From The Ashes Chapter 19: 19: Goodbye, My Memories, a sakura wars fanfic

Rating: PG-13, language, violence

"FROM THE ASHES" – Goodbye, My Memories

The clock in the lobby of the hotel was striking eight as Maria entered it from the grand stairs, heading toward the door.

"Good evening, Miss Dimitrovich," a voice behind her startled her and she spun around. "Oh, no, I apologize, that isn't correct… Miss Tachibana would be the tradition, yes?"

Behind Maria stood a refined gentleman, dressed impeccably. His eyes were amber and his hair was red and curly. His hands were in his pockets, and he drew one out and extended it to her. She looked at his hand and then back up at him. His eyes… there was something unsettling about his eyes.

"Do I know you?" she asked, not taking his hand.

"Not yet," the man smiled.

Maria tightened her hand in her wool coat collar, holding it closed against her chest. "Then excuse me, please. Am very busy."

"I am quite certain you are, Miss Tachibana," the man followed her, intercepting her near the door. "But perhaps you should hear me out. At least…" he extended his hand again. "At least return the courtesy."

Maria deliberated, then took his hand, diplomatically.

"Gloves…" the man pursed his lips, observing Maria's red-gloved hands. "You seek to make this difficult on me, Miss Tachibana."

Maria did not understand what he meant. He did not release her hand.

"My name is Brent Furlong. And I have an offer for you which could change your life. Or save it."

Maria tried to draw her hand away, but Furlong tightened his grip, his left fist was now around her wrist as well, and he hauled her closer to him, confidentially. Maria glanced over her shoulder. The lobby was empty except for the concierge, whose head was down behind the desk.

"Release me," Maria commanded in a low whisper.

"Release you? You did not sound so certain. Should you not yell for the police? Now why on earth would a young girl being harrassed by a man not yell for the police? Go ahead, Miss Tachibana, do the respectable thing. Scream."

Maria's eyes narrowed, and she glanced over her shoulder again, trying to pry his fingers off her wrist with her free hand. She gritted her teeth.

"Oh dear… perhaps you have something to hide from the police as well. Perhaps that is why you cannot call them for aid. You are short on allies, Miss Tachibana, aren't you? What fate awaits you where you are going? And what fate awaits if you cry for help? At least hear me out, and I will give you your only choice left."

Maria gave a good solid yank, and Furlong stumbled forward, then imprisoned both her wrists, holding both her hands close to his heart with a much greater strength. He would not underestimate her strength again. His voice lowered even further in volume. "I have been made aware of your… talents."

Maria had many talents: marksmanship, billiards, linguistics, music, subterfuge… She did not know to which he was referring. She glared and responded through gritted teeth. "What talents?"

Furlong smiled and closed his eyes, still holding tightly to Maria's hands and wrists. Maria felt like she was being pulled from the inside out. The world swam and she nearly staggered. Then she noticed that her hands were cold. Very cold. Cold in a familiar way. Her eyes widened.

Furlong was pulling her spiritual power of ice out of her!

"Stop—" she whispered, trying to twist free, and glancing again over her shoulder. They had attracted no attention.

Furlong stopped. He opened his eyes to regard the panicking girl in his grip. "So Patrick was correct… you have a considerable talent. Very strong indeed. Far stronger than Patrick's, I dare say. Though quite obviously untrained."

"…Patrick?" The Patrick she'd killed? Did this man know him? "What talent…? Let go of me—"

"Hush," Furlong said, softly. "Miss Tachibana, you will cause a scene." He glanced toward the concierge desk. "Someone might call the police."

"Let them!" Maria lunged forward, doing a simple inward break-grip and shoving Furlong powerfully back against the broom closet door, then ran into the street.

Furlong stood, straightened his coat, regained his composure, and then went to the concierge desk. "Ring Mr. Hayes for me, would you?" Tell him that I will need his services after all. At the Driftwood. Nine o'clock."

"Yes, Mr. Furlong."

"Step on it!" Vincenzo leaned forward to urge the taxi driver. Ayame sat stiffly beside him, gripping the door handle.

"It's jus' aroun' dis corner," the driver replied, unruffled. Everything in New York is urgent.

Ayame jumped out and Vincenzo paid the driver.

Jonathan Hayes stopped in front of a tall and well-lit building. A taxi skidded to a halt next to him and a woman jumped out. He touched her on the arm.

"Hey, lady. This the Driftwood?"

