BEGIN AGAIN
"Nozomi is so sure of her judgment of our character, she made the mistake not to calculate on miscalculations. She's only winning because we act exactly as she predicted. If we try our best moves, we lose. If we try at all, we lose."
Eli put aside her tablet and leaned back with a sigh.
"This is crazy," Maki said, shaking her head. "You can't instigate a nationwide demonstration within three hours."
"We have a team of professionals," Eli replied. "As long as they can get the message viral and make the evening news take notice, we'll be all set."
"No, I have to agree with Maki," Umi said, concerned. "This plan is madness. Beating Nozomi to it by being the first ones to prompt a nationwide riot? What are you thinking, this chaos is exactly what Nozomi wanted!"
"It's the opposite of it." Eli took off her suit and loosened her tie. "What she wants is to have everyone out on the streets protesting because they are desperate and scared. Turning our own military against us? That will cause chaos. We can even bet on other countries to intervene and then it will completely go out of control."
She looked up in determination. "But what we're doing is making the people voluntarily demonstrate because they are enlightened about the bad state of our country, and they will protest peacefully. We have to let them feel like they are in control over the situation, not the other way round. Nobody is forced to leave their work if they can't afford to. Nobody is forced to make a statement they're not ready to."
Maki rubbed her eyes, feeling her head spinning from the load of information she had to process in the past few minutes. "And how do you want to do that?"
Eli smiled. "The power of Social Media. Look."
She gave Umi and Maki her tablet. "Within the next few hours, our team of hackers will make the news of a demonstration go viral by implementing them in the systems of big social networks and boosting them with generated clicks. I told Koizumi not to damage the servers, only add new data and cover up the tracks so they don't get behind that it's been added artificially. We need to make them think that it's a topic made trending by the nation. Here, you can already see the results on some sites, these are only the beginnings."
Maki and Umi were on a social network site where people had less than 140 characters to express themselves. One of the trending tags caught their eyes.
"'Shout For Your Right To Speak'," Umi read. She clicked on the tag, being directed to a page with over a hundred results. "'No more injustice, no more sorrow! For our right to speak we will shout tomorrow!'"
"'Occupy the streets, occupy the roads! For our right to speak we will shout tomorrow!'" Maki continued.
Page after page, full of invocations to demonstrate the next day for a more equal system. After getting further into older results, they realized that the slogans were getting repetitive.
"The newest results are from real people who joined after seeing it getting so popular. The older ones are programmed," Eli explained, though she didn't need to as Umi and Maki had quickly figured it out.
Maki looked up. "No way. That was fast."
"Impressive, isn't it? Using the principle of viral marketing, we just have to make believe that this is what everyone talks about. And soon, this really becomes what everyone talks about," Eli replied. "Right now, our team is working on uploading as many articles about tomorrow's demonstration as possible so that it seems like it has been planned a while ago. We use every social network available."
"This is incredible," Umi muttered, continuing to browse through the web, discovering more and more sites with the demonstration topic trending. "And madness. But really incredible. Some reputable news sites are starting to react to this too...it won't be long until they bring out an article themselves."
Eli crossed her arms behind her head. "If we can get the evening news reporting this, then we've reached our goal. Then we've reached the maximum amount of exposure. It's no secret that a lot of people in this country are unsatisfied, the discontent has always been there. They just haven't found the right moment to voice it. And this is it, this is going to give them a chance to participate in something they didn't have the courage to start themselves. Once they know that they are not alone, that there are people across the country who feel the same, they will take this chance."
Umi put the tablet down, shaking her head in incredulity. "This is too sudden. How do we know if people will actually demonstrate tomorrow? It's easier to be active on the internet than out on the streets."
"But even those people have more courage in a crowd. And if we can offer that, they will march along too."
Maki pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. "I'm getting a headache." She sighed. "We're seriously trying to beat Nozomi in her own game? What are you expecting to achieve?"
Eli stood up to get a new bottle from her alcohol cabinet. She stared at it with a wistful look. "Nozomi wasn't entirely wrong. We were naive to think that only few corrupt people in our country were responsible for the entire faulty system. It's also the ignorance of the masses that hinders progress."
This time, she poured the Vodka in a glass before she drank it, closing her eyes at the burning sensation like she had swallowed fire. She felt like fifteen again, when her first taste of Vodka had burned her unprepared taste buds.
"What we need to do is to enlighten the people, to make them see that we are far away from utopia. But the difference between our plan and Nozomi's is that we're striving for a 'controlled chaos'." She rotated her glass, watching the liquid swirl in it. "This movement, this revolution has to come from the population itself. If it is only triggered by an outside factor, the fire will quickly die. But if the fire is burning within the people, then we can expect them to fight until the end."
