Chapter 3 – Three Little Words
Hell.
She wasn't sure what it looked like, but she was fairly certain that she would be going there.
Perhaps she already was there.
She didn't know. Her eyelids felt very heavy, and it took too much effort to open them at all. She felt incurably lazy.
There was merely a dull throbbing pain throughout her body that her mind, which was only capable of making out indistinct and foggy figures, could not understand.
There was a nothingness and a pain and a haze. That was pretty much it.
If this was Hell, it wasn't as bad as she had imagined it.
She willed her eyes to open, onto whatever sight was there, not knowing what would greet her.
She was in a flat, gray, and metallic room on a bed in between silk sheets wearing a hospital gown.
Indeed, she hadn't been mistaken in the least. She was in Hell. She had been trapped in another holding cell, another price would be exacted, and worst of all, she had lived.
In everything she had attempted, she had failed.
Had Jacob Marley seen all of the links she had forged for the chain around her, he might have hesitated for many years more before attempting to save Scrooge. In comparison to Colleen's imagined chain, Marley's burden was light. All she could do now was add more links.
Marley had gotten off so easily.
Colleen had returned to Hell, she herself would be further doomed there, she would doom others there, and, ultimately, her escape had once again been cut off.
Everything she had planned had utterly failed.
Her head flopped to one side, the fogginess in her vision snatching upon the dim outlines of two figures standing at the bedside. Her eyes widened as she centered in on one of them.
Even in her haze she could see someone unmistakable.
This was indeed Hell and he was the Devil.
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In purely Sousuke style, there was a knock on the door precisely at five o'clock. Having just finished cutting the stem away from the final shiitake mushroom, Kaname went to answer it.
It was, as expected, Sousuke.
However, Sousuke himself was not quite as expected...
There were dark circles under his vaguely bloodshot eyes. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days. Perhaps he really hadn't slept in days.
She realized she had been staring at him for an entire minute without saying anything or welcoming him into her apartment.
On reflex she put one hand on the back of her head and let out her horribly fake sounding laugh. Sousuke continued looking at her with his usual serious expression.
"Chidori…" he began tentatively, "I have arrived as you have asked me to."
He had almost said, "ordered." That would have been an extreme tactical oversight on his part. Sousuke mentally shook himself; such mistakes often resulted in injuries and possible death.
Kaname practically shoved him through her door, murmuring that the sukiyaki was almost done.
Unsure of what to do Sousuke just remained standing in the place Kaname had pushed him to with a look of confusion upon his face…as if he had been left behind enemy lines with no possibility of back up. Kaname's apartment was always, to some extent, very unfamiliar terrain. One needed to proceed in it as through a minefield.
Minefields could be decidedly less painful, however.
But still, this was standard operating procedure, and he knew that there was no place that he would have rather been.
In the process of gathering the ingredients together for the warishita sauce, she noticed that Sousuke had remained standing in the exact same position in which she had left him and now remained there, looking at her with tell-tale beads of sweat on his forehead.
"Sousuke, you can sit down if you like."
He blinked at her once or twice and then promptly sat down on the floor.
"Sousuke!"
He looked bewildered, He had sat down. Thus, in his own estimation, he had complied perfectly with her request.
The meat made a sizzling sound. It seemed to mirror Kaname's own impending emotions. She placed her hand on her hips and then walked until she stood directly over him.
"Sousuke…"
"Yes, Chidori?"
"What did I say to you?"
"You told me to sit. There are no problems, I have complied with what you ordere-"
His earlier thoughts concerning such word choice with Chidori had been prophetic. That word had triggered one of the mines. It was about to go off.
The end of his sentence was suddenly cut off as the wooden serving spoon came down upon his head with a cry of "WRONG!"
Boom.
"Chidori," he began again, "I fail to see wha-"
And another.
Boom.
This time she eschewed the spoon altogether and with a surprising burst of strength picked up the clueless sergeant and tossed him over to her sofa while shouting, "The couch, you idiot! Normal people sit on the couch!"
Sousuke landed with a rather sickening crunch after which he mumbled, "that hurt, Chidori."
However, remembering his tired looking face at the door, Kaname almost immediately felt bad for her behavior.
But then again, she rationalized, that moody military otaku had deserved it. Yes, he did.
She was going through the trouble of cooking for him and he had the nerve to sit on the floor. Really, how could that be proper behavior when a girl asks a boy over to her house for a home cooked meal?
That Sousuke really was incredibly clueless.
Kaname worked in silence for a while, adding the onions and the mushrooms, and mixing the sauce together.
Sousuke was his usual quiet self. Kaname, on the other hand, was now rather frustrated with the fact that they had begun the evening on such a sour note.