The lady looked up at the building, then nodded, distractedly, to Hayes. "Ah… hai." Then she looked back at her companion for confirmation.

"Si, Driftwood," the man responded quickly while paying the taxi driver. Then the two of them headed toward the restaurant stairs.

Hayes grabbed the man's arm, "Buddy, yanno what time it is?"

The young man sighed as he watched the lady in uniform he'd come with hurriedly climbing the restaurant stairs without him. He took out his pocket watch. "Eight twenty-four."

"Hey, you don't happen to have a light, do you?"

The young man saw the restaurant doors close behind his companion. "Of course." He pulled a box of matches from his pocket, knowing how long it would take to light this man's cigar in the March wind on the harbour.

Maria stopped in front of the Driftwood. It was twenty-five after eight. She gave the area a quick surveillance. A bum at the foot of the grand stairs. A valet at the top of the stairs. Two men by the street trying to get a cigar lit. Both had their backs to her, collars up against the wind. They did not look like Lupo family members.

Deciding the outside was safe, she climbed the stairs. The valet, a boy of about fifteen, opened the door for her.

"Good evening, may I help you?" the host asked, doing his best to ignore a slight altercations going on beside him. A hostess was attempting to explain the need for a reservation to a Japanese woman in a uniform.

"Da, have reservation for… under name 'Lupo.'"

"Ah! Miss Tachibana, of course. Right this way, please."

"Please! It is urgent that—"

"Ah! Miss Tachibana, of course. Right this way, please."

Ayame paused and looked to her left. A host turned and lead a slender and very tall blonde woman into the restaurant. That was Maria.

Ayame withered. She had not wanted to resort to this, but in half an hour, Maria Tachibana would be dead.

She subtly pulled a tell dollar bill from her jacket. "I believe it was a balcony table," she smiled.

"Ah… of course, Ms. Fujieda, please forgive the confusion…"

Umberto Lupo was not here yet. The host seated Maria alone at a table against the balcony railing, where she could watch the ferries in the harbour. The city lights were bright against the full darkness of night.

Softly she thanked the host and declined to allow him to remove her coat. It had stopped snowing, but it had not warmed up enough to dress like she was indoors. Then the host left her alone.

She leaned on the table, her chin in her hand, gazing out across the harbour. Her stomach was unsettled. She was subconsciously tamping down panic and the strain was making her nauseous, she realized.

The waiter startled her as he brought a menu and a basket of breadsticks. Just looking at the bread turned her stomach. She asked for hot tea with a slice of lemon and exhaled in relief to be left alone again.

Now, of all times, she needed the ice she could never seem to control. She closed her eyes and tried to let the cold air around her seep into her without the physical protestation of shivering. She drank in long, slow breaths to ease her nerves and calm her.

She set everything from her mind. She did not worry about which hotel she would try to reserve for tomorrow night or how she would pay for it, or whether or not she could stay in the current one tonight. She did not wonder what Valentinov would do to her in recompense for her bullet, or even if he could find her. She did not think of her flat or its proprietor or the proprietor's son. She did not worry about the strange Mr. Furlong. She even managed, for a brief moment, to set aside the continual burden of grief she bore for her mother, her father, and for Yuri; a burden so perpetual that she often forgot its considerable weight, and the relief of it felt similar to elation.

She was concentrated so fully on this that she did not notice someone rise from a nearby table until she heard the chair across from her being pulled out.

Maria's mind flipped into battle readiness in an instant. She opened her eyes and slid her right hand into her coat, closing her red-gloved fingers around the butt of her Enfield, holstered under her left arm.

A dark haired woman in a military uniform took the seat across from Maria.

"Who are you?" Maria was at her most threatening, her voice an icy whisper.

"Please forgive my intrusion, Miss Tachibana-san, but there is little time. My name is Fujieda Ayame." Ayame's own panic was carefully restrained as well. Her words were slow and careful – her English was not excellent, either, but it was the only language they had fully in common.

"You know me. How?" Maria glanced at the clock that stood in the balcony door. Eight thirty-nine. Lupo would be here any moment. And she kept bumping into people who knew her name. More was going on here than Maria knew about.

"I think many people know you, though you may not realize that."

Maria's brows furrowed. "Tell me one reason… should nyet call host… and have you taken by police."

"I will tell you three," Ayame smiled pleasantly. "One, you are a criminal and cannot report anything to the police… without danger for yourself. Two, if you stay here, in…" she glanced at the clock, "…twenty minutes, you will be dead. And three, I have come here… all the way from Japan… for the sole purpose of saving your life."

