Chapter 3:
She saw Kirika stare at her for a moment before the girl closed the short distance that separated them and embraced her with her deceptively strong arms. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I told you, I wanted it to be a surprise. Doctor Guillemin only told me this morning and I wanted to see how you would react."
As Kirika smiled up at her Mireille knew in her heart that her partner was as happy about her improvement as she was, even if the girl wasn't capable of expressing the emotion in words. This inability had never really been an impediment however since there had been only few instances where she was unable to read the girl's emotions and those had taken place when she was had trouble dealing with her own emotions.
Standing there with Kirika in her arms reminded her of how those terrible hours after the bombing when she had believed her partner to be dead. In her mind she was once again sitting grief-stricken on her hospital bed while the assassin aimed his gun at her. Even now she wasn't entirely certain whether she wanted to die at that moment or not, this morning she had believed it wasn't the case but sometimes in an unguarded moment she wasn't entirely certain.
The assassin clearly hadn't been a professional though and had made the mistake to leave his back unprotected. This wouldn't have been much of a problem normally, but believing he had killed all of Mireille's protectors he hadn't even bothered to wait for the door to close before he aimed his weapon at her. She had been helpless, without anything nearby that she could use as a weapon her thoughts had once more strayed to Kirika who without a doubt would have found something she could use.
When she then saw her partner walk through the door, she believed for a moment that she was imagining it before she felt her eyes open wide in relief. The assassin, seeing this, started to turn around to face the danger that was coming up from behind him but was far too slow to be able to do anything. Before he had even turned halfway around he was already falling to the ground, his legs unable to support the lifeless body.
Even Mireille had hardly seen the movement with which her partner had buried the scalpel in the man's neck, but her attention had soon turned away from the corpse and shifted to the girl that had once again saved her life. "You're alive." The words had to be forced out of her mouth, so surprised had she been and she had mentally cursed her own awkwardness.
She only received a slight nod and that enigmatic smile as a confirmation. This was enough however to make her believe that it was indeed Kirika who stood there and not some kind of ghost. Then for the first time since the girl had entered she took in her partner's appearance. The Japanese girl looked like she had gone through hell, she was covered in scrapes and bruises, and from the parts of her skin that were visible it was clear that she was covered in burns as well.
Her partner's clothes hung in tatters around her slight body, while the girl herself seemed exhausted and barely able to stand on her feet. This last worried Mireille the most. She had seen how little sleep Kirika could live on without seeming tired and for her to appear this exhausted could only mean her wounds were far greater then she was able to see. Finally getting out of the bed she had moved to her partner and embraced her carefully, happy beyond belief at her own good fortune.
Bringing back her mind to the present she could feel her legs start to tremble again and knew she had to sit down quickly before she actually fell to the ground. Kirika seemed to notice this as well and pulled back before worriedly asking. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, I just need to sit down now."
Supported by her partner she then walked over to one of the comfortable benches that had been placed everywhere and took a seat. "But tell me, how are you doing? Do any of your wounds trouble you?"
A shake of her head was all the answer she got, while Kirika still looked her over to make certain there was nothing wrong. This concern had been present ever since they had met up in the hospital. While she still didn't know how exactly the girl had managed to escape the explosion it had been clear that like her, Kirika had been unconscious for a while. By the time she had revived, Mireille had been transported to the hospital and the emergency personnel had been busy taking care of the dead. Not seeing any hope of how Mireille could have survived, the girl had then traveled through Paris for the entire night. While details about that night were even more closely guarded then how she had survived the bombing Mireille had gotten the impression that her own depression had been light compared to that of her partner.
The next day however, Kirika had stumbled on a newspaper stating there had been a survivor of the bombing. Hoping this to be Mireille, she had then proceeded to the hospital where she had taken it on herself to protect her room until she had awakened and they could leave.
Now however, she was apparently satisfied with the way Mireille looked, because she seated herself next to her. Taking care that while they were seated there was at all times a physical connection between them so she would immediately notice any change. Mireille didn't mind the protectiveness that her partner had shown ever since the bombing, she too wanted to be certain that nothing was wrong with the other.
"The doctor said I would probably be completely healed within two months."
"Good."
Smiling at the brunette's anxious tone of voice she then asked. "You're not bored, are you?"
The sullen look she received was answer enough. Never had she imagined that the introvert girl could become bored, but it seemed as if the past months had definitely taken their toll. Kirika's wounds had indeed proven to be more serious then those she carried herself but the torn muscles needed far longer to heal. Not that that was the only reason, the doctors had all been amazed at Kirika's fast recovery and she had heard some of the strangest theories floating around the clinic about the girl.
Kirika had been restored to total health within a month of their arrival here. From that moment on she had started using the gym to an extent that seemed almost inhuman and it was this behavior that had spun the rumors out of control. While in a normal setting her partner would be able to go for a long time with just her thoughts, it appeared that she didn't want to dwell on them now. After the first week using the gym wasn't enough anymore and she had started to take long runs in the afternoon. It had taken Mireille a week to figure out that the girl did more then run on those trips and she had no doubt that whatever skills Kirika might have lost, she was now back to her usual efficiency.
