shake. A Bluenette girl stood over him, dripping rain. It was a long time before Kyoya spoke. When he did the only words he said were: "You're next, Hikaru."

"What did you say?" Hikaru asked.

"She's coming for you." Kyoya said, and Hikaru started to panic. She screamed:

"You're kidding! No one is coming, you bastard!"

"No, I'm serious! Quit joking around!" Hikaru said.

"Maybe, I am not kidding," Kyoya said as walked towards her. "Because She had never terrorise anyone. But I'll understand soon."

"But I had to do it," said Hikaru. "Don't you see? It had to be done to resist."

Kyoya opened his eyes, the eyes are pure black. "Answer a question," Kyoya said slowly, "and I may let you live."

Hikaru's wide eyes looked at him.

"How many?" Kyoya said slowly in a low tone as he walked closer to Hikaru.

"How many what?"

Kyoya wrapped his fingers around Hikaru's throat. "How many people did she kill?" Outside, the rain was loud, like a thousand wet, clammy hands beating on the walls and windows. "Do you even know how many there were? Tell me that our lives meant at least that much to you, and I may let you go."

Hikaru blinked. She furrowed her brow. She stammered: "I…I…"

And she started to fade.

Slowly, very slowly, Kyoya reached for the lamp. He turned out the light. In the dark, there was a sound like the last bit of water swirling around the drain. And then she passed out.

And then everything went quiet.


If you like Chapter 2, please review.