"... You cannot protect him Satsuki. ..."
"Wrong again. I can. I will."
"... Ah. Sentimentality. You truly are your father's seed. ..."
"Did my sentimentality not lead to your demise? I said I would be your end...and I was."
She cautiously walked a space of ethereal white hearing nothing but the echo of a voice she hated. Someone's open-toed heels clacking along a ground that looked like varicolored glass. It wasn't until the rest of her mother's form shined to materialize ahead of her. She glanced down to see herself protected by her new armor, the tattered remains of Junketsu trampled beneath her glinting heels, the radiant white glow of her Bakuzan's bladed portion. She squeezed the handle tighter as its warmth traveled the length of her arm to coat her in its shimmer. She didn't have to look to see Ragyo in the distance holding her chin up as she paced back and forth. She was unarmed, poised, her feathered gown looking no worse for the wear.
"... My idea was to free you and your sister from the weakness. ..."
Satsuki emulated how her mother never stopped moving. She hoped she would dare to try her patience.
"You failed," she said. "I offer this one warning as a courtesy. Son will never have to suffer your depravity ever again. Our children will never know you existed."
Ragyo sneered like the words were no bother. She thought nothing of Satsuki's eyes glowing brightly, a visible sign she was willing to make good on her promise a second time.
"... You wound me, Satsuki. ..."
They both stopped as Satsuki waited to hear her parting words.
" ... Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life. Blame your own thoughts, if you must. They betray you. ..."
Satsuki tired of their talk. She turned to walk the other way. Hearing Ragyo's pompous laughing at her back...she ignored it.
x.x.x
If it was their choice they would be in bed. Not hit with bright bulbs that were working at their strongest. Sifting through remains on the second floor of a cesspool their fellow investigators struggled to keep up. He followed the bullet holes back and forth all the way to the uniformed told to block off a warehouse's exits.
"Mikisugi."
"Over here," he waved without looking.
Not done retracing the steps he stood from the unique boot print he crouched over. The Nudist Beach betrayed the notion of a concept they abandoned. Seeing the only other leader of the organization dressed like him in all black for their turtleneck sweaters, pistol holsters, military style fatigues and laced boots, the change wasn't unpleasant. The brute of a man he often worked with handed him the bagged gain he brought. The jagged edged object inside it squared at two points.
"Sometimes I wish they'd throw us off their scent," Mikisugi said.
"Why bother? No one else knows they exist," Tsumugu replied wanting desperately to enjoy a smoke but remembering he quit.
Their eyes fell to a recent problem next to their feet.
"Why girls like this? Why now?" Mikisugi said disgustedly. "Revenge? Kidnapping the ones they don't butcher to make some sick statement?"
"In case you forgot there're only two women on this planet that could wipe us all out with little to no effort," Tsumugu convinced his longtime friend, and himself. "Gero wants that kind of power. Craves it. He'll do anything to get it."
"Clearly," Mikisugi sighed flippantly. "It's too bad we'd need a warrant the size of Osaka."
He wouldn't try to make light of a disturbing trend, following the lining of a wet ceiling, turning his attention back to where they stood. Glancing to him he knew why Tsumugu left the strap over his modified, nine-millimeter sidearm off.
"Update the field teams. I want twenty-four hour surveillance of Red Ribbon's main headquarters. If we're good enough, they won't catch us either," he said finished with thinking about how their methods changed.
The sentiment left him numb. He couldn't blame the stench of bleach and peroxide used to sanitize the last stage of a process.
"I'll be in the lab," he said in the middle of pulling odorless gloves off as he moved.
"Hmph. What nonsense are you concocting now?" Tsumugu crossed his arms, mugging.
"Nonsense? Me? Wouldn't dare dream of it," Mikisugi grinned on one side of his attractive face.
Parting his way through rookies he reached a staircase, followed by the few wanting to discuss what they learned.
x.x.x
He kept one hand on the wheel of a rusted pick up truck, gleeful. Driving a rustic setting not far from where they lived his passenger said all of two words. He glanced for her tank matching her sunglasses. The leggings she chose for the day smelling like her and washed out cinnamon. She held her head in her hand, carelessly watching the road, hanging her elbow out of her window as her hair blew against her face.
