Chapter 6: A Living Tragedy (Kozuki Sibling Interlude)
(AN: Thank you to Siatru for beta reading this chapter.)
Kozuki Naoto took a long pull from the unlabeled bottle in his hand, and winced at the liquid fire running down the back of his throat. His eyes watered from the pain and the fumes, but his long experience made ignoring the burn trivial. Wish everything else was that easy to tune out. He carefully wiped the mouth of the bottle off on his sleeve and handed to his best friend, Kaname Ohgi. Both men were squatting on their haunches on the roof of their crumbling apartment building, cigarette in one hand and passing one of the many bottles of homebrew liquor their little band of terrorists had acquired earlier that night back and forth with the other. Naoto had known Ohgi for years, ever since their first year of senior high school, and he'd always known the other man to be a sober, dependably straight-laced individual, given to introspection and quiet humor.
Which would have made the long, long slug Ohgi took from the bottle disturbing to Naoto almost any other night. Such an uninhibited and downright greedy chug of hard liquor straight from the bottle would normally indicate some sort of deep concern or anxiety on his friend's part, and ordinarily Naoto would have done his best to suss out what was troubling his best friend.
Not tonight. He knew exactly what was troubling Ohgi. Naoto shuddered as he remembered what he'd seen, and took a long drag from the roll-up. Yes, he knew what was bothering Ohgi, and he wouldn't begrudge him a single drop of liquid comfort tonight.
About five hours after he and Tanya, their newest, most disturbing recruit, had left to scout out the possible stash-house, Ohgi had burst through the door of their sub-basement hideout, startling Naoto and Tamaki to instant wakefulness from their snoozing on the couches. As quickly as he could, Ohgi had briefed the two of them about the night's events, from their unproductive stakeout to Tanya's sudden return to their observation point an hour after she'd left on a fifteen minute walk, dripping with blood and utterly nonchalant. He'd concluded by saying he'd left Tanya outside guarding a truck full of unknown goods, a truck that she had brutally slain two men to hijack.
Naoto had been, to say the least, very confused. Tanya and Ohgi had left on a simple scouting and information gathering mission, but apparently the mission had rapidly evolved while they'd been out. Ohgi had grabbed a pair of bolt cutters and led him and Tamaki out to the rubble-strewn parking lot of the ruined apartment block they hid under, and sure enough, a battered truck was waiting for them. Beside that truck...
Naoto shuddered again at the memory, and gestured at Ohgi to hand the bottle back. His friend wiped the bottle clean and duly obliged, and Naoto took another hit from the horrible moonshine. He knew he'd regret it come the morning, but he wanted the memory of the tiny figure softened into a comfortable blur as quickly as possible.
Tanya had stood beside the truck, practically swimming in an oversized black sweatshirt and a battered and cut-down pair of men's work pants. The scarf she'd wrapped around her head to conceal her sunny blonde hair had loosened during her busy night, and a thick lock of hair hung freely over her eyes, as if to emphasize her youth. Below that errant lock were a wide smile of satisfaction, pride at a job well and skillfully done clear in every line of her face, and a pair of haunting blue eyes. Naoto had seen lots of empty-eye'd gazes after the Conquest, people broken from shock and trauma, hollowed out inside and mere shells of the passionate men and women and children they'd once been. Tanya's eyes were not hollow, nor empty, nor flat. Instead, there was a sort of mixture of childish and adult characteristics he found very hard to pin down, as if those eyes were some sort of estuary between the innocent, bright emotions of a child and the ancient wisdom of someone who had lived too long and seen too much.
Naoto drank, and counted himself lucky he had never seen a pair of eyes like that before. He knew that he came from a position of rare privilege for a Japanese man in this Britannian-dominated world, the bastard son of one of the few nobles who was a legitimately good man, who loved his children and cared for their mother despite her current state. Even before Lord Stadtfeld had welcomed his daughter and her mother back into the fold by adopting the former as his legitimate heir and employing the later as his maid, his father had sent enough money to let them live in one of the lower rent areas of the Britannian Concession, designated for common Britannians. True, Naoto had had to fist-fight virtually every young or middle-aged Brit man in the neighborhood, and some of the women, to live there without trouble, and he'd had to fight whole gangs of Brits who tried to attack his little sister on two notable occasions, but he was still very aware that he'd been lucky.