Eli looked up with hard expression. "I don't know what Nozomi is planning, but it doesn't sound like a peaceful change if she wants a revolution fueled by anger. So I do think that our approach is the best and only way."
Umi ran a hand through her hair, her jaw tense. "Let's assume this will work. What about the naval blockade tomorrow? That issue isn't solved yet."
"Actually," Maki spoke up, an idea beginning to form in her head. "I might have a plan. But it's even crazier than Eli's 'controlled chaos' stuff."
"Honestly," Umi said, "right now, nothing is too crazy for us anymore. So let's hear it."
"That is crazy," Umi muttered, feeling a headache of her own approaching.
"But we have no other choice," Eli replied, glancing at her watch. "I hope Maki has enough time."
After telling them of her idea, Maki had gone off to set her plan into motion for which she needed to visit home first. Both Umi and Eli were skeptical about the chances of success, but it was the only plan they had.
"This feels so unreal," Umi said, touching her forehead. "For the rest of the world, it's been a normal day."
"We've never been normal to begin with," Eli muttered, sinking down in her armchair, exhausted. Her hair and clothes were rumpled, her eyes had dark rings beneath them. Umi didn't fare much better, deep lines on her face were beginning to show, and she had taken off her suit too.
"Do you regret it?" Umi asked quietly, gazing up at the ceiling with a blank look. "Everything we've done so far, do you regret it?"
Eli closed her eyes. "I would be lying if I said no. But it's also not true if I said yes. I can't tell right now. Too much happened and I'm just trying to get enough air to breathe."
Umi hummed, the sound coming from deep within her chest. "I would be ignorant to say that everything we did so far was right. Maybe we were the bad guys all along." She lowered her voice. "I wonder what he would say if he were here right now."
Eli slowly blinked her eyes open. "But he isn't here. So I want to know what you would say."
"I..." Umi took a deep breath. "I don't regret it."
"How come?"
Umi blankly gazed at the ceiling. "How I feel about my past won't change what happened. I can deny it all I want, but my past is a part of me and it shaped me. If I regret my decisions now, I'm rejecting the part of me who decided this. So I'll try not to. Even if it might have been the foolish part of me, it's still who I am."
"I..." Eli closed her mouth. She felt something inside her aching. Umi was in her mid-twenties and yet she sometimes spoke with the heavy tone of someone twice her age. She had experienced too much that normal people wouldn't experience in several life-times. "I'm sorry."
Umi gazed at her in confusion. "What for?"
"For everything." Eli stared at her hands. "For dragging you into this. I said it before, you could have become someone great. Your bright head was needed. And as the oldest between us, I shouldn't have let you become an assassin." She clenched her fists. "He never told us to take the path he did."
"What are you talking about?" Umi sat up straight, her fatigue vanishing. "You didn't drag us into anything. We decided to follow his path together. We decided to become Soldiers together, so stop making it sound like you forced us into anything. And he knows that he couldn't have stopped us. He could only prepare us the best he could."
Umi pulled at her tie. "It's my fault I mentioned him. I broke our promise of not bringing him up again and letting him rest in the past. Let's go back to our promise and keep continuing his legacy the only way we can."
"Umi..." Eli mumbled. She closed her eyes and smiled. "Sometimes I forget that you're not the girl I knew twenty years ago."
"How can you forget that, I look nothing like twenty years ago," Umi muttered.
"But it still feels fresh," Eli breathed, closing her eyes again.
It had happened again. Why did it have to happen again? Had she been a terrible person in a past life that she was punished for it now? But she was only eight, she knew nothing of the world, she understood nothing, why was she punished for something she had no influence on?
Everything inside her hurt. She wanted to cover her eyes and ears and never see or hear anything ever again, just let the darkness swallow her. But she couldn't, she needed to stay strong for the blue-haired girl who was loudly weeping, crying and begging her parents to wake up. But they weren't going to wake up. They were never going to wake up again, resting forever on the ground with bullet holes in their heads.
"Umi..." Her voice was barely above a whisper, hoarse and broken. "Umi, they're not going to wake up..."
The smaller girl furiously shook her head, wiped at her eyes and kept pulling at the lifeless body of her mother.
"Mama! Mama, wake up! Please! Why won't you wake up?" she desperately cried between sobs, then turned to her father who lied next to her mother. "Papa...please wake up...Did I do something wrong? I promise I will get better! Wake up, please!"
"Umi," the blonde girl cried, "they're not going to wake up-"
"Mama...Papa...wake up..."
"Umi...they're not going to..."
The blue-haired girl screamed in anguish, her tiny body trembling as she lied on the ground between her dead parents in a fetal position, hardly getting enough air to breathe between her sobs.