He had been gone on a mission in who knows what place in the world doing who knew what for the past few days, and he had still come over here.
She felt a little guilty.
Trying to strike up some conversation she said, "Hey Sousuke, did you hear the drama club is going to put on a play at school?"
He grunted an affirmative answer.
"I think they are going to do Romeo and Juliet, perhaps Hayashimizu-sempai will want you to secure the event…"
He didn't respond. She went on.
"Oh course, you'll probably end up blowing up the scenery with a grenade, or mistaking the props for terrorist bombs, or mixing the play up with reality and really killing Tybalt or interrogating him…in front of the entire audience. Maybe you will try to save Juliet from a possible terrorist conspiracy… I really don't know what that Hayashimizu thinks appointing an otaku like you to things like that."
For a second he did not say anything, and then he gave an absentminded, "Affirmative."
Their conversation ended for a while.
They lapsed into silence, only disturbed by the quiet simmering of the sukiyaki.
Meanwhile, when the sukiyaki was finished cooking, Kaname brought the pot to the table, as well as their respective dishes. Sousuke was still unnervingly quiet. At these times she almost wished for one of his long drawn out otaku war stories.
Almost.
She walked over to the couch.
He was slumped a bit, and dozing off. She frowned and felt guilty again. Whatever Mithril had had him doing, it had taken a lot out of him. For some reason, the strain was more visible than usual.
Him, sleeping there like that, reminded her of the time she had cut his hair. Just like the last time, Kaname slowly moved her face closer to his…but at that moment, she noticed that his face was rather flushed. She let the opportunity pass again, knowing that she would most likely be angry with herself later.
There were more important things, though.
Knowing that she did so at some risk, she put the back of her hand on his forehead. Sousuke woke up with a start at her touch, but did not switch into full on combat mode seeing who it was.
She was the only one in the world who could have done such a thing.
"Sousuke," she said reprovingly, "you have a fever."
She hadn't removed her hand yet.
His face turned a bit redder, but not due to his temperature.
"It…" there was a note of hesitancy in his voice, "It is not a problem. My sleeping pattern has not been up to my normal standard as of late."
In Sousuke, the language of military otaku, he was trying to say he had been having trouble sleeping.
Perhaps he was worried about something.
Kaname drew herself up to her full height and put her hands upon her hips, and responded, "It certainly is a problem. After we eat, I'll have to take care of you. Really, if you have problems like these you don't have to keep them to yourself."
Her voice lacked the edge she usually reserved for lecturing him.
"But Chidori, you ordered me to rendezvous at this location at 1700 hours. I came to the conclusion that these orders were non-negotiable."
"Well, you were wrong, now we'll eat. It will do you better than those MRE's. Then I'll have to do something about you."
She silently served him some and brought it over to the couch for him. He thanked her and began to eat. As she picked up the pieces of beef with her chopsticks, she stole a look at the boy seated across from him.
He still looked exhausted, and there was a note in his eyes she had only seen a few times. It was a kind of hollowness. It reminded her of the look he had had when he returned from his mission in Afghanistan back when he had first come to protect her. Something had been bothering him then, but she hadn't known enough about him or his life to be able to ask.
She had been right to think something was worrying him, then. But she hadn't the courage to ask.
But things were different from that time after Afghanistan. They had come too far and through too many things together from then.
She had said that she only trusted him and she hadn't been lying.
Oblivious and destructive though he tended to be, it takes a different kind of man to make a girl feel safe while running through a shower of bullets on a cruise ship as seemingly dozens of robots chased after you.
That was something unique to Sousuke. She only felt that secure around him.
Of course, dodging bullets and Arastols was also an activity that was fairly unique to Sousuke as well.
Yes, Kaname sighed, her life was like one of those ridiculous action movies she had seen during her stay in America. However, she bet that none of those American movie heroes had ever caused so many catastrophes as Sousuke unwittingly did. Nor were any of those superheroes seventeen-year-old mercenaries disguised as high school students.
She knew very well, had she been in Sousuke's shoes, she probably would have broken down a long time ago and come off much worse than he had.
She smiled, they really had come far. Three months ago she would have utterly denied all of these thoughts and just resorted to linking a number of insults together while thinking angrily about his latest stunt.
But now they trusted each other. She knew how much she cared for him. Things had changed.
No, she had admitted it to herself, it was more than caring for him. She loved him, but for all her usual gusto, the thought of telling him scared her more than anything.
That was why Kaname couldn't just leave him to deal with everything on his own, be it a fever, or whatever else he was trying to keep from her.
She owed him that much…and so much more.
