Enjoy it! :)
Cards discovered
Tikrit,
Iraq
2007
They got off quickly from the vehicle, following a precise order. The first wave of Kalashnikov didn't late to reach them. "And they shoot, too! " Shouted one, crouched behind an outer wall that sheltered him.Two soldiers, on the other side of the same wall, laughed.
" What did you expect, Clarkson? What would the red carpet spread out? We're not at the Oscars. "
Haruka just lifted her knees, putting the house in an optimal view. Another fagot broke the wall, and ran back to shelter.
"Ok, today it's easy." She said with a smile. "Clarkson, Holman and Sanford will skirt the perimeter and come in from the back, Bowen and Ramsey will cover their movement, while Parker and Evans will cover ours." Haruka accompanied the words with dry, precise gestures. And every soldier nodded, the moment they heard their name being called.
"Banks and I will enter from the front." Armed the M4s, and Haruka opened her left hand, her right hand firmly to her weapon. With her fingers she started a countdown.
"Let's beat the bastards." Shee said when the index indicated the last second. Then she closed her fist. "Go Go go!!" The swarm of soldiers came out of their shelter, starting to run against the low gray brick house in front of them. No more than one, but several Kalashnikovs poured their shots on the soldiers with the American flag sewn on their shoulders. As per instructions, three began to turn around the house, while those in charge of covering the movements of the companions fired against the windows and the strategic points of the house. Haruka ran to the front door, which suddenly opened wide: a man with a short beard, black as hair, appeared in the doorway, a machine gun aimed at them. "Banks!" Haruka screamed, speeding up the pace. And before the Arab could shoot, a series of blows arrived to riddle his legs. Haruka lowered her head and charged him violently to her stomach: if she found him, unbalanced by both the bump and by the fact of having the legs unserviceable, along on his back, and with a bending of the legs she freed herself by overturning him. Then she turned and raised her thumb to Banks, still long on the ground, M4 clenched in his fist. Haruka began to scour the house with cautious steps, the machine gun in line with the eye, the index steady on the trigger; she saw two of her men enter from the back, and disperse in the house. She stepped over a corpse, without stopping to look to the right and left. She entered a room whose floor was covered with rugs, and snapped to a movement to her left: a man stepped out of Kalashnikov to her hand, but Haruka mowed it in an instant. She approached him, kicking the weapon away, while she writhed and held his stomach. The lamentations accompanied Haruka's entrance into a new room, where she found the bodies of two women on the ground; she backed up, then, retracing her steps, and then turned to cover the previous area with her gaze again. She came out of a French window, checking the outside: if all went well, that part must have been cleaned up by Sanford, Holman, and Clarkson.
"Major, is everything ok?" Banks cried, who appeared in the room that Haruka had left behind. "Sure, we fucked them, Richard?" She asked the boy, and when she saw him get to rest and take off his camouflage helmet, revealing a black mop with some tufts stuck to his forehead by the sweat, he sensed the answer.
"Sanford put two of them on the back, Bowen and Evans one each, at home, and the other at the entrance, and this one, the six of us who had reported us."
Haruka relaxed, removing the helmet in turn. "And they did not fuck us, did they?" She then asked, and received a broad smile in response.
"Not even a scratch, Major." Haruka nodded.
"There are some wounded, it will be better to have the Red Cross come in. Did you find anything?" Banks was the only one of her team who could speak Arabic, and Haruka always made sure that she had the nineteen-year-old with whom she had left school to enlist. It was her shadow, and also the only one who knew. He looked at her scratching his head before answering.
"The guy who laid out with the headboard was still quite confused, however, as far as I understand, they are Sunni militiamen, and the house was owned by a small merchant, also Sunni, they got him and his family to take refuge in of the Shiites. " They went to the entrance, where they saw the arrival of the Iraqi police and a couple of Red Cross vans, probably already moved by the central command.