And then stun of those revelations effectively silenced the Kazuar.

Ayame continued. "You know, of course, about the Demon Wars not so many years ago."

Maria nodded, glancing more frequently at the clock, now that her life seemed to have a countdown.

"Tokyo was nearly devastated by the war. And we have reason to believe… that it will happen again. Perhaps soon. The government and Kanzaki Heavy Industries… have developed weaponry capable of… combatting such an enemy, but… only certain people… people with particularly strong spiritual powers… are able to run the weaponry."

Maria gritted her teeth. "If you have come… from Douglas-Stewart… tell Mr. Furlong… am still not interested."

Now it was Ayame's turn to be stunned. "I am not with Douglas-Stewart. But… I am sorry I did not come to you before they did. Their company's intent seems less… honourable. They are very closely tied… with the Mafia here, as I am sure you know."

No, in fact, she did not know. But it explained how Mr. Furlong found her. "So, Mr. Ignazio working for them too?"

"And Umberto Lupo's family as well," Ayame nodded.

Maria felt mauseous all over again. Suddenly the sheer amount of danger she was in, and how, became clear to her. "How did you find me here?" she asked, glancing at the clock again.

Ayame looked, too. 8:45.

Before Ayame could answer, Maria added another question. "And… should we…" she made as if to stand, "find less… deadly location?"

"When it is safe, Mr. Luna will come for us."

At that, Maria smiled. One trustworthy person in her life – that was a good start. "But why your company is so more honourable than Douglas-Stewart?"

"We are not a company, Miss Tachibana. We are an army."

"Ah ha, if you'll excuse me," Mr. Hayes tipped his cigar at Vincenzo, "my 'guest' is here."

Vincenzo nodded and watched the stranger who'd kept him from his last word with Ayame. The man walked down the street a bit toward—

--Umberto Lupo, who was just getting out of a taxi, and being held up by the man whose cigar Vincenzo had lit! Held up at gunpoint, hidden by a semi-inconspicuous lump in his trench coat, and then they both walked to a nearby alley.

Vincenzo knew now that if they were to get out of there in tact, it had to be now, while Lupo was otherwise occupied.

"Is that all?" Maria asked, gazing into the delicate, shell-shaped porcelain tea cup on the table in front of her.

Ayame looked up. "Hm?"

The low, mournful sound of a ship's steam whistle carried across the harbour. Ayame watched the sombre young woman across from her. She'd just finished detailing the purpose and function of the Imperial Assault Unit, the goals and reasons for its existence, its needs and how it was that it lead Ayame here, to Maria.

"You must have… other reason… for defending the city?" Maria's peircing green eyes lifted to meet Ayame's, as if they could find and examine her soul.

"Well… the city has… lots of memories for me."

Perhaps something kindred lit a connection between the two. "Lots of memories?"

"Yes…" Ayame smiled wistfully.

Abruptly, Maria stood and put both hands on the railing. In just the few minutes Ayame had spent with the Russian so far, she knew they had not made a mistake in choosing her.

"Then… I accept."

Ayame blinked in surprise. She glanced at the clock. Three minutes until nine. And still, Vincenzo had not yet come up for them.

"I, too, have… memories," Maria whispered as if relenquishing them to the moon. What she said next, Ayame did not know. It was not in English.

"Vershrei, moy uchets dva…"

"Miss Fujieda," the waiter interrupted, and both Ayame and Maria turned around. "There is a gentleman named Mr. Luna asking for you at the front. I would not disturb you, but he… oh!"

The waiter was interrupted by Ayame dragging Maria past him by the wrist at a run.

Vincenzo met them in the restaurant lobby. He pulled them aside and whispered urgently to them both. "Two shots been fired, I don't know at who. Lupo was here. He got jumped by one of Douglas-Stewart's men—"

"They are here?" Ayame raised her eyebrows.

Maria was looking suspiciously between Ayame and Vincenzo, almost as if she was beginning to wonder if they were working for someone too, or if there was anyone in New York who was not twisted up in some strange scandal meant to exploit her or kill her.

Ayame jumped as the clock began striking nine. "We have no time! Is it safe to go out?"

"Si," Vincenzo answered, and Ayame ran, pulling Maria along with her again. Maria halted at the foot of the steps, spotting Lupo and one of his gang up the street a bit. They had not seen Maria yet, but she could hear them.