He'd never had to live in the Ghetto. He'd come here by choice, reconnecting with his college friends, meeting Ohgi's former co-workers, and bringing weapons and ammunition purchased in the Britannian homeland along with his eager desire to see Britannia brought down. His first month in the Ghetto had been an education, to say the least. He knew, of course, about the broad strokes of the Britannian occupation, of the brutal policies of the Area administration, but... He hadn't known, not on the level that only first-hand experience could teach.
And even then, he'd still been lucky. He had come to the Ghetto as a man, young and strong, with a gun at his belt and thick muscles on his body. He hadn't been forced into the Ghetto as a child, marked out as different and alien by her hair and eyes, forced to work long hours for years to keep herself fed, and hadn't grown up with the humiliations and violations of the occupation a daily reality. He thanked his lucky stars, his father, and any gods who existed that he hadn't lived like that every time he saw Tanya.
She'd been literally dripping with blood, her arms up to the shoulder wet with the stuff, and clearly exhausted, but Tanya still smiled. Her frail body, sharp cheek bones and too thin arms, trembled with exhaustion, but she'd still been energetic enough to offer to help carry the multitude of heavy boxes from the truck down the two flights of stairs to the basement. Still groggy with sleep, Naoto hadn't been able to say a word to the vision of murdered innocence before him, but Ohgi, with a surprisingly gentle voice after his near panic in the basement, had gratefully but firmly turned down her kind offer. He'd said she'd done enough that night, that he hadn't done his fair share of the work on their mission, so she could take a break while they carried the spoils down into the basement. Apparently, Ohgi's instincts as a teacher had served him well, as she'd accepted this line of logic and stood aside as they carried box after box down to the hideout.
After they'd unloaded the truck, Ohgi had volunteered to dispose of it, taking two grenades with him and advising Naoto to keep a careful eye on Tanya. He'd followed his friend's advise as he and Ohgi opened the various boxes, noting the girl's reaction out of the corner of his eye to see what she thought of the spoils of war. She'd been ambivalent towards the moonshine, interested in the lab equipment and materials, calculating when Tamaki had identified the meth, and at first very interested and then dismissive of the rifles. Naoto hadn't been surprised by the first and last reactions, considering how new firearms generally didn't come with ammunition to make them a complete weapon system, but her interest in the lab equipment caught him by surprise. As far as he knew, she was an essentially uneducated street urchin. He didn't know if she even knew what the various flasks and beakers were for, but something about them had clearly caught her interest.
Her immediate question, "Naoto, how do you feel about selling amphetamines to the Britannians?" had come as a shock. He'd already abandoned any attempt to try and predict what fresh, brilliant insanity would emerge from Tanya's mouth, but her suggestion of trying to hook their overlords on hard drugs was inspired and unexpected, as most of her suggestions were. He'd fobbed her off by saying he'd have to think about it, and she'd nodded and muttered something about logistics to his great relief. Naoto was determined to free Japan from the leprous hand of Britannia, but he didn't know if he could endorse selling hard drugs to their enemies for that cause. Setting aside questions of efficacy – smuggling amphetamines into the Concession was no small task, nor was finding buyers or figuring out how to convert their looted supply into a more permanent operation – Naoto was having a hard time convincing himself that the world would be a better place for their actions if they stooped to that level. As far as he was concerned, all 45 kilograms of crystal could catch fire, and he'd be happy.
Of course, he hadn't shared these thoughts with Tanya, and thankfully she hadn't asked. Instead, she'd simply made her way over to the couches, laid down in an uncharacteristically casual display, and immediately fallen asleep. Tamaki and he had quietly laughed to each other about the "lion sleeping off a meal", but he'd known Tamaki long enough to hear the hollow joy for what it was. They'd continued to work in as much quiet as possible, finding places to store their new rifles, the box of cash, and the lab equipment in the armory/storage area of the hideout.
