Smoke and Mirrors
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Choices We Make
by Indicaa, inspired by the choices we make in order to survive, whether they're good ones or bad ones, we all have that one desire: To Live and Love!
"May your choices reflect your hopes. Not your fears."
Nelson Mandela
Kaiya's vision blurred with the force of her tears, her normally serene, breathtaking features were twisted into a seemingly permanent grimace of pain and horror. She had always hated hospitals. They had always freaked her out, ever since she was a small child.
She watched a baby die once.
She had accompanied her mother when she had taken Namiko to the emergency room when she had been very ill with scarlet fever during the first three years of her life.
She had been waiting outside the diagnostic room, anxious and fighting the growing sense of dread every time she witnessed a patient being rushed through the hallway, the sound of agonizing screams from individuals in pain, the defeated looks on some doctors' faces, and the gentle murmurs of countless machines working to keep the suffering individuals alive.
The kid had been mauled by a rabid dog and the parents had been too shocked and frightened to do anything. They simply watched as the enraged canine tore their daughter apart. The little girl had only been about four months.
She cried and cried as the cold air mercilessly assaulted the exposed areas of raw skin where the dog's teeth and nails had ripped it to shreds. There was nothing the doctors could do but ease her suffering and let her die peacefully.
Kaiya had stood there, outside the room, watching as the child took her last breaths in the very place meant to save her. And when her sister expressed her desire to become a doctor, she thought she had lost her mind.
She couldn't see how her sister could possibly want to be apart of such a depressing, hectic, and demanding profession.
She felt strong arms encase her from behind as she was pulled against a strong chest. Time seemed to slow as she watched her father frantically reach out and grab her mother around her waist when the older woman made a fearful, impulsive dash for her daughter as the heart-monitor suddenly erupted in frantic, rapid noises.
Keira was barking orders left and right. On the outside she appeared calm, but Keira was her twin. She was always able to see right through Keira's facades, and this moment was no different. Keira was just as scared for their baby sister as they all were.
"I need a heavy dose of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics," Keira growled to a female nurse, "You, get her on an IV as quickly possible. And you, pressors, now."
The three scampered off to do what they were told.
"Keira, what the hell is going on?" Natsuki demanded, wincing as Shizuru's frantic elbow came in contact with the sensitive flesh of her groin.
"There's an infection in her bloodstream. Her immune system was weakened by the pneumonia and her body is trying to clear it out by sending insane amount of chemicals and white bloods cells to dispel the infection." Keira explained as clearly as she could while working on her patient.
"Her body is fighting itself?"
Keira sighed in relief when she was able to successfully stabilize the young woman. Namiko coughed and wheezed, but her heartbeat grew less frantic as the antibiotics and IVs were quickly administered.
"In a sense. She's stable for now, but I don't know for how long and I'm not sure how far the infection has progressed. She will need surgery if she doesn't get better within the next forty-eight hours." Keira said grimly.
Shizuru stroked her daughter's hair, wishing she could do something-anything- to ease her youngest daughter's suffering. She buried her face into Natsuki's shoulder, her expression fearful, and her heart hammering in her chest.
"Namiko…" Kaiya whispered as she broke away from Regan and shuffled over to her older sister's side and latched onto her elbow. "You can save her right? The medicine will help?"
Keira glanced around the room of worried faces and bit her lip.
"Sepsis is very complex and potentially life-threatening condition. The only thing we can do is take another blood sample and wait for the results. The drugs administered were not exactly medication, it will only lessen the pain. Sepsis isn't curable, but the early stages are manageable."
She took a deep breath and said, "She's sicker than we thought. This pneumonia is the most aggressive branch I've ever seen and the sepsis is the icing on the cake. What you just witnessed is organ failure; Heart failure. She's not getting enough oxygen, and since blood literally travels throughout the entire body, her body is poisoning itself."
"She could die," Natsuki said.
"There is a strong possibility." Keira confirmed monotonically. "I'm going to down to the lab. Try to get some rest, worrying yourselves will not do her any good." And then she was gone.
Shizuru shed a tear. Natsuki couldn't find the strength to wipe it away. Her father's eyes didn't sparkle. Her mother's face was grim. Kaiya couldn't breathe.
How the tables have turned.
