Chapter 8
Trials
"Sharp," congratulated the newcomer. Her beady eyes—so big in her sockets, they were nearly fully black—locked on the students. "Very sharp. However, it appears that those skills have not been passed on. The candidates need better training. Araki nearly died. A failure on your end, and in doing so, probable replacement of a new Noir—."
"Threatening us—who the hell do you think you are?" growled Mireille, gun trained on her.
The Soldat dipped her head. "Shirihime." She looked at the children. "If you can't protect them, you fail. And if they die, that proves they are no longer worthy . . . of inheriting the title of Noir. So train them."
"I'm done with crazy bitches." Mireille was about to pull the trigger, but a different gunshot went off. She glared at Riki, only to find the gesture returned.
Riki's gun was set on her. There were hot tears in her eyes, as she seemed to vibrate with anger.
"Fire at HER, not me!" snapped Mireille.
"We're even, now," spat Riki, stepping closer. "But we're not stupid! This damn woman just said that if we failed, you fail. You dragged us into this hellhole to save your own asses?"
There was a click. Riki expected it to be Kirika aiming her gun at Shirihime, as logic would have it, but instead, Kirika was aiming at her.
"If you hurt Mireille . . ." began Kirika, face serious for the first time—almost to the edge of menacing, making her unfamiliar.
Despite the death threat, Riki felt pretty confident. After all, she was ordering Mireille around. She was finally in control over something in her life, for once, again. She tightened her finger around the trigger.
"I'll shoot," said Riki, as boldly as she could.
Kirika challenged her with a venomous glare. It was unsettling, yet sad, even pleading. Riki found herself questioning her actions, but remembered that even now, they couldn't trust Mireille or Kirika or this "Shirihime".
"I'll shoot!" shouted Riki. "It's not like you two cared about our survival—it's always been about you!"
Everyone kept their eyes on each other. Never before had silence seemed to have its own sound, like a drone of bees. Every crunch of their feet shifting on the soil, every rustle of animals in the woods surrounding them, was like an explosion compared to the haze of quiet. Each of them could feel the other's anger, seeping across their skin like poison ivy.
Above all, Mireille didn't know why Riki wasn't focused on the real enemy.
Kirika lowered her gun, then turned it on Audriane.
"Riki!" whispered Audriane, eyes wide.
"I'll shoot," said Kirika, eyes clashing with Riki's.
Audriane's voice cracked. "Remember, Riki, they saved us!"
"They were supposed to protect us, but they were never doing that!" said Riki. She suddenly realized that there was much more to Noir than she thought. She needed to figure out who to trust, which Soldats to trust, how many Soldats there were, how many factions . . . It was a painful amount of questions in her head that she thought she'd burst.
"What good will it do," began Mireille, "killing me and Kirika? Hm?"
Riki switched her attention to the mysterious woman in a white button-down blouse, knee-length skirt, and droopy ankle-high boots. She was the only one without a gun pointed at her. It irked Riki, but she felt the urge to lay down some rules with Mireille and Kirika, had the need to shoot Mireille.
But when Kirika stepped closer to Audriane, pressing the gun against her temple, Riki's heart thundered in her chest; it cracked, like a mirror reflecting what Riki was about to do.
"I don't want to," croaked Kirika, "but I don't want to lose Mireille, either. If she dies today, so will you. But first, her." She looked at Audriane. "Please. I don't want to do this. And I doubt you do too—to Audriane. You don't know what it's like to kill an innocent—."
"What does it matter, whose blood?" blurted Shirihime, folding her arms. She shrugged. "Just now, moments ago during that battle, you learned one thing and one thing only, the one and simple rule: kill or be killed."
In an incomprehensive blur, Rik's gun had been removed. It was as if she gave it to Kirika, who had slid right into her face, blinding her from the fact that she had disarmed her. Riki felt a total loss of balance, even though she was only pushed back two steps.
There was a gunshot.
Shirihime cried out with an "Achk!" She stood there, knees buckled, clutching her forearm where Kirika shot her. A blackish-red spot grew on her sleeve. Her breath shook as she tried to wince through the split of pain.
"You . . . shot me!" she gasped.
"Good job—you recognize pain," said Mireille, with a cheery grin. Next to her, Kirika now held two guns, her own and the one she snatched from Riki.
Mireille folded her arms like royalty ordering her lion to attack a rude guest. She exchanged a smirk with Kirika, who approached Shirihime with both guns aimed.
"If there's one thing you Soldats were good at teaching," said Mireille, "it was knowing when to shoot."
Shirihime threw up her hands in immediate defeat, startling Kirika in her tracks. Experience told them that such nonchalance was never a good sign. Both assassins leaned forward, ready to react. Behind them, the children watched cautiously with readied stances.
"I'd save your thirst for revenge against the real enemy," said Shirihime.
Mireille gave it a thought. "Hm. Ok." She fired again, making Shirihime flinch; the blast startled big ferns right behind her. This toying around sparked an impatient flare inside Riki, who wished Mireille just shoot the woman.
"There's plenty to go a-round," said Mireille. "Get it? A. Round. A round of bullets?"
Shirihime's tone remained serious. "Glad to know you're thrilled, as am I to inform you that you have passed yet another Trial."
There was a churning, a knife-like twist in Riki's gut. No training camp? None of Asher's bodyguards lending drills or safety tips? No tips on survival from Shirihime? No meeting Asher before their "trials" began?
Instead, this mad fox hunt?
"THAT was a bloody trial? You—Asher—sent those men?" exploded Riki.
Shirihime stood up taller, as if to rub in Mireille's face that her gunshot did nothing to falter her. She still held her arm, though.
