The girls were gathered around the table the next day, the same way they were before. It had become a habit to visit the safe house for at least half an hour or so before they went along their way. None of it meant anything to the girls, not without anything to do, and not with their leader knocked out of her position. Aqours had really been the only thing that had happened. Were they even doing this correctly?
"So..." Rin sweeps her finger across the table, her other hand being used to rest her head on. "Is this how we stop UTX?" she groans. They all had very little, but serviceable, knowledge on the operation of guns, and about half of the team had a taste of the game they were playing, if it was the right game at all. "If we don't do something by the end of this term, we won't even get to start the school year, nya." While they couldn't exactly empathize, Eli and Nozomi sigh. Honoka's head rested on Nozomi's shoulder as Honoka slept. Rin was right. They came to the awful, avoided truth that they knew nothing of what they were doing. They needed a hand to guide them through illegality, rather than having reasons themselves for it.
"Isn't the whole point of being criminals having crimes to commit, nya?" Rin says.
"I don't know. What do you suggest?" Eli snaps, immediately regretting having done so.
"What if we...infiltrate UTX?...no, we don't have the manpower..." Rin nuzzled her head into the crease of her elbow face down. Her eyes peeked above her arm and watched the rain outside continue to pour. "Don't mafias have like, spies or something?" She was clearly thinking out loud with little regard to logic. "I just think we should be doing something instead of just sitting here everyday."
"Spies?" Kotori's voice startled everyone else. She was almost always silent during their daily meets. "What do you mean?" Rin sits up, her mind trying to scramble together a clarification.
"W-Well, like, you know, go in pretending to be someone that's pretending to work for µ's but is really pretending to work for UTX?" Her explanation only made the confusion worse.
"You're with us, right?" Eli looks at Kotori, who nods. "So you go into UTX, and you pretend to work for them. At the same time, you pretend to work against us. You're a spy for us, but they think you're a spy for them." It took a while, but it started to make sense. "It's called double agentry."
"Sounds scary..." Hanayo whispers, her head on the table with both of her arms laid forward. "What if you get caught?" They shrug off Hanayo's remark, avoiding the thoughts that would most likely turn them into Honoka.
"Sounds like a plan. We just need to scout the area, right? See if A-RISE is willing to negotiate," Eli says, temporarily taking control as the leader. "Who wants to do it?" The thought of being caught in the act of being a double agent, and the possible consequences of being captured by UTX shook them to the bone. The silence suggested that no one was going to volunteer. Seeing this, Eli walks over to a stand where a stack of tin cans and a thermos of tea sat. Taking a tin, she walks back to the table and drops it on the middle. "We'll cast lots, then."
With Maki and Honoka out of the game for now, only five pencils of random, varying sizes were placed eraser first in the can. They closed their eyes as they each took one. The one with the most worn out eraser, or the one that didn't have any left, was the supposed spy. Kotori opens her eyes. The other girls were looking at her. Kotori moves her eyes moves down to the pencil she picked—no eraser. "Well? What do you know," Eli sits down, putting her pencil down on the table with unnecessary precision. "Turns out the bird's got the view." Kotori knew she had to contribute somehow to the group, or else she wouldn't be a part of it. But a spy?
"Well, I suppose she's innocent enough," Nozomi grunts as she readjusts Honoka's weight. "I...wasn't exactly imagining anyone gather any intelligence gathering of this sort."
"Neither was anyone," Eli sighs. "Well? What info do we have to gather?" The girls were baffled at how recklessly they threw each other around with little to no knowledge of why.
"I guess just...plans, or, whatever seems useful." Rin ruefully laughs at her vague and unhelpful response. Kotori gulps noticeably, her frozen state getting the girls' attention.
"Kotori?" Eli had said it, trying to get her attention to no avail. "Are you going to be fine taking this on yourself? We don't have any form of communication while you're inside-"
"I'm fine. I'll be fine." Kotori's mind only went back to the gun pointed at her from Tsubasa. Would the latter trust that Kotori wouldn't try to enact revenge? Even Kotori knew she herself was incapable of violence, even with the current circumstances. Everything leading up to this point was negligible compared to forcibly ending one's life. To Kotori, such a thought had never even entered her mind, and now she was faced with the decision and the power to do so.
