"Damnit. Damnit... fucking damn fuck... fuck!"
Both hands on the steering wheel and doing his best to avoid the cars navigating obliviously to their presence, Tokiichi Konishi tried not to look at the bloodied face of his partner in crime or listen to his infuriated spiel of curses, while he reflected upon the failure that today had turned out to be.
He'd lost one of his partners. On any other day, he would have relished in the disappearance of that mentally ill simplistic buffoon, but the unfortunate fact was that in his stupidity, that big oaf had allowed the knife to fall into police hands. Without that knife, they couldn't materialize orphans. Had he had enough time, he could have made another one—even given the rather esoteric and nonsensical requirements of the methodology involved—but time was exactly the one thing he didn't have.
The boy had threatened to take the book away. That couldn't be allowed. The book was evidence that he'd been right all along. Somewhere among the pages of that book was the key to ridding the world of the Orphan menace, he knew it.
He didn't know how the boy had gotten in hands on it, nor did he know why he absolutely needed them to get that ridiculous pendant for them. What he did know, with no scientific or reasonable evidence supporting it, was that that boy was dangerous. More so than his partners, and far more than the beings they had created from the... life essence of those girls.
Simply saying the word made him flinch. Not because of the fact that he'd become accessory to murder by taking part in this whole debacle; he'd made his peace with that a while ago already. It was the whole... mysticism of the word. The whole book was full of unscientific nonsense, which was only to be expected of a manuscript of its age and made trying to make heads of tails of it a true headache. He would have dismissed it had their first experiment, the van's... truly incomprehensible mind-distracting field, not been such a brilliant success.
That had convinced him to throw his lot with the two idiots he'd spent the longest week of his life with. Yes, he had broken the law. He had stolen. He had broken and entered. He had kidnapped. He had killed, if indirectly. But it was all for such a good cause that, although the world would certainly not see it that way, anything was worthy of pardon.
Was the advancement of knowledge in the service of humanity not the ultimate goal of science? If one man was to murder and maim dozens for a million lives to be saved, was the sacrifice not justified? Wouldn't doing nothing and allowing many to suffer and die in the name of the few be the unethical decision?
Tokiichi Konishi believed so. Those girls had died; it was tragic, but it had been necessary. He had become a monster and was fully aware of the punishment waiting for him once he was caught, but if it helped stop Orphans and HiMEs from appearing and ruining normal lives anymore, then it would be worth it. His martyrdom wouldn't come to waste.
But that was assuming he managed to secure the ownership of the book in himself, which wouldn't happen unless they brought the pendant to that boy (why he couldn't get it himself, Konishi had no idea) and without the knife, and with the police on alert already, it was extremely doubtful they would have the power to do it.
Well, there was that, but he hadn't tested it at all, nor had he had the occasion to do so. The ritual in question appeared to be... ill advised if continuing survival of the subject was desirable, and as the only available test subject was himself, he had serious qualms about trying it out.
He could have tried it on one of his companions, but the problem with that was the opposite problem: what if it worked? Having spent the entirety of his time for the past week with his partners in crime, Konishi had built himself a very good idea of their characters, and grantingthat kind of power to the man sitting next to him was absolutely out of question. Not that the other one had been much better.
Konishi pitied Ueda Sunao, as it was the right thing to do. He believed there was two kinds of idiots in this world: those who decided to remain ignorant and stupid, and those for whom nature or fate had made the choice for them. Sunao had been the latter. A big, bulky man with mental retardation which could only have been the result of an unfortunate draw at genetics, who saw the world the same way he saw his cartoons and who had no qualms about taking lives because he didn't know anyone but himself and his brother were more than just cardboard cutouts.
In comparison, Ueda Tetsuo was the real monster. In fact, Konishi admitted without hesitation that between the three of them, the self-proclaimed "Joker" and leader of their little group—by unanimous self-decision if nothing else—was the most evil among them. Konishi had, at the very least, pure goals. He wanted the betterment of mankind. Tetsuo's motivations were anything but noble: hatred, blood thirst and greed.
Ueda Tetsuo was a man who had failed everything he'd set off to do in life and instead of getting up and trying again, he'd instead given up and chosen to vent his frustration on anything and everything. Why were others succeeding where he failed? Why wasn't he rich and successful and beautiful and popular? Why was his brother cursed with mental illness? There was no question as to why that boy had chosen to approach Tetsuo first, Konishi reflected. He was a sociopath waiting to happen. All he'd needed was a little push and a bit of encouragement and off he went, wrecking and breaking everything along the way like a demented, hateful wrecking ball.
