::chapter four - kira::

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"And we who were so scorned
Shall always wish to make their end.
Our hearts to still their voice.
Our hands to break their worthless necks."

--VNV Nation, "Procession"

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--LOCATION UNDISCLOSED--

All he could do was stand at the threshold and stare at her. She looked... so human.

It was more than a bit strange. Long black hair, tumbling in loose curls about her shoulders and framing her cheekbones, very nearly as long as his... golden eyes - amber thinly webbed with the pale sky-blue they had been once upon a time - drinking in every minute detail of his face. Her attire was casual in the extreme, seemingly more fit for a university student relaxing in a dormitory than it was for a weapon of mass destruction.

But it was the expression that resided in her pretty face for the faintest fraction of a second. There was a girlishness, almost an ingenuity that he'd rarely seen written there - for a moment, Testament had to wonder if perhaps he was mistaken in his assumption that she was the one behind the recent string of murders.

Then she released a cackle of wicked glee and the momentary spell was broken.

"Testament, my lovely one! It's been such a long time. Come in, come in!" Kira laughed, one of her hands snatching his with an eerie swiftness as she tugged insistently. After a moment's hesitation he followed her inside. The hard, bright shine had returned to her eyes, and he knew that he hadn't been at all mistaken. Yoshino had sought out the woman in the drawing as he had asked, and had brought him here. The demon crow obeyed her master without question, and was frighteningly accurate in executing her duties; the chance that she had made a mistake during her surveillance was so slim as to be nearly nonexistent. He mentally asked her if she wished to enter, and all he received was a flat denial. Well, she could care for herself well enough, he supposed...

The small flat was dimly lit and a little run-down, though it looked as though Kira had taken pains to make it appear somewhat respectable. Was that just a female's instinct, he wondered, or was it a holdover from her own life as a human? It was a wonder she was sentient. Aside from her blind loyalty to their master during the Crusades, she had been more brutal than Testament by far. And his insanity had been severe enough in its own right.

The madness of an immortal with even the smallest amount of free will is infinitely worse than the madness of a human, for an immortal has plenty of time and enough power to see that his or her diseased imaginings will come to pass.

His musings were interrupted as she pushed him down into a chair so old that the springs had ceased to support any rear ends that occupied it, and he felt a moment's alarm as he seemed to sink into the fabric. "Sit down, stay a while. I'll pour us some drinks and you can tell me what you've been doing for the last year. I thought those humans killed you and our master both, then I start hearing rumors that you're abroad again..."

Testament recovered from his bemusement at her oddly domesticated behavior long enough to shake his head and brace his palms against the chair - struggling to reclaim his balance and retain his dignity at the same time as he rose to his feet. "Kira, I didn't come here to reminisce or to fulfill a social obligation of some kind..."

"I didn't think so." She stepped back into the room, a pair of glasses in her hand and a small decanter of sherry in the other. Despite her relaxed manner, Kira couldn't help but feel a bit triumphant as a faint smugness found its way into her voice. He had come to her just as she had hoped he would. Now she would reveal her plan, and he would reveal his, and it would be just like old times. They could work together as they had during the war. She'd leave the sensitive details to him, of course. Testament had ever been more patient than she, with a much better understanding of human behavior. It was a very handy tool for manipulation - it'd worked once before, hadn't it? "You never were one for small talk."

He can bring back our master. I know he can. He's probably been planning away, trying to figure out how to try again. But this time, he won't be alone. I'll join him. If the two of us combine our power, the humans won't stand a chance... together, we'll rid the earth of these wasteful worthless scum who dare to think themselves better than we are...

What would be even more interesting was how he would react to what she had in mind.

"No," he agreed quietly, "I'm not. Not when I have more important business at hand."

"Drink up," she grinned, gesturing. "Surely you can stay long enough for a little drink?"

He shook his head and raised the drink to his lips, sipping politely. Sherry wasn't one of his preferences, though he remembered that it had been hers. The odd thing about their class of Gears was that in many cases they retained some of their human qualities. "I suppose, as long as you understand that I have business with you."

"So impersonal. I'm hurt, Testament." She laughed merrily, but the sound had a certain degree of hollowness to it. His claret eyes never left his female counterpart's face as she paused in her obviously contrived gaiety long enough to take a healthy swallow from her glass. "So what's this 'business' you're wanting to discuss...?"

"Three men are dead, Kira." The Gear set his glass down on a nearby side table and eyed her with a piercing crimson gaze. "In the last week, mind. The police have issued a composite sketch drawn from eyewitnesses, and it looks quite a bit like you. You wouldn't have had something to do with it, by any chance... would you, my dear?"