"Better schedule to shadow with someone in there," Nozomi exhales. "Maybe you'll get lucky and you get an A-RISE member."
"You think A-RISE would do something like shadow?" Hanayo sits up, but hunches forward, her arms extended and in her lap.
"Perhaps. With someone like Kotori, it'd be valuable to them too," Rin says, implying a threat. "Not, that, she isn't..."
"Very well then. Let's see how good you act under pressure," Eli nods to Kotori, only cementing the pressure mounted against the latter.
Kotori stood in front of the looming high school ahead. Instead of taking a left to Otonokizaka's entrance to the safe house at the beginning of school, she headed to the right. The unfamiliar territory during her walk only made things worse as she tried to walk the streets alone without being recognized. It was hard enough thinking about the operation, let alone throwing stress on top of that. Luckily, she arrives without event, observing the split that ran down the middle of the tower. Even to this day, after visiting it on numerous occasions with the rest of µ's, it felt like a gratuitous complex for a high school.
Someone in the crowd spots Kotori and starts making their way through the crowd. "Hey there. I guess I'm your shadow for today." Tsubasa had said it, her cool tone freezing Kotori in place. Memories of the gun started to creep into Kotori's mind, but she shook it off.
"Good afternoon."
"No need to be formal. This way," Tsubasa motions for Kotori to follow without looking back to see if the latter was even following. While Kotori initially interpreted it as arrogance, she saw it as a way to mask their profile by not drawing too much attention to themselves. Once they were inside and Kotori got the green light to pass, Tsubasa pulls her by the hand up an elevator. The hallway of the floor they were on was carpeted so cleanly that Kotori felt guilty stepping on it. "It's fine. Indoor and outdoor shoes are a waste of time in my opinion." Tsubasa kept on walking like before, having sensed Kotori's doubt without even having to glance.
Kotori had been led to a waiting room. "It'll be a moment." And with that, Tsubasa left the room. Kotori sat all by herself in the spacious area, looked to be built for a larger crowd. Instead of individual chairs, the room had couches along the walls, and some couches were in the middle of the room. Kotori felt odd and out of place in such an environment. The places Tsubasa had taken her up to this point had been nothing but a blur to Kotori.
'At least I know where the elevator is...'
"Ms. Minami?" The formal greeting from her apparent shadow catches her by surprise. "This way, please!"
Kotori stared at herself in the mirror, decked out in UTX's signature all-white uniform. She felt pushed around, but somehow okay with it. Led by the hand into UTX, made to wait and then dressed for the opposing team in just a matter of minutes without a word to put in. Kotori exited the dressing room, where Tsubasa was waiting. She had on a white beret, and looked Kotori up and down with a smile. "I have to admit, it fits quite well. Standard protocol for all incoming students as not to look so, you know, out of place." Kotori responds with a sheepish smile of her own, wondering if Tsubasa understood the contradiction in her statement. "Come on, to my office." Without questioning how a student had their own office, Kotori went along and trailed Tsubasa.
They walked down a hallway running parallel with the windows. It hadn't struck Kotori how high up they were until she saw for herself. The view of the city was phenomenal, with no other buildings in UTX's height to obstruct it. It wasn't the tallest building she's been in, but Kotori couldn't shake off the fact that this was a high school. Perhaps Kotori had learned to expect and accept things as they are, and thought if that was a positive or negative trait. "You play chess?" Tsubasa says, seemingly out of nowhere. Kotori looks away from the glass wall.
"Uh...a little bit, yeah." They enter Tsubasa's study. It reminded Kotori a bit of her mother's office in Otonokizaka. "Please, have a seat." Bookshelves lined the wall on the back, while couches and plants took up the center. 'I wonder if they live here too...' The light from the morning sun streamed from the hallway they were just in. No artificial light was in the room, not even a small lamp. The bright, energetic rays of the sun were cut by the shutters, barely providing enough light for Kotori to see despite it nearing noon. Tsubasa, on the other hand, looked fine. They sit across from each other with a desk in between. A wooden chessboard with wooden pieces had already been set up, as if Tsubasa had it ready for this specific purpose. They were intricately designed and most likely hand-carved. Kotori could tell it was expensive.
