Disclaimer: CCS is not mine. I disclaim any rights to it. Characters were used in this fiction without permission from the owner or from whomever.
Rai: eep…I know… I know…(ducks from a flying banana peel) gawd. People have gotten tired of throwing tomatoes? (ducks from an unidentified crap) Man, give me a break! (ducks from raw dressed chicken) Fine! I'm sorry…woah! (ducks from a potted cactus) The second part's here! (Throws manuscript over to crowd.) When things get too violent next time, I'm never gonna update. Whoa! (ducks from a PC speaker)
Warning: Succeeding chapter contains violence. As I said, please be a responsible reader. Don't go around carrying Luggers and daggers, ayt?
Rai: (ducks from a PC. Loud crash from behind.) **whistles**
-
The Assignment
IV: Retrospection ii: Rubies
-
How far would you go to fulfill a vow?
It's strange how a broken soul can be so vulnerable. How one can find solace in everything. Even the one that defies the soul's convictions. I wonder a lot about that. I wonder if the massacre hadn't happened, would I have had a different life? I will never know the answer to that.
Akira-sensei gave me a chance to keep my vow. I called him four days after our first meeting and he sent me over to his apartment downtown. His place was a penthouse suite in one of the premier residential areas in all of Hong Kong. Entering the lobby, I distinctly remembered that this kind of architecture had been inferior to the masterful design of the manor. But the manor was now nothing more than a pile of rubbish that littered what has been the Clan's estate.
The elevator stopped on the top most floor and I stepped into the small hallway that displayed a huge oak door with brass knockers. After one last struggle to not be overcome by my own pride and turn back, I lifted my hand to knock.
A burly man wearing a suit opened the door. A bodyguard. I found it ironic that I had one of these men around me just a few months ago. And now one of them was looking at me with contempt trying to mock me of my own miserable state.
"Yes?"
"I'm looking for Kagero Akira," I said and added, "he sent for me."
The bodyguard looked me over in one spiteful glance and asked, "Your name?"
"Syaoran."
"Wait here," he said shortly before he closed the door between us. A minute later he returned and escorted me into the sensei's study.
The sensei greeted me with a warm smile, "I was expecting you. I hope Jhang hadn't been overzealous."
"Not really," I chose not to pursue it.
He offered me a drink and asked, "How is your work?"
"Okay."
"And the elderly couple?"
"Okay."
"And your salary is…?"
"Okay."
"The business?"
"Why did you send for me?"
The sensei stopped and smiled as he handed me a glass of juice. He looked at me for a while before deciding to answer, "If you must know the truth, you fascinate me."
"How so?"
He walked towards the other couch, his footsteps barely audible on the plush carpeting. He sat opposite me, "You remind me of a young boy I've heard of. You must have heard of him too because you actually have the same name. I've never met him but he was supposed to be one of the country's future leaders."
He knew about me. I can see it, but I refused to admit the truth to him. It will foil my plans and ruin everything that hasn't even begun yet. Instead I asked, "What happened to him," my voice had reduced to a faint croak.
"He was killed," the sensei looked straight at me, "him and his family."
Killed. My family, yes. But not me. I heard my mother's voice again. Pleading. Corrupting my mind of its sense of control. That short statement brought back everything I have vowed to avenge, and the realization that I have never truly grieved for my loss. Grounding my fingers on the cold glass, I sought to redeem restraint. Then the sensei's voice broke into my distress.
"Syaoran," he called.
My head snapped towards his general direction.
"Are you alright?"
I nodded. Not trusting my voice to justify my response.
Akira-sensei lay back on the seat and stared at me. I, meanwhile, restrained myself. He asked me another question that sent me into another turmoil, "His name's Li Syaoran. Do you know him?"
I have not yet learned the etiquette of lying then so it would be understandable to say that my forehead was matted with sweat. I could feel myself shaking. More from the memory of who I was than anything else. Who I was. Because I was definitely not that person anymore. Li Syaoran was born with power and wealth. I was but a mere busboy. Another entity. Another being struggling to survive. It was with the sensei's simple inquiries that I realized how pathetically inferior I had become. How pathetically inferior I will forever be.