"Everything that happens around the Etxarren are nothing but tests," said Shirihime. "You should have figured that out by now. The other factions don't know your location, otherwise, you would have been really dead. Hope that they don't."
For a dull moment, everything that has ever been said or done to her had been a familiar numbness to Riki. Ever since the school massacre, the oddest and the darkest wouldn't take her by surprise anymore—hell, the "first Trial" must have been surviving the massacre itself!
But fire howled inside her, eating away at her insides that it almost hurt. "AFTER WE JUST GOT HERE?"
Riki became a blur of something else, something inhuman. In that splitting moment, Noir thought Riki was going to attack them—but instead she rammed herself into Shirihime. However, the Soldat had invited the assault. Her arms lashed out, almost tossing Riki aside as if whipping a towel against the air to clear it of dust. The poor freshman became an awkward jumble of arms and legs. She didn't disappear into the brush but rather wiped it out flat with her body, like a giant crushing a city.
In those seconds of confrontation, Audriane glared at Noir—at Kirika. She had seen her move to intervene, but instead, waver. It was right there she decided to hate Kirika as much as she hated Mireille, maybe even more. And yet, Audriane's anguish turned to plea as she glanced from Shirihime towering over Riki to the two women who did save them from the school massacre.
Trying to find her bearings in the dirt, Riki had rearranged her body to a crouching position. But Shirihime was standing over her already, deadly close. She grabbed Riki by the forearm; an awful pinch flared in Riki's shoulder socket. The Soldat forced her to stand up, only for Riki to dangle in the attempt to resist.
"HELP HER!" screeched Audriane, the sound chafing her throat raw and dry.
Mireille and Kirika had their guns set on the fight, but nothing more.
Riki heard that terrible click she still needed to get used to. A gun. She closed her eyes.
Then there was a jolt, and the world slapped Riki in the face as she tasted dirt. Something brushed the back of her head, hard, as she tried to regain focus. She heard the grunts and papery shuffles in the vegetation. Rolling onto her back, then sitting up, Riki squinted up through the pain. All she saw was Audriane charging right into Shirihime's gun.
Everyone had expected a gunshot. Instead, they watched in disbelief as Audriane was forcing Shirihime's gun skyward with both her hands. Both of their hands trembled at the equal force. When the gun went off, it startled Audriane, losing the deadlock, allowing Shirihime to free a hand and elbow Audriane in the face.
"Adrenaline won't save you forever!" declared Shirihime.
Nonetheless, Audriane lunged forward with a hand-toss of dirt. With Shirihime blinded, Audriane tried to grab her gun, but almost missed, feeling it slip from her fingers, making her heart skip a beat—but when she grabbed it just in time, she mustered all her strength to thwart its fire elsewhere just as Shirihime pulled the trigger.
There was the sound of chickens crying out in the distance.
"There goes our morning eggs," said Mireille.
Realizing how close she was to the enemy, Audriane stood there, gripped with horror, as Shirihime placed her gun into Audriane's chest, and pushed, and pushed, and pushed—at the same time, kicked her in the chest. The student tripped backwards, gasping, feeling her body buzz with adrenaline.
"Audriane Adrenaline," taunted Shirihime, towering over her, pressing the gun into her chest. "Heh. Catchy. I like that. Audriane Adrenaline." She paused, reveling in the terror in Audriane's eyes. "Amazing. Good to know you still fight to live—."
BANG!
"Really?" hissed Shirihime, stepping back, aiming her gun at Noir.
Both Mireille and Kirika had their guns aimed, but it was Kirika who fired.
"What? You didn't forget we were here, right?" pouted Mireille, pretending she had been insulted.
Riki and Audriane glared. Why didn't Noir do that sooner—?
"The only reason why we haven't killed you yet," began Mireille.
"Is because we want to know why you're here," finished Kirika.
"To assess Noir, why else," said Shirihime casually.
Which one? wondered Mireille. But she brushed it off, tightening her finger around the trigger. "Well, if I recall correctly, Asher assigned us to train them. Not you. Don't be vacuuming up all my money." She clenched her teeth. "Now leave."
Mireille paused, drawn into Shirihime's black eyes. She didn't know why, but she felt like they'd met before. If not that, a sense of familiarity. Whatever the case, it wasn't the good kind. It was eerie.
"What do you know about the Third Sapling?" blurted Mireille. "Sir Asher has kindly not mentioned from our last discussion." Glare. "You aren't . . . the Third Sapling, are you?"
Shirihime stepped back, hands raised in surrender, face smug. She lowered her gun and walked away.
"Where you going!" threatened Mireille, gun trailing the woman's every movement. "Answer me!"
She didn't know why but she couldn't shoot. She wanted to so badly. Soldats . . . you could never kill them, because they had the answers. It has always been like that for as long as Noir could remember.
Now that she thought about it, Mireille hasn't seen any of Asher's so-called "bodyguards". Who knew how far their boundaries were beyond Etxarren, how many men he had guarding them—or how many men were guarding them for the sole purpose of imprisoning them? Using them? Mireille's only guess was that those now-dead men were their "personal bodyguards". She sometimes wondered if Soldat pawns knew what they were getting themselves into.
"Like I said," said Shirihime, "I'd save the hatred for the enemy."
Mireille and Kirika looked at each other: if it wasn't Shirihime, then, that other faction who sent their men to the school?
No one said anything as Shirihime headed past Etxarren toward the lake. She held her injured arm, but it didn't seem to bother her.
"We should follow her, see where she came from!" said Riki.
"Chasing her would just lead us to more trouble," said Mireille—just as two men from the forest joined Shirihime. "We need to recuperate, and you need to train."
