Chapter 8: She What Kicks...

She was there.

The open sky. A clear, square pool of crystal water. Stone pillars, ancient, crumbling arches, Greco-Roman architecture...all too real. Mireille silently cursed herself for having an overly vivid imagination.

No time for that, she reminded herself. Find her, and get out.

She climbed up a series of decaying steps and over a fallen limestone pillar. Before her was a large, open courtyard, vaguely reminiscent of the Parthenon in Greece. She looked for, and soon located, a particular spot on the far side of the area, otherwise unremarkable, save for the fact that a certain life-shattering incident had occurred on that very spot in recent memory.

Contrary to her expectations, there wasn't anything there.

She wandered over for a closer look. Broken tiles, bits of vine growing through, empty air...not much else. No recently spilled blood, no amazingly strong fork, and (this was the important bit) no young Japanese amnesic girl stabbing a purple-haired psychopath in the heart with it. She waved a foot through a five cubic meter volume of air located above the spot, half-expecting to hit something. "Huh," she said, when she didn't.

Strange, she thought. I'm positive this is where she'd be.

"Kirika?"

Echoes answered her.

"Kirika!" she shouted, walking the perimeter of the yard. "Kirika, where are you? Kir -- oh."

A cold wind had directed her attention to the far corner of the yard, where stood a small, black-haired figure wearing what may have been considered high-fashion back in the Late Toga Period.

Mireille sighed, relieved. "Found you."

Her heels clicked over the ancient stones. "Kirika?" She slowed her pace as she drew near. "It's me, Mireille." She stopped, only a few steps away. "Are you all right?"

She waited for an answer that did not come.

"Listen, Kirika. I know you're probably confused right now, and sad, and maybe a little bit frightened. I know I am," she added, with a wary glance at her surroundings. "Nothing seems to make sense, I'm guessing. You, you've probably just experienced some of the most hellish moments in your life, ones you hoped you'd never live through again. The fear, the sadness, the pain you feel right now...it's not real. Well, no, it was, but it isn't, right now. It's a memory, Kirika, a dream. This is a dream. I don't understand it myself, but we're both trapped in it, and we're going to have to work together to get out of it in one piece."

The figure had not moved throughout her entire monologue.

Mireille gulped, nervously. "Kirika," she said, "I know how you feel right now. You feel like your whole world has sort of turned upside down. You don't know who, or what, to believe anymore. But I need you to trust me. Because if you don't, then, then...we might never wake up again."

The figure remained silent.

"Kirika? Say something, please? Answer me, damn it!"

"I trust you," she said.

Mireille exhaled. "Good. Great. Okay then. Now all we have to do is -- "

"I trust you," repeated the figure.

She blinked. "Um, yes, we've established this, I think?"

The figure turned, swiftly. She gasped and stumbled back.

The young girl glared at her, eyes cold, distant, and merciless. "I trust you, Mireille Bouquet," she said. "But..."

Out of the corner of her eye, Mireille spotted movement.

She drew her weapon from thin air and aimed to her left.

Then her right.

Then further right.

Disbelief dragged her weapon downwards, as her mind tried to comprehend what it was seeing.

"What...the...?"

Two, three, ten, fifty duplicates of the figure before her, each ostensibly the same, yet subtly different, stepped out from behind each pillar in the courtyard. "But..." said the original, as she and the others advanced on the bewildered Corsican, "the problem with being me is..." She smiled, wickedly. "...There's so many of me."

Mireille tried to keep far too many targets in her line of sight. The figures surrounded her on all sides; more were advancing over the hills surrounding the courtyard. All were closing in, slowly. "W-who...what are you?!" she gasped.

"I am Kirika's dark dreams," said the original.

"I am her cold sweat," said another.

"I am her lost hope," said a third.

"Her secret fears."

"Her hidden wish."

"I'm the old man."

"I'm the old lady."

"I'm soup."

Mireille dragged her horrified eyes down and to the right to look at a smaller-than-average Kirika holding what appeared to be a bowl of miso soup.

"Um," she said.

The child smiled, and dashed the bowl in Mireille's face.

"Aaagh! The miso! It burns! Ooof!" A fist came out of nowhere and clocked her chin. She spun to face it. Three more met the pit of her stomach, as two others grabbed her gun arm and twisted. Her gun clattered to the ground, where countless pairs of sandaled feet kicked it away.

The mob rushed in. Mireille dodged a fist from her right, deflected a chop from her left, and stopped a bull-rush with a kick. An elbow cracked against the base of her skull; a knee met her as she toppled forward. And then she fighting blind, blocking, dodging, twisting, and turning in desperation. But the fists were everywhere. It was a hailstorm of blows, pummelling her from head to toe. Her breath came in strangled gasps. Her vision spun, a haze of limbs, faces, and bright flashes. Bones cracked. Something swept her legs out from under her, and she was on the ground. Fifty-seven pairs of sandaled feet began kicking and stomping her mercilessly.

As her body curled up in a desperate attempt to stave off the barrage, the conscience known as Mireille Bouquet struggled to make itself heard over the percussive symphony of pain. "Not...real!" she gasped. "Dream! In...control -- argh!" A foot had caught her hard in the face. Need to think, she thought. Distract them!