Tsubasa pushes aside the golden plaque that read her name and moves her king's pawn two squares ahead before saying, "Your move." Kotori moves a pawn of her own while watching Kira's face carefully. Tsubasa seemed deep in thought, but not because of the game. "A Sicilian defense," she notes, before moving another pawn to the center of the board. "You know why I brought you up here, right?" Kotori looks up from her thinking and shakes her head. "Well, I know you're not planning on moving here."
Kotori wasn't sure if she wanted to lie or not, moving another pawn to the battlefront with caution. "I came here to talk to you," Kotori tries to sound assertive, but was too unsure of herself and lacked the confidence for the mood.
"I'm sure you were." Tsubasa moves a knight to back her active pawns. "But I know you're not really here to shadow." Kotori nods.
"Of course." Tsubasa leans in, seemingly not getting through to Honoka's one spy.
"Let's cut the bullshit. You're not really here to shadow." Kotori tries to hide herself gulping, and moves one of the pawns in the edges. "We're here to discuss business." Tsubasa leans back into her seat, talking before taking an exposed pawn with her bishop. "And from what I can tell, business means taking us down." Kotori was in danger, and their meeting had only started. Moving without much thought, she moves her queen to threaten the bishop. Tsubasa sees this and moves the bishop back a square.
"That's what µ's wants to think," Kotori says, trying her best to sound relaxed. It seemed to work so far. She decided to hold off on her double agentry for now, just to feel out how the whole espionage game really was about. Tsubasa places her other knight behind the bishop. Tsubasa rests her elbows on the table.
"You feel differently?" Tsubasa looks from her intertwined hands. Kotori had to keep trying. She couldn't lose her footing here. She develops more of her board by letting a knight into the battlefield.
"I don't think they're wrong, but I don't want anything to do with it." Kotori sighs, trying to piece together a strategy with her position. "I can't stand to see them hurt themselves so recklessly." Only the sound of a quiet clock pierced the silence, once every second, as Tsubasa tried to feel out Kotori as well.
"Why'd you volunteer to go here then?"
"They wanted me to." Tsubasa moves a pawn to threaten the knight.
"And? You could have said no." Kotori looks up from the chess game and up to Tsubasa. Kira didn't expect such emotion from the former.
"I'm trying to take them down from the inside." Kotori pushes the endangered knight forward to avoid the pawn. "They think they can learn about UTX from me." Tsubasa chuckles, shaking her head and moving another pawn to threaten Kotori's knight.
"Really? Is that so?" Kotori had no choice but to retreat the horse, having only brought out more of Tsubasa's forces. "They think it's just easy to spy." Kotori wasn't sure if she had convinced Tsubasa that Kotori was on UTX's side, but she kept going anyways. Tsubasa continued moving one of her knights forward, now on Kotori's half of the board. "They don't understand, and I commend you for seeing that."
"What should I tell them?" Kotori's hand retracts from her queen and instead moves a pawn forward to threaten the Tsubasa's knight. Tsubasa takes the pawn, and Kotori does the same.
"Playing with drugs and waving guns around doesn't qualify you as a mafia. Sacrifices aren't enough." Despite losing a pawn, Tsubasa forges her knight ahead, and snuggles it next to the king and an adjacent bishop. A friendly bishop covered the knight's position. "You have to play smart. This is a business, after all." They both lose their knights in the process. "Not just a street gang. They're bullies, killing for insults, "honor", "love", running from the law." Tsubasa clicks her tongue and shakes her head. "They're just wasting their lives." Her bitterness for them was clear. "But, that's how they play. We play our game, they play theirs."
"Then, what is UTX?" Tsubasa moves her queen, putting Kotori's king in check through an opening. Kotori blocks the queen by placing a pawn diagonally from it.
