22. Obituaries
Rating: T
Verse: Modern!AU
Inspiration/Idea: yomi-gaeru and Marquise de Nile who had independently the same idea!
Sakura opened the newspaper. Ignoring the international and national news alike she leafed the pages further. Skimmed through local news, even though, flipped through those awful page-sized advertisements of supermarkets' discounts, until towards the end of the newspaper she found what she was looking for. The obituaries.
With the held breath she studied one after another, ignoring the names printed in tasteful black cursive filtering out only if they were masculine or not and carefully studying the following text.
"Beloved father, grandfather, and great-grandfather…" - no.
"After long sickness has left the family struck with…" – no.
"Shaped and formed minds of generations of students of our Department and through his almost 50-years long career…" – no.
"Has left us abruptly…" Sakura tilted her head and read forward. "… too early and without a goodbye. Great coworker, whose professionalism and engagement contributed to the success of our company…" Signed by the board of an investment company, for who they were calling their valued and irreplaceable 'consultant'.
A consultant… Hmm… that might be it. The name was Omori Sōgen. Sakura scanned the rest of the obituaries. The name appeared once again. A tennis club was announcing the passing away of the member of its presidium under the same name.
She noted it down, but kept her excitement at bay. She had already twice the case when she was sure that that's it and then it wasn't. Not going there for the third time. It costed her enough tears.
The next day she read the obituaries again.
There it was.
"In silent grief and unwavering hope of seeing you again, in a life past this one. Your always loving companion…" A short and loving message from a grief-stricken lover. Hmm, Madara had a way with words. The name signed underneath was the one they had made up for this occasion. Aiko Kyōyama.
Sakura straightened up on her chair feeling her chest expand from a surge of anticipation and adrenaline. And happiness. Here we go. Now it's her part. Here. We. Go.
Just to make herself absolutely sure Sakura quickly googled the address of the tennis club. Mirai District. Ok, rich enough. And kind of ironic that he was so close to her all the time. For how many months of not seeing him? Of missing him everyday? Of wondering if he was still alive? Pain like a thin blade stabbed into Sakura's chest but she ignored it. No sense to dwell on it now. She would see him soon enough.
She brought the cardboard box with newspapers form previous weeks. She had an abo for the online version of the local newspaper, of course, but she had already learned that not all the articles, especially the minor ones were features online. What a scam, by the way.
Methodically, she started going through the most local section. Five days ago, a house burnt down in a residential area of Mirai district. An unfortunate gas leakage, one person dead. Bingo, bingo, bingo.
She briefly wondered who had died in Madara's place… Probably some poor homeless soul that would not be missed and certainly never reported missing.
Only for her own enjoyment she studied the news from adjacent days. Three days ago, an act of vandalism in the parking of municipal hospital sent seventeen cars burning and inflicted serious damage to the highest level of the parking tower. Madara really had a thing for fires didn't he…? Municipal hospital was where the forensic samples were being tested. Sakura pursed her lips - he would bear another nasty scar if he really substituted the samples. She cringed at the though of Madara cutting out his own flesh and burning it over something (Over what? His home cooking stove? A blow-torch? Just how creepy was that?) to pass it for the sample of the fire victim. But they wanted to be sure. DNA analysis was the ultimate evidence.
She was tempted to localize the burnt-down house, to see where and how he had lived. Stupid idea. She should focus on her part of the plan. She didn't need to feed herself on substitutes, on memories, on dreams, not anymore. Soon she would see Madara again.
Sakura laughed to herself. Soon she would know if that was really his name. When they got to know each other better he told her this name: Uchiha Madara. She wasn't stupid enough to ask if this was real, but he immediately offered her an explanation that this was the one he liked best. Best among the 15+ identities he had at hand. So, whatever it was – real or not – that was how she was calling him when they were meeting in motels on the highway, sitting in the movies on carefully chosen adjacent places with separately bought tickets, crossing their paths in the forest after a two-hour long hike from two opposite directions.
They were so careful. So careful.
Four years they kept on it, four years of longing and fear kept in check with most careful planning.
They started to talk about a final solution a year and half ago.
