K: Tales of Midnight
Chapter One: Sashimi (pt. 2)
Fushimi gained his feet, choking in the cool night air as though he'd since forgotten how to breathe, or even that he needed to, until his breath came flooding back to him.
Across the pebbled surface of the roof, the woman merely stared at him, stone-frozen as a statue.
Fushimi then recalled with startling vividness: the burn he felt a moment prior, caught within her aura's pitch-black wrath, was not a fiery heat at all but biting as a rain of icy fractals cutting through the skin and puncturing the bone; and with its steady passing, still the sting remained inside this woman's gaze, locking him inside.
Pronounced among her features' snowy confines, all was cold and lifeless, save her eyes, which flashed him with a tinkling of jade; and yet for all their listlessness, they seized him in a manner that he could not comprehend, nor did he particularly wish to comprehend it. What, in truth, he wanted was to rid himself entirely of all concerning her: to take what he had come for and be done with her as quickly as he could.
A moment passed and still she did not move; even so, she seemed to rise as would some haunted being, grim and treacherous before him. She reminded him of a black hole, her very essence that of an anomalistic trap no matter how one went about her: always one would find himself enveloped and consumed. It made him cringe to look at her. He wished to look away but somehow found he couldn't.
He sensed resolution in the strange degree of ravenous regard she seemed to give him; and it dawned on him to wonder why she even bothered being there at all. You got what you came for, he reflected. You even had the lead on me. Why stop and fight and then not even kill me when you clearly had the chance?
Scanning every facet of her sly, unflinching countenance, the large yet highly slitted eyes that looked at him, he found her absolutely blank. It was impossible to divine her thoughts, yet at the time, he realized — rather angrily — that it was too late. A slight reverberation in her eye informed him that she'd read his own transparent features fluently. Her visage, once unmoved, contorted in a grin, causing him to flinch and raise his saber in the air. "The Kawaguchi Algorithm," he spoke in cutting tones. "I know you took it before you chucked the laptop." Holding out his hand, he ordered, "Give it to me."
"You mean you're not going to ask me my name?" She said, blinking into feigned, wide-eyed innocence. Her voice was unexpectedly soft.
"Like I care about your name," he answered in somewhat of a lie. He took a step toward her, his sword-point inching closer to her throat.
"Yes, that's right, you're here for this," she said, pulling out a flash drive from her pocket. Tauntingly, she waved it at him, watching with amusement as he gripped his saber tightly in response, his eyes a trailing movement in alignment with the drive. "You know, you nearly had me back there. Another moment and…" she popped her brow excitedly and smiled, slinking out her tongue in a not-so-subtle lick along the edges of her mouth.
Fushimi sneered at her. "Better to lose it altogether than to let you run off with it."
"Yes, but without it, you wouldn't be here," she pointed out.
"And I'd really like to leave here, so if you'd just give it to me…" he suggested, at which, she sent him three consecutive clicks of her tongue, accompanied by a finger tapping likewise in the air.
"Not before I have a chance to formally introduce myself. I'm Rei Kiyoka." She blinked: a minute gesture of a bow. "Your living night flower," she added. Again, she donned a fabricated air of sincerity, broken altogether with a wink. "Come now, don't tell me you've not wondered all this time chasing me. You've been on my tail for weeks. I could feel you inching closer day by day." Then adopting a higher mimicking voice, she forced her lips into a pucker. "'But why can't I keep up?' you kept asking yourself. 'Always trailing behind, never making it in time.'" She humphed a little snicker. "I wonder: how many proxies did you meet instead of me these past few weeks?"
"Funny, I don't see one now," Fushimi answered dryly, and another laugh escaped her lips, causing him to blink.
"I should hope not," she replied, flitting her slim hand into a wave. "A chase, of course, is fun if there's a bit of bait to test you with, but even that was beginning to grow dull. Quite honestly, the blossoming tediousness of it all was enough to make me anxious. I longed to finally have you." She smirked a sinuous grin, making him uncomfortable, and sighed as one enraptured in a daydream. "Alas, appearances and such forbade me from indulging any earlier than the game itself allowed. My only consolation, then, in being forced to wait, was knowing that in every line of bait, in every trail I left, commanding you to follow, I was merely laying out the pieces that would one day lead you here; and now look at us!" She uttered happily, at which, her smile turned devious. "Together at last."