The sensei now stood before me. He was a good man. But I wasn't sure if a good man was worth trusting.
He asked me again, "Do you know him?"
This time, I decided to respond. If I will ever regret answering the sensei, that day has yet to come, "I am him."
-
The sensei adopted me. Since then, I carried the name Kagero and refused to use Syaoran any longer. Except for that one assignment…
Akira-sensei funded my education. But this education was not the typical kind. He had instructed me well before enrolling me. Explaining everything that I was going to learn and going to become. He left it my choice to make. And I obliged.
Joining the Institution had been the only chance for escape that I had. Although the sensei adopted me, I never intended to use his name for my plans. The Institution sheltered me and bred me to become one of its finest slayers.
I was turning eleven when I joined the Institute. Four more years and lives would be judged in my hands. It was in the Institute that I met Eriol. We were roommates and more or less friends. Sometimes the rival, and sometimes, the accomplice.
In this sort-of mafia, I grew. This institution that sheltered and trained hired killers of the world. This community that served to me the only survival that I have. At a young age I trained and realized the dark reality of living. Ever since the massacre, I had robbed myself of the gaiety and delights of childhood. Joining the Institute, I killed every sense of life in me. What I have was the will to survive. Survive and avenge.
The last thought was the one that drove me most to do this. Retribution. This voracious thirst for revenge. Something even justice could not suffice.
-
On the surface, the Institute is a high-end prep school. Licensed to educate students to become future leaders. Four of our alumni are world leaders. All of them, of course, were also trained assassins.
I was fourteen when I was handed my first short message. Similar to what I just fed the paper shredder.* The assignment was for me and Eriol. And the order was given to execute subject by means of an 'accident.' Lacking barbarity then, Eriol and I posed as mechanics and rigged his breaks. His Alfa Romeo ended in a ditch. He, in a morgue. The death was declared an accident with no sign of foul play. The assignment was executed perfectly.
After years of doing short messages, with and without Eriol, I was sent a wired message. A wired message required a surveillance of at least ten days until order to execute comes. These assignments usually entails a lot more risks. That's why I was fairly disappointed when I found out that my first wired message was a girl.
Name: Xi Meilin
Age: 16**
Height: 5'4"
Hair: Black
Eyes: Red
Residence:
Relations: Orphaned
Employment: Massage Parlor
Position: Masseuse
Trail assignment until ordered, was the note attached. Same with the Kinomoto.
I went to the massage parlor the same night with Eriol.
Pushing the double glass doors open he told me, "You, my friend, are a lucky man."
"Why?"
"You get the best assignments."
"I don't see how this could be the best," my idea of best was something that requires a great deal of challenge. Or one that gives me the liscence to assassinate my Clan's murderers.
"You get paid to go after girls," he replied, "while I have to kill old men with lots of money."
Eriol was referring to his last assignment. A shipping tycoon who was about ready to die, anyway. He screwed a fifty million dollar contract and drove his partner to near-bankruptcy. The legitimacy of the contract was still suspicious and the deal could only be reclaimed before the tycoon places it under his list of assets. The deal was back with the client and Eriol's shipping tycoon laid to rest after suffering from 'heart burn.'
I would have preferred that kind of assignment to this. What would the Institue's client want with this Meilin woman? What did she owe him or her?
We approached the two women attending the lobby. Behind her was the company's name in a silver plate bannering the legality of this prostitution house. Eriol laid down his credit card and smiled at the lady. His charm has yet to fail him, or me, when needed. The attendant was openly flirtatious and escorted us to the viewing area. Chinese massage parlors in Hong Kong are popular for these viewing areas. Customers choose their masseuse from the bikini-clad women behind the sliding doors that attendants open with great flourish.