Eli sank to her knees, tears streaming over her cheeks. It had happened again. And it hurt just as much as the first time. Maybe she was cursed, maybe she was meant to be alone. When the universe took her parents, she should have stayed alone instead of letting the Sonodas adopt her. But now she had brought the curse to Umi and lost her parents a second time.
The murder had been later declared as a burglary gone wrong. But no charges against a person unknown followed, neither did the Sonodas get an autopsy. Eli and Umi were too young to understand that their parents' murder had been treated as nothing, quickly swept under the rug without getting any attention from the media.
If they hadn't been immediately taken away by the police, they would have noticed that nothing of value in the Sonoda house was missing. Only the study had been completely destroyed, every furniture had been knocked over and folders and papers were scattered all over the ground.
Eli and Umi were taken in by a foster home and assigned to a new family. But their foster father always came home late from work, drunk and aggressive, and when he tried to hit his wife one night, Eli and Umi stabbed him in his thigh with a kitchen knife. After this incident, they were transferred to a different family, never knowing what happened to the woman, who had defended her husband when the police came.
Their new foster family used to have a child before it committed suicide. When Umi and Eli found out why, they ran, crying for the girl who had never been seen as one by her parents. Isolation, therapies, threats and beatings didn't make the girl stuck inside a boy's body change, but they destroyed her.
The two girls ran and ran, away from the misery that seemed to follow them. Maybe if they ran fast enough, they could outrun the curse that was placed on them.
They were starving and exhausted when they stumbled into an alley where a red-haired girl was cornered by a large man. He was shouting at her, yelling about how much he had paid to save her from child traffickers, expecting her to show some gratitude. A minute later, he was lying on the ground in the dirt, knocked unconscious by Umi with a metal pipe.
And then they were three. But still homeless. They had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay. They were just children, but no one gave them much attention, thinking they were sent by their parents to beg for money.
But their curse ended when a young man found them sleeping on the doorstep to an abandoned shop. He called his brother and told him to get him blankets, clothes, a flashlight and food.
He bundled the children up in thick blankets, put on more clothes himself and stayed awake by their side the whole night, making sure no one could harm them while they slept.
When it was morning, Umi was the first one to wake up and find herself wrapped in a warm blanket. That was when she noticed a man sitting with his back turned to them, his head tilting to the side every few seconds as he was close to dozing off.
She screamed in fear, waking up the man and the two other girls, who looked around in confusion and panic. Was someone out to get them again? Was someone going to kill them like they killed their parents?
"No, it's okay," the man whispered, carefully pushing a box that was filled with bread and rice balls towards them without getting closer to them himself. He didn't stand up either, making sure to remain the same height as the girls.
They didn't trust him. But their stomachs growled. They eyed the food with watering mouths.
The man took out water bottles from a bag and let them roll to the girls' feet. They quickly reached for them because closed water bottles from the store couldn't have anything strange in them, and they eagerly drank the bottles empty.
"Here are some clothes," the man said, pulling out old jackets. He chuckled to himself. "These are mine, so they'll be too large on you. But this way they can keep your whole body warm, even your legs."
They didn't know how he had done it, but they slowly came to trust him. They ate all the food and drank more water, then put on the clothes without a word.
"Come with me," the man said, smiling gently. He was young, they could tell that he probably had just turned of age. "Come with me and I can help you."
But the girls hesitated, shaking their heads.
"Then I will come back tonight," he said.
And he kept his promise. He came back that night. And every other night. He always brought food and fresh clothes, always watched over them when they were sleeping but he was gone during the day. Weeks went by with no changes until one day, he showed up with one eye shut and bleeding. He told the girls not to worry, that they should go to sleep as usual, but they refused.
That was the first time they followed him home. It was a small apartment above a dojo that he owned with his older brother.
The three girls didn't know how to help him medically, so they brought him water and food and made sure to change out the towel on his eye as he rested on his bed. They didn't understand why he didn't just go to a hospital. He just said something about being only in more danger if he went there.
His eye never healed. He wore an eyepatch ever since and he was called Pai by the girls as short for pirate. Pai just laughed at his new nickname but accepted it without protest.
Umi, Maki and Eli started living with Pai and his brother. They helped out with their dojo and started taking lessons themselves along with other students. They worked hard to make Pai proud and they soon became the best in his class, not only because of their diligence but also because of their talent. It seemed like they possessed a natural aptitude to predict their enemy's next move, allowing them to react fast enough to counter almost any attack. The colors of their karate belts changed rapidly until they finally reached black. By that time, they were sixteen.