"First they killed the merchant's family, then they started killing the Shia one, I think we came after the fires, unfortunately." Haruka leaned over the corpse she had climbed over at the beginning, and from her dress - simple clothes, no cartridge belt, no weapon - she imagined the Shiite head of the family. By now, after almost six years in Iraq, she knew how to recognize them on the fly.
"Has anyone been saved?"
"I do not know, others are looking for."
"And yet they have not found it?" Hushed Haruka. "It does not seem exactly like a palace, this one." She began to walk around the house, entering each room. She met Bowen and Ramsey, intent on keeping two militiamen captured alive under control. Then, coming from a wall not far away, she heard the voices of her men. "Look how cute it is!"
"She's scared, baby!" Laughs.
"Come on darling, do not be afraid, we are the good ..."
"What the fuck is going on here?" Haruka asked, at the sight of the scene. Clarkson and Holman stood in the middle of what at first glance looked like a room, and looked amused Parker, bent by a girl curled up in the corner of the room, between the wall and a wooden chest missing a piece.
"I asked what's going on here." It was Clarkson who spoke.
"We found it hidden inside the cabinet," he explained, pointing to the chest.
"We were trying to reassure her." Tenou's green eyes narrowed to that statement. "Yes I've heard." "Major, we did not want to do anything wrong ..." Parker started, who got up, but Haruka silenced him. "Everybody out." Those obeyed, and left Haruka in the room, with the trembling girl who now looked at the terrified soldier. She did not tolerate certain behavior on the part of her men, and later she would give them a good grooming. How could she, on the other hand? If only they had known ... she knelt on the ground, taking off the M4. She unbuttoned her bulletproof vest and, raising her hands to show the girl she had no weapons, began to crawl towards her. That made herself small, clutching her knees to her chest and crushing herself against the wall.
"Do not be afraid," Haruka murmured.
"I do not want to hurt you." She smiled at her, but she did not move. She came near her, and sat down. "What's your name?" The girl's eyes were lost, empty of shock. In a few moments she must have lost everything: her family, her dearest affections. Haruka hoped they'd left her dignity at least.
"Do you understand my language?" She pressed her, but nothing. She put her hands on her hips, then she had an idea: she pointed to the name sewn on the uniform.
"Haruka Tenou, it's me." She said, accompanying the words with one hand on her chest. The other looked at those same letters, confused, and Haruka thought that there were probably incomprehensible signs. She touched her chest again.
"Ha-ru-ka." Said. Then she pointed them at the index, questioning. Finally the girl spoke, but too quiet to be understood. Haruka narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, barely turning her head to the left, touching her ear.
"Samira," the other murmured. Haruka smiled. "Do not be afraid, Samira." She reached out a hand, but she withdrew, frightened by the sudden movement. The girl was completely shocked, and Haruka felt very sorry. She was very young, she must have been a little over eighteen, but she could not say for sure. She had lost the veil, and her long black hair fell softly on her shoulders, while her eyes were the same color fixed on the military, wide open. The long dress she wore was filthy and blood-stained, tearing at several points. Haruka could not explain why, but felt a duty to reassure her that everything would be fine. That nobody would hurt her, left alone in her presence. She evaluated the pros and cons, and decided to take the risk. She smiled again, shaking her head. Then she reached out again, and Samira let herself take her own.
"I am like you, I can not hurt you."She put the girl's hand to her chest: she felt that the bands had loosened, so it would not take long to understand. Samira did not move, confused by the gesture. Then, slowly, Haruka saw the realization hit the face of the young woman, who began to touch her repeatedly. Tenou laughed at the other's wide eyes. And when Samira looked for her, she winked at her, bringing her forefinger to her lips.
xdxdxdxdx
Medical Hospital " Edward Dewenish VA Medical Centre"
Portsmouth, Virginia
30 April, 2008
Day 11
The dry sound of the heels resounded in the corridor while she walked straight towards the in-patient room. She was holding tight her paper sheets in her hand, and she thought, thought and thought again. Her mind and uncontrolled reel.