Just then, alarm awakened in Fushimi and he stiffened in his place. Let alone the obvious vulgarity of Rei Kiyoka's overly refined advance (or was she merely teasing him?), Fushimi dawned more thoroughly on the truth between the fluff and the indecency. 'Laying out the pieces?' He repeated in his mind. Hold on. That would mean…she planned this from the beginning? Eyes alert, he looked at her; she looked at him; no one said a word. So while I was chasing her, she was really chasing me? Or worse: she was baiting me? He lost his breath, cringing in a sudden recoil. What kind of twisted — !
"You're with Scepter 4," She said, cutting off his inner monologue. Unlike him, it seemed, who's mind had momentarily lapsed, Kiyoka had since reached the height of comfortability and began to pace around him, followed by the cautious tip of his sword, on which, she set her finger in a sly, hypnotic gesture up and down its flattened edge. "Third-in-command," she went on, "the one who's name sounds like 'sushi." Once again Fushimi cringed, sending off his saber from her reach, a gesture that she did not seem to mind or even bring herself to notice.
Tapping her same finger on her chin, she feigned an epiphany. "Ah yes, I have it! Sashimi!" Pointing to him, "That's you, right?" She raked her head, eyeing him a bit more snakily than was natural. "Yummy. You know I think from now on I'll get hungry every time I see you."
Fushimi's eyes narrowed. "Then I'll be sure to visit often once you're neatly behind bars — granted I don't kill you first."
Kiyoka rose a single brow. "I see. Best keep me wanting all the time, is that it?"
He blinked into a shrug. "Something like that."
"Well then, Sashimi, until that day comes — because let's face it: that day's not today," she bat her eyes and dipped into a sweeping bow, rising with her rapier aimed at him, "I plan to claim my prize and satisfy my hunger right here, right now."
At this, her farcical tone (he assumed) meant only to mock him, Fushimi waved his sword haphazardly, gaping with a snigger at the lewd absurdity of her words. "And I'm just supposed to what: roll over?" Repositioning his saber in alignment with her blade, he darted her a similarly provoking grin. "Not a chance."
Kiyoka turned her rapier with a simultaneous coil of her neck as like a cobra in observance of its prey. "Don't be boring, Sashimi. Have you not learned your lesson?"
"I'm still here aren't I?"
She hummed a mesmerizing taunt. "By my good graces."
"Then finish it."
Kiyoka seemed to ponder this a moment, or else she faked a slight degree of rapt consideration. "Yes, but then all this would be for naught," she whined. "What a waste." Clicking her tongue, "No, I'm afraid I just can't let that happen," she decided, at which, her rhythmic convolution, partnered with another one of her unfathomable expressions that Fushimi could not hope to comprehend, sent her lunging in a sudden dash, her weapon brought against his in a clang that echoed shrilly in the breeze.
Fushimi darted back, sending out his aura. "What the — !" He shot out. Shaking her away, he thought, You weren't going to kill me then but now you are? Make up your mind!
He parried with a spin (less cheerfully done than hers) and found himself where she had stood while she assumed his former stance, facing him again, her rapier posed and darkened aura sumptuously lit.
It came as no surprise (so livid and confusing were his thoughts), Fushimi's look of fury was perceived by his opponent, and in a laugh as eerily as that of a madman wreaking terror for the fun of it, Kiyoka whirled around his saber, rushing him again, shielding every onslaught while frolicking about as though their parry were a dance, their two conflicting auras linked inside a symphony that played on either set of ears: one of chaos and disorder, yet surprisingly, no genuine disorder came between the pair despite the evident chaos Fushimi met from her before. Strangely, by some unknown and unspeakable force indeterminate yet nonetheless apparent, everything had changed.
With every clash that brought their swords together, Kiyoka's face grew more serene. Her slanted eyes reduced themselves to lazy, verdant pools while all her flowing waves, their rich delightful scent, sailed sweetly in the air. In the same way, her aura fountained downward in a smooth and fluid stream, hardly monstrous anymore, nor torn with poisoned fumes, but sailing to the rhythm of her form, and hers to that of his.
Such balance having formed itself, a bit of life emerged — or something thereabouts. Her former coarse frigidity, what once was so apparent, had subsided like a gust of wind that brought a stir, then promptly slid away. It made Fushimi wary, giving him a sickening sensation to have witnessed transformation pass so flawlessly and seemingly so naturally, when truthfully, he understood that nothing could be further from reality. Thus he was annoyed, and desirably so, for it only proved to nourish her delight as she assailed on him again and again, though never out of malice but to toy with him, to test him and to tease him, less with might and force enacted with an aura but with swiftness and agility in combat with a sword — that, and her all-too-ghostly tremor of a laugh that sent a shiver up his spine — until at last, she leapt apart and spun around to face him, the bulk of her aura sinking to a fog about her sides, her weapon lowered halfway through the cloud.