Pai became like a father to them. The third father Eli had, the second to Umi, and the first one to Maki, who had never grown up with a father figure before. Her mother had raised her alone until she had been murdered. Two men had stormed into their tiny apartment one night and choked her to death, then grabbed her screaming daughter and drugged her so she wouldn't struggle as she was taken away.
Maki was too young to remember her father, which was why she turned out to be more attached to Pai than Umi and Eli. Up until she was twelve, she followed him around wherever he went and was content with sitting in his room reading while he took a nap.
The girls all tried to copy their role model in some ways. Pai had caught fifteen year old Eli trying to drink his Vodka that he had left on the kitchen counter. He quickly snatched it away and said that this was a trait she didn't need to learn from him. Or at least, not now.
One day, Pai walked into his bedroom to find his closet emptied out, and Umi and Maki slowly appeared from behind the mountain of clothes, wearing his suits. He laughed for five minutes at the sight of two little girls in overlarge suits that reached to their knees. They had also tried to wear ties but didn't know how to knot them, so they had tied it the same way they would seal a bag with a rope.
The next day, Pai came home with three little suits that he had bought from the boys' section and he showed the girls how to do a four-in-hand knot. Since that day, whenever Pai wore a suit, the girls would too. At that time, he couldn't know how his habit had shaped Eli, Umi and Maki for the future. He couldn't know that his traits would later become a part of the Soldier's identity.
Day after day, self-study in the morning, training in the afternoon and workout in the evening, the three girls steeled their body and mind with such a rigorous schedule. Pai and his brother taught them everything they knew, becoming not only their teachers but also their parental figures. They spent almost every day together, laughing, training, learning, fighting.
But there were some days were neither Pai nor his brother could teach them martial arts because they were out for the whole day. They always told the girls they were busy helping people by improving the environment and cleaning up the dirt. Sometimes they came back with bleeding wounds or bruises. But they only smiled, ruffled the girls' hair and told them they had done something good for the people again.
It wasn't until they were eighteen when they finally understood.
A fire had been laid in the dojo and it had burned down everything. Burning the place that had become their home, burning the apartments above, burning Pai and his brother to death, only leaving behind their ashes that couldn't be distinguished from the rest of the black remainder.
Maki, Umi and Eli only survived because Pai had let them escape through the windows first, making sure they got safely on the ground before he allowed himself to pass out from inhaling too much carbon monoxide. His brother had been injured from the day before, unable to move on his own, and he also passed out before the fire took his life.
And there was nothing the three girls could do. They couldn't climb back up to the burning apartment, they didn't know how to carry two men out even if they could climb up. Everything just kept burning, the crumbling walls couldn't hold the old building any longer, and the girls had no choice but to watch their last home fall apart and burn down to the ground. The fire department only arrived when the walls had given in and the building had collapsed, burying everything beneath a heap of burning debris.
So here they stood, in front of nothing which used to be their everything. They should be used to it by now, losing everything. But no matter how tough their body and mind had become from their years of training, they were still brought to their knees at the sight of their home in ashes.
Maki took his death the hardest. Despite not shedding a single tear, she refused to leave her now non-existent home, not budging when Eli and Umi tried to pull her away from the ruins. It escalated into a fight between Maki and Eli, and Umi didn't intervene because she knew they were just hurting and searching for a way to forget the pain. They threw punches at each other and didn't dodge them because they wanted the physical pain to distract them from everything else, to remind themselves that they were alive. They were alive because Pai had wanted them to live.
And they only had one thing of him left, the only proof he had ever existed.
Pai had shoved a key and a note with an address into Eli's hands before they had climbed out of the window. His last words to them were, "You are the bravest team I've ever met, as brave as a thousand soldiers together. Please take care."
The address he had given them led them to an inconspicuous warehouse in an old industrial area of the city where most of the buildings used to be production factories or storehouses before one factory after another closed down. Now they all stood empty, but were still locked up so homeless people couldn't settle down inside them.
The key that Pai gave Eli unlocked a world unknown to them. The warehouse itself was unspectacular, huge and spacey and empty. But Umi had noticed that there was a rectangle space on the ground that was less dirty and dusty than the area around it. It turned out to be a hidden door that led to an underground room.
And what they found next defined the rest of their lives.
A variety of guns and knives were stacked on one side of the wall, the opposite wall was one giant pin board of which each square centimeter had been covered by cut out newspaper articles, names, photographs, most of them being snapshots of people's faces. Between the weapons and the pin board, three computers with six large screens had been set up, and the desk was scattered with external hard drives and other data carriers.
But three other things caught the girls' attention. There were three files on the desk with their names on it. Nishikino Maki, Sonoda Umi, Ayase Eli. They each took theirs respectively. And by the time they had finished reading it, they all knew what had to be done, they all knew what was going to happen next. In that instant, their future had been already decided.
