Chapter Ten - A bouquet of questions
Robin awoke the next morning, finding it a little confusing because she was in a basement room. She was disoriented a little bit, and looked at the clock that was next to the bed. She saw the red lit display was reading that it was just after seven. She had only fell back to sleep for a few hours, she told herself.
She groaned, feeling still tired and not really wanting to get herself up right then. With the bad night of sleep behind her, she wanted to get a few more hours of sleep... there was a problem though. Nature was calling her loud and clearly, and it was not likely that it would simply go away to let her sleep. She give a small groan as she threw back her blankets in starting to get herself up, knowing that her need to pee was outweighing the need to sleep.
As she padded across the room, shivering as the cool air hit her naked body, she was thinking that she was glad that this room had its own bathrooms built with them - that architectural style was really a rarity in Japan. She lightly rubbed her goose-bump covered arms as she hurried her bare feet, while hoping that the bathroom would be a little warmer than this room was.
She gathered her clothes on the way to the bathroom, deciding to shower and dress after reliving herself. Her mind now was awake enough to not only to stay up, but it was signaling that she was craving for a nice hot cup of coffee really soon. She giggled and went in to do her morning routine to the best of her situation. She wanted to hurry herself, as the simple thought of coffee was so wonderful.
Exactly twenty minutes had passed, since the girl had awoken. Robin was showered and fully dressed and stepping out of the elevator onto the fifth floor where the computer room was located. With her hair still more than a little damp yet, she had left it down for a change, opting to grab a coffee while giving time for her hair dry. Putting it up in her signature style at the moment, would not work until her mane of tawniness was completely dry.
She noted that Michael was sitting at his computer already, his fingers flying away on the keyboard as usual. She saw Miho was already into work, reading some sort of printout right next to the spiky haired youth. Commissioner Kosaku and her Grandfather was speaking lowly over in a corner and Haruto was sitting there, looking very bored at whatever the two were talking about as she passed on her way to get her coffee.
As she poured herself the first cup of the day that seemed to have been just freshly brewed, she was deeply thinking. She had not overlooked the fact that two of the people were unaccounted for out there in the work area. Dojima was one of them who was not among the people here, obviously she was still the one who was perennially late. Nagira on the other hand was still nowhere to be seen.
She remembered the sound of the cellphone ringing in the next room from the night before, and was wondering if that might be why the tall Lawyer was not among the people that were up at this early hour.
" He could be sleeping still..." Her mind rationalized, but she still suspected that the phone thing she had heard was more of the reason why he was not here.
She took her coffee back into the main room to enjoy, and was hoping that someone from the others would tell her anything about Nagira's absence.
Robin quickly found herself being filled in by Michael about Nagira's absence, or the lack of his knowing just where Nagira had went off to early this morning. It frustrated the girl that the man had gone off like that, but she was resigned to the understanding that she would probably be filled in on whatever it was that made Nagira leave so quickly. Still, it did make her mind wonder on just what was so important... perhaps it was about whoever was trying to kill her or something to do with this new Factory.
Dojima finally showed up a little later, just as Robin had finished her first cup of coffee and had brought a second to go with her breakfast she had been handed. The woman looked completely tired, but a sly smirk was on her smooth face. Robin was intrigued.
Robin took a sip of her coffee while eyeing the slower than usually moving lady, noting that the hair was not as perfect as it usually was quaffed.
" You look like your very tired, Miss Dojima." She commented politely.
" I am so exhausted... but it was worth it." Dojima said, giving a impish sort of smile to Robin. " I had a date last night with a very hot guy, and I have not even home yet."
The young hunter raised her eyebrows at what the woman had just divulged, not ever expecting that sort of answer from the blonde woman. Robin automatically noted the very pretty outfit the woman was sporting, and just how much of a far cry from her normal work attire it really was.
The clinging off white silk camisole that was under the blazer did reveal a impressive amount of milky white cleavage that Robin thought Dojima did not even have. The lustrous material really did show off the roundness and the full ness of the woman's assets. The proof was right there of her endowment, and made the younger girl feel sort of uncomfortable with her realization of it. The skirt that she also had on, was really short and framed long lean legs, something the pious girl herself, would never have worn.
Dojima moved passed a quiet Robin, obvious that she was going to get herself a cup of the coffee too. As she passed on her way to the kitchenette, the light but very appealing bouquet of the woman perfume rose around the young hunter and tickled her nose. That suddenly had a affect on the young teen, her mind flashed to something that had seemed to be not there beforehand.
Her mind drifted back to the day when two armed people burst into Nagira's office to try and capture of kill both her and the tall man. It was something that she had not consciously noticed at the time what with the people and guns threatening them, but her mind now was hitting her with what she had smelled, even through the burning flesh of the man she had taken care of. She knew that it was the distinct fragrance of woman's perfume.
The scent she was thinking of was not even close to what Dojima's fragrance was today, But it really had jogged her memory. Thinking back a few days, the perfume she had remembered through the stench, she knew that it was one that she had smelled before. The question was where had she smelled it before.
The girl pondered her memory, and realized just how vivid it was. More than ever with each passing second, she was absolutely sure that exact cent of perfume, she had smelled it before. The assuredness of her own memory was so clear that she was more than just certain. Now the question now was how to bring out the where she had smelled it before that time... and with whom it was linked to. She was sure that it was someone, but she could not bring that little part out of herself.
Taking a long sip of her coffee, the youngest hunter pondered on her question, but was coming up empty. She could not link with who that scent belonged to, but something inside her nagged her mind..
Nagira finally arrived back at the STN-J, feeling tired and over thought. He exited the elevator on to the work area and headed to grab himself the coffee his nose had picked up on the air.