And it was for that very reason that Konishi could never tell him exactly what he'd done with the rings he'd been wearing since they'd stolen them.
"Let's get him back."
It took him a few seconds to realize Tetsuo had just spoken, and a few more to decipher the sudden declaration. When he did, he almost sent the car swerving into the opposite lane.
"Are you insane?" He was, Konishi immediately told himself. "We don't have the time or resources to waste on a rescue attempt. Besides, your brother got shot, and so did you. You both need treatment, and there's no way—"
"Shut up. We're going, and that's that."
Konishi shot his partner a glare. Had this happened just a week earlier, he would have caved in right there, but a whole six days of getting his patience hammered on had done wonders to his backbone. "No we're not. Remember the boy? If we don't bring him what he wants tomorrow, he'll take the book away, and—"
"Fuck the book!" Tetsuo snarled, trying to turn on his seat and wincing at the pain this caused in his wounded and bleeding arm. "You still remember how to make those knives, right? That's all we need."
That's all you need maybe, he almost said, but held himself. The last thing he wanted was to fight Tetsuo now—even though, in his current state, Konishi was pretty sure he could handle the younger man.
"Your brother is even more hurt than you are. The best place for him right now is in a hospital. If you take him out of there, he might not survive. We'd just end up injuring him even more."
"I... that's..." Tetsuo frowned in thought, to Konishi's surprise. Was he actually getting through to this idiot? "...alright. One week. He should by fine by then, right?"
"Yes, it'll be fine." and in a week, the book would be safely in his hands, or he'd be able to get away from him. "It'll be just fine."
That's when a message addressed to "the Orphan-using thieves" sounded on the radio. The two conspirators shared a meaningful look.
The time was six fifty-three.
My∞HiME
Book 1
Fresco
Disclaimer: Buttered brocolli will become bathetic when battered with buttercup.
Chapter 8: Gold
"Heyo, wazaap evuriwan! Hope y'all had a good vacation, full of sun and rest and for the luckiest among us, hot babes. I am DJ Hots, your host for this last evening of peace before—heyy, not gonna talk about that just yet! I hope you've all got insurance for tonight's show, because I'm gonna break your bass, guaranteed. Ready? No? Here we go!"
It had to be pre-recorded.
Had to be.
There was no other explanation as to why that radio announcer would say the word "sun", unless he didn't know what the sky looked like at the moment, Yuuki reflected, glancing upward. The sky, which had been blue all day, suddenly looked like God had fallen asleep on the 'rain' button. Massive drops fell from the sky in a thick curtain, leaving splashes the size of ping pong balls against the wind shield. Although the sound just about overpowered the beats on the radio—admittedly easy, as the volume was set low so passerby's wouldn't hear it—it was strangely hypnotic, and with the stifling air coming from the car's heating system, the lure of the sandman seemed as tempting as the snake's apple. In fact, Kuga seemed just about to fall asleep herself, head against the passenger side window.
Then again, he thought while glancing at the "eleven twenty-three" softly glowing in blue on the clock, it was probably way past her bedtime.
The car they were in wasn't a patrol car. It was a Toyota of an ubiquitous decennial model, with typical grey paint and absolutely no notable features, except a thin layer of rust around the wheels which today's rain would certainly do nothing to abate. It was a police car through and though, however, as its engine was the same ultra-high performance one would normally find in a squad car, and the glove compartment was replaced by a small black and white TV screen which was fed by a tightly concealed camera in the front grid.
A car sped past his window. He ignored it; if he could see it, it wasn't the one they were looking for... which reminded him of an important point.
"Oi, Kuga. Are you sleeping?"
"Can't," she replied in a tired mumble. "Durhan is too cold and uncomfortable out there, and I feel what he does."
She sounded a bit miffed about that, but didn't ask to bring him back. Nor would he suggest it; she'd been the one who had sent him out in this crappy weather to stake out the intercept point from the rooftops. Apparently, he wasn't worried about not being able to see the pickup point. Nor was he worried about rusting, apparently; Yuuki felt like a dunce for feeling like asking if he could rust.
"I see."