"What happened?" Lupo rubbed his head.

"Some stiff cold-cocked ya. I got 'im, though," his lackey answered.

Vincenzo whispered, "Go! I will hold them off!"

Maria doubted Vincenzo's ability to do that, but Ayame gave her no choice, dragging her away by the arm again.

"Shit, what time is it?" Lupo asked his lackey.

"Nine."

"Where's the girl?"

"The girl?"

"The girl! The Kazuar!"

"Ya mean her?" Lupo's lackey pointed at Maria and Ayame, running away down along the harbour.

"Stop her!" Lupo commanded his lackey and pulled out his gun. "Outta the way!" Lupo yelled at Vincenzo, who'd just crossed his path. "This is official busine—ah!"

Vincenzo silenced Lupo by breaking his nose. Lupo hadn't expected that. Then Vincenzo turned and ran after the lackey who was chasing down Maria and Ayame, afforded a few seconds by Lupo's state of shock. Vincenzo caught the guy by the coat and managed with great difficulty to restrain him. And that's when Lupo caught up. He pistol-whipped Vincenzo, who crumpled to the street, unconscious.

Lupo hissed and shook his head, holding a bloody white handkerchief to his nose. "Ow…" he gingerly pressed on his broken nose, then looked down at the unconscious young man. "It's a good thing you're Mama Luna's kid, you little bastard."

And they left him there on the street, continuing after the two women.

"This way!" Now it was Maria who was dragging Ayame, the Mafia bouncer being far more familiar with New York than the Japanese woman.

"We need to get to the docks," Ayame panted and Maria nodded in acknowledgement. The Russian was leading them through a maze of back alleys.

KAPOW!

A bullet buried itself into the mortar and bric of the wall beside Maria's head. She ducked instinctively and glanced back over her shoulder as they rounded a corner. To Maria's surprise, Ayame was doing excellently. She picked up the pace even more and the Japanese military officer had not even flinched when they were fired upon.

Maria was not dragging Ayame any longer, nor the other way around. It was faster for each of them to run free. They had to put enough distance between them and Lupo that he could not hear which way they turned. Maria fell behind a bit and drew out her gun. She overturned two metal garbage cans in their wake, hoping to slow down their pursuers.

Ayame heard the police sirens in the distance and cursed inwardly. Getting mixed up in a crime family whose list of offenses only started with murder was not in Ayame's orders. At least now she could only hear one set of running footsteps behind them.

Another burst of mortar and stone on the wall just ahead of them stopped them in their tracks.

Lupo was at the other end of the cement dry dock they'd just come through. His gun was aimed at Maria. And hers was aimed at him. Just in case, she grabbed Ayame's wrist and hauled the Japanese woman behind her.

Maria's focus returned.

And it began to snow.

"I don't want the other broad," Lupo said calmly through the handkercheif he still held to his nose. "Just you."

Maria was silent. She cocked back the hammer.

Ayame shivered. Maria's gloved fingers were uncomfortably cold around her wrist where the Kazuar was holding on to her.

Maria stared down Lupo's gun barrel. That was her target. She was not a killer anymore. She was no one's hired gun. She was a defender of humanity, and she could stop him. She could stop this man without killing him. But she had to shoot first. So, like someone would interrupt a conversation, she suddenly fired, before Lupo had even finished taking a breath to speak.

Instinctively, Lupo fired as well, reflexively, as soon as he heard Maria's gun go off. But it was too late. Maria's bullet went straight to its mark – the barrel of Lupo's gun. And there it met Lupo's bullet.

And exploded.

Lupo yelped in surprise and pain, dropping his gun with a clatter and falling to the dry dock floor, moaning in pain.

"Za vashe zdarovye," Maria whispered, without the slightest trace of a smile, then turned back to Ayame to continue. Lupo's lackey was still unaccounted for, and they both knew it as they ran into the marina.

Maria did her best not to seem suspicious, or even armed, as she scanned the streets. Ayame stood at the desk, trying to book passage on the ship moored at the docks at the moment. Any European destination would do.

Maria was whispering something to herself occasionally, seemingly some mantra.

"What is it you are saying?" Ayame asked.

"Five," Maria repeated, slightly louder, her eyes still on the streets from which they'd recently fled. Her gun was holstered again, but her hand lingered near it.

"Five?"

The Russian markswoman nodded once. "Is easy to forget… how many are left."