/
Layla Frost wandered the corridor of New York's finest medical facility, clutching a small teddy bear and a bouquet of flowers to her chest. Her long, wavy auburn hair glistened under the dim lighting of the reception room.
She wore a beautiful white sundress that made her look like some sort of harbinger of the afterlife, as if she were an angel looking for those she felt should come with her. Her dark hazel eyes were swollen and bloodshot.
She heard from Red and a few of Namiko's other friends that the girl was in the hospital battling a serious disease. She knew the visit would be risky, but she did not care. The girl she loved was sick and she desperately needed to see her.
"Hi, I'm here to see Namiko Kruger." She said to the receptionist, an old crone with a crooked nose and withering white locks.
"Room 401." She croaked, pushing her glasses further up her nose with an indignant snort.
Layla thanked her and trotted to the elevator. She punched in the coordinates to the fourth floor with one hand as best as she could. She hoped Namiko would like the little rocker teddy bear. It was black and had a spiked collar around its fluffy neck. She knew she wouldn't care much for the Carnations.
A woman was standing outside of Namiko's room with a phone pressed against her ear and furious, scathing words spilling from her lips. It was the same woman who had picked the girl up from the school, her father; Natsuki.
Upon seeing the beautiful young woman, Natsuki smiled politely and told whoever she was talking to 'hold on.'
"Miss Frost, right?" Natsuki didn't bother hiding the curiosity in her gaze.
"Please Mrs. Kruger, call me Layla," she said, "Miss Frost is my mother."
"Then it's just Natsuki." The older woman replied. Natsuki didn't bother asking why the woman was here. That much was obvious. It was surprising to most, but nothing really surprised Kruger Natsuki much anymore. Some teachers and students had very close relationships, she knew that much from experience.
"How is she?" Layla asked.
Natsuki's dark eyes darkened even further. "Not great. She has an infection in her bloodstream as well as her lungs."
Feeling as though she'd been punched in the gut, Layla said, "But she will recover, right?"
Natsuki looked away for a moment looking every bit the worried parent she was. Judging from the way she carried herself, Layla could see that Natsuki was a very strong, very proud individual who'd probably been through hell and back, but there was also vulnerability in her viridian gaze.
She didn't have any kids. She probably never would. She didn't know what it must be like for parents who were dealing with sick children. Tears threatened to expose her own vulnerability, but she forced them back.
Natsuki's grasp on the phone visibly tightened. "Go ahead in. It's just her mom with her now."
Layla smiled and pushed open the door. A stunning honey-haired woman was sitting beside a sleeping Namiko, absentmindedly humming a foreign lullaby while stroking the back of the girl's hand. She barely glanced Layla's way. All of her attention was focused on her daughter.
"Mrs. Kruger," Layla said timidly, dipping her head respectfully while trying not to fidget under the intensity of her molten fire gaze.
"Miss Frost." Shizuru's accented voice was quiet. "We were not expecting you."
"I know. I hope I'm not intruding."
"Not at all. Please, sit." Shizuru gestured to the chair beside her.
Smiling gratefully, the young woman deposited the flowers and the bear on the table beside the girl's bed.
"Don't let her appearance or attitude fool you," The mother said fondly, "She has a soft spot for beautiful flowers. She used to bring them to me all of the time and get upset when they eventually died."
"I caught her school's greenhouse once, tending to the flowers while the members were probably off smoking pot under the bleachers. I've never seen a more relaxed person." Layla replied, careful to keep the affection in her tone to a minimum.
Shizuru's laugh reminded her of little bells in the twilight. God, it just wasn't fair how absolutely stunning this girl's family was.
"She is just like my Natsuki, and much like her grandfather with her fierce appearance and equally fierce personality. She has a temper and tends to let it get the best of her sometimes, and can be very reckless when she is provoked, but deep down she is a very kind person, very soft, very complex."
Fascinated by this woman's voice, Layla listened intently.
"Natsuki is a very busy person and it made it difficult to be at home as much as she wanted to, needed to. Her sisters were already almost grown when she was born. They were already out in the world searching for their rightful places by the time she was four."
"For a long time it was just her and I. She didn't have many friends. She would wait for me to come home from work for hours just so that she could tell me she loved me before she went to bed. She hid it well, but I knew how much Natsuki's absence affected her because it affected me to. Eventually she stopped being sad about it and took to anger instead."