Neither his nor her agency would ever let them go. Theirs was a service for life. Either life lost on some mission – the longer Sakura served the more convinced she was that all those mission served only the interests of this or another current political fraction and not the good of any citizens – or if you were really, really lucky – life lived out on retirement in luxurious villa somewhere in Caribbean with knowledge that all your movements would forever be under tightest observation.
They needed to die. And to die convincingly.
He just did. Now was her turn.
Sakura retrieved a bag packed for the occasion good half a year ago. All new clothes, never worn, all bought for cash in five different shops. She dug through it critically, removing some obviously impractical items. She expected to pull off their stunt in summer, after the planned end of his mission in South America (or at least she assumed it was in South America), now it was winter. She had been dying inside for the last four months, obsessively checking the obituaries, waiting for the signal. Stopping herself form panicking, halting those thoughts, that he had died exactly then when they decided to break free, at bay.
A brand-new winter jacket in, a pair of climbing-grade gloves in. A summer dress she wanted to show herself in to Madara out. No place for sentimentality.
Maybe it was better that it was winter. The water would be even more dangerous, no one, really no one would risk the lives of the divers.
Sakura checked the weather. Tomorrow they were forecasting frost in the morning. Perfect.
She wasn't going to substitute her body. She would just make sure that no one would ever be able to prove the lack of it.
The reservoir of the hydropower plant was deep, the walls steep. And there, where she wanted to have her car fall, the water was already being sucked into the turbines. A certain death. Not only for her, but also for the police divers.
She still remembered from back when she had been still a kid and her father had been taking her to see another powerplant being built, back there where they had lived. The turbines twenty meters high, a battery of ten of them, and when with all of them turned-on the created current was powerful enough to suck in an entire truck and not only her light-weighed cabrio. It will be pressed to the crates and never, ever recovered. They would have to switch on the entire powerplant off, which they would not. And now, in the middle of winter, when entire metropolis depended on it, even more surely not.
Sakura was taking one curve after another. The waters of the lake were already shining blue some fifty meters below. She dialed the number of her most annoying acquaintance and put her on camera. With a pleasant smile and fake interest, she engaged in a small talk. Ten minutes into jarring office gossip and occasional jabs about her 'bad luck' in finding a partner, Sakura deemed it enough even though she wasn't quite at her destination yet. With practiced, staged fear she grabbed at the wheel, had the car wobble on the road couple of times and proceeded to scream. Frantically flailing she hit the phone and made it fall into a box hanging prepped below the phone holder. She stopped the car, covered the lid and shook the box some more. She could still hear her friend's voice from the inside.
Sakura sighed and apathetically shaking the box with one hand, she opened a lid of a larger container standing at passenger's leg-space. She dropped the box with the phone into the water that was in it and waited for the bubbles to stop. That should do. She fished her dead phone out and dumped it onto the car's floor.
Now the tricky part. She quickly took off the dress, tore a fragment of it and dump it into the car. Starting with the knife, and then with a sharp stone (for more naturalistic effect, in case some idiot would still want to switch off the entire powerplant and haul the car) she tore a huge opening in the roof of her cabrio. Then she cut her forearm and smeared some blood on the front window and around the steering wheel. Finally, she was done.
Good that her car had remote control. She had it installed three years ago for some mission and in meantime she became quite skilled in using it. She checked once again the guardrail in the crucial place – barely hanging on the screws, just as she left it a month ago. Throwing the backpack on her shoulder Sakura climbed up the cliff, took out the remote and made her car pick up the speed. She felt like an 8-year old boy when she guided the car through the serpentines. She pressed the acceleration to the max and held her breath.
The car broke through the barrier and flew in a graceful parabole. Narrowingly missing couple of pines it plunged into the water. Perfect. Simply perfect.
The bike was hidden in the bushes couple of hundred meters down the road. Air in the tires, the gear well oiled, crucial parts covered with plastic to keep the rain away. Twenty kilometers steep downhill to the nearest town should have been a quick and easy ride, but it turned out bloody, bloody cold. But it didn't matter. In the town there was a car waiting for her, a car she had bought eight months ago, for cash in a village on the other coast. And then just a drive south, to another town by the border. Where he would be waiting for her.
AN: I'm very curious to hear what do you think about this crazy little James Bond-like AU!