"Eyes on the road dumbass," Ryuko said aware of his gaping.
"This ain't as hard as I thought," Son chuckled.
She took her glasses off and turned her scowl to see him grinning like an idiot.
"Breakfast hit the spot," she said.
"Meshiya has the best scrambled eggs!" he said. "I could eat a truckload."
"You DID eat a truckload. Thankfully not on my dime," she sassed.
She snuck a peek at his hooded sweatshirt fitting snug. His arms looked bigger as it had no sleeves to hide them.
"Was thinking we'd try something later," she kept staring.
"Should I even ask?" he said to get her attention.
"If you want it to happen. No. Keep your trap shut."
"... Tch. Whatever."
She wanted to make sure it didn't bother him. Her not speaking made him think it over but all around was his element being a preference.
"I'm alright. Really," he assured her. "It's actually getting a lot easier."
"That's my line," she faked a frown. "And what makes you think I care?"
"Sometimes you have that look about you."
"You wish."
The endless plains they passed sandwiched a beat up street. They stopped doubting it.
"Thanks for teaching me this," Son said.
Ryuko thought of it longer than she meant to.
"Better me than some annoying instructor," she said not mad at him. "Normal. Boring. We make time for it. If we don't...I don't know. Maybe we're...Son!"
Seeing it too late Son nearly put his foot through the truck's floor as he stomped the break pedal. His hands tight around the steering wheel they spun out and he struggled to slow it down. Jerking with a lasting turn instinct put his arm over Ryuko's chest as she swept her hair from her line of sight. They caught their breath, hearing two of the hubcaps rolling around in place until they fell flat against the street.
"You okay!?" he checked her forgetting it would take much more than a car accident.
She waved him off, unbuckling her seatbelt.
"You gotta be freaking kidding me," she cut her eyes at something ahead of them.
Looking, Son noticed how tall it stood. Its skinless build and the smoothed over nothingness on its face.
"Wait," he said before she opened her door.
"... R-R.y.u.k.o M-M.a-a.t.o.i ...!"
They watched its bulky sculpt rattle. Smoke rose from slits in its exterior before it lost its balance.
"It's spazzin' out," Ryuko mumbled under her breath.
"That's the thing that attacked you?" Son didn't hide any surprise.
Not answering Ryuko carefully stepped from the truck as he followed after her. They kept their distance from the smoking asphalt surrounding it. Instinct told her to block off any way to Son.
"It's not moving," she said.
Its head catching fire they listened for whatever device powered its voice drowned out by the sparks jumping around it.
"No wonder we couldn't sense it," he glanced to her standing so close her backside was pushing him.
She didn't take her eyes from it either. "It said my name."
"Yeah. Maybe you're the target," he nodded. "Why you only?"
"Who cares," her eyes narrowed.
Son watched her closely. Ryuko was slower to step forward. They made their way to it, never getting too close. She turned an unsure glance to his rubbing his nape. She crouched to reach for the symbol browning on its shoulder beginning to twitch.
"Let's take it with us," she said carefully.
"Take it with us?" he answered. "You think that's safe?"
"Nope," she shook the grit from her fingers.
"Careful," he reached as she was bold in how she took a piece of it to drag.
He helped her with it, a skeptic. She turned a glance at his staring. Hot to touch, they ignored that it stung to, flinging it over the side of the truck's bed. Son pulled at a slippery tarp he grabbed to cover it as best he could, with Ryuko standing back, hands on her hips as she checked their surroundings to make sure they were still alone. They finished their work and paused.
"You good?" he said.
She nodded hastily, dropping her gaze, then lifting it. "Just weirded out a bit."
Son gave her some space. He knew she hated babying. To his surprise...she closed the distance. Startled, Ryuko hugging him happened suddenly. He slowly wrapped his arms around the small of her back.
"Uhhh," he said. "You sure you're feelin' okay?"
"Let's figure stuff out. Take a week. We'll stay gone until the contractors finish the house," she said closing her eyes.
"So...you wanna go somewhere...not like here?" he guessed.