The files that Pai had prepared for them was the result of a year long research on their parents' murder. He had purposely laid them out in the open because he had feared that one day, he might not be alive for the moment he needed to give those files to them. And he turned out to be right. His research had left traces, leading right back to him and he was killed by the same people who had killed Umi's and Eli's parents.
In a note that Pai had left for the girls, he said it was their choice to follow which path. He hadn't given them those information so they could exact revenge, but rather that they had closure. What they decided to do next with the information wasn't something Pai could control, neither did he want to. They were free to choose their own path.
And they chose the battle. They chose to fight. They swore to never speak of Pai's name again in a world that didn't deserve him, they swore to honor him silently by continuing his legacy.
And their very first mission was to avenge their parents, to avenge Pai and his brother. They dealt with the murderers of Maki's parents first because they were an easier target. In one night, the Soldiers eliminated a whole gang of child traffickers, who sold the children to prostitution rings. They had managed to stay undetected for so long because the local police department had been bribed to close an eye on them. The corrupt police chief also ended up with a sliced throat the next day.
But their next mission needed careful planing. It wasn't a crazy killer who had murdered Umi's and Eli's parents all those years ago, it wasn't an ordinary enemy. It was the chairman of the leading party in the country who had financed his political campaigns with dirty money from drug dealing, money laundering and prostitution. Under a different name, he was a powerful figure in the underworld and he led a gang that had no scruples, executing his orders without questioning him. But out in the normal world, he was called Kasei Hideki, an eloquent man whose slogan 'For A Fairer Tomorrow' had won over the majority in the elections.
Eli's mother, a renowned journalist, had been commissioned to write an article about the success story of the man who seemed to have won the election overnight. But during her research on his campaign sponsors, company shares and his background, information started getting blurry and contradicting. She called up sponsors who didn't exist, tried contacting companies who refused to give an interview, at last she attempted to directly talk to Kasei. But his manager warded her off.
So she published an article where she criticized the party leader's dubious past and his non-existent sponsors. Where did the money come from? Where did his followers come from? His political program didn't promise anything new, most of the points were almost identical with that of his opponents.
Hours after that article went online, she received a phone call and when she picked up, it was Kasei himself. He asked her to take that article down because of inaccuracy. She refused. He offered her money, more money than she would earn in a year. She still said no. She said her article was only the beginning, she was going to find out the whole truth because she couldn't let someone so obscure make important decisions for her country.
The next day, Eli came home from school to find her parents and her little sister still sitting at the kitchen table, their breakfast untouched, sprinkled with blood.
She screamed. Screamed until the neighbors came, cried until the police arrived, and then stayed silent for days until the Sonodas were allowed to legally adopt her and take her away from the orphanage.
The Sonodas had been close friends to the Ayase family, so it was no question that they would warmly welcome Eli into their family. Umi already looked up to the blonde as an older sister too.
But while Eli let herself heal in the loving embrace of her new parents, the Sonodas couldn't stop talking about the murder at night when the children were asleep. They were shocked when they found out that no autopsy had been ordered. They were lawyers, they frequently stood in courts and fought to get guilty criminals into jail, so they knew the usual procedures after a murder. But the Ayase family wasn't granted that. Their bodies were already resting beneath the ground in a graveyard by the time the Sonodas could intervene.
The court said that the evidence at the crime scene and the photographs of the bodies sufficed for further investigation. An autopsy would be unnecessary as the victims had obviously died from bullets entering their brain.
The Sonodas knew right away that someone powerful was involved to hinder the investigation of their friends' murder. If they wanted to reveal the perpetrator, they needed solid evidence to be able to stand a chance against them. So they broke into the Ayase home one night and gathered all the information they could, knowing that they were acting illegally and risking their jobs, but they couldn't let their friends' case end like this. What were they going to tell their daughter once she grew up and understood that her parents had been intentionally killed?
But as careful as they were, they weren't careful enough. The moment they had found out the truth was the same moment that secret had died with them.
Until Pai came across it ten years later. Ten years, and Kasei Hideki was still active. Despite not being the leader of his party anymore, he was still as powerful and influential as ever, if not even more. Instead of standing at the front himself, he directed everyone from the shadows, and his successor was nothing more than his puppet.
Under the pretense of creating a more democratic government, Kasei played a clever game using a double strategy where he made false promises to both ends of an agreement while he was the one who profited the most. Companies wanted him to loosen emission restrictions while the citizens wanted a reduction of industrial discharge. So he promised his voters to bring forth stricter regulations while he told the companies that he might be able to hold off the new laws if they could reimburse their pollutant emissions with a certain amount of money that would go into funding development projects for climate protection. Millions of US dollars ended up somewhere in one of Kasei's bank accounts all over the world.