She was thinking about what happened the day before; and about the mistakes she made, and that she won't repeat. That night, for the first time since she accepted the case, everything was bright: same diagnosis, same outbursts of rage. She exactly knew where this would have brought Tenou, because she already went trough that. But if three years before she had been that blind, and stupid, to believe everything was alright, right now she won't give up that easily. She thanked any existing god to make her accept the case, while she would have preferred to bury everything on a remote side of her mind, because that was clear: Tenou was her karma, and she couldn't give up that.
She turned another tight corridor, and she started to search for the room 2. Ahead it, she took a deep breath and entered without knocking. Tenou laid on the bed, on her left check still visible the scratches of her nails. The blanket covered him until his chest; he was wearing the hospital shirt. His arms were bare, and padded straps on his wrists- that disappeared in an unspecified spot under the bed - blocking him down, not allowing him to stand up.
Sleep without dreams because of the cocktail of drugs that had become necessary after his behave of the previous day.
Without any regard, Michiru dragged a chair up to the bed, then deliberately dropped the folder she had carried on a hard plastic lunchbox anchored to the footboard, which produced a dull thud. She saw Tenou jerk, opening his eyes wide. She waited for it to come out of the blanket of confusion that clouded his eyes as he watched the straps that bound him. She watched him tug, and realize the failure of that action.
Michiru cleared her throat, and seemed as if he just saw her. The emerald eyes of the young man seemed to be crossed by a flash of amazement, then they crossed the blue ones of the Kaioh. They staid silent for a long time, until his gaze noticed the foulard on the neck of the young woman, before slipping away into the wall in front of her, it was the first time Tenou didn't look at her straight into the eyes.
The girl lifted a picture and put it in front of the Major, showing him it.
"Michael Pappadakis 32 years old, roofer, child of Greek emirates. Recovered on the 10th of April at the St. James Hospital in Norfolk with bruising all over the body, fracture of the tibia, of the nasal septum and of the orbital bone, as well as a tearing of the diaphragm and breakthrough of the right eardrum. "
Michiru tossed the picture to Tenou, who leaned back against the sheet. She watched him swallow, but he still did not turn around. She took another picture; she gave her a quick glance, before starting.
"Johnatan Brown, thirty-one, a resident of Norfolk, a colleague of Papadakis, hospitalized, always on April 10th and always at St. James Hospital, also with various bruises, in addition to a lung punctured by a rib and a broken jaw and to the skull. " She also took that picture, the tumefied and deformed faces now leaning on the white sheets. Tenou did not make a turn.
"Michiru Kaioh, twenty-seven years old, psychologist at the Military Hospital Edward Dewenish VA Medical Center." At those words, the boy seemed to be recovering, and watched the doctor bring her fingers to the scarf and undo the knot, discovering the white neck now covered with black-purple streaks.
"Ecchymosis on the neck following a strangling attempt." Michiru paused. "Do you know what it's called, all this?"Tenou just stayed silent. "It's called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" explained the girl, " we call it PTSD, but in your specific case we call it Post-Traumatic Stress From Battle, which brought you to become very violent and dangerous. To the limits of sociopathy, Haruka."
He stayed wide eyed for being called by his name. "Do not make that face. Keeping the you with you I thought it was ridiculous after what happened." She leaned back on the chair never stopping looking at him.
"What happened was my fault, too. I pushed you over the edge, and I accept to consequences. Even because I know that this person isn't you." She took back the pictures while continuing speaking "I know it for sure. I know the real Haruka Tenou wouldn't go to kill himself in the Virginia Beach's bars, drinking until forgetting I don't know what and punching some poor guy just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or strangling medics." Michiru smiled, and that collected Tenou's dismay.
"That is a devious disease, Haruka. It will bring you to distort the real world, to see things which doesn't exist. To believe there won't be any help for you, then to search for they easier way to put and end to your sufferings. I guess you already thought about that, did you?"
Tenou stayed quiet. She thought about the moment she opened her eyes in her bedroom that night. The nurse who had immediately injected something else into the vein and her burning desire that, whatever it was, could cause a heart attack, a stroke. Or what it was, as long as it did not wake up. She nodded, then, to the doctor.