Two hours later, Ohgi had returned from his errand. He'd apparently driven the truck west, towards the edge of the Shinjuku Ghetto and Nakano, before parking it on a sufficiently abandoned street, rolling the two grenades under the cab, and running like hell. He'd looked back to see the truck on its side and smoking, and had kept running for another mile before walking the rest of the way back to Shinjuku and the hideout. Naoto vaguely hoped that nobody had been hurt by the grenade's shrapnel, but he was just honestly glad to have seen the last of that blood-drenched truck cab. He couldn't imagine how awful it must have been for Ohgi, perched awkwardly on a seat practically saturated with drying blood, doing his best to ignore the scent of shit that had lingered even after the corpses Tanya had produced had been dumped unceremoniously in an alley.
Wordlessly, Naoto passed the bottle back to Ohgi. He'd forgotten to wipe the bottle off this time, but his friend apparently didn't care.
Tanya was still asleep when they decided to call it a night, and neither he nor Ohgi had the heart to wake her up. When she slept, she looked so... different, so innocent and vulnerable. When awake, Tanya was an enthusiastic ball of energy and suggestions one moment, a haunting vision of the human cost of war in another, a paranoid and twitchy ball of nerves in a third, and a terrifyingly efficient fighting machine in the next. But asleep, she just looked... like a kid, and a good one at that. Her face relaxed into a peaceful smile, which almost made you overlook the hollows of her cheeks and how each bone in her hands stood out against the skin. Naoto was happy to see that the hollows were a bit less deep than when Ohgi had first brought her back to their apartment, but she still looked so fragile.
After waiting a bit to see if she'd wake back up, they'd had a short discussion, and they decided it would be bad if she woke up alone in a strange place after such a violent and potentially traumatic experience. Ohgi had carefully scooped the girl up and begun carrying her up the stairs. She'd sleepily protested for a moment, before drifting back off again. She hadn't woken back up during the long walk back home, even after being passed back and forth three times, and hadn't woken when they'd put her down in the nest of blankets she'd assembled in the corner of their studio, head on the single ratty pillow Ohgi had managed to barter from Mrs. Maki two doors down. Tanya still wore her mission clothes, now crusted with dried blood, but neither man had wanted to try washing or changing her, so they'd simply left her on her nest of blankets before heading up to the roof to try and drink away the stress of another night in Shinjuku.
Ohgi put the bottle down on the roof between them, and turned towards Naoto. Shit, here it comes. Naoto had hoped they could just drink themselves silly in silence, but he'd know this was coming.
"There's something very wrong with that girl, Naoto." The former teacher's voice was quiet but firm in the morning light, and Naoto groaned aloud.
"What else is new?" Naoto sighed and took another drag on the coffin nail. "We've already been over this, Ohgi. You're right, she's all kinds of fucked up. I'm not disagreeing with you here." He ground the stub of the roll-up out on the roof, and flicked the butt away. "Problem is, you and I both know she's way too dangerous to let wander around on her own. When we took her in, we took responsibility for her – and that means we can't just kick her out because she's..." Ugh, how the hell do I sum up Hajime Tanya in a single adjective? "...Because she's her." Naoto finished lamely, blaming drinking moonshine on an empty stomach for the sudden lack of eloquence.
"I know that, dammit!" Ohgi's voice lacked anger, but was full of pent-up frustration and shame. "I know that it's not her fault she is the way she is. It's not her fault she's so scary I almost piss myself every time she looks at me. I know, god dammit, but Naoto... We can't let her just... just..."
Naoto suddenly felt much older than his twenty six, almost twenty seven years. "She saved Kallen's life, Ohgi. I can't ignore that. Who knows what the hell would've happened to her, if Tanya hadn't been armed and found her in time?" He shivered, and thrust the horrible images his mind produced away as hard as he could. "Plus, she's finally managed to get Tamaki to stop goofing around for five minutes and take things seriously."