"That's where the fighting came in, I presume." Shizuru finished, casting a sidelong look at the young woman beside her. "The fighting, the drinking, the drugs, the attitude, the late nights, and only god knows what else."
"She was born fighting," Shizuru whispered, "Nearly a month too early and dying of suffocation. From the second she was born, to the years long after, and to this very moment, she has been fighting. I don't want her to have to go through it alone. She doesn't deserve this. She needs closure. She needs to understand that she is not alone."
Layla reached out to squeeze the woman's hand. Shizuru was smart, far too intelligent to even be considered ordinary. She carefully watched Layla's reactions from the corner of her eye, depicting each flicker of emotion in the young woman's eyes.
"Forgive me, but I am feeling rather famished. Please excuse me, I will return momentarily." The Kruger Matriarch said, gracefully rising from her chair and grabbing her cane. She flashed Layla a friendly smile and squeezed her daughter's hand before exiting the room, leaving the teenager and the young woman alone.
Layla wondered what possessed Shizuru to tell her those things. Was it merely for the sake of light conversation? A worried mother pouring her heart out to her child's teacher? Or was it something deeper? Did she suspect something regarding her and Namiko's far from professional relationship?
If she did, she made no indication of it.
Was she trying to convey some sort of hidden message with her words? Was she warning her? Layla could not be certain. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered to her more than the health of the young woman she loved.
She scooted into the chair Shizuru had abandoned and took the girl's hand. It was clammy and pale, and shook with the gentle force of tremors, testaments to the distress the girl's body was currently facing.
"Namiko," The young woman whispered with a heavy heart, "Please, I beg of you, come back to us. Please, I can't bear seeing you like this, seeing your mother and father and all of your friends in such melancholic states. Please, if you can hear me, open your eyes, tell me you're okay. Give me a sign."
But no matter how much the woman begged, no matter how much she pleaded and prayed, the girl didn't respond. The only indication of her breathing was the slow ascension and descension of her chest, and the vacant echoes of the heart monitor.
/
"You know," Regan began as she, her girlfriend, and her granddaughter made their way home for the night, "You never told us how you got knocked up."
"Really Regan, must you word it so vulgarly?" Saeko chided, but the reprimand didn't possess any of its usual passion.
Kaiya looked up from where she had been staring at her hands for the last fifteen minutes. She was going through the worst emotional distress that she had ever been in. She knew however early it was, that it couldn't be good for the baby.
She wished Alex was here. She was her rock. But the woman's knee had been giving her more problems for the past few days and she was forced to make a trip back to her specialist.
"Why don't you ask grandma?" Kaiya said, smiling, "It was her research that made it all possible. If she would have never donated it, we would still be searching for ways to get pregnant."
Regan glanced at the woman in the passenger's seat, who raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Trying to secretly knock yourself up?"
"You're impossible."
"They thought I was insane," Saeko whispered, "For coming up with such a ludicrous experiment. I found a way to to fertilize a woman's eggs with cells from another part of the human body, including a woman, meaning the child could be conceived without the need of sperm, let alone a father."
Chuckling at her girlfriend's confused expression Saeko said, "One woman contributes the egg and the other a cell to fertilize it. It was just a theory, and I myself threw it under the bus. My superiors thought it a distraction and demanded I let it go. So, I gave it to a small, private research institute in Australia. I would have never thought…"
"Didn't you see the look on her face when I told you all?" Kaiya asked.
Regan stopped at a red light and pulled the woman in close, planting a proud kiss on her dark head. "Well, would you look at that, I've done gone and married the smartest woman in the world. You do realize that you opened a gateway into lesbian fantasy paradise, right?"
Saeko chuckled gleefully. "There are going to be lots of little girls with two mommies running around in the near future."
"No need for the conventional way, then," Regan said.
Saeko reached for her hand. "Most women aren't blessed with the gift you, Natsuki, Namiko, and possibly little Cairo have. This is my gift to them, just like you all are gifts to me."
/
"Blue is dead."
"What?!"
Disbelief surged through Natsuki's being as she paced the outside of the hospital room. She ran a hand through her long, dark hair as Miyu continued to run off details of the latest attack of the mysterious Red Lotus gang into the receiver.
"She had been separated from her squad in the midst of the attack. She was cornered and gunned down without mercy. There is nothing left worth burying."