"My, you're fun to play with, Sashimi."
"And you're just wasting time," he answered. Observing his slim margin of a chance, he flicked his sleeve and whipped himself about, one-by-one propelling red-soaked daggers through the crack in her defense.
Kiyoka made no effort to resume her aura-shield and therefore counter his attack but rather bounded to the side, spinning past one dagger, then another, while a third produced a twang as it collided with her blade and ricocheted away.
Without the force of an aura, she radiated fluent artistry, yet it was not enough. Fushimi stole the shot and bridged the gap between them with an aura-seeped hand bound tightly round her throat. "That's enough!" He ordered. "End this now. I won't ask you again."
Kiyoka made to laugh, though it only brought his fingers in a deeper wringing hold, cutting off her air. She choked and dropped her rapier to the ground, extending both her arms in signal of defeat. "Alright, Sashimi," she breathed. "You win."
"Yeah, whatever," he mumbled, highly agitated. "Now give me the — "
Another zing ignited in a penetrating burst that sent him sprawling back, knocking the wind from his lungs; his saber ripped apart from him and chinked across the pebbles to the side. His sight gave way to flashing scenes of her, the roof, the sky, and all conjoined with equal blots of darkness like a bulb inside a pitch-black room that flickers on and off, disabling the eye from fully resting on the darkness or the light.
The pair of lightning bolts emitted from Rei Kiyoka's palms subsided in an instant and she paused, patiently observing as Fushimi landed with a crash against a metal unit sprouting from the roof.
Stupefied from head to foot and achy all around, Fushimi rolled into a kneel, head spinning, and witnessed Rei Kiyoka, her blurry form, releasing a small glittering object in the air. An instant passed and the flash drive clinked against his boot. He blinked, scowling at the drive, then flashed an angry glance at her. "The Algorithm," he wheezed. "It was never here." Reaching out a wobbly hand, he took it, tightening his grip. "Just an empty drive."
Kiyoka shrugged. "That's not entirely true," she said with aggravating coolness. "I mean, not unless you like kitten videos."
Fushimi glared at her. She merely smirked. "Don't get so worked up, Sashimi. The real algorithm's safe."
"Tch. 'Safe,'" he growled. "Don't make me laugh." Fuming, he tried to rise and fell against his knee, still reeling and suddenly nauseous. "So those tin nobodies?" He coughed, suppressing the urge to gag. "Were they part of your little act too? This 'game' you're insisting on playing?"
Kiyoka hummed in the affirmative. "Call it: 'festering belief.'" Rapier in hand, she turned her back to him and sighed her features to the sky. "Face it, Sash," she said, soothing her closed eyes against the breeze. "If I hadn't done exactly what I did, you wouldn't have come…and I needed you to come. What were a few deterrences if not to spur you on?"
"If, by 'deterrences' you mean 'giving cheap guns to morons.'"
Another hum hit the air. "Quite the morons since they obviously fooled you." She glanced around her shoulder, winking at him. "They helped bring you here, didn't they?"
Another gust blew past her and she slowly turned to face it, breathing in the air with a long, contented blink as though in desperate need of it. "Besides, I knew their lack of auras would annoy you. You Blues have always been so noble when it comes to keeping ordinary humans nice and safe, even the bad ones."
Fushimi chuckled ruefully and stumbled to his feet. The ground seemed all at once precarious. "Yeah well, normally I wouldn't care," he answered, spotting his saber several feet away, "except I made a promise not to kill anyone — not civilians, anyway."
Kiyoka turned to look at him, for the first time drawn to what he said. "A promise, huh?" Then, as though it never happened, her unnerving smile returned. "I made one similar." slinkily, she took a step toward him and he tensed, shooting his saber an urgent glance. "I made a promise not to kill you," he heard her whisper dangerously close, a sibilating potency resounding in her voice. He flinched his stare back onto her: the black hole, the endless web of entanglement. No, he told himself, peering into cryptic pearl-green eyes. I won't fall for that.
"We're done here," he declared, and in one darting leap, he skid across the gravel, taking up his sword and posing it against her.