"I know, I wish that these damned legs would heal faster as well." She looked down at her traitorous legs with displeasure. "But at least I'll be able to come out here from now on, that way we can do some planning away from listening ears."
. . . .
When you are waiting for something, time always seems to move slower then it does at other times. Mireille knew this to be the case, but during the weeks after her first walk outside she always kept staring at the clock, hoping that it would soon be that time where she might once again go outside. Everyday her legs seemed to improve and three weeks after her first visit outside she was allowed to decide for herself how much time she wanted to spent there.
From that moment on Mireille accompanied her partner on her daily runs. While she had no chance to keep up with the other she did enjoy the possibility to feel the cold air caressing her face, while her legs were pumping away carrying her body through the clean smelling forest. It was during one of these runs that she once again held the cold metal of her trusted Walter P99. While her original gun had been destroyed with the rest of their equipment, she had long ago set up several caches of guns and money around Paris.
After they had slipped away from the hospital, they had first gone to one of these. The cache they had gone to was one of the newer ones, since it also contained a gun and passports for Kirika. The caches had all been designed to be as small as possible, so there hadn't been any clothes for either of them. Because of this they had to do with the ill-fitting clothes they had stolen in the hospital, until they had finally reached the car that had been placed into a long-term parking spot at the airport.
But now she was once again using her gun to fire at a circle that had been drawn on the wall of a mountain. She had to once again become as familiar with her chosen weapon as she had been with her previous one. The minute differences with the other weapon felt more pronounced due to the fact that she had been unable to use the weapon during the last months. By the time she could leave the clinic she needed to once again regard the gun as an extension of her body, something she could use with no more thought then her arms or legs.
That thought sobered her up a little and she noticed how she had been pulling the trigger of the empty gun while she had been thinking. The gun did indeed need to become a part of her body, but so far her body hadn't done as well as she had hoped. She had half expected that by now, six weeks after that first wonderful walk, they could have left the clinic. But while her legs seemed to have healed from the damage, she was in less then perfect shape. Three months that had been mostly spent in bed had taken their toll and a couple of weeks of light training had not yet managed to restore her to the level she wanted.
Ejecting the clip she noticed that it had been the last one, all her clips were now empty and therefore she decided to start cleaning the bullet casings out of the clearing. She couldn't remove all proof of her actions here, but she could at least take care of that while waiting for her partner to return. While doing so Mireille fondly thought back to the girl's first reaction about her recovered ability to walk, it had been one of the highlights of their stay here, not that there had been many of those.
After she had started to go with Kirika on her daily runs though, she had noticed the change in her partner's behavior. It was here, away from the clinic, that the girl had allowed that other self to come forward a little. When Mireille had first noticed this, she had been terrified at the return of this remorseless being and it had taken her a while to accept that it wasn't as bad as she had feared. Now three weeks after that revelation she still hadn't completely accepted this mix of personalities but knew it was mainly a concentration aid for Kirika, stopping her from being distracted by her emotions.
In one respect it really didn't matter how the girl thought at any given moment, in both incarnations it was obvious that Mireille's wellbeing was important to her. While she felt flattered by this, the fact that the same persona who at one time had wanted to kill her now felt it important to protect her was rather strange. The only thing to which she could attribute this change in what she thought of as Kirika's darker self was that according to her the two of them had passed all the trials and therefore were the True Noir. And since Noir was a partnership they each took care of the other.
Suddenly she felt as if being watched and for a moment she cursed herself for having spent all her bullets. This didn't last long however as she recognized that the heat of this gaze could only come from one person. Turning around she immediately spotted her partner, still with her eyes slitted in the way that indicated the darker self was currently in control. While she knew that if Kirika didn't want to be heard approaching, nobody would be able to, Mireille still wasn't happy with her own lack of attention. "Hi, nice run?"
As always the only answer she received to this question was a nod of the girl's head, but surprisingly after doing so she spoke up. "Have you found anything else yet?"
Almost every minute she wasn't trying to get back into shape, Mireille spend working on a laptop, trying to find out who it was that had been behind the assassination attempts. "Nothing new and I'm starting to think we won't find anything else from here either. The report had some information, but I think that's the only thing we'll find."
The only thing all those hours had earned her was the police file on the man who had tried to shoot her. But even that had been rather sparse, it had given them a name of the man, but since it hadn't led them anywhere she now believed it to be a fake. Besides the name there had only been one thing that could help them, an identifying mark of a shield with strange symbols tattooed on his right upper arm.
She had been trying to find out what the mark could mean, but she had no luck in this so far. The only thing they could do now was to go to Paris and ask her informants, she was confident that at least one of them would be able to help. And as she now looked into those emotionless orbs that constituted her partner's eyes, there was no doubt in her mind that nothing could save those who had dared to attack Noir in their own home.
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Post-fic comments: Thanks again to those who reviewed. I'm sorry this is such a short chapter but it is the last one before they return to Paris and I couldn't put anything more into it without ranging into useless paragraphs without either plot or character development. Believe me, I tried for a long time :-)
Anyway what I meant to say is that I know it isn't the greatest chapter, which is why it took me a couple of months and writing three other stories before I continued this story. Isn't it a good thing I don't post anything until I've finished the story? You would have been kept hanging for that long until I had finally been able to post this chapter.