It wasn't new to us, but we pretended to be amazed when the girls were finally presented. My eyes moved as I searched for my assignment. And I found her somewhere along the left side of the cluster. There she was. Little miss prick. She wasn't bad looking. Quite frankly, she looked good. There seemed to be something strangely familiar about her that I couldn't quite put a finger on. I must have been staring too hard because she was suddenly shifting in her seat.
Eriol nudged me and said maliciously, "You seem to be so taken with that pretty little one with the ruby eyes. Why don't you take her?"
I could deck this man. Instead, I gave an air of nonchalance and replied, "Sure."
-
I was sitting in a coffee shop two days later, waiting for her. To her, this was a date. To me, this was surveillance. I would have to stick to my first description of her. She is a little prick. But a charming one.
Chimes resounded as I looked up from my paper. She entered the place with the grace of a butterfly. Her hair tied in a long braid and shades on her eyes. I would have to admit that she's pretty. And there has been something about her that made me want to protect her. A real irony if you consider the fact that I'm supposed to kill her. She looked around the place and smiled as she saw me. Her steps were gaily yet feminine. Something told me that she must have had breeding. Something not common with women in her line of work.
Sliding in the seat before me, she greeted me and placed the book she carried on the table. Anna Karenina, I noted, by Leo Tolstoy.
"That's quite a heavy read," I said.
She arched one perfectly lined eyebrow at me, "You've read it?"
I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant.
She took the action as a yes, "I like it. The character's very tragic but she seems to me a strong woman."
Perceptive. I didn't expect her to be this educated. Rarely would I see people who enjoyed reading. And definitely not in the class she was in. I found her smart for someone her age and sophisticated for someone her class.
"I think it's a very feminine novel. Love, lust, romance, drama," I raised my cup of coffee to my lips, "something women enjoy."
"Let me guess," she pursed her lips contemplatively, "you prefer Mario Puzo and you have seen The Godfather."
"What makes you say that?"
"Every man seems to have seen The Godfather," she replied ruefully, "Mafia, sex, murder, money…" she smiled sardonically, "something men enjoy."
"Why are you reading that?" I asked. Trying to elude the biting remark about murder and money.
She shrugged, "I'm never without a book. It's one of the few things that has helped me forget."
"Forget what?"
She looked at me clearly trying to weigh her trust and finally shook her head, "The world, I guess. And everything in and beyond it."
I stared at her. I now new what fascinated me. What that something was that made her stand out. She reminded me of someone I should have been. She obviously had an agonizing past. And her escape had been surviving the tide on her own. Whatever pain she felt, revenge was clearly not something she considered.
Which was something different from me. She marveled me. Her spontaneity and her zest for life despite the fact that she lived on the rotten end of it. What she had was something I lacked. Her life was living. And my life was killing.
I took her out again after that. Three times in the same week. And three more times the week after that. Like a moth, I was attracted to the fire she carried. The fire she lived. And although I appear before her as someone indifferent, within me I see her as the only person who managed to see the part of me that I buried along with the ashes of my family.
Three weeks after I met her, I found a follow-up message from the Institute. The order to assassinate had come.
-
Turmoil was the word that described how I felt. I had committed a sin to my work. I had attached myself on an assignment too much. A man weakened by a woman is the weakest man of all. This woman had given me a life I craved for but denied myself. And I had allowed her to touch me in such ways that no other being had ever possessed me. It was a sin. And I had to pay the price.
I sat staring at her picture from my monitor when the sensei's voice broke my train of non-thought. I hadn't noticed him enter the dorm.
"In demise?"
"Not a big one," I replied scrolling down the page to avoid looking at her eyes. The vibrant color of rubies. Despising the fact that my guardian had caught me unaware.
He stood behind me and commanded that I scroll the page up to her image. I obeyed having nothing more to argue.
"She seems to mesmerize you," he said.
"How could you know anything like that?" I asked.
"I know more things than you think I do, Syaoran,"
I decided not to disagree, "Granted that I am, is that a problem?"
"To me? No," he answered, "but to you. That's another thing."