"You have two possibilities, now, you can sit here in silence, drown in your despair, or let me free you from what led you to be what you are now, but to do it, you have to accept the help you have stubbornly rejected until today. "
Tenou felt Michiru's hand covering her bedside. She looked at her, so delicate and candid, so contrasting with her own, bigger, darker. Without a doubt, dirtier. "Believe it or not, I want to help you, Haruka, I will not be watching as you push the self-destruct button, waiting for the countdown to go to zero." Silence fell into the room, and Michiru saw the uncertainty running through Tenou's eyes. She saw the arrogant boy, sure of himself at the limit of indecency, wavering at her words.
"Think about it," She said then, heading for the door, when she looked back at the ceiling, excluding her from her own thoughts.
x
Military Hospital "Edward Dewenish VA Medical Centre"
Portsmouth, Virginia
4 May, 2008
Day 15
In the outside it was a sunny day.
The temperature warmed up of several degrees, and Michiru felt very positive while walking towards the room 2 of the in-patient pushing the wheelchair.
"Stand up, Soldier!" She shouted at the figure who laid on a side. Tenou gave her her back and as an answer she only got a grunt.
'Good' she thought. The day wasn't starting otherwise the other ones. Michiru thought about the possibility of writing a dictionary about Tenou's grunts. Short and dry: I ignore you. Longer and guttural: leave me alone. Plus a lot of shades obviously.
"Come on, caveman. Today it's sunny and you've already been too much here."
Haruka didn't move.
"Do not make me taking you in arm, Major." She told him. The other one seemed to be awake, and sitting on the bed after snorting. Michiru got out, waiting for Haruka to get dressed, and after a bit, he came out on his wheelchair. She put her bag on his legs without any problem, receiving a theatrical 'oufff'- then she went behind him pushing the wheelchair toward the corridor. The chair was not really necessary, but Haruka was taking heavy drugs and they had also found bruises in the pelvis at the lumbar area, the result of the violent impact with the floor when the two nurses had taken it off, causing it to fall to the ground under the their weight.
Since the day in which they have talked there hasn't been any change. Michiru kept going at the hospital for having the usually meetings, thought they were reduced by her asking some questions and Haruka didn't answer.
Meanwhile she had managed to get him untied: between a grunt and another Tenou begged her forgiveness, and Michiru read deep repentance in the military's eyes.
Right before entering in the lift the nurse called her, catching her attention.
"It's all under control." Reassured her Michiru.
"We are leaving for a park tour."
"Are you sure? I don't know if Doctor Chiba..."
"There's no danger beside doctor Chiba knows it. The only danger is that the vampire here get pulverised by the sunlight."
The nurse laughed, and at her ears came also the ironic Ah-ah by Tenou.
"If you say so. I was just going to the Major to give him those," said then the girl, showing Michiru a small plastic cylinder with two white and blue capsules, "he has to take them in the morning."
"No problem, I'll think of it." The doctor took from the nurse's hand the cylinder and put it in her shirt's sack. Once inside the elevator, she pushed the downstairs button to the back of the hospital, where the small private park of the complex extended. There were several patients out that day. A boy was holding an arm around the shoulders of a young woman, and both looked at the attempts of a little girl with long blonde braids to line up more than a few steps. Another boy gestured in his story to a middle-aged couple. It must have been a day of visits, and a thought struck her: no one had ever come to see Haruka.
They reached a bench. Michiru took the bag from the womb of Tenou and set it down on the ground; so she sat down, not before placing the wheelchair in front of her. She watched Tenou stretch, and then look back at her.
"That's a beautiful day, isn't that?"she asked him suddenly taking aback him. "And you wanted to stay in your cave. Even bears come out to have a tour sometimes, you know?"
Haruka rested her cheek on the back of her hand and, turning her back to her, began to look at an undefined spot in the park.