"Fuck!" Natsuki seethed, gritting her teeth.
News of Blue's death hit her hard. She had been one of Natsuki's most loyal and devoted followers. She'd been around since Namikaze's reign. She had raised her guns in Natsuki's honor and defense, and gunned down those who opposed her.
Probably died alone, surrounded by enemies, but still sported that infuriated smirk and confidence she always wore even in the planes of hell.
"The attacks are growing more and more frequent," Miyu continued grimly, "Forty-six casualties in the last thirteen hours. These idiots aren't just idiots, their strategic idiots and they have overwhelming numbers. Almost expandible, if you think about it."
"Is…"
"Nao is fine, as are Chie, Aoi, Tate, Reito, Nina, and the rest of them. The deaths account for the inexperienced." Miyu paused briefly. "Lord Kruger, you must return at once."
Natsuki clenched her fists tightly, biting into her lip with such force that the tell-tale taste of blood filled her mouth. She couldn't leave. How could she? Her daughter was sick and possibly dying!
"I can't," Natsuki whispered, forcing herself to remain calm. The fear and panic for her friends and her daughter morphed into one big nightmare. The Yakuza devoted their entire lives to her, protecting and serving her, their city, and her family. She was their leader, their hope when things got rough, their fire, their spirit, their brains, and their drive.
But Namiko was her daughter, her baby girl. The little girl she held in her arms when her mother couldn't, the little girl she promised to love and protect forever. How could she possibly leave her alone in her moment of need. What if these moments were her last?
What if she went back into the room right now only to find that she passed while she was contemplating the obvious?
"Without you here the entire organization is in serious danger!" Miyu yelled, "When they see you are not here they use it to their advantage! They know without you here we are vulnerable! I understand you worry for your daughter, but this is bigger than just one life. When you swore the Oath to lead us you said 'No matter what, the Yakuza come first!' You take that Oath to hell!"
"If I were to leave and she dies, I would be in hell regardless." Natsuki spat. "I'm not leaving, Miyu."
"Then you sentence us to death!" Miyu replied scathingly. The anger in her voice was not at all unexpected considering the circumstances, but for one usually so quiet and docile it was.
Natsuki laughed humorlessly. "We all have our choices in the end. Some of us live with them. Some of us die with them. It's only a matter of how the choices affect our lives and those around us is what counts. I'm sorry Miyu, but I cannot- I will not- abandon my family. That was the oath I made long before Namikaze's!"
There was a screech of pain in the background followed by the distinctive sounds of gunshots and fighting. The line went dead.
"Damn it," Natsuki cursed as she slammed her phone onto the floor in a fit of rage. The expensive device shattered at her feet, each broken shard reflecting her conflicted face.
Kruger Natsuki has betrayed the Yakuza, and that crime was punishable by death.
/
Sorry for the lateness!
Chapter Preview:
"You're almost as tall as me now."
"Dad?" Namiko calls, searching for the dark-haired woman in the midst of the black fog surrounding her.
"Language, Namiko." A familiar teasing lilt sounds over the echoes of her labored breaths.
"Mother!" Namiko spots her standing to the far right, and she surges forward with her arms outstretched, fear lazily swirling in the back of her mind. She doesn't like this place. It doesn't feel right. She runs and runs, but every time her mother's figure gets further and further.
"You're really, really tall." Keira.
"Who're you texting? Do you have a girlfriend?" Kaiya.
"Hehe, bottoms up kid, please don't tell your mother." Grandpa.
"Come and give your dear old grandmother a kiss, sweetheart!" Grandma!
Namiko frantically searches for the owners of the voices, but there is no one there but her. The shadows lurk, the wind howls, it feels like there are things crawling beneath her skin. Suddenly she sees them, all of them, her family, in the distance, all smiling and beckoning her over with open arms.
Red is beside her mother, provoking her forward with teasing grins. And Layla. Layla is looking at her with such love in her eyes that it momentarily stuns her. She opens her arms and a single word falls from her lips.
"Please."
Then, they're gone.
"No, please!" Namiko shouts as she's shrouded in darkness, alone and afraid once more. "Please don't leave me here alone!"
"Mom? Dad! Is there anyone there?" The frightened teenager sniffles as tears of blood pour down her cheeks, staining her hands. She bows her head in defeat.
"Please… don't leave me…"