"She's still a child soldier, Naoto. I can't ignore that" Ohgi looked up, away from Naoto and into the sky. "I know she saved your sister. I know she's an absolutely terrifying fighter. I know she even slapped some sense into Tamaki." He looked back down, and met Naoto's eyes again. "She's still a child, and children shouldn't be sent into war. I'm sorry, but it's wrong. She's eleven, Naoto! Eleven!" Ohgi took a deep breath, and looked away again, trying to calm down.
Naoto took a deep breath too, and tried his best to keep his cool. "I don't like it any more than you do, Ohgi. But, what do you think I should do?" Naoto shook his head with irritation, his words sounding weak even to him. "I mean, we've tried to get her to act more her age. We've tried to keep her out of harm's way. It hasn't really been working out so far, has it, Ohgi?"
After Ohgi had first brought Tanya back to their apartment after she'd been kicked out of her deceased mother's apartment, she'd immediately begun acting paranoid. She'd almost attacked Naoto when he'd first arrived for no reason he could determine, and when Ohgi had tried to feed her, despite their assurances that she could eat as much as she wanted, she'd barely taken a few bites. After that rocky start, she'd taken to disappearing during most of the daylight hours, saying something about earning her keep, and none of Ohgi's attempts to convince her that she was welcome to their food seemed to sink in.
Naoto had been convinced by Tanya's passionate argument to bring her into the cell, unable to argue with her point that she was "old enough to be put up against a wall and shot" and thus old enough to try and fight back. He'd intended for her to help out in a non-combat role, perhaps helping Inoue secure supplies, or helping apply basic first-aid and running messages. Essentially, Naoto had figured that she could be given some necessary but not dangerous tasks, and could be the mascot and morale officer for the fledgling guerrilla organization. That idea hadn't survived the near disaster of Tanya's first meeting with the other members of the cell, when Tamaki had flown off the handle and pulled a gun on the girl. Worse yet, Naoto and Ohgi had been completely helpless, unable to deescalate the situation and too far from Tamaki to take the gun away from him before he could pull the trigger. To their mixed thankfulness and horror, their intervention had proven unnecessary, as the half-blooded waif they'd inadvertently put in a near-death situation had first forced Tamaki into submission and then taken away his gun without any discernible effort. It was an outright miracle that things had ended without at least one death, but her abilities had been as frighteningly mysterious as they'd been baffling.
Ohgi had succumbed to guilt within a week after the disastrous meeting, unable to withstand both his own shame at almost getting a child killed by an unpredictable and violent friend of his and the brutally effective guilt-trip the child in question had deployed. Very much against his better judgment, Ohgi had armed Tanya with a standard Britannian sidearm and taken time out of his days to walk with her to the hideout so she could practice with it once she'd demonstrated her clear proficiency with the damned thing. Each time they'd returned from the hideout, Ohgi had come up to the roof, beer in hand, and talked endlessly about how horribly unnatural it was to see a school-aged child coolly and professionally servicing targets with her pistol, never missing the bullseye. Within a week, she'd been a better shot than any other member of the cell, at least when it came to paper targets.
Tanya had proven that she could shoot at other targets without qualm soon after, when she'd saved his baby sister's life. Naoto had been twelve when Kallen was born, and after their father had left Japan to return to the homeland after the Conquest, he'd taken over many parental duties as their mother increasingly fell to pieces. Kallen's private description of the encounter had been somewhat vague, and lacked many of the specific details Tanya had included in her verbal report, but his sister had clearly remembered how calm and unemotional Tanya had been after the fight and during the process of hiding the bodies in an alley. The image of his sister hauling bodies made Naoto sick to his stomach, and the idea of a girl four years her junior helping her with the other end of the corpses made it even worse. He took heart from the details that Kallen had shared about their conversation afterwards, including Tanya's dream of going back to school, and that she'd tried to make Kallen feel better when his sister had begun to feel the full impact of taking a human life, but the whole incident still made him sick with worry and grief.