"So, let's see, about what should we not talk about?" Said Michiru and receiving no answer she said "ok then. I'll take this opportunity to repeat." Haruka heard the sound of some paper sheets then anything else, except her doctor's whistle. Then the curiosity got the best of her, and she turned towards the girl: she was absorbed into reading a sheet and
a pencil which was occasionally brought to her lips in a gesture - Tenou couldn't help but think that - very sexy. Other sheets were on the bench and she reached for one of them and then asked:
"What instrument do you play?"
Tenou's words came unexpectedly. It was the first meaningful phrase that he addressed in days.
"Oh, you can talk then. Tell the truth I wanted to call you Saint Bernard.
Haruka looked briefly at her, then went back on the sheet.
"I play the violin."
"And do you have any concert?" Tenou seemed sincerely interested.
"Sometimes. I just gave one last week, right after our, let's say, close encounter."
The boy stopped looking at the paper and leaned towards her. He slowly reached out a hand and Michiru froze at the gesture; the memories of that same hand tight around her neck still well etched in her head. A finger of the young man brushed the small, slightly darker patches that still stained the white skin of the doctor, not completely gone.
"My mother played..." muttered Haruka. The girl got relaxed. A strange feeling by that gesture, so intimate, from the Major. And when he looked at her he asked "Are you real?"
"Excuse-me?"
"Look at you. You keep coming here everyday, asking me how I am and how I'm not, after I almost killed you. And probably ruining your concert too. But why don't you leave me alone?"
"I already told you why I won't leave you alone. And you didn't ruin my concert."
Tenou put the sheets on the bench and said " I'm the worst thing could've happened to you, doc."
"I'm not sure."
Haruka shook her head. "You don't understand..."
"That's true, I don't understand. That's why I want you to let me know why."
They looked at each other for a while and Michiru brought her hand on Tenou's chin making her see his left check where three light strips were on the skin.
"That hurt you, truth?"
Tenou looked at her as if she had three eyes "God, then you do it!"
Michiru smiled " what?"
"I strangle you, and you are worried about you screeches?!"
"Well, I would not call them scratches! I blew your cheek!"
Haruka looked at her. A smile curved the corners of her lips, and Michiru felt her heart fill. She knew it would be a good day.
"You do not have all the wheels in place, doc, do you know that?" Tenou asked her, without stopping to look at her. The other frowned for a moment, then nodded.'You do not have all the wheels in place, Michi, do you know?'"Yes, someone told me often."
Haruka noticed her mood change, but she didn't asked anything else.
Michiru looked at the hospital doors, lost in thought, and didn't noticed the figure watching them from a distance. Tenou also followed the doctor's gaze.
"Oh my, Great Brother is looking at us." Said him, watching Foster far away. Michiru sighed. "You know, I guess I won't be able to runaway forever, I should talk to him."
"I think Foster feels threatened,doc." Said Tenou, "even though he can sleep peacefully. I don't think I'm your type." Michiru turned around at that statement. "What do you mean by you're not my type?"
Trust me, I know. People like you end up with type like... uhm... Foster."
"You are not helping at all."
"Well I usually am a phase. But I repeat, it's not you case."
Michiru was too curious now. "That's good. What do you know about me? What do you know that my ideal man is not really a problematic soldier, blond and green-eyed?" Challenged back Michiru and he laughs.
"Well, because the concept of ideal man already excludes me."
The girl didn't understand. "Do you know what are the capsules the nurse gave you?"
Michiru searches for the capsules in her shirt.
"It's iron." Said Haruka.
"Oh, are you anemic?" Asked Michiru, worried.
"Not at all. I have shortcomings on a regular basis. Let's say monthly too." Tenou leaned forward towards her. "When I have my period."
After a long moment, necessary to record the information, Michiru's face passed a wide range of emotions in rapid succession: confusion, bewilderment, surprise, disbelief.Tenou pulled away, and Michiru reached out to grab the zip of Haruka's sweatshirt: she slid it down, revealing a white t-shirt. And what was, unmistakably, the shape of a breast.
A woman!