"You think such things of me?"

"I know you, Kira. Be a good girl and stop evading the question. Did you kill them?"

She shrugged, as if the accusation of murder was of no great consequence. To her, it probably wasn't. "So what if I did? They were just humans. Who'd miss them?"

"Apparently enough people missed them that the Global Police Force received clearance to issue a three hundred thousand-dollar bounty on your neck. Every human within a hundred miles would be swarming this hovel if they knew you were here." As was his wont, one of Testament's slim black eyebrows arched loftily upwards. "That was careless of you, darling... forgetting about those loose ends. Very, very careless."

"I shan't do it again, I promise." Another laugh, then an innocent query: "You aren't mad at me, are you, Testament?"

"That depends." He continued to eye her with that granite-sturdy calm. "I also know you well enough to know that you usually don't establish a pattern of killing specific humans without a good reason for it."

Kira fluttered her lashes a bit, her expression oddly guileless. "I only meant to finish what you started."

"What I started...? Did I start something?"

"Justice."

Testament shut his eyes. He should have figured it was something like that. Kira had adored their master blindly, but... where would she have gained the sentience to do any of this... much less the wherewithal to make any sort of attempt at clandestine organization at all?

Justice can't be alive. I would know it, if he were...

The woman blinked, absentmindedly tucking a sheaf of dark violet hair behind one elfin ear. He wasn't taking this as enthusiastically as she had hoped. Maybe he had a plan of his own and didn't want her involved?

Oh, but that wasn't logical...

But, she reminded herself, Testament had always had just that tiniest touch of human still in him. Justice had hated it because it made him difficult to control as completely as he did the others. But it had been tentatively overlooked. The rebel Gear - however many misgivings the former Knight's unique state of semi-sentience gave him - had not pressed the issue since the young man had remained fanatically loyal and that was more important. Human beings were not, strictly speaking, very logical creatures. So maybe in retrospect, it did make sense if he harbored an obscure sense of resentment towards her. Maybe she'd thought of something first and he was simply jealous.

So she assumed, meanwhile failing to see the irony in the fact that not only was she once human herself, her own actions were inherently illogical.

"You can help me," she offered with a bright smile. "That's why I wanted you to come. That's why I wanted to talk to you. I can't do this alone. You're better at handling those creatures than I am. You can pass yourself off as one, and I can only do so much. I know I have limits. You tried to do everything yourself last time and you ran into bad luck. But if we work together this time, we can do it. I know we can do it..."

"Kira," he interrupted as gently as possible, "the First is dead. He was killed by Ky Kiske and Sol Badguy last year, when I managed to free him..."

"He's not dead!"

"Yes, he is." That was true... wasn't it? "I saw his body myself, Kira. Lord Justice is a year in his grave."

"His body is gone, but his spirit remains." Testament saw the unholy shimmer lurking in her amber eyes. "The humans have displeased their own God with their arrogance even as they've displeased Justice, and now he speaks to me through our master. It's our duty to kill them all. We have to begin anew, and to do that we have to discard all the corruption. It's the only way to save everything."

"By destroying it in the process?"

"If I didn't know better, I would think you were trying to discourage me." That glittering smile suddenly receded into a sullen pout. "I'd think that you of all people would understand what I'm trying to accomplish."

"Yes," he admitted. He was no saint himself, and heaven forbid he ever pretend to be one. But even his thought patterns had modified themselves, now that his master was dead. How could he be so transformed by the loss of Justice... and Kira so unchanged?

She's dangerous, more dangerous than she ever was. She has just enough sanity and free will to survive, but not enough to differentiate between reality and this delusion of hers.

He couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity for her. Maybe it was because of that remembered fellowship, or lingering loyalties... or maybe a part of him agreed with her. Testament supposed that all three possibilities were valid enough.

Although he found the latter one very disquieting...

"Then you'll help me get rid of the humans..." Kira stood, setting her glass on that same table, then approached him until the crown of her head was nearly brushing his nose - she was a tall woman. The smile had changed, becoming that slow sly stretching of her lips, and Testament felt the slight friction and brush of cotton as her arms wrapped leisurely about his neck and drew them closer. This time her eyes and his met and once more, the years dropped away... as if they, like Kira's earlier assertion, were no more than a finely orchestrated delusion. "For our master? Or... for old times' sake? Just you and me... no one else...?"

...when had he lost the ability to move...?