He suddenly stopped on seeing young Robin sitting off on her own, staring into her cup of coffee. Something about her caught his attention, other than her beauty he had been noticing more and more, but he was not sure. He was hesitant to think on the pretty young girl, but his instincts were telling him there was something in the girl's demeanor that he needed to investigate. With the little 'talk' Father Juliano and he had the other night still fresh in his mind, he started over to the girl.
He got to Robin's side without the girl even noting he was there. That was another sign of something going on in her pretty head.
" I will give you a penny for your thoughts..." He said softly, not wanting to startle her.
Robin looked up, her eyes showing that she came out of her thoughts.
" Your back." She said in reflex, oddly looking relieved.
" Just got back here now." The man smirked
She sighed, and looked at the man for a few moments, his heart feeling the bright greens on him.
" Where were you last night?" She bluntly inquired.
" I was called out by one of my informants on the streets." He replied smoothly. " Got some interesting information on the Factory thing, but this stuff seems to be leading right into out little predicament as well. You'll hear about it when I talk to your Commissioner and your Grandfather."
" Alright." Said Robin, her face still expressionless.
Nagira looked right into her eyes with a questioning stare, seeing that something was still rattling around in her mind.
" So... what makes you look like your pondering the meaning of life?" He said, trying to be humorous.
" It might be something... or nothing..." Plainly replied the girl. " I am not exactly sure yet..."
" Something or nothing?" Said back the man, his one eye squinting a little bit. " Girl, you are making no sense to me at all. C'mon... Start by telling me what it is, we just may clear this up."
Robin nodded. She took a deep breath and looked up at her taller friend. It was time to try and explain her thoughts.
" Perfume!"
" P...Perfume?" Asked Nagira, one eyebrow lifting as she tried to figure the girl's one word out.
The girl nodded.
" That day... when we fought those two in your office? I now am remember smelling perfume through the smell of the man after I used my power on him." She said, as straight ahead as she could. " I did not recognize it at the time, because I was trying to figure out what was going on, but I now am remembering clearly smelling a type of perfume."
" A man's scent or a woman's, Robin?" He inquired.
" It was clearly a woman's scent." She replied without a hitch.
Nagira paused and rubbed his chin. He seemed to be falling back to that day as well, in his own recollections.
" Well..." He said, thinking back on that event. " One of the gunmen was clearly a female." .
" You showed me the expensive running shoe you found under the window..." Robin reminded.
" What is it about this perfume you smelled?" He asked, curious why the memory had came to her. " Why has that piece come back to you like this, Girl?"
Robin looked right at the man, her face was a mask of total seriousness as she began to speak with a strong tone.
" The smell I remember is one that I knew from sometime before, from somewhere."
" You know the scent?" Asked Nagira. " Do you know what type it was, or what it was like?"
" Don't know what it is called... but I know that I have smelled that exact same one before." Thought the girl. " It is a perfume that I think I have smelled often, it seemed like that, yet I can't place on who..."
" But you probably have smelled so many perfumes and colognes since coming to Japan..." Cautiously said the man. "How do you know if this certain smell might be something of significance?"
Robin did not change in her demeanor in any way, but locked even straighter onto Nagira's questioning look.
" It is one I seem to have been subjected to up close..." She said so straightly to the man. " When I was living in Italy... I never wore any womanly scents, they were not permitted in the monastery where I lived, and I really don't wear it much even now... that is why I think that the smell stood out for me."
Nagira thought on Robin's words for a second, trying to decide how he could coax the girl to match up what she had smelled to whoever it was.
" Do you know who's scent this is then, who it belonged to... is that why it has jumped out at you?" Asked Nagira, thinking that this just may lead to the assassin woman's identity.
Robin sadly shook her head in reply.
" I do not know... or at least I have not remembered who had wore that particular perfume... or even if I actually know the person." The girl said, almost like she was asking herself as she explained.
" Was it recent? Was it more in the past?" He helped, wanting a little more to go on. " Start with it like that..."
The girl looked a little overwhelmed at the moment.
" I am sorry, Nagira..." Said Robin, seeing the strain she was putting herself under. " I don't know right now."
" Then all you can do is try..." He smiled, he looked at the pretty face of Robin, and found it hard to push a little for her to think faster
" I am." Robin agreed, feeling like she was stuck.
Nagira nodded and snuffed, not letting himself get frustrated with the young girl and her remembrances. He knew through his years of being a lawyer, you could not pull out these things out of the air- as much as he would have loved to open her head and pull it out. Letting Robin have the time to think it over and then connect things together on her own, was his only option he had. open.
His instincts told him that if he could be patient awhile longer, this might be another part to all of this. It seemed like it, just like the information he had gathered in the dead of the night. He sighed and found that to be the only way for now.
" Come so you can hear what I have to report..." He said, as the girl stood from her chair.
" Is it good news? Do we have something to go with?" She excitedly asked Nagira.
Nagira shrugged, feeling her hope ooze out.
" I think I know where this information might be going... and I believe it will end up helping..." He started, as he lit a smoke for himself with a silver lighter.. " I am not completely sure about it value though... that is why I am going to bounce it off of the Commissioner and your Grandfather."
" Sounds like you are fairly sure..." She smiled.
" Then lets both just keep trying..." He said. " It could very well keep us alive, and stop this shit."
Robin nodded, and followed the man to where Commissioner Kosaku and her Grandfather was. She wanted to here just what Nagira had dug up for herself on his early morning excursion. With in her own mind, she kept on thinking about the perfume and of the attack on herself. The latter had never left anyways.