Chapter Two
By Tallulah
(A/N from Tallulah: Hi all! Hmm…I always seem to end up writing collaborations about evil lurking in dark places…funny that. Anyway, Indigo is © Mazaki Sora. Kell is © me. (Yes, she's back.) Everyone else is © Sega. Please r+r!)
Indigo skated slowly through the murky air of night time Shibuya. The temperature was falling fast. No hot summer night.
Fine. Indigo didn't let coolness bother her.
She knew who she had to ask. Okay, so it tasted sour for a renegade to ask a rival gang for help, but this wasn't a normal situation, this was serious.
Why do you care?
"Shut up, Scarlet!"
Touchy. C'mon. Why do you care? You ain't got anyone to care about so let it slice up all those bitches and sluts and pretty-girls. Make the world better.
Indigo gritted her teeth and kept on skating down the road. Shibuya was pretty empty once it got dark; everyone either went home or headed off to Benten. Normally she liked the quiet, but tonight it was bad, because tonight she could hear Scarlet.
Slice up…kill 'em good…lots of blood, come on, Indigo-chan, I like blood, huh…what do you say?
Don't answer, Indigo told herself. Answering only makes it worse.
Maybe she should turn Jet Set Radio back on…she'd got it off because it was making her too jumpy. Every second she was expecting to hear that song; and once she heard it she'd know there was nothing she could do – someone would die –
What about Miyazaki? Huh? You hate Miyazaki, don't pretend you don't.
"I –"
I hate Miyazaki. I sat in your mind and watched her all that time and I couldn't do anything. Don't stop the monster, Indigo, Miyazaki deserves all she gets. All her friends dying is good, her dying is even better!
"Shut up!"
Don't you remember? She used to trip you up in the lunch hall. She used to write notes about you and pass them round behind your back. She told everyone you smelt and you didn't wash. She's a poisonous little bitch, there's no good in her at all and if you'd just let me hurt her – but you won't – so why not let someone else?
Indigo began to dash.
By the time she reached the Love Shocker HQ, Scarlet's voice had been drowned out by the rush of air in her ears and the growl of her skates on the tarmac. Fine. Good. That was the way she liked it. Because maybe she hated Miyazaki, but Scarlet was wrong, wrong, damn wrong.
Wasn't she?
Indigo gritted her teeth, tried to forget about Scarlet for a bit, and rapped on the peeling door of the HQ. The knocking echoed up over its flat concrete surface and through the long-ago shattered windows. It was really cold now, and the air scratched her fingers.
The door swung open, and a Love Shocker stared out. "What? What do you want, noob?"
Indigo let the insult pass, and said, "I want to see Kell."
The girl frowned. "Why?"
"I need to talk to her."
"Why? Who are you?"
"It's about the Noise Tank that got killed this morning."
The Shocker eyed the scythe slung on Indigo's back, and gulped. "You –"
"No, I didn't do it. But I know who did. So I got to talk to Kell."
The Love Shocker swallowed, and then quickly shoved the door open wider, letting Indigo inside.
Mew tiptoed through Shibuya. It was freezing out here. Man, why did Indigo want to come out now? She herself would much rather have been in Benten. It seemed…warmer somehow in Benten. Maybe it was all the lights.
And it was darker in Shibuya. The shadows were bad. Too black. And there weren't any people or anything. Mew liked having people around. You could rush through them and send them scattering and it was fun –
And if they weren't around, there might be a monster lurking instead…
She shivered.
No, she told herself. Don't be silly. Indigo came down here and she's okay.
But maybe Indigo is the monster…
Oh, I wanna go home…the Garage would be warm, and friendly, and the others would be nice to her –
Sure they would. Because they'd know Mew was such a little baby she was scared to go out at night.
Mew scowled, and stood straighter, and then scurried down the side street Indigo had taken.
"So why did you want to see me, Chloe?"
"Quit calling me that, Kellaani."
The Love Shocker leader
shrugged. "Okay. Indigo, right? What do you want? We've
never exactly been friends."
"Yeah, but I saw what you
were like at school. You were tough."
"So? You weren't exactly nice. I heard you broke that bitch Miyazaki's arm." Kell smirked. Red light burned on her face from the flickering bar sign opposite, and turned her black hair to dark, dark crimson.