No, she thought, as if someone had challenged her to a contest of some sort, Kaname Chidori would certainly not allow for that!
He finished eating and Kaname cleared the plates away, disappearing for a moment and bringing back with her a pillow and a blanket. Returning to the couch, she propped the pillow up on one end. Sousuke again looked at her in confusion.
"Chidori?"
"Lay down," she commanded.
"Chidori, I believe tha-"
She smacked him very lightly on the side of the head with her halisen, declaring in a soft voice, "I told you to lay down, you idiot."
Sousuke may have been ill, but that was no reason to let there be any weakness in her authority over him.
He complied; judging the course of action was best employed in order to avoid injury. To his surprise, she laid the blanket over him, and tucked it around him, murmuring, "Really, you're just like a kid. I always have to take care of you."
But he noted there was no edge in her voice, as was usually reserved for such comments. And she had used the halisen quite gently.
It was an indescribable feeling that he had at that moment. Never in his life could he remember being treated like this…she was gentle, and her comments were made with a small smile on her face and a look of concern in her eyes.
In the Majahideen, one could not afford to succumb to any sickness, otherwise they certainly would perish in whatever attack had come. They rarely had the luxury of pity. That was simply the harsh reality of that world. It was necessary to merely survive.
In Mithril you would be taken into the sick bay, yes, but that was purely functional. Perhaps if you were lucky, your comrades came to visit you, as Kurz and Melissa did on the rare occasions he had been there. However, there was nothing markedly different in their tactics regarding him. Not surprisingly, these visit were usually comprised of Weber making a crude anatomical reference and Mao responding with an effective (as one was able to be with Kurz) tactical display of force.
With Kaname, he knew he would be able to rest for a moment. He could almost believe he was safe with her. She came back dragging a chair from her kitchen with her, setting it near the couch.
He had never had a real home. He still didn't consider any single place to be his home. But he knew he wanted to stay where Kaname was. What he felt like when he was with her was the closest thing to what he thought his comrades felt when they talked about their own homes.
They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
"Sousuke," she finally got the nerve to ask, "Are you okay?"
"As you have pointed out, my physical condition is not up to the standards that I would like them to be as I am currently suffering from an elevated body temperature due to an increased level of white blood cell activity."
Kaname shook her head.
"Idiot," she said softly, hitting him softly on the side of his head with her halisen again.
"You trust me, right?" Her eyes looked at him with a touch up something in them…Apprehension? Hope?
He really wasn't good at this sort of thing. He was even worse when his temples were throbbing as they were.
Noticing his silence, she leaned closer and said very quietly, "You know that if you have problems you can tell me, right?"
Images flashed in her mind of sitting on a park bench with a Bonta-kun mascot, holding its hand, saying similar words. That was probably the closest she had gotten to touching him in that way. The most courage that she could muster up after that was to grab his sleeve.
On an impulse, she grabbed his hand, just as she had done on that day. He stiffened up for a moment, but then relaxed.
"Chidori," he began tentatively, "There is no one that I trust more than you. You are one of the few certainties in my life. However, I cannot tell you about my mission, it is classified, as you know."
At first, she could feel her face redden at the compliment. However, concerning his problem, she only nodded, she expected answers like that about Mithril's doings. At least she knew it was something directly related to his work. Normally, she would have become angry with him and expressed her displeasure with her halisen, but it seemed he wanted to tell her…
"However, I will say that the mission did not go as planned and perhaps I placed more importance on the target than I should have."
He sighed deeply, those three words, which up until now had been rendered impotent by Kaname's mere presence came back to him.
"Are you sure you can't tell me why?" she asked softly. He took a deep breath. In a way, he was disobeying orders, or at least relaxing them to an extent that he knew he should not.
Orders and Kaname, however, rarely mixed well.
He trusted Kaname with his own life. The only reason he could ever foresee her revealing anything he confided in her was in the event the enemy captured her and obtained it through rigorous interrogation. That thought made him shudder.
He simply would not allow that eventuality to come to pass.
He needed to show her that he did trust her. Only her.
The young sergeant took a deep breath and explained.
"The target was the reason I am here now. Mithril placed her under a program of observation three years ago, and they failed. She was captured and detained by the enemy in an indeterminate location for a duration of three years. Mithril could not afford to fail in any more of its missions where people like her were concerned. She… is why I am here."
"Whispered…" she said quietly.
"Affirmative."
His apprehensions regarding Wraith came into the forefront of her mind. Sousuke had known the stakes at the time, and knew the possibilities. In his mind a "program of observation" had already proved inadequate. Kaname understood what he had been thinking…not much had separated the two Whispereds at that time.
It could have been her in that indeterminate location facing whatever that girl had endured.
