Miho & Maho
"Maho, will things ever return to normal?" Miho asks her sister as they sit in their living room.
"I don't know Miho, things are… out of control right now." Maho says with a sigh. "You're lucky our mother is able to afford things for us."
Miho stays silent for a few moments. "I miss my friends." Thoughts of Hana, Saori, Yukari and Mako fill her head."
"I know Miho, but with our carrier heavily damaged by that hurricane, things won't return to normal until then." Maho says and turns towards the bookshelf.
"But why did we have to come to America?" Miho asks. "Why did we have to come to this place called 'New York City'."
"Miho. It's better not to question it. Our problem is Green Poison, not why your friends are living in a different part of this city." Maho says. She walks over to the bookshelf and pulls out a book.
"Maho! Miho! I'm home! Help me with the groceries!"
Miho jumps up and runs to help her mother. Maho gets up and walks over.
"Mother, why are we here in America, and not back in Japan?" Miho asks. Maho glares at her, as if to tell her she's stupid.
"Well Miho, if you want to know so dearly, this is currently the only place we can get the carrier fixed, but with the outbreak that won't happen for a long while." Shiho Nishizumi says to her daughter. "Plus, we have a tournament here! I couldn't ever miss it. Your sister is skipping some of her university to be here!"
"Oh. Ok." Miho says in a very disappointed tone. After she helps put away the groceries, she walks upstairs to her room.
It was a small room, and if it weren't for a lot of posters, it would look like a jail cell. It had dull white walls. A small boko bed in the corner, a small desk with stacks of paper. In the other corner opposite of the bed was the bookshelf full of books, many about tanks. A small photo in the corner showed the five girls in a photo right outside their tank.
Miho flops down on her bed and pulls out her phone. As she opens up messages she see her friends have been talking for a bit.
Hey Guys! Miho texts How's it going for everyone? It's pretty boring up here. Nothing much to do.
Nothing much Miho. Hana's talking about her ikebana experience. Actually more like a ramble or a rant, I can't even tell at this point Yukari texts back
Well for one, I've been doing nothing, and my boyfriend isn't even in America! Saori texts
Wait, Saori has a boyfriend. Since when? Miho asks, with sudden surprise. Congrats!
Maho walks up the stairs and into the room next to Miho's. Miho sits there for the next 30 minutes chatting to her friends.
Not soon after a loud noise of glass breaking explodes up to Miho room. She jumps up and begins to run ahead. Maho, already in front of her, grabs the M1911 hiding on a shelf next to the stairwell. Maho hops over the railing and hits the ground running. She looks outside the broken window to see her mother being taken away by two armed men wearing blue tactical army wear.
"Miho! Stay back!" Maho says turning to Miho, and with that, she jumps out the broken window, and fires the gun. The deafening crack of the gun and a bright light. The bullet hits the nearby building. Maho continues to run forward, still firing the gun at a calm rate.
The armed man looks behind and fires an M9. Maho twirls around the bullet and fires back, hitting the man in the wrist, making him drop his gun. He yells in surprise but doesn't let go of Shiho.
Miho came running out from behind her sister, and dived towards the gun on the ground. SHe picks it up and fires, the recoil of the gun surprising her. The bullet flies past them, hitting a nearby building.
The two men hop into a van, with a marked symbol. A massive N with an i splitting to the middle in a light blue circle. The door shuts and the van takes off. Maho yells a curse word and fires at the van. The bullet bounces right off.
"God damnit! God damnit! GOD DAMNIT!" Maho yells.
Miho falls to her knees. She thinks to herself "My mother has been taken by a faction. She won't return. My mother has been taken by a faction. She won't return." The slow feeling of sadness begins to creep on her, and tears well into her eyes.
Maho stands in disbelief. Anger crowds her thoughts and she punches the nearby brick wall, with the sound of breaking knuckles. She looks down to see her knuckles, broken and bleeding. She looks up at the wall, a small stain of blood dripping down. Maho shakes it off and walks over to her little sister crying on the ground. She gently picks her up and carries her home.
Miho sits there still. Maho was cooking in the kitchen, but she still refuses to believe what happened 3 days before.
"Maho there is no way that mother was taken by that faction. What was the faction? Why did the faction choose us?" Miho questions
"Miho! Stop! You're giving me a migraine!" Maho cried from the other room. "She's gone now. There's nothing we can do even if we tried. We wouldn't last a day out there!"
"No Maho! You're wrong! There is something we can do." Miho yells back
Maho comes storming out of the kitchen. "That's not happening, Miho. Stop trying to believe shits gonna happen!" Maho glares at her and walks back into the kitchen. Miho sits there in silence again, contemplating her life and what it had become
Later that night Miho falls asleep. The world around her is quiet. Maho peeks in on her sister. She goes over and kisses her forehead.
