Somehow the blackness is comforting, its all around, making her groggy and ill but she still loves how blank and numb it makes her feel. Its bittersweet and it reminds her of her mother, faint and glamorous. The memories tug at her mind, calling for recognition.
The leaves hues are comparable to the fall apple she is eating, crunching slowly and savoring its crisp, slightly warmed skin. Her mother is laughing.
'She doesn't laugh like this when Da is home.'
She thinks, her four-year-old mind unable to perceive anything cruel or malicious. Her mother is always beautiful, sparkling smile, makeup over her features, long hair.. . 'Pretty, pretty'…like always, beautiful, covering up the unsightly bruises with care.
She pats her lap for Ritsu to come sit.
"Come, Ritsu. Let mama tell you a story." Ritsu sits on her mothers lap, leaning back and listening to her mothers voice spin a story of a princess in a tower, a knight and a cruel lord, and Ritsu thinks, thinks HARD about where her mother came up with the story, but can't remember and relaxes.
She's hiding under the table, covering her ears and crying because the shouting sand fighting won't STOP. And Da is angry with her, with her Mother.
'Too LOUD, too loud!' She is screaming inside, and tries to ignore the screaming. Her Da is shouting and she hears that quiet, quiet, loud sound of a knife and a cutting, cutting, hurting someone. Its quiet and she hears a slam, and thuds, like someone's stomping away, and she creeps out from under the table, slipping in the red liquid spilled on the ground. She crawls up to where her mother is laying, crumpled, blood on her dress, her hair.
"Mama, Da is gone!! Wake up, mama. Mama? Mama, wake up! Mama!" She screams, trying to wake her mother up, and failing to. The tears are coursing down her cheeks and she remembers her mother's words when she cried because she skinned her knee.
She had slapped Ritsu to make her stop crying and had snapped,
'Stop crying, Ritsu! When you cry, you give in!' And Ritsu had stopped altogether, after being shocked by the slap. But now, it seems okay to cry. Because mama is sleeping and nobody can hear her. She drags herself away from the house, trying to rub off the blood that's on her dress, her hair, her hands, and her memory. She starts running, and runs until she can barely breathe and collapses in an alley.
She's been living on the streets and she's fourteen now, scavenging and pick pocketing whenever she needs money. She steals nicotine and smokes it away herself. The Blood Roses were tough, she likes them. Kabuku is always giving her tests and setting her ahead of the group, because he sees she can go far, she will succeed even if it kills her. They teach her fighting and she shows them how top steal, how to get away, how to survive. Being like them, cruel, hard, twirling the knife and playing God to the victims, it's hard. The Mafia is her goal and she's gonna get there, and then she thinks she'll be content…Until she gets status, that is.
'That's Ritsu for you, though. Only content until another challenge is acknowledged.' Kabuku had laughed, ruffling her hair as he passed out the food they had just filched. And Ritsu had beamed with pride, knowing they needed her.
Her gang became her family, she knew their pasts, mistakes, lives, talents and sometimes she thinks she knows their souls. Nothing comes between them, their going to make it together or all die right now. Its tough for her, making them know she's a cute blonde girl, she's not going to 'sleep' her way to the head of anywhere and she's going far, farther than YOU. She was learning street fighting and could take down most people that teased or insulted her. She was getting familiar with drugs, weapons and poisons, learning from an older assassin who was in hiding, she was going to be an assassin, the best.
Her gang resented her, slowly but surely, since she was their luckiest, the golden ticket to nowhere. She never thought they would turn on her so quickly or so viciously. The fall she turned sixteen, they put twenty, small razor blades in the cake they stole from the bakery and if she didn't swallow them, the cake was also poisoned. They had planned to kill her anyway they could. Envy was a mild word. She still has the scars down her back from where Kabuku's knives slashed her, and where Crystal's daggers had cut a perfect circular shape on the skin where her neck met her jaw line. She shudders in her sedated state,
'They tried to MURDER me.'
The Mafia was worse, Fendi's business was harsher than she could've ever imagined. Much more murderous and cold. He SENT assassins to kill her when he thought she was getting too soft.
'This whole JOB was a test.'
She feels her teeth grate in agitation.
"Hey. Wake up." She hears and someone whacks her upside the head.
"Uuuugh." She groans, opening her eyes, watching images swim before her eyes and is welcomed a blonde guy crouched over her, looking into her face and his red-head companion and a pounding headache.