"Kira..."

The Second Lord Gear had meant to protest, to refuse her, but she made her move before he could muster his words.

Kira kissed him, and his senses reeled in absolute shock.

The contact of her lips against his, soft and moist and tasting of that sherry, was something he was ill-prepared to absorb - and therefore he failed to raise his defenses as he would have done otherwise. Almost reluctantly he raised his hands from their stiffly locked positions at his sides, but instead of grasping her shoulders to push her away they hovered at her waist. There was a hungry noise, almost a savage half-growled whimper issuing from the back of her throat as she made her decision to deepen the kiss, her tongue slipping with deft skill between his lips and nudging insistently at the wall of his teeth...

For a few moments a part of him responded as that dormant beast within his own mind rattled its chains.

Old memories, old instincts that he hadn't experienced since the simultaneous horror and exhilaration of those first days of his altered existence... alive now, at his beck and call. With a mere thought Testament knew he could summon them and make them reality once more: the sharp metallic taste of blood and the shrieks of the dying, chaos, destruction, armageddon, the forever-young but inevitably rotting corpse of a child trapped beneath a half-collapsed building. The end of days. All of it was a macabre blur of free-association imagery, a lurid vision of stark and horrible reality through the brimstone eyes of a madman. And beneath it all the seductive silken whisper of that beast, all too willing to assume dominance...

... he knew it was no more than Kira's fervent desire for utter annihilation, simply a broadcast from her broken mind to the echo chambers of his divided psyche.

More intuited than conscious, it nevertheless caused the darkness of his own tainted soul to come screaming to life, demanding his attention, and oh God he was so tempted, so fearfully tempted...

And it was that part of Justice still extant within himself which pillaged her mercilessly, took what she offered without giving anything in return. This was an urge that had not disappeared with the transformation from human to something not-so-human, and his seldom-invoked libido was busily and happily reminding him just how long it had been since he had done anything to satisfy it. Inopportune, to say the least, since it inevitably caused this conflict of ethics and primal drive... it shouldn't have, by all rights. He personified the grim visage of Death. Death had no natural opposing element to counteract its frozen grip, no fire to its ice. But he was only a man after all, and still human, and the errant flint-sparks that were her madness set his cold blood aflame.

But...

What of Dizzy?

For that matter, what of the new start that he'd promised Kliff he would try to make... what of the new start he had promised to himself? If he gave in to his old self he was damned forever. Tesu Undersn would truly die, Justice would triumph and so would Kira. It was one thing to risk your life, but she was upping the ante to his very soul - and that price was one he was no longer willing to pay.

Testament wrenched his mouth away just long enough to gasp for breath, his eyes slightly wild as they fluttered open and his gaze fell upon her face. Twin windows to hell were unshuttered for all of a moment, before the fire died and the curtains were drawn. Her grin was wider and more beatific than ever as she saw it, her own chest heaving... and this time, there was unmistakable lust in her eyes, along with a strange sort of greed.

He lifted his hands and this time they found her shoulders.

"Ah, so you do remember that, after all. I knew you'd see it my way eventually..." She leaned forward to nibble at him and caught his lower lip with the points of her fangs, drawing his blood. The sting was another jolt back to reality. Seduction? Maybe. Or possibly something much more prosaic. No one ever said that Kira didn't have a sense of pragmatic cunning when she wanted to exercise it. She could be brutal... but she could also be very, very subtle when the mood took her. Fortunately it was a rare occasion when she was sane or patient enough for the latter...

...she's trying to manipulate me with my own memory. It's just another of her mind tricks to get what she wants...

Same old Kira - she was a walking honey trap, uttering words that were like blowdarts with poisoned edges, disguised as harmless toys. She knew well of the dual perceptions that constantly plagued him with their incessant collision, and she was summoning forth the memories of himself as the disciple of Justice... all to further confuse him. He surmised that in confusing him Kira hoped to make him pliant enough to bend to her will (what existed of it) despite his own wishes.

But Testament was himself a gentle killer, capable of subtleties that Kira was not. He knew his own tactics when he saw them quite well. All too well.

He'd taught her to behave this way, after all.

The Gear shook his head and pushed her away while vigorously wiping the back of his forearm across his now-bloodstained mouth. It was a bit of a stop-gap, but it succeeded in breaking the odd enthrallment she'd cast upon him. Kira got the hint immediately, and the lust and greed and wild triumph were replaced with angry bafflement. In all the years he had known her, he had never refused her anything before, and she didn't understand how he was able to do it now.