"You should probably switch seat, though," she noted, pointing at the screen between her legs. "This thing is useless to me."
He shrugged. "Maybe, but if they do get here, I want to be able to move the car and chase them if I need to. I'll just have to rely on you."
At some other time this week, that last part would probably have come out with a healthy dose of defeatism. This time, there wasn't any. She made a weird face at him, equally amused and annoyed, and turned back to look at the intersection.
Really, the museum curator had done a pretty good job in choosing his spot. It was a T-street, bordering a temple's grounds and a quiet upscale residential neighborhood typical of Juuban; it also happened to be a five minutes' walk away from the curator's house, which had probably been the most important aspect of the man's decision. The grounds on their left were fenced off with metal bars, barely visible in the dim light and through the thick vegetation invading them, that were roughly the height of a man and perched atop an old stone slope twice their height. The intersecting street going between the spacious—relatively speaking—residential blocks on their right was a one-way coming from this street. In effect, the only ways in would either be highly visible to would have them pass right next to them, unless the thieves decided to throw caution to the wind and venture down the typically cramped one-way. The package had been left under a mailbox at the corner, but its content had, of course, been emptied as soon as the curator's intentions had been discovered. The pendant was now resting in a safe back in headquarters.
Yuuki wasn't sure where Durhan was. That was good; if he knew the wolf was out there and he still couldn't see it, then there was no way the thieves would.
There was a gust of wind, and the rain went from being a mere curtain to rendering a passable imitation of the bottom of a lake for a second or two. He cursed under his breath and looked at the wiper settings, which sadly were set to the maximum already. The visibility was horrid; the streetlights overhead barely managed to reach them, and anything past ten meters or so was uniformly grey and white. At this late hour, not one light shone through the windows of the surrounding houses. If the thieves were sane, they would decide to sit tight, stay home and sleep.
But then, if they were, they wouldn't have started, would they?
He glanced at the clock. Eleven-thirty. Half an hour to go. The curator must have seen too many cheap intrigue shows, setting things to go at midnight... and dropping the package at the drop point nearly three hours before.
In a way, it was a good thing it was raining so hard, Yuuki noted idly. The message about the drop-off had aired on public waves; if this storm hadn't come, they would have had to deal with a few dozen curious onlookers waiting for midnight. As it was, he'd spotted one or two conspicuous umbrellas wandering around and tarrying a little longer than they had to, but in the end the wind and the rain defeated their quest for cheap entertainment and stories to tell.
The news hadn't reported any kidnappings, but the possibility that one had slipped under the radar remained. An Orphan situation in that scenario would have been a catastrophe.
But that was all useless conjecture at this point; there was no crowd, they had what the thieves wanted to get, and he was just thinking to himself in a semi-successful attempt to stay awake.
There was a thump against the passenger window, and a soft un-childlike curse. He gave Kuga an amused glance as she recovered from nearly dozing off, which she replied with a heat-less glare.
"Yo all, DJ Hots reporting, your host for the evening here on the waves of 78.4, TCCS. This was—" following was a string of garbled and incomprehensible syllables which probably much desired to be English but failed in every way. "...up next, we have something a bit more peppy to brighten up this dreary night: the girls of Morning Musume and I will do our best to entertain you with a medley of their greatest hits—"
Yuuki reached for the radio switch. His hand collided with Kuga's, who'd done the same. They stared at each other for a moment...
"Oooooh~PEACE!"
...and as one completed the movement, both of them mashing the button at the same time, and the much despised J-pop—even enhanced with some techno—fell silent.
...which left them with nothing to listen to other than the falling rain. Unfortunately, this meant there was nothing for them to listen to except the rain, and while she could look outside and reasonably hope to see them coming, he couldn't. The only thing left for him was to stare at the clock and think, which he did for some time.
Eleven thirty-three.
tap...tap...
Eleven thirty-four.
...tap-tap-tap...
Eleven thirty-five.
...tada-dap-ta-dadap...
He gave a glance at his left; Kuga's hands appeared to be trying to learn new ways to run a beat with three fingers. As for her, she was staring at the mirror, completely immobile. With the way her face was lit up by the screen in the glove box, she looked like a black-and-white photography.
"What?" she suddenly asked; her iris dove to the corner of her eye to look his way.
He shrugged. "Dunno. Just bored, I guess."
"Hm."
And it turned away.
He turned back to the clock on the dashboard.