"I'm sorry Miho. But forgive me for what I'm about to do." And with that Maho leaves the room. She walks down the street and towards downtown.
Maho drifts towards the gun store, she looks around. It's a pretty deserted place, many storefronts boarded up. She walks around with hands in her pocket until,
"Hey you! Lady! Come over here!" Maho turns to see two men grinning at her
"They don't mean anything good." Maho ignored them and continued to walk towards her destination. The men begin to follow her and Maho begins to speed up. The men catch up to her. One man puts his hand on her shoulder
"Hey, we were talking to you." He says, giving her a grin. 3 teeth are missing, and it brings a shudder down Maho's spine. She shakes off his hand and then growls at him.
"I don't want to talk to you assholes." She says
The man looks at her, and then gives another grin and says "We don't mean any trouble."
"Well, what are your intentions then?" Maho asks, and begins to curl her hand into a ball.
"Well, our intentions are that you give u-" He says, but gets cut off by a fist to the jaw. The man flies back as blood sprays from his mouth, coloring the white sidewalk a dark red.
"You Bi-" he yells but not before getting cut off again by a kick to the stomach. He gives an oomph and flies backwards onto the pavement. His partner looks at the scene and pulls out a knife, and with a yell the man charges forward.
Maho turns around and kicks the man in the head, and he goes flying, hitting his head on the nearby dumpster. He picks himself up, dazed and Maho kicks him again. When the man begins to stir and get up once more, she runs over and grabs his head, smashing his skull into the wall.
Maho lets go of his head and the man's body slumps to the floor, blood pouring out of a massive gash in the fractured skull. Her heart goes cold, but she continues fighting.
The other man gets up. "Why you bitch!" and runs forward. Maho turns around and gets a punch to the jaw. She flies back and hits the ground. She jumps up and throws a punch at the man's head. He weaves and throws one into Maho's stomach.
Maho stumbles back, and watches as the man runs at her with a knife. As he gets closer, she waits patiently, then slams her knee into the man's groin. He howls grabbing his underside and crumples to the ground. Maho walks over, breathing heavily, and grabs the man's head.
And as she did with the man's partner, she slams his head over and over again onto the bricks, staining it a dark red. The man doesn't cry out in pain, and when he goes completely limp, she lets go, and a sick feeling takes over her. She had just killed two men. Her anger had taken her over, and she forgot about the world, and two lives she had taken.
With that sick feeling in her stomach, she wavers and stumbles over to a store, and enters.
*6 Hours Later*
Miho wakes up to see her sister standing in front of her doorway. Miho looks at her sister. Maho had a bruise on her cheek, and was holding her stomach. She jumps up and rushes over.
"Maho! Are you ok?" Miho says, scanning her sister.
"Don't worry Miho, I'm fine. Just a tiny bit of trouble. Don't worry, I'm going to rest though, its been a tough night." Maho says, a tiredness in her voice. Miho nods and leads her sister to her room.
Maho exhales and climbs onto her bed, and before she knows it she's asleep. From the bedroom door, Miho watches her sister asleep. She smiles and walks downstairs. As she walks downstairs, on the table, she notices something.
The glint of a scope of M4 carbine sitting on the table. Neatly next to it, is a stack of cartridges. Bullets are scattered all over the table, as well as a hunting knife. A glock-19 sits right next to the M4.
"What in is all of this?!" Miho thinks to herself. She walks over and touches the cool metal surface. She takes a seat, and drags it to the table. She sits there looking at the bullets toying around, and poking at them. As she sits there, the upstairs gives a creak, breaking Miho out of her trance.
At the top of the stairs, Maho stands. She limps down, and grimly looks at Miho. Her eye is bloodshot, and she her bruise was still there.
"So I see you've found what I bought last night." Maho says
Miho looks in disbelief at her sister "What is the whole point of this? Why do need… these guns?!"
Maho looks at her sister, and says "Miho. I'm going after our mother. I'm going, and finding her."
"Then you're taking me with you." Miho says firmly
"No Miho. You're all I have left. Losing you, that means losing my world. I wouldn't bear to lose you." Maho says, a hint of sadness in her voice.
"She's our mother!" Miho yells. "If I lose you, I lose my world!"
"Miho! Stop being childish! This isn't god damn Sensha-do! This is a global catastrophe! These are real guns. They will tear you apart, limb from limb." Maho yells at her sister.
Miho looks taken aback for a second, but she then yells back at her sister "If I mean so much to you, you'd let me help you!" And she storms upstairs, leaving Maho. Maho walks over to a chair, and sits down, putting her face into her hands as tears stream down her face.
"God damnit Miho, why can't you ever listen to me." Maho whispers. She knew she couldn't stop her sister from coming, but she couldn't allow her to get hurt. She couldn't lose someone again.