"No," was all he said. It was all that had to be said.

"Why?"

"My priorities have changed considerably in the last year, Kira. I'm not the same man you knew during the Crusades."

It was as plain as he could make it without being cruel, but the neutrality in his voice spoke volumes by itself.

The change was obvious. Her face grew very still, almost hurt - insofar as a mad Gear could feel such things, and with it was more than a slight twinge of bitter resentment. Kira's eyes narrowed. "It's that little blue-haired bitch, isn't it? I've heard of her. The winged girl they call the 'Innocent Gear,' the little coward that fears her own power. You'd choose that foolish, naive weakling over me? I'm disappointed, Testament, I thought better of you..."

Testament's eyes flashed ominously as the customary apathy disappeared and he glared at her, the dim guttering light playing disturbing tricks with the contours of his pallid face. "Do not ever speak of Dizzy in that fashion again, Kira, unless you would like to shuffle off this mortal coil sooner than you had expected. My reasons for refusing you are none of your concern, save that I will not aid you in this absurd plan of yours to accomplish the impossible..."

Her chin snapped up and her amber eyes darkened with their own fury.

"Justice is dead, Kira. Let him remain so." He sighed, and the weariness returned to his eyes. "You'll end up regretting it if you pursue the issue. Take it as advice from a comrade-in-arms, if not as an old friend."

The cold, shuttered expression written on her pretty face didn't change as she spoke. "I take it that you won't help me, then."

"I will not." He took a few steps towards the door, one hand closing about the door handle and the other slightly outstretched, ready to summon his fang should she try to prevent his exit. "I believe we've exhausted all the possibilities of this discussion, so I think perhaps I should be on my way."

"Testament?"

"Yes?"

"Advice in return, for that kiss." Her smile was as glacial as her voice. "You might want to keep an eye on that politician friend of yours. Humans can be so rash. And he's more reckless than most... isn't he...?"

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. He had never mentioned that he even knew Anji Mito, much less that he was traveling with him. "This is between you and me."

Kira didn't reply, just leveled him with that hostile stare and watched him walk out the door. Had Testament glanced backwards, he would have seen the sudden sadistic glow in her smirk. Kira was a bully who took advantage of perceived weakness - and she always had a contingency plan when something went awry.

None of this occurred to the Gear. He stamped irritably down the stairwell, waiting until he stepped out the door to the dimly-lit sidewalk before he leaned against the brick facade of the soot-dusted flat building and ran his fingers through his long black hair.

Are you sure you want to simply leave this alone? She's a rabid animal... and she's dangerous, not just to other people but to herself. Do you want to assume responsibility if she kills again...?

"I'll have to tell Sol where she is..."

It came out as a faint mutter, almost a rasp. His expression tightened uneasily as he glanced up at the third-story window that was now devoid of light. The thought rankled him slightly, but at least Sol didn't have a moral conflict over killing his own kind. If anyone could put Kira out of her misery without blinking an eye it would be Badguy. And as much as he pitied her, as reluctant as he was to betray her to the bounty hunter... that look in her eyes made him doubt that he had much of a choice in the matter.

"You might want to keep an eye on that politician friend of yours. Humans can be so rash..."

It was probably an empty threat. But... just in case...

I'll watch him carefully. That's all I can do for now.

Testament felt a stirring of air and heard the flutter of bird wings as the familiar weight of the demon crow landed upon his shoulder. Glancing moodily at Yoshino, he made his way back towards the inn in silence, footsteps heavy.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is possibly the only chapter that I didn't plan to split into multiple parts. There was some stuff that I wanted to do in order to establish the nature of the interaction between these two before I progressed with the other characters... @_@; However! History with Kira notwithstanding, I have no intention of giving Testament a romantic connection to her or anyone else... unless of course you count Dizzy, and frankly I don't ^^; So before you ask me, no, this is not some sadly orchestrated way to display fangirlism. Kira wants Testament, he doesn't want her. Years and years of water under the bridge - and she's a frickin' psycho. End of story. I briefly considered attempting to go ahead and take the scene back to Sol and Anji anyway, but this scene got very long on its own... o_o;

And growl to GG for the cheapness of A.I. instant kills. Arrr. Got through with Sol without any continues until I got to Testament and he instant-killed me seven times in a row. Arrr. x_x; I want the original Baiken, dammit!

*grumblesulkpoutsmashwhine* X_X

Anyway! Next chapter coming soon-like. This is weird, I'm trying to decide if I liked the way this chapter came out... *bleh* >.