Ayame smirked at what she had believed was a joke, but the Russian was not smiling. Then she thought about how difficult it would be to keep count over a long period of time, and how terrifying it must be to be in a moment of life or death, where a fraction of a second could buy you, or cost you, your life – and hear the ineffectual klik of the hammer striking the back of an empty shell. She guessed Maria had learned that lesson the hard way.

Ayame managed tickets on a ship which was scheduled to weigh anchor in a half an hour. Ayame perceived this to be tremendous and unbelievable luck, but to Maria, it did not seem soon enough. How long would it be before Lupo was able to figure out that a foreign woman dragging Maria downtown was going to the first ship off Manhattan?

They boarded the ship immediately. Maria stopped at the top of the ramp, waiting for her hair to be roughly combed through for lice and her eyes and throat to be peered into for disease. The white uniformed man at the top of the ramp did not mishandle her. She looked to Ayame, who stepped past her to the man.

Instead of being examined, Ayame instructed the man as to which ship she'd arrived on – only just this morning – and requested someone to retrieve her luggage from that ship and transfer it to this one. The uniformed man turned and blew his whistle, several crewman responded immediately.

Another crewman came to show Maria and Ayame to their cabins. Due to the lateness of the booking of their tickets, their cabins were not side by side, for which the crewman was quite apologetic.

The cabin given to Maria was small, but it was a paradise when compared with the shared steerage cabing she had on the trip over to America. A long string of ships and trains and taxis lay before both women.

Maria closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. Directly across from her door was a mirror. She looked at herself. Instinctively, she reached up to try to smoothe her disarrayed hair. Then she realized what a silly action that was.

So much of her was disarrayed that she could not find any hope of ordering it again. So many times had the Russian reinvented herself that she was not certain she had an incarnation left.

She stepped closer to the mirror and saw the Kazuar in its reflection. She winced. Her face was bruised and scraped. Her right eye was blackened. She could feel the locations of the rest of the bruises dealt to her at Silvio's hands.

Thirty-four hours ago, she was dressed as a boy, playing billiards, about to make her "big break" with the New York Mafia. Now she had lost everything. Again.

She shrugged out of her wool coat, still staring at her reflection. The coat slid off her arms and puddled around her feet. She did not break eye contact with her reflection as she pulled off her red leather gloves and dropped them to the floor.

Who are you, her reflection seemed to ask.

She unbuttoned her suit jacket and let it fall, too. She felt… lessened. As if the gloves and coat and jacket had been an insulation, or armour.

Now she stepped out of the pile of cloth, one step closer to the mirror, wearing her pin-striped pants, saddle-boots and white blouse. She could see the thin knife cut across her throat.

Who are you, Kazuar?

No, Maria thought as she laid a palm on the mirror glass. No, the Kazuar is dead.

But the mirror's inquisition was relentless.

The glass around her hand grew fogged and patterned with frost as she whispered on thing to her reflection, one thing she wished never to forget.

"Maria Tachibana."

She took her hand away from the glass and her reflection was visible inside the handprint.

She looked down at her scarred hand. Slowly, she felt the back of her throat tighten. No, she commanded herself in vain.

She tried to force her mind to look ahead instead of behind. She was running again, just as she'd run from Russian, leaving nothing but a swath of death, grief, loss and burned bridges in her wake.

Her father had always told her that it was always darkest just before dawn, but how much darker could it get? Dawn shoul dhave been just around the corner several times throughout her life, but instead it only seems to continue darkening.

Dazed, she turned to look at her cabin.

Nothing.

She had nothing. And she had no one. Ayame was probably unpacking by now, and Maria had nothing to her name. No family, no friends, not even the framed photo she had of Yuri. Not her rifle or her uniform, nothing. Everything was gone. Everyone was gone. And she was left in the hollowness that remained.

Joseph. Valentinov. Karpov. Her money, her future, her life in the USA, the world to which Yuri promised he would bring her. Yuri. Her parents. What did she have now but a suspicious stranger and a handful of promises about a land she owned only by half of her blood – a land to which she had never been, and a land in which she knew not a single soul?

She drew out her locket and opened it, the tiny picture inside all she had left of happiness.

The bed was behind her and she stumbled to sit on it as if she had been pushed.

She choked and then covered her mouth with her hand as if grieved by the very sound of her own sorrow. She held her breath to hold back the onslaught of sadness and fear, her jaw clenched against sobbing, but shaking. She sank to the bed, her face buried in the pillow.