She hypnotised all the day spent together, in small details that now, with benefit of a hand sight, pleaded the cause: the long eyelashes, the curve of the neck. Her being so beautiful, in the females features that she has noticed in that first meeting.
She wondered if she had sinned in any way of lightness. Of pride, the countless times she had read Tenou's file. So without even a word he got up from the bench and headed for the hospital, leaving behind the person who had managed to get her through twice in less than a week.
xdxdxdxdx
"The strange case of the doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde." Haruka jumped when, coming back in her room with a nurse, she found Michiru on her bed, looking at one of the books taken from the library.
"Appropriated, I'd say."
"It's what the convent passes." It was the laconic response of the girl in a wheelchair. Then silence filled the space between the two.
"Listen, doc-"
"How many do they know?" interrupted Michiru. Haruka scratched her head, then leaned closer to the bed.
"Chiba knew it, now you know it too."
"Medical records, documents, reports, I know those sheets by heart and not once, one, it is said that Haruka Tenou is a woman, and this morning, when I was in doubt, all of them were read to me."
"I know."
"Do you also know it's a crime?" A bitter smile was painted on Haruka's face.
"My father is the Chief of Staff of the Army, he is the one who asks to falsify the files." Michiru did not answer. "Because?" Haruka turned her head back, bringing her hands behind her head.
"Because for Takeshi Tenou, a multi-talented hero of Vietnam, it was simply shameful not to be able to procreate a son, so he decided that he would erase his failure by erasing my being a woman."
"And did you let him do it?" Then another thought struck Michiru.
"And your mother?" Haruka did not like all these questions too much, but concluded that at least this, to Michiru, could grant it.
"My mother thought she'd get cancer when I was eleven, and die when I was thirteen." At fifteen Haruka Tenou, General Takeshi Tenou's only son, entered West Point, ready for a blazing career. " The girl had a million questions in mind, but Haruka's voice interrupted that river in flood.
"Look, I did not really want to shock you more than I had already done."
"Shocked?" The girl was incredulous. "I'm not shocked, Haruka, I'm disappointed, disappointed by the fact that I have not been held to know that my patient is actually a woman!"
"I do not think anyone ever thought of it, doc. It's just a little bit delicate."
"Yeah, so delicate that you wasted no time in disgracing yourself with the nurse of acceptance." Haruka looked at her, then laughed.
"We assume that I know how to conduct a quickie, Michiru, since I'm not an adolescent in a hormonal crisis." That said, I just gave her a couple of dummies, nothing so sinful. " The other remained silent, and Haruka sighed. "This leads to the other question, I suppose ..."
"Your sexuality does not bother me, seriously."
"Do not lie to me." She said to her, in a dangerously low voice, leaning towards Michiru. "I would understand it."
"You do not make me uncomfortable, it's the truth." Haruka did not speak. Then she approached her again.
"What if I told you you're cute?" She saw Michiru's cheeks turn slightly red, and she could not help but laugh.
"Be afraid!" She instructed the other, getting up from the bed and pointing her forefinger threateningly.
"You do not know who you're dealing with, Tenou!" "All right, all right." She answered that, raising her hands in surrender.
"I just wanted to do a little test, and then I told you, those like you end up like Foster." Michiru rolled her eyes, and after a glance at the clock, she took the door.
"See you tomorrow," she said goodbye. "We will have a lot to discuss from now on."
"Yeah, I think so." It was the other's response, scratching the blonde mop. Once left alone, she let out a deep sigh, and shook her head. That night, Haruka Tenou dreamed of running. An interminable race, merging with the wind, while the sand caressed her bare feet, but could not say if it did to run away or to reach something. Also because it was, that something, she ignored it completely.
Author's notes: wow! That was hard! 5k! From now on, chapters will be longer, so it could happen that someday I will not be able to update. Anyway, here there is something more about Haruka's past, and a bit about Michiru's too. We'll understand better in later chapters, until next time this is Milla23 ;)
P.S. if you have any doubt don't hesitate asking! And tell me if there is any spelling mistake!