Rappele Toi Toujours de Moi
Remember Me Always
Saya
Chapitre 3-les fusils et les couteaux
Chapter 3-guns and knives
Chloe held the gun uncomfortably with both hands, the recoil was too strong for either her or Kirika to handle one-handed. So far, she had been playing around with the thing for a month and she had hardly made any progress at all. Not like the older girl who looked so completely at ease with the weapon resting in her hand, like it was an extension of herself…
The red-head aimed and shot again, completely missing the target and hitting a tree somewhere in the distance. A flock of birds sprang into the air when the bullet impacted with a bang. "Stupid…" she muttered to herself, not aware that Kirika and Altena were standing behind her. The Japanese girl stepped up to stand beside the younger girl.
"It isn't really that hard," the dark-haired child said solemnly. She did everything solemnly, everything was so serious with her. Chloe, on the other hand, was not that way at all. Oh, she could be serious if need be, but she was usually exactly opposite in personality to Kirika. They balanced each other out, complemented each other. They were, after all, destined to become Le Vrai Noir…two halves of a whole. "You're too tense, relax."
Since Chloe had arrived at the Manor, there had been a noticeable change in Kirika's demeanor. She was a little more open, a little less serious, a little more outgoing. She was always daring, there was no need to say she was more daring, that quality was already engraved in the Japanese girl's personality. The red-head looked at the other girl for a moment before closing her eyes and trying to relax her body. Immediately, an image of that day flashed before her eyes.
The day that she watched Kirika kill the Bouquets. It was so beautiful, she remembered exactly what the assassin had looked like as she had done the job and Chloe tried to emulate it. She fired again, at least this time she was closer to the bull's eye. She actually managed to hit the target.
Altena gently placed her hands on the girls' shoulders. "You're both improving, you're doing so well," she said, her voice just as gentle as her touch. "Come, dear ones, you need to eat. And there are people that want to meet you." The younger girls exchanged glances. Chloe had not been around too long, and Kirika had no clue who those people might be. But they both obediently went inside, not even realizing that the blond girl was still standing outside.
The girl gave an odd smile, sweet but something about it was unnerving, as if it was too sweet to be real, evil in a way. "Soon they'll see the benefit of the return of the Noir," she said to herself as she followed her charges back into the Manor.
Kirika and Chloe were told by the other women to dress up. They bathed together and when they both got out two identical sets of clothing were laid out on a bed. The women, dressed like all the others in the Manor, pulled the gray and black tank tops and skirts onto the little girls and led them down the hall to the drawing room where the guests were apparently waiting. Though both girls were nervous as the women left them and tall, dark, imposing men that sat around the fire scrutinized them, only Chloe showed it. The Japanese girl stood tall and stared stoically back but the red-head shifted nervously, she knew enough by that time not to look away. She was going to be Noir, someday they were going to have to pay their respect to her.
"There are my girls," Kirika and Chloe hadn't noticed Altena until she spoke up from her place in one of the larger, more comfortable chairs. "This is Kirika," she waved an arm in the Japanese girl's direction, "and Chloe," she pointed at the red-head. "What do you think of them so far?" A trace of a smirk flickered across her face, but no one seemed to notice it, or if they did they paid it no mind. After all, it was best not to go against Altena, not when she had so much support as things stood. And she was still so young; the men shuddered to think of what she would be like when she was older.
One of the men pulled a cigar out of his mouth as he lounged in his recliner, "These little girls are going to be Noir? That one looks too afraid to move and the other girl looks too weak to do anything." That was it. Unable to control her temper as of yet, at least not in the way Kirika and Altena did, Chloe's hand clenched around a butter knife that lay in a tea tray. In a flash, the red-head had thrown the knife directly at the man who had insulted her and her friend.
Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, it missed. But it shut the man up, and for the rest of the uncomfortable two hours they remained he and his companions continued to shoot worried glances in the direction of the two girls. Altena smiled and nodded her head at Chloe but offered no other acknowledgement, but the red-head glowed with pride. She had finally done something right, as to what that something was she still had no idea. But apparently Kirika did, because she kept stealing glances at her friend as well.
The next day, all three girls were in Altena's office, the blonde sitting behind her desk, watching the other two serenely through her mystifying amethyst eyes. "It looks as though I was wrong in my choice of weapon for you, dear one," she addressed Chloe. Although the oldest called both her juniors 'dear one' she usually refrained from calling Kirika so. "We have a set of knives and swords downstairs that we can start you on," the red-head's eyes glinted at the words, "and Kirika, we'll start a different kind of training for you…"
The Japanese girl nodded, apparently she understood. When she and Chloe walked out of Altena's office and into the cold, dimly lit hallway, the younger girl asked, "What did she mean, 'different kind of training'? Isn't the stuff you do really hard already, Kirika?"
But the dark-haired girl shrugged, apparently she did not want to delve further into the conversation. That itself served as her answer to the question. Yes, training was already difficult, and not even Kirika could readily think about the level of difficulty of this new kind of training.