Still Eleven thirty-five.
He sighed. If this kept up, he'd be going stir-crazy way before midnight. Was there anything to do? Maybe the radio...
click...
"I wanna be your prin~c—"
click.
Right. No radio. He sighed, pointedly ignoring Kuga's snicker.
Maybe if he could get her talking... He'd been intending to find out why a little girl like her worked with the police, anyway. Maybe now was a good time?
"So, er..." the worded question he'd meant to ask escaped from his brain like a mocking leprechaun the very instant he'd started to ask, so what came out instead was, "did you work here before?"
"...huh?"
Ah damnit. Think of it like an interrogation.
"I mean, what did Kumaji and you work on before? What kind of jobs?"
Kuga blinked, and he could practically hear her thinking 'Where the hell did that come from?' from the look on her face. Finally, she shrugged, seemed to decide that it would be less boring to humor him, and replied, "this and that; missing people, theft, one or two murders; stuff my nose was useful at. What about you?"
He raised an eyebrow, not expecting such a grim list; obviously, Kumaji must have been harder on her than he'd expected. There was an unspoken comment in her voice, and he replied, "I wasn't always looking at minor crimes, you know." Her cheeks colored as the hit registered, and he continued with a grin, "no, my hometown was too small for divisions or anything like that. It was just me and two other detectives handling every investigation in the area, with what little resources we had. Theft, murder, disappearances, suicides..." he shrugged. "I'm pretty junior, but I was the only town native in the station, so they liked to heap up all the complicated jobs to me."
"Huh." She noised. "You sound like you enjoyed it, so why did you transfer over?"
"Ah..."
Like a wolf smelling blood, Kuga pounced at his hesitation. "Oh, come on. What did you do? Scratch the Captain's car?"
"Nothing like that," he snapped. "It's just... well, you'll think it's stupid."
She raised a blue eyebrow. "Try me."
"Fine. There weren't any girls working at the station. It was a total sausage fest—I'm serious!" he replied over her guffaws. "It didn't fit my... I guess, my dream of what my job as a cop would be, I think." he joined in her humor himself, "I guess it sounds pretty dumb, right?"
"I should have expected that," she commented, between giggles. "Casanova! Dom Shuan!"
Did she even know what that mean? And what on earth was a Dom Shu—did she mean Don Juan?
"Yeah, well everyone has a reason for doing something; without a reason, there's no action," he replied more seriously. "I seriously wanted to become a cop—well, if I say it like that, you'll think I'm a pervert."
"Too late," she snickered.
"You're just too young to appreciate my reasoning," he accused, which prompted another bout of childish giggles. "Alright. Fine. I'll explain from the start.
"This happened back when I was a few years younger than you; somewhere like seven or eight, I can't remember exactly. At that age, kids are stupid, right?" she empathically nodded in agreement. "Right. So imagine that you're a kid—well, a younger kid at least—" she pulled her tongue at him, he ignored it and continued, "and that just a few streets away from your school, there's this big old mansion where nobody lives. Obviously, there's all kinds of scary stories about it, about ghosts or monsters living in it, weird sounds coming from it, and everything. It's summer break. What do you do?"
"Kimodameshi." she replied with no hesitation. "So you went in there and got in trouble?"
He nodded. "Exactly. It was a really old building; apparently the family that lived there had all died or disappeared in mysterious circumstances about thirty years ago—well, back then; must be around fifty by now—and no one had ever bothered to try and keep it in good shape... so here I am, walking with my crush, trying to impress her with my courage while I'm shaking in my shoes at every sound that pops between the wood planks, and suddenly the floor breaks and I'm falling through, into the basement. I didn't fall right and sprained my angle pretty badly. I'd given our flashlight to the girl—Tomoko, I think it was—so basically I'm stuck in a place I can't get out of and which I'm pretty sure is haunted, in complete darkness. Then Tomoko decides to run off and get help—with the flashlight, of course—so on top of that, I'm left alone."
Kuga flinched. "That... ok, and?"
"And, well, what do you think? I was scared out of my wits! But Tomoko came through and got the neighborhood cop to get me out of there. Just so happened that at the time, she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever met."
Kuga snickered. "Scared as you were, a sumo wrestler would have looked hot."
He chuckled. "Could be. It did help that she had all the right parts at the right size at the right places."