"We're a real mafia. We make money because we're a business. That's all we are. We work with others when it's appropriate, and eliminate liabilities in the system." The way Tsubasa put it only made Kotori more insecure in the office she was in. Kotori couldn't help but think how much safer she would feel if she had smuggled a gun into UTX. Tsubasa ignores the block and moves her queen to put the king in check again somewhere else. "Seiran, Shinonome, Shion Institute. Those are mafias. They work for money."
"Do they work for you?" Kotori remembers Seiran High School mentioned by Chika and You, a prime supply of weaponry.
"Not all of them. And even then, they're not UTX's subordinates. We're partnerships. We ally ourselves." The thought of ententes and enemies only made the fear for her life grow. She moves the king away from danger, but instead gives up an untouched rook. "The Yakuza play fair, but they're on a different league. We learn from them, we strive to be them. But we try not to touch them. We're still schoolgirls, after all." Kotori retreats a queen to corner Tsubasa's, but instead gives Tsubasa's queen an opening to escape, taking a pawn with her. "For our age, we try not to be one step ahead, but a whole mile."
This whole time, Kotori had mostly been reacting to Tsubasa's decisions, setting herself up for traps only to let assailants run away each time, with minimal to no losses. "That's how we play. Or at least, in a nutshell." Kotori's queen chases after Tsubasa's queen, but instead, the latter dodges the threat and delves deeper into Kotori's territory. "There are pawns, there are knights, there are queens and there are kings." Tsubasa continues her incursion, wiping out Kotori's forces one by one. With just a single queen, Tsubasa had managed to suppress her adversary to their side, and slowly bled away their power. "It's up to the king how they are to be used."
Kotori sat in disbelief. Her entire army was almost gone. "I'll tell them to give up." Tsubasa smirks.
"I'd tell you to quit while you're ahead, but, to us, you're way behind." After a short game of cat and mouse, Kotori finally traps Tsubasa's queen with her own, and they take each other out. Smiling at her accomplishment, she looks on to the rest of her board. Only a few pawns, a rook and two bishops remained at her disposal. Her smile fades quickly. "I urge you not to try us."
"I know they won't quit," Kotori says, arranging her pieces into an attack formation. "They've already committed, and I know for sure Honoka won't let this go." Tsubasa observe's Kotori's expression unimpressed.
"Committed, huh?" As Kotori fought valiantly, Tsubasa kept her pieces protected and kept her king untouchable. Soon, Kotori's king was nestled in a corner with three pawns and a bishop. "They're committing to the wrong goal." Kotori tries to fall back deeper, but instead finds herself at the back of the board. "They have no business quarreling with us. Do what the other schools are doing and do your own thing, just try not to step up to us. I'm aware of that Uranohoshi group as well, self-proclaimed rivals of UTX. They gave themselves a name, but I forget. They're not that dangerous to me. They think they're being righteous, but really, they're only stooping to our level. I admit, our business is rather underhanded, but you'll be surprised how cheap it is for police to look the other way."
"How much?"
"Enough to fund the entire Tokyo department." Kotori's eyes widened. Cheap? "I guess to your group, that's a lot?" Kotori nods. "Hmph. See what I mean? Your group needs help." Another queen Tsubasa got from promotion threatens the king, leaving only one space for the latter to go. Kotori could see it now. In fact, she saw it long ago. The way Tsubasa moved her pieces to seemingly insignificant locations was all part of her final plan, to force Kotori to move to a single square, a square she thought was just a path to refuge, but instead served as the dot on the target all along. Tsubasa relocates a knight to threaten the king once more. Kotori checked every possible option she had, the pawns by her side, the spaces her king could run to, but nothing would work.
She tips over her king using her finger. "Checkmate." Kotori leans back in her chair, surprised at the amount of skill and orchestration Tsubasa employed. Tsubasa continues to keep her head cradled above her two hands as she observed the position of the board and the pieces watching alongside it. "It's a game of give and take, and I can't risk playing it anymore."
Kotori, initially staring out the sunny window, looks to Tsubasa, the latters' eyes still trained onto the pieces. "What do you mean, can't risk playing it anymore?"