"That –" Indigo sighed. No need to complicate matters here. "Whatever. The point is,
I know what's killed those rudies, and no one else will listen. I thought you might."
Kell rolled her eyes. "Okay.
Who? Some rudie? A psycho cop? Onishima cos someone spilt his coffee? Get to the point. Shar
will be back with the Chinese food soon, and I'm hungry. Which of them was it?"
"None of them."
"Well, who?"
"A – a monster."
Kell snorted. "Oh, please. Indigo, I'm not in the mood for all this dramatic shit –"
"Just shut up and listen!" Indigo yelled before she could think. "I'm not joking! It's a monster, a voodoo curse. My father told me about it."
She took a deep breath, and remembered hot, dark nights, the smell of dust rippling slowly across the bare floor…her father sitting on the bed next to her…the delicious shiver in her stomach as he told those spooky stories. When he did, the night seemed even hotter, blood-red-hotter, and she'd lie awake afterwards, listening to the creaks of the house. A different world at night…the house had seemed bigger, darker, the corridors endless, the steps downstairs like the path into a cave, the windows places to hide from because they watched you.
She'd loved that world because she knew she could walk with the beasts in it and ignore horrible people like Miyazaki.
But she was older now; and now she knew the beasts were no better; now she'd seen what they could really do; now she knew those old stories weren't stories at all. That old, dark, red world had burst into the sunlight of the present, and somehow she had to blot it out again.
"Your daddy told you?" Kell sneered. "Indigo, I hate to say this, but has it ever occurred to you you're just being dumb? How'd your dad know about that sort of shit?"
"My dad grew up in Africa. That's –"
Suddenly there was a loud crash from outside Kell's room. Both girls jumped. Kell muttered under her breath, and walked over to the door to peer out into the main hall of the building.
Mew had recognized the building as the Love Shocker HQ, and then had known she really wanted to run home. It wasn't that she was scared of the Love Shockers, who were a pathetic gang who had, like, no turf left at all…but it was dark…and their leader was reported to be kind of mean…
But again, she wasn't going to let the other GGs laugh at her. And besides, if Indigo had gone in here, she had to be plotting something, she was a renegade, she had no business with the Love Shockers…and so it was Mew's duty to find out what was going on!
But she couldn't just walk forward and knock on the door. Sighing, she crept round to one of the dusty windows, and climbed up onto the sill, and rubbed a patch in the dust to see. Grey clots clung to her sleeve, and she scowled.
She was peering into a large, empty hall. Everything was grey, except for the long red shadows cast by the sign across the floor.
She clicked off Jet Set Radio, and pressed her ear to the glass, trying to hear anything, but no luck. Faint muffled voices far away, but nothing she could make out.
This was freaky. She didn't know why, but suddenly she was scared. The air was too cold, and the night was dark, and somewhere out there was something horrible…
Or maybe it wasn't out there. Maybe it was in this building – that must be how Indigo knew – maybe it was watching her right now…
You could never tell, with people, could you? Mew remembered Indigo's eyes turning cat-like. They'd looked wrong in her face, like drops of acid.
The kitten does bite…
Did we kill her?
It had just been a bit of fun! It had just been that Chloe was such a snotty, ugly cow – and Miyazaki had hated girls who acted like they were it – and Chloe always lost her temper and it was fun – and no one else had ever believed Miyazaki could do anything, her mum was always telling her how pathetic she was –
It wasn't my fault…
Mew shuddered. Stupid Indigo. She didn't want to think about that sort of stuff any more. She'd never dared hurt someone since. You never quite knew what you were risking…you never knew what could happen…
But the thing that had murdered the Noise Tank this morning, that hadn't been scared.
Someone crazy.
She wanted to find them – she wanted to find them and stop them and stop being scared –
Suddenly the window creaked beneath her. She jumped – it tilted forward – her skates shot off the windowsill, and she fell through it, and landed heavily on the concrete ground.
Groaning and spitting out dust, she sat up, rubbing the bruises forming on her chest and arms, and sighed as three Love Shockers skated over to her.
"Who the hell are you?" one of them demanded.
"I know her. It's that Mew girl from the GGs."
"Oh, great. Can't we even keep our HQ now?"
"It's on our turf," Mew snapped, glaring up at them.
"Get out before we ten-tag you, bitch."