The citizens never found out if new regulations had been introduced. They had forgotten all about it weeks and months later, when other news brought different problems to the foreground. Terrorist attacks, civil wars in other countries, inexplicable plane crashes and human rights' movements became more important. Every week, a different topic dominated the news. Yes, the climate was still changing, but society too and wasn't that issue more immediate?
Kasei never had to explain why he didn't bring forth new regulations. He deemed humans as ignorant creatures, who were always focused on the now, forgetting about today's problems in a week when it would be no longer a fresh topic, when no one talked about it any longer. His favorite example of human ignorance were refugee camps. Refugee camps existed all over the world but the importance of the issue was in direct correlation with the amount of exposure it got in the media. On some days it was an issue that needed worldwide attention and immediate intervention, on other days it was an issue that didn't seem to exist.
Kasei absolutely despised people. Many had died at his orders. But some he had saved on good days. They had managed to entertain him with their ideologies of the future society, so he had granted them money and a home. He saw it as an investment in case he had to use puppets some time in the future again.
For years, Kasei Hideki was untouchable. Until he was murdered on a summer night.
He was out taking a walk in the park with two bodyguards trailing behind him when two bullets pierced his skull. His bodyguards were spared from the same fate. Even when they reacted fast by scouting the nearby area and calling backup, they couldn't manage to find the assassin. It was most likely a long distance shot from a sniper.
The nation mourned the loss of a hero he never was. His puppet of a successor didn't keep his position for long, making way for a new leader who genuinely fought for a fairer tomorrow.
Kasei's gang divided into smaller groups who didn't survive for long on their own; Eli, Maki and Umi hunted every single member down who was associated to that man. They felt no mercy the same way the gang members had felt no mercy at killing their parents. Maki burned all the illegal money and drugs while Eli and Umi made one man after another drop dead to the ground with a clean shot to their heads.
Their vendetta was over. They had their closure now. They didn't have to kill anyone anymore. But there were more people like Kasei out there, even worse ones, and how could Maki, Eli and Umi sleep at night knowing that people like him might be destroying more lives and families?
They realized there was no going back. They didn't want to go back. They were needed, they were the only ones who could do it - keeping their sanity while working in the dark. It was a battle that had just begun, a battle of many, probably a war even. A war against everything wrong in their world. And they were ready to fight; after all, they were as brave as a thousand soldiers. And Soldiers they became.
Eli's eyes fluttered open, blinking in confusion. "How long have I been out?"
"Twenty minutes," Umi said after glancing at her watch. "I figured you needed the nap."
"Yeah," Eli breathed, rubbing at her tired eyes. The nap hadn't been restful for her at all. She wanted to tell Umi of what she had dreamed when the tablet on her work desk vibrated, indicating an incoming video call. Eli quickly reached for it and turned on the screen.
"Koizumi?"
The woman in the screen looked tired but satisfied. "Please turn on your television."
Umi grabbed the remote from the coffee table and turned on the large flat screen in their office which took up half of the wall. "The evening news!"
"Almost every channel is reporting it," Koizumi remarked, readjusting her glasses. "Some institutions are planning to stay closed tomorrow for safety reasons. Schools, embassies and administrative buildings of the government are affected. The police are preparing to protect the governmental building."
The television was mute, Eli and Umi preferred to listen to Koizumi's summary since it was shorter and to the point. While she informed them, the news channel presented screen shots of the reactions to the demonstration announcements on social media.
Dubbed as the 'New Equality Movement', it was described as a revolutionary turnaround in the country because it showed the unity and solidarity of the people as never seen before. The nation was fired up, everyone was ready to be part of the change, whether young or old. The old wanted to redeem their inaction in the past and fight for a better future for their children. The young wanted to take their fate into their own hands, shaping a world they wanted to grow old in.
If they didn't revolt now, when would they ever get the chance to shout their pain off their chest? When would they ever get the chance to fight for their own future again? Everyone wanted their share of sense of purpose and accomplishment in life. Everyone wanted to feel like their existence made a difference in the universe. Up until now, they had been floating, drifting weightlessly through life without a sense of direction, always living for tomorrow because today never seemed to be good enough. And now they had finally found something that made them feel alive, made them feel like their voice would matter.
They just wanted to feel like they mattered. They didn't want to go under in a materialistic and capitalistic system where someone's worth was based on wealth, social standing and academic performance. In a game that favored the privileged people, there were bound to be losers who could neither change their fate nor escape it.
But the New Equality Movement was their chance to be heard. To let everybody know that yes, they had been born on the losing side of life, but life wasn't a game. There should be no losing or winning side. There should be equal chances at a life worth living for everyone.