"Yes, Son. That's typically what a vacation is," she smirked.
"I don't know. I can't practice driving the truck on a beach," he said, dead serious.
Rarely hearing her giggle, he lapped it up. Holding each other they glanced to what they hid in the truck.
"Okay. We'll look into this. Then go," he promised.
Ryuko wasn't watching their find as he was. She kept admiring him until he bothered to notice. Son offered a mischievous grin if it meant seeing hers.
x.x.x
. . .
. .
.
"... We have a problem Clyde. Dr. Gero isn't happy that you aren't happy with your five percent. But fair is fair. Sadly, Eight here is not a fan of two things: liars and men. Imagine how she feels when someone the good doctor put so much faith in turns out to be both ..."
They thought a high altitude worked as the better scare tactic. A six-foot-three wonder kept her arm straight with someone wriggling to be free of her impossible grip. Red hair pulled and tied to keep it out of her oval face it was so lengthy it nearly grazed her sharpened boot heels. Her comrade had to admire how she could be the most beautiful lay he would ever know...or a ruthless killer that could drill her fist through steel.
"I-I wasn't skimming from the top M-Mr. Seven sir! It has to be o-one of my staff! I'm telling you that I would never EVER steal from Dr. Gero!" their victim stumbled over the words he couldn't get right.
Eight turned her pointed nose up at his sweating like a pig in his labcoat, overweight to the point that it would trouble anyone else to keep him from squirming. She turned that disgust to Seven's dark, close-cropped hair, his blue eyes, and his smooth, taut jaw.
"Should we try higher? Perhaps his lungs bursting will provide some incentive," she said with nothing to smile about.
"Open your hand," he said indifferently.
She didn't turn to see what she dropped. Human men screaming before death, especially if they were cowards, was worse than a child's when they couldn't have their way. She rested hands over her wide hips to see the sky settle.
"Pass off hiring another to someone else," she scoffed as she gave him a cold look.
He stared off. "I was just about to say the same thing. Gero thinks we might be in some kind of trouble."
"From what? The broken leg the Nudists try so desperately to stand on? Do not mock me, Seven," she said.
She watched him take off faster than her next blink. He homed in on his target, head first, without so much as a pause to think how he could blow open a hole through the ground he hit. Finding a hidden away bunker beneath it white beams leaving his pupils was the quickest way. Caught off guard their rounds ricocheted from his blackened jumpsuit if they didn't melt first. His eyes let off a star's hot to separate heads from where their necks started. He could hold himself over the floor they dropped to. He could never tire. They didn't have the tools to blow away his toothsome smile.
He walked into every shot. One brave enough to approach him missed how fast he shoved his hand through the polymer vest he needed. He lost feeling in his chest with the last thing he saw being his heart beating against their enemy's squeeze. Another tried at hitting him over the head with their version of batons that were supposed to never break. Before she could spot how it was shoved between one of her helmet's eye ports. Their enemy stayed put to see one of the last keel over to stain his combat boots. He had forgotten how many of their safehouses he ruined in the last month.
*Enjoying yourself?*
"It's the only thing these idiots understand," he said rubbing blood between his gloved fingertips.
Squared chin high, through the debris and smoking limbs he found the console he was looking for, its holographic screen taking up much of a wall it didn't touch.
"This isn't the one," he discovered with quick typing. "You should see the files they have on us. It's downright adorable."
He turned to look over his handiwork. The loud blaring finally calmed and the flashes followed. A little attention meant he could calculate the rounded ridges of human cells no longer active in blood coating the walls.
"Eight. None of these look like their leaders. Masks to hide their identities. I'm guessing this isn't even one of the more valuable cc's."
*What should we do for the hassle?*
"Continue to prove our point. Every Nudist we kill is a message," he said again. "Besides. Gero won't let us rest until he has what he needs."
*Don't remind me. Weeks of this nonsense to create the perfect woman. I should suffice as living proof he succeeded!*
"... On that we can agree sister."
Darting off he used his head to open steel and the layers of dirt burying it. Sunshine hitting him square in the face, he tried quicker. A sharp clap shook pebbles from nearby canyons fading as dust after he was long gone.