"What's going on?"
The three girls turned as another Love Shocker, this one with coffee-coloured skin, skated towards them, closely followed by Indigo.
"It's one of the GGs. Trespassing."
Indigo glowered. "What are you doing here?"
"Errr…nothing!" Mew smiled weakly. "Rudie stuff…you know…"
"You were following me, weren't you?" Indigo snarled. "Listen, Miyazaki, keep your nose out of my life – I didn't kill those rudies –"
"Says you," Mew snapped.
"Yeah, says me!"
"You're the only one who's psychotic and you have a scythe! It's blatantly obvious!"
"Really?" Indigo growled, marching towards Mew, her skates leaping in and out of the red shadows. "Well, you're the one who's a two-faced bully. You like to pretend you're so sweet and so innocent, but you're not, I ought to know that – when it comes down to it you're just as bad as Scarlet – just as bad as this monster –" She stopped, and blinked, and then gritted her teeth. "Shit…"
"What?" Kell asked. "You okay?"
"No. No, I'm not. Thanks a fucking bunch, Miyazaki, as soon as you come back into my life my head goes crazy –"
"Ooh, are you going to hack us to death now?" Mew said, trying not to let her voice tremble.
"Fuck off – I got to get out of here – I –"
She turned and ran out of the warehouse, slamming the door behind her.
"Well, now what?" one of the Love Shockers said. "Are we gonna ten-tag this bitch or what?"
"No. Let her go." Kell scowled. "She ain't the monster, that's for sure. Listen, pussy cat. Get the hell out of here, and if you ever come back, I'll tag you so many times you'll get paint poisoning. Get it?"
Mew rolled her eyes.
Kell glowered, grabbed the front of Mew's dress, and pulled her up to face level. "Listen. I remember you when you were at school. You were a little cow, but you were all talk and if anyone ever fought back, you crumbled. Remember that, Miyazaki. You ain't a tough girl and you never will be. Now get your sorry ass out of my HQ."
Mew got her feet, biting her lip to try not to cry, and stumbled towards the door. Her hand was stinging, and she noticed there was a thin cut running down it. Probably from her fall. Rubbing the dark redness off her skin, she reached the door, and stepped out into the silent night.
"Indigo?" she called. "You out here?"
Silence. Good. Mew shrugged, and began to skate away from the HQ, back down to central Shibuya, and to the Garage. She'd stop following Indigo tonight. She was tired; she wanted to have a hot shower and some pizza and then curl up and listen to music.
Huh? That was odd – there was a puddle on the ground. Funny, it hadn't rained for ages –
And then she saw –
A slumped, twisted, broken figure, dropped in blood, sprawled across the pavement; and the containers of Chinese food she had been carrying had been dropped, and rice and pieces of chicken were scattered around her like maggots.
Get away, Scarlet!
Make me – let me out –
Don't you dare –
The world blurred in front of Indigo's eyes – she wanted to black out, oh man she wanted to black out – fall into the dark and let Scarlet take care of things – the pavement in front of her jumped in – jumped out – for a few moments she was completely in the dark – then she shoved Scarlet away and dashed back into the real world, just in time to hear the screams.
"Oh, no…"
She rushed down the pavement, and saw Mew, standing with a dead body at her feet, screaming her head off.
"Mew! Miyazaki! Kitten!" she yelled. "Calm down!"
Mew stared at her with eyes like a terrified baby's. "She's dead…"
"No duh."
Indigo bit her lip. That was Scarlet.
"Calm down," she said. "Who – who is it?"
"A – a Love Shocker – look at the hair –"
"Must've been that one Kell mentioned," Indigo said. "Shar…"
"Did you ask her her name before you killed her?" Mew yelled. "Huh? Did you? Go on, admit it, did you?"
"Don't be so dumb! Maybe it was you!"
"Oh, yeah? What did I do it with? My hair clips?"
"Look at my scythe." Indigo snatched it off her back and waved it at Mew, who yelped and scampered back. "See? It's clean. No blood. So I didn't do it."
"Like – you could have washed it –"
"Mew, it's been like five minutes since I left the HQ, and the only water around is Kogane River. There's no way I could have done it."
Mew stared at her, disgust in her face. "I don't believe you."
She and Indigo stood facing each other across the girl's body.