"You're right." Ohgi bitterly sighed out the admission. "We can't keep her from fighting. She's made that abundantly clear yesterday and tonight." The former teacher cocked his head, and looked quizzically at Naoto. "Do you realize that she nearly usurped leadership of the cell from you yesterday? In ten minutes, she totally reoriented our cell's strategic focus for the foreseeable future, and gave everybody there a stake in the idea she's selling."
Naoto grimaced. "Of course I realize that. And yes, it does feel galling to have an eleven-year old prove she's a far better planner then you are." He took a moment and ruthlessly squashed the rising sense of irritation down again. "I'm not proud enough to hold on to a bad plan just because I made it, Ohgi. If she's got good ideas, I'm going to use them. I'd have to be completely stupid to just make her shut up, and I don't think she would if I tried to order her to do so." He groaned and rubbed at his forehead at the memory of Tanya, bright-eyed and enthusiastic, cheerfully burbling out all the various short and long term benefits of her new grand plan. In that moment, she'd reminded him so much of a much younger Kallen from before the Conquest, showing off a picture she'd drawn to their mother.
Ohgi patted him on the back sympathetically. "That's the hell of it, isn't it?" Ohgi said philosophically, "She's so good at everything she's tried so far, and so determined to fight the good fight that it would be practically criminal not to use her. But she's still a child soldier, and sending a child to war is evil, Naoto. It's evil, and we both know it's evil." Ohgi picked the bottle back up and took another swig. "Tanya is a better shot than I am, and I bet she's a better killer too. I mean, before she came, our cell had maybe three deaths on its hands, right?"
"Four," corrected Naoto. "after that guy saw Tamaki trying to break into that warehouse. I heard in the news he actually died in the hospital a few hours after we legged it."
Ohgi nodded. "Four then. And that's in three months of operations. Tanya has killed at least five people that we know of in just the last week." Both men fell silent for a moment at the implication before Ohgi continued more softly. "I know she's an asset, but she's just a kid. I don't want to have to bury her someday. I understand her point about being old enough to die, but... Well, what are we fighting for, if not to stop having kids get shot at all?"
Naoto shrugged. He was tired and drunk, and it was hard to be particularly philosophical. "I just know that she saved Kallen's life, Ohgi. I don't like letting her fight any more than you do, but I'm not going to try to make her stop now. She's earned the right to stand with us, even if it does leave a bad taste in my mouth." Naoto smiled and chuckled to himself. "At least they each made a friend, judging by the way Kallen was talking about Tanya. It's good to hear her being so happy and enthusiastic after..."
Ohgi wordlessly passed the bottle back, and Naoto drank. "Plus, she's finally stopped badgering me to let her go on missions with us." Ohgi let out a bark of laughter at that. "You don't seriously think that's going to last, do you?" Naoto laughed too, before sighing wistfully. "Well... No, but I'm glad that Tanya gave her something else to focus on instead."
A minute of silence passed, until Naoto stood from his squat and began to walk around the roof, trying to get the blood to flow back into his legs. After a moment, Ohgi stood up and joined him. "Naoto, what are we going to do? She's literally got blood on her hands at this very moment, and you can't think that's the last of it. Are we really going to use a little girl as a soldier in our war to free Japan?"
Naoto sighed, and turned back to his best friend. "Yes, Ohgi, yes we are. I don't think we have much of a choice in the matter – we're not going to convince her to stop fighting, and we're not exactly swimming in highly-skilled recruits to replace her with." Naoto felt shame at the admission wash over him, and had a hard time maintaining eye contact with Ohgi. "I suppose this is part of the sacrifice she talked about, isn't it? Whether we could put the good of all over personal desires and all that? Neither of us want her to fight, but she's clearly dedicated to the cause."
Ohgi grimaced again, and Naoto saw the same guilt and horror in Ohgi's expression that he was sure his friend saw on his. "You're right, she's going to fight no matter what we say or do. Last night she basically just abandoned me for an hour, and came back asking if I could drive a truck. She was just covered in blood, but didn't appear to notice or care. And this time, she'd killed those poor bastards with a knife, not even with her gun." He shivered, and continued. "I've already been having nightmares about her, you know. This isn't going to help them... I don't even know if I'm afraid of her, or just what she represents."