"All social networks are burning up with this topic," Koizumi reported. "It's flooding the nation. Everyone with access to media has heard or seen it by now. If we deduct the generated clicks and posts we programmed, we will have over seven million participants in the nationwide demonstrations tomorrow. Alone in Tokyo we can expect a number of over one million. The entire infrastructure will be brought to a standstill."
"Over seven million?" Umi repeated in disbelief. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Ms Sonoda." Koizumi sounded unhappy about being doubted. "Those are our current calculations. The numbers will change over night, though a decrease is unlikely."
"What are the chances of chaos breaking out?" Eli probed. "Did you include the points I asked you to?"
"Of course. Chances of violent outbreaks are not be underestimated since we are dealing with large numbers here. But we made sure to focus on a peaceful propaganda and we have received only positive feedback so far."
Satisfied, Eli nodded. She wanted to thank Koizumi and her team for their hard work when the telephone in her office rang.
Umi got up from her seat, alert. Eli stared at the ringing telephone on her desk.
"Is everything okay?" Koizumi's insecure voice rang out from the tablet.
"Koizumi, I need you to track down whoever is calling me on my office phone," Eli said tensely, and Koizumi nodded, immediately getting to work.
It was a phone that they never used, having only installed it because they were required to specify a number if they wanted to rent a floor in this building. They needed to be addressable by the reception in case a visitor needed to be announced.
She picked up the phone and put it on speaker. "This is Ayase Eli, how can I help you?"
"Hello, this is the reception. We would like to forward a call from the Minami Group with your permission."
Umi shot up from her seat. Eli shared a tense look with her. When Umi hesitantly nodded, Eli said, "Yes, please do."
"Just a moment please."
The line clicked.
"Hello, Eli."
Eli sank down in her chair, feeling her chest tighten. "Nozomi..."
"I miss you." Nozomi's voice sounded soft. Eli's hands shook.
"What are you trying to do?" Umi said harshly, not trusting the other woman who still had the capability to manipulate Eli without being present.
"Umi...I'm really sorry to hear about what happened to you. The wedding was all Kotori talked about. I hope you are doing alright?"
Umi turned away and forced herself to remain calm. "What game are you trying to play?"
"Game?" Nozomi's questioning voice rang through the speaker. "I see. I lost all your trust, didn't I?"
"Is that surprising?" Umi hissed. She worriedly looked at Eli, whose torn expression left deep lines on her face.
"I'm sorry it became this way," Nozomi said, sounding sincere. "I never meant to set you up as my enemies. Eli, listen please, I know you're blaming yourself for everything that has happened, but I would have finished my mission sooner or later. I knew I couldn't get to keep both you and my plan, I knew I had to choose at some point."
"Don't listen to her," Umi said angrily when Eli wistfully glanced at the phone.
"Eli, I love you. I really do. It hurt to leave you that night, and I honestly considered giving up altogether. But I think you will understand one day. Maybe sooner than you think."
Eli's eyes widened. "Nozomi..."
Umi took Eli's tablet where the video call with Koizumi had not been disconnected yet.
"Koizumi, where's the call coming from?" she asked quietly.
"It's a number registered to the Minami Group, but I need more time to be able to tell the exact location. It could be anywhere in the Minami Group Tower," came the fast reply among the clicking sounds of swift fingers typing away on a keyboard.
"Nozomi, where are you," Eli said, desperation in her voice. "We can fix this. We don't have to fight each other."
"We really don't," Nozomi whispered in a sad tone. "I never wanted to become your enemy, Eli. But this was the only way..."
"Tsh," Umi pressed through gritted teeth. "It couldn't have been."
"The demonstrations won't change anything," Nozomi said without reacting to Umi. "The government will make empty promises like they've always done before and once everything cools down, they pretend nothing ever happened. But I need more chaos, I need it to consume the whole city or I won't be able to finish my mission."
"Don't," Eli begged, hovering over the phone. "Tell me where you are, we'll work this out together."
"Eli..." Nozomi's voice was soft. "Stop tempting me with things I'm not allowed to have. Being with you felt like a beautiful dream, but I can't allow myself to be distracted by a dream when I'm needed in our reality. A reality that is far less romantic than our dreams."
"Nozomi-"
"Please don't chase after me. I beg you not to. I don't want to put you in a dangerous position. Especially you, Umi. It will only hurt Kotori if you are caught because the only way she'll hear from you is seeing your name pulled through the dirt by every news media."
Umi clenched her fist. "As if I don't know that."
"Then please don't follow me. Please."
"I'm sorry," Umi answered in a grim tone. "I can't do that."