Kiyoka neither moved, nor cared enough to pay him any heed. Her sword did not ascend an inch above its resting pose; her aura wallowed gently at her knees. She simply stood, her features calm and placid as a doll's.
"No more games," he said deliberately, narrowing the gap between his sword-point and the edge of her lapel. "I know you're searching for technology that coincides with supernatural energy, and I know you need the Kawaguchi Algorithm to do it; but if that's not why you came, then why exactly are you here? And if not for yourself, then who are you working for?"
Triggered into coyness yet again, Kiyoka peered a knowing eye to him, raising slender fingers in the air while backing off a step. "You mean you don't believe I planned this just for you? After all the trouble I went through explaining it to you? Still, you're unconvinced?"
Fushimi narrowed in. "I said: 'No more games.' Tell me what you know!"
Kiyoka chuckled, inching further back. "Poor Sashimi," she said in babied tones. "I'm afraid we're all out of time."
"Don't!" He ordered, spotting her retreat.
"However," she went on, sliding back a pace, "I hope you don't mind — "
"Stop moving!"
" — I left you a small parting gift: just something to remember me by." She paused, shifting a transient glance to his chest and back.
Fushimi froze and darted his attention down the length of his uniform. Skimming over pockets, he produced a slender object and sighed, suddenly relieved. Not a bomb, he told himself, and peered back up to find Kiyoka standing at the building's edge, balancing on one heeled boot while giggling back at him.
"I said I wouldn't kill you," she laughed. "I wasn't lying about that. What use are you to me if I killed you? For starters, I'd be out a plaything; and besides, he'd not bet very happy with me either." She smiled, perhaps genuinely, for all that he could tell. "I hope you won't forget that, Sashimi."
He tightened up again, repulsed; then he comprehended and his lip meandered upward with the onrush of a thought. So you do work for someone, whoever this 'He' is.
"Oh, one more thing," she added, and another violent instant, he was reeling back a step, a ripping screech resounding in his ears.
By way of a second parting gift, Rei Kiyoka flicked a bolt of what was then an unmistakably black aura toward the rim of his glasses. Merely a spark sent out to pester him, Fushimi stumbled sideways, blinking over fuzzy pictures flashing in his eyes.
"Will you stop doing that!" He raged, swiveling back to face her general direction. He caught her eye, received a noticeably flirtatious wink, and watched in vain as she ascended from the ledge and leapt into the air. "Stop!" He called out after her. Bounding two unsteady paces to the ledge, he shot his gaze across the open spans below, but she was nowhere to be found.
"Damn it!" He yelled, partially to her and also to himself. He huffed a furious breath and gripped the concrete block, his anger oozing outward until one long breath, partnered with a heavy blink, commanded him to peace.
"Clever, I'll give you that," he uttered low, "if not totally insane. But not clever enough." Holding up his arm, he pressed a little button on his wrist device. A holographic screen appeared: a map of Shizume City; inside: a dot, red and blinking, roamed the digital streets.
The tracker he had painfully neared himself enough to sneak inside the hem of Kiyoka's trench coat wouldn't last, but it would certainly give him some idea as to where she was headed, where her hideout was, and — if he was lucky — where the actual Kawaguchi Algorithm was and this 'He' she spoke of: her accomplice, perhaps.
He followed the dot as it drew further from the trade building, away from him. "This isn't over," he said. "You should know: we're just getting started." With this, his own game afoot, he grinned. Then, as though remembering a dream, he scowled, shifting his attention to the object in his hand. It was a vial of translucent liquid, it's swirling crystal flecks emitting their own sheen, as though the little vial bore a life-force all its own. He stared into it, baffled. He'd never seen anything like it before. Why? He brought himself to wonder. Why give me this?
In a rush, Fushimi traced his mind back over all her lies, her vile affronts, her mystic air: all-in-all, the lifeless life-form that was she, and wondered what her purpose was, why he seemed to matter in whatever twisted way she hinted at, a way too deeply hidden, a way he couldn't fathom. Is it really that important? He asked himself, and all at once, he scoffed, brushing off the thought, angry, frowning, contemplating, wondering. He sighed long, gripping tightly to the vial as though seeking to distinguish, to cling to, perhaps to understand? No. To stifle some small, terrorizing remnant of her.
By then, the final rays of daylight had diminished, taken on by darkness and the brisk night air that blew against his face. Abstractedly, he glanced out at the place where she had been. "Rei Kiyoka," he said to the wind, "Who are you?"
Chapter Two: Game