Naoto nodded in understanding. "Tanya's definitely a loose cannon. I think she just tolerates any orders I give to her, but... Well, at least she's humoring me so far and being a good girl. And... I get it, I think. She's been a victim for years since the Conquest, right? Based on what she's seen, she's seen some really fucked up stuff, and she couldn't do anything about it. And now, she's finally got the opportunity to do something, to be the one hurting other people rather than being hurt."
Ohgi agreed. "Yeah, that definitely sounds right. It sounds exactly like why kids bully each other – they feel weak and powerless, and they want to fix that by proving they aren't." Ohgi sighed, and idly kicked at the roof. "But to her credit, she could be targeting other Japanese if she wanted that. I'm glad she's decided to target the people actually responsible for what she's endured."
"You know, I always wanted to work as a teacher. I enjoyed working with kids, and it felt great to see them understand what I was explaining to them. It felt like I was helping to build a better world, y'know?" Naoto nodded silently, remembering how enthusiastic Ohgi had been when he'd graduated from university and become an assistant math teacher at a junior high school. "It's been really hard to even help tutor little Kyoko and littler Takahiro since she showed up. I keep wondering if when I look up from the textbook, if they'll have the same eyes as Tanya... I've never been scared of kids before Naoto, but I keep getting twitchy just being around them now."
Naoto clapped his friend on the back companionably. "C'mon, snap out of it Ohgi. You're getting too far into your head about this. Kyoko and Takahiro have both their parents, enough food, and are both full Japanese. They're nothing like Tanya."
Ohgi sighed and hung his head. "I know, I know, it's just... Tanya doesn't even look or act like Tanya sometimes, y'know? Like when Tamaki was showing her how the pistol worked, she looked just like one of my favorite students from back then. Same eager expression, same thirst for knowledge... Only Chihiro thought geometry was really cool, while Tanya fell in love with a damned weapon... It just makes me wonder how many other kids are going to pick up a gun too before this is over, you know? Tanya is one thing, but what if something happens to Mrs. Maki, and Takahiro asks to join us because he wants revenge? How many children is too much of a sacrifice for a free Japan, Naoto?"
Naoto found to his shame that he couldn't immediately answer the question, and wondered himself what the end of the war, if it ever came, would look like.
Kallen quietly sat in her third-period Algebra class, dutifully taking notes on polynomial functions from the second row. Unlike her usual behavior at the start of the year, she no longer sat in the back of the classroom, and no longer hunched down over her papers, trying to be as invisible as possible. Instead, she sat with her back straight and shoulders back, posture as picture perfect as any etiquette instructor might hope to see. The changes in her school life didn't stop with a new seat and a straight back, though. The day after her encounter in the slums, she had informed the Ashford Academy administration that she was feeling much better, and her doctor was enthusiastic about her condition, meaning she wouldn't be missing as much school as they'd feared.
She still hated the shallow, self-absorbed noble brats that surrounded her, but Kallen's whole understanding of her hatred had radically shifted overnight. Instead of being a reason to avoid the inbred bastards and to skip out on school as often as possible, her hatred was her burden to carry. Being pleasant and sociable with those she held in contempt was the sacrifice she was making for Japan. It wasn't a particularly weighty sacrifice, Kallen knew, not compared to the men and women dying in the Ghetto as her teacher droned on and on, but it was one that she was uniquely placed to make.
Kallen wouldn't let an opportunity to strike a blow against the hated Britannians slip past her. Pointing out the amount of damage she could do to the rich bastards who bought and sold her people's future was the second great gift her newest and only friend had given her, the first being her continued existence. Tanya had been there when Kallen had needed her, both when she was against that wall and when the image of a gaping mouth with a throat full of blood, desperate eyes bugging out as he tried to breathe through a ruined windpipe had become too much to bear. Instead of mocking her weakness, Tanya had reassured her, told her that she was strong, and had revealed her own personal trauma and weakness to set them back on equal footing. And Tanya had given her a purpose, a way to fight back that her brother wouldn't hold her back from.