She almost had been there on several occasions, and certainly would have been if it hadn't been for Sousuke.
"In my last mission I did not do what I should have for her."
His hand was sweaty in her own as he recounted it.
"Is she…still alive?" The question hung in the air for a moment. He released her hand and drew it back under the blanket.
"I do not know." He wasn't looking at her. He got up and walked into her kitchen.
"Sousuke…" she said. Her voice was strange.
He didn't turn around.
"Sousuke," she said again, raising her voice.
That idiot was ignoring her! He had confided in her and then dared to wallow in his gloominess and ignore her! She would have to do something to get him out of that mood of his.
"Sousuke!" The tone of her voice finally caught his attention. She was walking up to him and fast closing the gap between them.
Suddenly, she grabbed hold of his arm and began dragging him back to the couch saying in a loud voice, "You're sick and I told you to lie down!"
Sousuke was shocked out of his somber mood by her sudden outburst. He was flung hard against the couch and had the blanket unceremoniously tossed over him again.
"Geez, you gloomy sergeant! How are you ever going to get better if you're waltzing off across the world without my permission!"
"Chidori, I-"
"It's not 'Chidori, I-'! I'm not going through all this trouble for my own health!"
"But Chidori I was-"
She got angrier at the fact that he was still arguing with her. She knew that at some point most people knew when it was considerably unwise to keep arguing with Kaname Chidori. Sousuke was in the minority that did not embrace this fact.
"You were? You were what?"
"Uh…"
She retrieved her halisen from the counter where she had set it.
Even seeing it within her grip, he could not utter anything else but "uh…"
"Sousuke!"
He suddenly took on a very somber demeanor, standing up again he looked at her very seriously and said, "Chidori, you shouldn't ask a man that."
Even taking his illness into account, Kaname did not hold back of her next swing with her halisen.
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Her brain felt sluggish and feeble, no doubt from the number of medications they had put her on during her recovery process.
She took stock of the situation as best as she was able to in her current state.
From her vantage point she could see two men, most likely armed. One of them was him. It would be a mistake to underestimate that fact. She was well aware of the fact that she had no weapon of her own and one of her opponents was that man. She slowly moved her hand up to her ear, pretending to scratch an itch above it.
Her earring was gone. They must have finally found out.
Shit.
He was advancing towards her. Much to her own disgust she could feel her eyes widen in fear as he approached. Ever since she had first seen him, he had had that sort of power over her. She blinked her eyes, trying to block his hazy figure away. Neither he, nor the other blurry figure that she didn't recognize disappeared.
Her mind raced as fast as it was capable of.
Her whole body ached. Her reactions were not up to their best. Her wound probably was not conducive to any useful movement. Lastly, he was right there. RIGHT THERE! Her brain screamed.
Her brain was wracking itself for some way out, something to do. There was a glass filled with water next to her on a tray, presumably for taking her pills and sedatives and BeMods when she finally awoke.
She made an incomprehensible guttural noise, as if she had lost all powers of coherent speech, reclining as little as possible.
Really, she must have looked pitiful.
The unknown blurry figure silently pushed the glass towards her. She grasped it as feebly as she could, betraying nothing and hoping he would draw closer.
He had reached the side of her bed and sat down at a vacated seat there. From here he would probably speak to her and tell her of the futility of everything that she had done and reassert that there was really only was one purpose for her.
He could stuff it. She had heard it all. He made her angry, deadly angry. He would not determine her fate any longer.
In one swift movement, she broke the glass in two on the metal bars at the head of the bed and jumped at him, holding the sharp edge against his neck, pricking it a little and drawing blood.
Her entire body was wracked with pain because of the abrupt movement. She could feel the stitches ripping as she did so. Large black spots clouded her vision, threatening to overcome her. A cold object came to rest on the back of her head.
"Please…" came a small feminine voice, "Miss Riley, we're here to help you."
It was not him.
It was not him, at all.
It was too late for that though, she certainly looked like Leonard Testarossa. For a moment, she almost felt sorry for her.
But it was too late for that.
She had only one escape, and it wasn't through any door.
She slowly turned around, the glass still pricking into the unknown girl's neck a bit.
The other unknown man stood holding his gun to her head. She dropped the glass. The girl slumped. The other man did not move his gun from the spot it was trained on, though.
Colleen merely looked at him with cold expression.
"Do you intend to frighten me?" She asked, her voice low and rough from disuse.
"You have shown yourself to be a threat."
She cocked her head to the side a bit and smiled a twisted, mirthless smile.
"I am a threat. I was a threat far before I was here. I will remain a threat. You do not frighten me."
She reached out and placed her hand over his on the gun's trigger.