"I'm sorry too," Nozomi replied, soft. "I hope you can forgive me some day."
Umi remained silent.
"Eli...goodbye."
"No, Nozomi, don't..."
"Please don't ever think I didn't love you. I'm doing this all for you."
The line beeped when the call was disconnected. Eli slammed her fist down on the table, letting out a shout of misery and pain.
"We have her," Koizumi announced, undeterred by Eli's outburst. "Minami Group Tower, the administration office on the 26th floor. But I doubt that she will still be there by the time you arrive."
"It doesn't matter," Umi said, checking up her gun. "We still need to visit the places she's been to so we can get a hint on the places she'll go to."
"Umi, you can't," Eli said tiredly. "Your face is too familiar to everyone working at Minami Group. Let me handle that one alone."
"No, absolutely not," Umi refused. "You are not in peak form right now with your wounded shoulder. I won't let you do this alone, especially not if we might confront Nozomi. And it's evening now, so there shouldn't be many people left."
Sensing that arguing with Umi in her determined state was a waste of scarce energy, Eli nodded. Every second counted, they needed to move fast if they wanted to increase the chance of catching Nozomi.
"Let's go."
Few people were working overtime in the Minami Group Tower at nine in the evening. The reception in the entrance hall was unoccupied and no security guard was in sight either.
Umi had only visited Kotori's workplace once and after they had almost gotten caught undressing each other in Kotori's office, Umi refused to visit her fiancée during work again. Both had a professional reputation to upkeep. Or at least, Kotori still had. Umi was now on the list of most wanted criminals across the country.
"Koizumi sent the OK," Umi muttered after glancing at her phone. "The cameras are disabled and the missing footage will be replaced by a random recording from last year. Log data will be overwritten. Let's go."
Eli nodded, feeling adrenaline kicking back in. She needed to stay alert, just for one more little mission.
They marched into the tall building, their open suit jackets fluttering as they walked fast and straight to the elevators, meeting no one on their way. If they did, they would arise suspicion instantly with their disheveled look.
Eli had shed her tie and unbuttoned her crumpled collar, the hem of her shirt no longer tucked inside her pants. Her suit was dirty too from spilled Vodka and blood because her shoulder wound had been reopened after her short fight with Maki. But she didn't even register the pain, too focused on her mission to be distracted by anything else.
Despite having a cleaner appearance, Umi wasn't in a better state than Eli. She had lost count of the hours she had been awake and running, only still able to open her eyes because she was afraid of passing out if she closed them for longer than a second.
When soft elevator music enveloped them like a sweet lullaby, they realized how close to collapsing they actually were. They couldn't stand on their feet for much longer, they needed to sleep and rest soon.
"Let's do this quickly," Eli muttered, blinking rapidly to stop her vision from getting blurry. The pain killers were taking a toll on her, numbing her mind. "I can't last another restless night."
"Me neither," Umi mumbled, gripping at her tie.
The elevator stopped at the 26th floor, opening its doors. Umi and Eli faced each other with a determined look, their eyes becoming focused again. They couldn't afford to make mistakes now.
The floor was unlit as no one worked here around this time anymore, which suited Umi and Eli just fine as they both preferred to move in the dark. Pulling out their guns and holding them up, they sneaked to the door with the label 'administration'.
Eli gazed at Umi, who nodded. The blonde pressed down the handle and Umi kicked the door open, storming in first with her gun raised, followed closely by Eli.
The room was pitch dark and dead quiet.
Umi lowered her gun and took out a tiny flashlight from her suit pocket, swinging it around the room before it landed on the office telephone. She stepped closer to it, narrowing her eyes when she discovered a thin layer of dust on it.
"Eli," Umi hissed, alarmed, quickly turning to her friend, "the call wasn't made from here, it only used its number. Nozomi was never here."
"No," Eli's eyes widened. "We've been set up."
"Bingo." And the lights went on.
Shielding their eyes, Umi and Eli were incapable of reacting as they were blinded by an unnatural source of light, too bright to be only the ceiling lights. Someone was purposely pointing a large flashlight at them.
"Finally got you."
Umi's gun was ripped out of her hands and she got shoved against the wall with her right cheek pressed against the cold surface. Her arms were roughly pulled behind her back so someone could close handcuffs around her wrists.
"Eli..."
But her friend had already been pushed to the ground, lying on her stomach with her hands cuffed behind her back too.
The large flashlight went off, the room now only illuminated by warm ceiling lights. Eli blinked, lifting her head to see three policemen with bulletproof vests pointing their guns at her. She let her head drop on the ground again, closing her eyes. It was over.
"I said I would get you into jail no matter what... Sonoda Umi, you are under arrest for the murder of Yuuki Sora."