Ever since that day in Shinjuku, Kallen had begun to integrate herself into the school's social scene, joining a conversation here or there, agreeing to a minor social engagement now and then. A tea party on Thursday, tennis on Saturday, and so on and so forth. Her earlier unsociable behavior was quickly excused as the result of her never specified illness, and she'd effortlessly slipped into a role as an outer member in several cliques and groups, rarely finding herself alone at the Academy. Kallen generally said little, only offering expressions of interest in the latest gossip and goings-on and ruthlessly keeping her seething anger and contempt hidden.
Kallen had begun to memorize any gossip she heard in the halls, and would write it down into her class notes as the lectures rambled on. After school, she'd review her notes and copy the gossip items out into a special notebook she'd begun to compile. She hadn't heard anything particularly useful yet – no troop movements or schemes to start harvesting the organs of Japanese prisoners had been bandied about in her hearing, not yet – but she had begun to create profiles of her classmates, adding details about their backgrounds and social connections from the gossip she collected. Slowly, Kallen had begun to understand the complex social network that spanned the student body, and the many ties major and minor between the disparate members. At first she had focused her information gathering efforts on the obvious targets – children of titled nobility, ranking military and government officials, and of important corporate figures – but gradually she'd begun to focus instead on the people that they talked to, their friends and acquaintances, the second tier of the social hierarchy. These students, Kallen had reasoned, would be less invested in hiding whatever secrets they had learned from or about their social superiors, and so would be more likely to spill the beans.
The Algebra class finally came to a merciful end, and Kallen efficiently packed away her school things, making sure to keep her ears open as the class's forced silence exploded in a pent-up burst of conversation and chatter. Kallen didn't linger too long, not wanting her eavesdropping to be too obvious, and slowly made her way out of the classroom, joining the ebb and flow of students in the sumptuous halls of Ashford Academy. The place was richly decorated to the point of rococo gaudiness, but Kallen ignored the furnishings, even as she raged internally at the resources invested in gilding alone that could have been used to feed her people. As a daughter and heir of a noble house, however minor, Kallen was expected to be accustomed to the omnipresent decadent luxury surrounding her, and so she sank into her role.
As she made her way through the hallway, Kallen let a light smile touch her face, making a point to meet the eyes of everybody she could, doing her best to look as approachable as possible. She responded to the greetings of a knot of girls here, a handsome boy there, smiling and listening to what each had to say, complimenting each on their insight and intelligence as she drifted towards her next class.
Suddenly, an arm snaked around her shoulder and pulled her into a casual hug as an enthusiastic greeting was practically shouted into her ear. Kallen practically jumped out of her skin at the shock at the sudden, unexpected touch, and her hand was halfway to the concealed knife in her uniform jacket pocket before she realized she wasn't under attack. Instead of the red blood staining an already filthy white t-shirt, blankly staring eyes looking into hers until Tanya kicked trash over them attackers she half-expected, Kallen found the broadly grinning face of Milly Ashford three inches from her own, and belatedly summoned her "socialite smile" as quickly as she could.
"Kallen! It's so good to finally meet you in person!" The granddaughter of the Academy's principal and director had a broad, vulpine smile across her face, and her eyes glittered with enthusiasm and humor. "I'm Milly, but you probably know that already, huh? Welcome to Ashford Academy!"
"Oh, thank you! It's so good to finally meet you!" Kallen artlessly babbled back, doing her best to look as wide-eyed and innocent as possible. "Cafe Day was really fun! I wish I'd been feeling good enough to participate..."
Cafe Day had been the first of the infamous Milly events that periodically swept the school that Kallen had witnessed. Milly had abruptly declared the cafeteria the "Cafe Ashford" and forced her puppets on the School Council and whoever else had the misfortune to draw her attention to be the waitstaff and baristas at this cafe. Allegedly, the funds raised had been gone to an unspecified "good cause", but based on everything Kallen knew about the smirking blonde, she had her doubts about that.