Through the blasting pain, Mireille recalled up the one thing she prayed would get her out of this situation, focused on it, envisioned it, and, with one thrust of an arm, summoned it.

Off on the far end of the courtyard, there was a flash.

An aluminium trash can fell from three meters in the air and landed with a crash. Something small, white, and stupidly cute rolled out of it.

Several hundred pairs of ears perked at the noise. Hundreds of heads turned.

Mew, went the kitten.

Five-hundred and seventy-two cat-aficionados said, "Kitty!" developed really, really stupid grins, and scampered off after the fleeing feline, severely trampling Mireille.

The dust settled over a beaten, bruised, bleeding sack of meat.

After a few minutes, it moved.

"Not...real..." gasped Mireille, as she tried to climb into a more vertical position. She coughed, spitting blood. "Not real," she reminded herself, trying to ignore the white-hot twanging fire flowing through her pain receptors. "It's a dream. There is...no pain! Your legs...aren't really...broken. Those aren't...actual...compound...fractures...in your...rib...cage. Those aren't...your back molars...on the ground before you..."

She picked them up, just in case.

After a good three minutes of laboured breathing (and bleeding) and meditative refocusing, she managed to convince herself of all that. She searched about for her gun, remembered something, and held out her palm, face-up, instead, catching it as it fell out of the sky. She wiped a last drop of blood from her mouth.

A thought struck her.

"Kirika!"

Empty echoes.

"Kirika! I know you're here! The real you!" She looked about the yard. "You can't stay here, Kirika! If you do, we'll both die! The real death, understand! Please! Show yourself!"

A cold wind swept past her. The clouds rolled and flickered overhead, as the sun soared from high noon to just over the horizon.

The wind died away. She heard it then, that sound which had always been there, but drowned out by everything else.

Soft sobs.

She sought their source; this time, she found it. She knelt. Of course, she thought. Right next to me, all this time. "Kirika?" she said, softly.

There was no shape there, no form; only a mirage, a haze of an outline of a body, knees hugged close to the chest, and the faintest suggestion of a face, with spectral tears falling to earth.

She reached for her, and was surprised when her hand passed right through thin air. No, she thought, upon reflection. Not just air. She tried again. The faintest warmth, the suggestion of hair, tears...

"Kirika? It's me, Mireille. Do you...remember me?"

The mirage nodded, once.

"Are you...okay?"

Her lips moved, but there was no noise. But Mireille knew better. She focused, and heard a whisper on the wind. "Who...am I?"

"Kirika?"

"So many voices, so many thoughts." The mirage trembled. "So many lies and illusions. So many secrets, things left unsaid. So much sadness, so much grief. So many...painful memories..."

Mireille looked off to her side. If she squinted, she could see three familiar figures, one shocked by recent events, the other wracked with grief, cradling the third in her arms.

"A thousand faces, here, inside of me..." Two transparent eyes, shining with grief, turned to face her, aglow in the setting sun. "Which is...the real...me?"

"Kirika..." Mireille tried to comfort her, only to have her hands meet air once more. She struggled to control the tide of grief and sympathy rising within her, and then realized this was the wrong idea.

She closed her eyes, released it, and dove right in, following its eddies and currents to their source. She cast about her memories and emotions, searching blindly, as the weight of sorrow threatened to crush the life from her. And just as she felt on the verge of drowning, she found it.

A thread. A lifeline. A connection.

She grabbed hold, tightly. Instinctively, she moved to embrace her partner, her almost-sister, her friend.

She felt someone gasp.

"Kirika," she whispered, still with her eyes closed, "you, me, everyone...we're all like that. All of us have so many sides to ourselves; some we never see, others we wish would never see the light of day. There is sadness, grief, regret, despair, rage, anger, and a million others. But our true face, the one we see in ourselves...it isn't any one of these. Nor is it all of them put together. It's something more. Kirika, there is a you somewhere in among all those thoughts and feelings in your head. I know sometimes it gets overwhelming; you feel lost, alone, and afraid. When that happens, you...I...we...forget something, something important, something wonderful." She drew the invisible form close, felt its hair against her cheek.

"We're never alone, Kirika. There are links, bonds, threads connecting us all. There are people whom we know, whom we love, and want to be with, whom we can share our thoughts, our feelings, and our memories with. They see sides of we never knew existed, help us make sense of how we think and feel, of who we really are."

She heard someone sniffle, felt the warm breath of a sob on her neck.

"Kirika, I know you aren't sure of your identity, of your true self. It's the same with me. But I do know this." She grasped the form's shoulders in either hand. "I know that you are my closest, dearest friend, and that I have, and always will, trust you with my life. And we will find what we both seek. Together."

She opened her eyes.

"Mireille?"

Gently, she brushed the tears from Kirika's eyes, then her own. "Welcome back."

They hugged each other, tightly.

Kirika sniffed. "So...this...really is...a dream?"

Mireille nodded. "Not only that, but someone's messing with it. So we're going to bring him down."

Kirika nodded, as if this was all expected. "So, what happens now, then?"