"Do it," she taunted. "Do it and I will thank you eternally."
The gun did not move and the stranger did not flinch. They just stood, face to face, both hands on the trigger.
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Kalinin did not back down, and knew that his adversary wouldn't either. Her eyes were hollow and had an animalistic quality to them. He had only seen those eyes once before on one so young.
Sousuke Sagara had looked at him the same way when they had first met in Afghanistan.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Captain Testarossa drag herself into the corner, away from the confrontation. Her eyes were wide with shock.
Colleen Riley spoke again.
"I asked one thing of one of your subordinates, the one we call "Kashim" because of the person your organization knows as Guaron, unfortunately they were unable to comply."
"What did you want?" He asked simply.
"I told him three simple words. 'Let me die.' I am not afraid of that. I am more afraid of remaining in this hell than the one that awaits my soul."
Sagara had privately mentioned the girl's request to him. He again chose not to respond.
"Maybe," she said with a soft intensity, leaning further against the barrel of the gun and squeezing her small white hand more strongly around his, "you can fulfill my request for me."
Suddenly, the door to the hospital wing clattered open with a cry of "Tessa-chaaaaaaan! What did you do with my computer?" The girl, probably half fainting in pain, was distracted just long enough that she loosened her grip on his own hand and allowed him to bring his free hand down sharply on the pressure point in her neck, rendering her unconscious.
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Kurz looked in disbelief at the disarray of the scene before him. Tessa was backed up against the wall, a look of horror on her face, Kalinin was bent down over the again unconscious girl and was in the business of hoisting her back onto the bed and pressing the emergency button near the bedside.
Tessa righted herself and walked shakily forward, until she was directly in front of him.
Abruptly, she bowed deeply and said, "Thank you, Sergeant Weber!"
He noticed that Tessa had a small cut on her neck.
It was all incredibly confusing.
All he had wanted was his computer.
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The overly serious mood, even for him, that had clung to Sousuke earlier in the night did not return.
Indeed, Kaname noted that he was his old otaku self.
He had even gone so far as to suggest that she should learn a valuable lesson from history and went on to explain that the mastery of a weapon by women age eighteen and older had been mandatory during the Edo period. He then went on to list several modern equivalents she might try, as the naginata that they had used would be largely ineffective against any serious terrorist threats…
She had suggested he learn from history and gave him a good beating with her halisen…although more gentle than usual, she considered herself to be a kind soul after all. But, really, that idiotic, jerk of a military otaku never learned!
She then lectured him in return about actually learning the real history so he didn't do so poorly on his tests. His credits were in danger enough, and no amount of weaponry could prevent that kind of peril.
And besides, she thought with a smile, holding up her halisen, I've already mastered all the weaponry that I will ever need.
She finished brushing her teeth and went out into her living room once again. Sousuke was finally asleep. Earlier she had re-tucked the blanket around him exactly like her mother used to do with her when she was sick and needed to be taken care of.
A slight blush came to her cheeks as she realized that she had insisted that he stay in her apartment over night. Her own boldness sometimes surprised her. But, she rationalized to herself, Sousuke wouldn't take proper care of himself, so someone else would have to…
She noticed the pile of weapons and armaments on the floor in her room just inside the door, his damned cell phone on top of the small mountain. He had insisted on putting his Glock 17 under his pillow, just in case. There had been a protracted argument as to whether he should be allowed to keep even this weapon, but in the end, he would not give up, citing her a litany of possible catastrophes that might befall her should they be taken by surprise by the enemy when he was inadequately armed.
It was a matter of her protection and he would not concede.
She giggled, the gun was kind of like the military otaku's security blanket.
Quietly walking out into the living room, she stood watching him sleep.
She could protect him in her own way, just as he did her, although the idiotic otaku probably would never notice…
Kaname smiled to herself. No, if he noticed it wouldn't be very much like him at all. Turning back into her bedroom, she looked at him once more.
Even in his sleep he looked serious.
Hopefully, he would sleep more peacefully than usual.
She walked to the threshold of her bedroom and as she turned out the light, she whispered, "Oyasumi nasai, Sousuke."
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A/N: Phew! Another chapter done! Just so you all know, this is going to be a very long fic (as in, I have 11 chapters planned, as of right now, with about a fourth of the plot left to plan out Oo ).
Finally, on a completely random note, for some reason it entered into my head that Mao x Clouzot would be a cool pairing. Sooooo, if anyone should so find themselves wanting to write a fic of this pairing as a challenge, I would trade them a one-shot of their request…See? Random.
Hope to see you next chapter and thanks for reading this one! Again, please review and tell me what you like (or don't)!