"I'm happy to hear about your recovery, Lady Stadtfeld." Somehow, Milly's smile grew even more impish. "It'd be such a waste of a pretty young girl to be stuck at home in bed all day long."
Kallen shuddered internally at the lecherous glint in the older girl's eyes, but pressed on with her wide-eyed innocent act. "Absolutely! It's so good to finally feel like my old self again!" Suddenly, Kallen remembered that she hadn't told Milly about her illness or her alleged recovery. "But, how did you know that I was on the road to recovery?"
The lecherous smile dissolved into a smirk of self-satisfaction as Milly beamed. "My grandpa's the principal of the school, so I get to look through the records whenever I want! And lemme tell you, there's some interesting reading hidden between all the boring parts!" The blonde dropped an exaggerated wink as Kallen's eyes widened at the revelation. "Nobody in Ashford Academy has any secrets from me – not for long, at least!"
For a brief moment, Kallen suddenly felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to overbalance and fall. Does she know about Naoto and the Resistance? Is that what she's saying?! Her palm itched for her knife, but Kallen smashed her spiking fear of discovery back down. If she knew I was a killer and a rebel, she wouldn't have confronted me about it by herself in the middle of a school. Kallen reassured herself, She would have told the authorities, and I would've been arrested before I could run. Which brought up the interesting question about what secrets the blonde was alluding to, assuming she wasn't just bragging or fishing for information.
The only way out is through. Kallen thought, realizing that not showing any reaction or interest in such a statement would be a blatant sign that she had some sort of secret to hide. And if I can get in close with her, maybe I'll be able to get access to those records too! 'Audacity, more audacity, and always audacity', as the line goes. And so, instead of recoiling back from the smug Milly, Kallen summoned up her bravery and pulled Milly closer, letting her own smile broaden and sharpen to match the other girl's expression. "That so? Got any juicy morsels you'd like to share with me?" Doing her best not to gag at her own actions, Kallen leaned in closer, almost touching the other girl's nose with her own. "Cmon, you know you wanna. What's the point of having secrets if you don't tell anybody?"
For a moment, Milly Ashford looked absolutely poleaxed at the sudden reversal of the social momentum, but she quickly recovered her poise. She slid her arm down Kallen's shoulder and happily hooked her arm around Kallen's, and then half-walked, half-dragged the redhead down the hall, merrily and loudly talking about the myriad minor scandals and screw-ups that had occurred at the Academy recently, taking care to blatantly point out anyone who was both involved in the latest gossip and unfortunate to be out in the hall at that moment.
As they approached the location of Kallen's next class, she tried to subtly escape the blonde's surprisingly tight hold on her arm without success. Just as Kallen was about to give in to her impulse to force Milly to let go, the older girl turned on her heel and wrapped her in an overly fond farewell embrace, prattling on about how much she'd enjoyed speaking with Kallen and what a great listener she was. To Kallen's hidden rage, the blonde took the opportunity to let her hands roam up and down her back, and she only barely resisted the urge to forcibly shove the blonde against a wall and see how she liked being threatened with a knife and feeling the terror as the four men surrounded and her palms were so sweaty and the knife was trembling and oh god where was Naoto and...
Finally, Milly let go and bounced away, finding some fresh target to harass, and Kallen took a moment to close her eyes and take a deep breath. Holding back her anger suddenly seemed like an impossible task to Kallen, and she wanted nothing more than to flee this damned fancy piece of shit school and the scum who infested it. All for Japan. She thought, remembering Tanya's words as they sat together on some desolate street. I can endure this. It's all for the cause. Nothing's too big to sacrifice for a free Japan. As she entered her class, Kallen imagined introducing Milly to another blue-eyed blonde, and smiled dreamily imagining the likely result of that meeting. Someday, Milly, everything you love will burn. I promise you, by the time we're done, this whole wretched building will be ash.