"The Feds are onto us. The police can't cover for us too long now and the Americans are getting suspicious. I wouldn't be surprised if China gets roped into it as well." While Kotori didn't understand a word said, but she could detect the shift in Tsubasa's tone. The initially confident and intimidating demeanor now turned frustrated and somewhat desperate. It was a subtle transition, one only found through the eyes and the mouth. "It's those damn idols under us. Their operations and shootouts get louder and louder, interrupting civilians, interrupting trade, closing down streets. They're taking our protection for granted, and I hate it." Kotori eyed the beret on Tsubasa and noticed a conspicuous half-circle near one of the edges, like something tore a half-hole into it. "And these...stupid, stupid politicians. Getting themselves caught in these pointless scandals. One by one, we're losing them. Avoidable, incurable mistakes. For what? Greed? Lust? We give them all the money they could need and yet here we are, continuously losing our protection from them as well."
Tsubasa buried her face in her hands. Kotori didn't know what else to do other than sit silently.
"What I'm trying to say is, UTX is going down for sure, and I don't want anyone getting hurt while it happens. I've been trying to get Anju and Erena to quit now, but they say that we'll be fine. That it'll magically work out in the end." Tsubasa shakes her head. "I know we won't be fine, and if we won't go down ourselves, I'll help someone else do it for us." Kotori smells a deal come on. Tsubasa motions for Kotori to come closer, the former eyeing the cameras and microphones online in the room. "I'm willing to help you guys as long as it's in the interest of eliminating UTX," she had whispered it into Kotori's ear. "We got a deal?"
As they separate, they lock eyes. Amber eyes of disbelief and green eyes of anticipation meet. Kotori didn't expect the visit at all to end with Tsubasa on their side. Perhaps she won't need to be a double agent after all. Kotori wasn't sure if she could speak for the rest of µ's, or if this was an elaborate scheme, but Kotori wondered how much µ's really knows. As far as they were both concerned, nothing. Yet again, this could be a matter of life and death. She shifts in her seat and faces Tsubasa with the utmost seriousness. "How can I be sure to trust you?"
Tsubasa leans back into her chair, staring at her lap to think. "Alright, here's my idea. I'll grant you three wishes. Three wishes that I'll try my best to fulfill by the time we're finished." Tsubasa holds up three of her fingers, and Kotori nods. "Just ask for it and I'll see what I can do. I'll grant them as soon as possible, just so you know you can trust me." It was rather enticing to ask for money, but Kotori shook her head, knowing that'd it be illegitimate and dirty anyways.
"I wish for everyone's safety." Tsubasa shakes her head.
"Unfortunately, that is beyond my control. Try something else." Kotori places her finger under her chin.
"Okay...then can I ask for Honoka to return to normal?" It killed Kotori more than anyone else to see Honoka's current state of mind, and couldn't imagine what her family must be going through as well. Tsubasa smirks.
"That I can do. Second wish?"
"I...I wish that everybody else joins. All nine of us are in it as µ's." Tsubasa nods slowly.
"That I can assure. Final wish?" Kotori thought long and hard. Like before, she didn't like speaking for everybody, especially knowing their polarities and wildly differing opinions. However, knowing that she might never get another opportunity like this again, she swallows and faces Tsubasa. Asking to save the school would also not be in Tsubasa's control, seeing how it was a decision of A-RISE.
"I want this whole game to end." Tsubasa chuckles.
"The mafias? Everything?" Kotori nods determinedly. Tsubasa glances at the clock hanging on the wall, ignoring how dark the room had gotten. The sound of the nearby city flowed into the room as they sat. "All idols exiting the life of crime?" Kotori nods again, more vigorously than before. Tsubasa shrugs rather indifferently, as if to say that it was easy business. She extends a hand over the chessboard of defeated pieces for Kotori to shake, which she does without dubiety.
"And that, I can promise."
Wew, finally. Another chapter done. I hope these are better than the other chapters, which I felt were rushed and underdone, so please feel free to tell me if it is different quality-wise, at least I hope it is.
I may or may not be taking a break from writing for a few weeks due to some family stuff, so expect that to slow down. I'll certainly be trying to continue while I'm away, though!
Thanks anyways,
-DWalkthroughGuy