Her partner considered this. "Well, if your experience is anything like mine, you've just finished the mental endurance part of this dream. So, right about now, you'll have to face a seemingly nonsensical material manifestation of your deepest, darkest fears and overcome it in a challenging physical contest."

Kirika nodded.

"Although, frankly," continued Mireille, "I've absolutely no idea what Freud would say about all this. I mean, a penguin? Maybe I should see a psychologist, or something? Or cut back on those midnight movies?"

Kirika nodded, her eyes like those of a frightened deer.

Mireille noticed. "Kirika?"

"Mm," she squeaked.

"You...wouldn't happen to be looking at a seemingly nonsensical material embodiment of your deepest, darkest fears right now, would you?"

She nodded.

"Oh. It's right behind me, isn't it?"

"(Whimper)"

Mireille nodded.

Whirled.

Aimed.

Stopped.

"It's...it's...a...club...sandwich?"

Indeed it was. With thick slices of turkey, fresh lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and three strips of bacon, on two slabs of rye bread.

Mireille completed her tactical assessment. "Uh..."

Kirika was inching away, lost in an unreasonable panic.

"Kirika, calm down," said her partner. "It's just a sandwich! Okay, sure, it's a bit bigger than normal, but that could just be an overenthusiastic person at the delicatessen. Oversized loaf of bread, maybe. Although the bread looks a bit stale, when I look at it this close. And I'm not sure about this little olive stuck in the top -- MY LEG! SWEET MOTHER OF GOD, IT'S GOT MY LEG! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! AAAAGH!"

Kirika screamed.

Feeling the sharp shards of bacon and clammy leafy-greens cutting through her boot, Mireille desperately tried to kick and pull the possessed sandwich off her foot. She succeeded, sending it flying.

It bounced, rolled, and snarled like a wounded wolverine, spraying mayonnaise everywhere, then charged with a speed that gave the words "fast-food" a whole new dimension of terror. Mireille scrambled backwards, firing. Some shots pinged uselessly off the ancient stones; others punched right through it, hardly slowing it down. It leapt. Mireille raised her arms to defend herself, and caught it in mid-air, its momentum bearing her to the ground. Again and again it lunged at her, snapping with teeth of meat and gums of wheat. It took all her strength to hold it back, and she could feel her arms giving way.

Suddenly, it churned, and spat a cold disk of tomato. It hit Mireille right between the eyes, distracting her. It growled, twisted free from her hands, leapt, and power-dived right at her face.

"Kirika!" she screamed. "Help!"

There was a rush of air. A fast-moving shape intercepted the enraged entrée in mid-air. It snarled. She heard Kirika scream. She closed her eyes, tight.

More snarls. Several dull thuds. A great, juicy crunch. An inhuman scream of pain, that gargled away into nothingness. A strangled gulp.

Mireille risked a look.

Kirika, breathing hard, plucked a piece of lettuce from her hair, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and burped. Politely.

"Kirika?"

The girl fell to her knees. "Mireille?"

She was at her side immediately. "Kirika?"

"I don't feel so good," she said, queasily.

"Well," said her friend, "I'm not surprised by that." A manic humour gripped her. "The mayonnaise looked a bit off in that thing, I think."

"No," said Kirika, touching her forehead. "I mean...I think I'm...losing...my...mind..."

Her manic grin vanished instantly. "Hold on, Kirika. You're safe now, okay? Just stay calm, and everything will be all right."

"Will it? How can everything be 'all right'? I just ate a sandwich to death." Panic rose in her features. "How can we survive a place where even the lunch menu wants to kill us?"

"We'll survive it," said Mireille, "because we're together. We're two maidens bound together by love and fate. And there is no force in the universe that can stand against us."

Kirika seemed to settle down a little.

"Besides," added her partner, "we've taken out legions of trained assassins together. What's one sandwich compared to that?"

She smiled, nervously.

A voice laughed in mockery. Its laughter echoed off the ancient pillars, hid in every shadow cast by the setting sun.

"Who's that?" she asked.

Mireille raised her weapon. "A real bastard, that's who." She stood, and glared at the shadows. "You think you can terrorize us that easily? With a few hallucinations? We're Noir, you idiot! We. ARE. Fear! We've had enough of your games, whoever you are! Come out and face us. Now!"

The voice laughed, long and hard. A voice of blood-drenched steel rasped from the air itself. "As...you...WISH!"

A frigid gale whipped through the courtyard, then left. The sun plunged into the distant ocean, and moonlight flooded the land.

Kirika apparently took this all in stride. "Was that always there?" she asked, pointing.

Mireille looked at the ordinary wooden doorway hovering in mid aid about three paces away from her. "Does it matter?" she replied.

Kirika shook her head. "Do you have another gun?"

"This is a dream, remember? Oh, wait; maybe you don't know how these dreams work, yet. You just sort of imagine what you want and -- yeah, like that."

Kirika had plucked her Beretta plus two spare clips from the white parka she was now (and, metaphysically, was always) wearing.

Mireille examined the door, warily. "Ready for this?" she asked, both to her partner and herself.

She nodded.

In unison, they kicked open the door and swept through it.

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