I didn't answer. Through the years I studied in the Institute he had fostered me, and his counsel was one of the few things I valued. Living the kind of life that I lead, his guidance was the only thing that both kept me grounded and sane.
"She is an assignment, Syaoran," he pointed evenly, "and the cardinal rule is to never get involved with assignments. The reason the Institute gave you this assignment is to test your commitment on your work. We hold some people's destiny in our hands. It's the path we lead. They may or they may not deserve untimely deaths. But that isn't our predicament any longer."
The words stung. Never before had he reprimanded me of failing, because he had said that I had the drive. And being driven makes me succeed. Hearing him say these meant he had seen me begin to loose the motivation I had to do my job. He hadn't mentioned it, but I had failed him.
And it was in that moment I remembered my vow. This vow I keep was what leads me to this life. And to keep it meant I had to sacrifice the woman. I resolved to do it in that moment. And with two words I assured the sensei.
"I understand."
-
I surprised her two days later. I knew that she usually spent her Sunday afternoon indoors. Sipping lemonade and reading a book while the world worries away. I knew she would never answer her door on this occasions so I entered through the kitchen window that connected to the fire escape.
I watched her unobtrusively for while. Fascinated by the way she held the book on her right hand as she twists a lock of jet-black hair on the other. I palmed the dagger hidden beneath my coat debating whether to leave it by the windowsill and commit this crime another time. I had half the mind to drew it from its hiding place when she looked up from what she was reading. She smiled profusely as she laid the book on the coffee table.
How does a man kill this woman?
I stepped out of the shadows, "I didn't want to disturb you."
"You could have yelled that it was you," she patted the couch beside her motioning me to sit, "I could have answered it."
"You don't answer doors on Sundays."
"Unless it's you."
God forgive me for doing it, but I couldn't help myself. I still despise myself for allowing it to happen that way. But it was because of her eyes. Those beautiful rubies that had forsaken me. It was the glowing fire of her eyes that drove me to it.
Slowly, I drew her to me. Without anything but the will to share the fire she carried, I allowed myself to be swayed and to be taken. I took her in my arms inhaling the tangy scent of her cologne. In my mind was a picture of indistinct lucidity. The kind of oxymoron that never fails to justify both rights and wrongs.
I took her with the sense of abandon that I never carried for fear of never succeeding. All sense of good judgment evaded me. I was not the assassin. I was not orphaned boy with a promise to keep. I was just a man sharing a moment with someone who saw the part of me I kept hidden beneath a skin of hatred.
Taking her made me belong to a realm of belonging. The place where I don't feel like a shadow. It was in this small moment of glory that I saw my burning. And it was in this moment of burning that I saw a vision of my mother's murderer. His masked face looming over the lithe frame of my Okaasan.
'Where is the heir apparent?'
'He is not here.'
'You bitch should know better than to lie.'
My mother.
'Best tell where your son is, woman, before I decide to really hurt you.'
'I would rather die than give my son to you.'
'Then die it is.'
"No!!!"
I drew the dagger and struck the faceless man, his face sneering at me. In rage, I twisted the knife buried within his flesh. His mask gave a horrifying laugh and in that moment I saw Meilin. My hand on the dagger that struck her on the liver. Blood, dark and pungent leaked through the blade. She staggered back as she tried to hold onto the fibers of life she treasured. I stood stunned as she stumbled. I had killed the soul that shared with me her life. She laid down, lifeless, her ruby eyes broken.
-
Watching the transition from day to night had brought back the bitter past. I have struggled to move on since, but still…
I now try to commit myself to another vow.
To not make the same mistake twice.
-to be continued-
Rai: Forgive me for the months I chose to not update. My life has been a complete comic act for the past months. And I have been busy trying to be a life form. Sadly, I have commitments for the next couple of months. So I cannot promise an update anytime soon. I am not pulling out this material, don't worry. It'll probably just take some amount of patience. That amount would be from you, of course. Any reactions about this chapter and my sort-of hiatus is welcomed.