Kuga a single "Hn" of amusement. "So... what, you decided to become a cop so you'd find her again?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't think you were such a romantic." At her outraged face, he smiled and shook his head. "No. Well, maybe at first, but then I realized I wasn't living in a novel, so I might as well get on with reality. Besides, she transferred to some other town when I was about mid-way through middle school—and there's no way a woman like that wasn't married anyway. No, by the time I really made my mind about my career choice, I'd figured out this little fundamental fact:
"Women in uniform are hot."
"You are a pervert!" Kuga accused him, and he shrugged.
"Just calling it how I see it. There's just something... I dunno. And you wouldn't know either, I guess."
"Hmph." She didn't look impressed. "So… basically you became a cop to meet hot girls in uniforms… and you ended up with me." A blue eyebrow rose over an amused emerald eye. "You'd better not be getting any ideas, or else."
"Women in uniform. Women. And that's not a uniform," he added, pointing at her hoodie.
"Heh."
And with that, the conversation died a peaceful death. Kuga returned her attention to her vigil of the street, and Yuuki's eyes took a peek at the clock.
Eleven fifty-one.
Hey, not bad! Almost there. Now all he had to—
And that's when he realized she'd gotten him to spill more about himself than he'd told most people with three simple words and a veiled accusation, without telling him much of anything at all. He gave her a glance, this one more cautious. Not bad, for a kid. Maybe if she learned how to do that on purpose, she'd actually make a good detective herself one day.
That is, if she even wanted to.
"While we're on that topic, what about you?" he asked. "It's not entirely voluntary work, is it."
His words were less a question and more of a request for confirmation. He'd already figured out she didn't have a choice with assisting the police, though he couldn't figure out why at all. For a girl her age to be forced to work in what amounted to a dangerous environment, HiME or not, seemed to spit right in the face of international human rights, yet it was unthinkable that the police of an entire ward would end up doing something so blatantly illegal in everyone's eyes in normal circumstances.
The rain continued to fall. A small branch, no doubt broken by the wind, clattered atop the front of the car, only to be blown away almost instantly. Fifty-one became fifty-two, then fifty-three, and no answers came. He risked a glance her way; she was staring listlessly outside, by all appearance not having heard his question. But that was impossible in the silence of their car.
She didn't want to answer.
He shrugged. Oh well, not like he'd expected her to, anyway. As Himeno-san had said, that girl had more defenses around her than a battleship.
He was still looking at her when she suddenly tensed up.
"What's wrong?"
"Durhan sees them. They're coming from up ahead."
Yuuki nodded and reached for the radio.
"They're in the trap. Close it. Ten-four."
"Copy that, Tanuki. The thieves are in the trap, closing the streets. Get them! Ten-four."
Yuuki grinned and turned toward Kuga. "They're probably going to stop near the corner and have one of them come out. I want Durhan to wait until he's near the mailbox before pouncing on him. Then you and I go for the other one."
Kuga nodded. "Good plan."
…of course, it didn't quite work that way. As always.
It took a few seconds for the van to arrive; the two thieves were understandably cautious about venturing into what was obviously a trap. Although Yuuki couldn't see them, Natsuki tracked their progress easily enough; she could barely see them through the shower splattering against the windshield, but she could see them clearly from her vantage point on top of a nearby building. The wind battered harmlessly against the glass and caused servos to run wild through her metal skin. There was no way she could smell anything but a faint stench of tobacco inside the insulated cage she was in, yet her nose caught the extremely faint scent of their prey's vehicle; incompletely burned gas, sea, rust and, most poignantly, blood.
At that moment, there was very little difference between Natsuki and her Child. It wasn't the first time they'd united this way, but by far this had been the longest.
It felt… good. Like sharing everything you knew to someone you knew you could trust implicitly.
The white Hayace slowed to a stop before the intersection. Both front doors opened and both thieves walked out, instead of just one as Yuuki had expected. This caused them to hesitate a little, as one considered the best course of action to take both out and the other simply wasn't sure what to do.
"They both walked out. What do we do?" she asked Yuuki.
Her chaperone smiled. "That's good, better than I'd expected. Have him jump on the one closest to the van. We'll chase and get the other one."
She nodded and their plan changed. The one with the white cape—Tetsuo, supplied their human half—was actually slower than the other—Konishi—in reaching the mailbox. This made him the perfect target. Their human half told their packmate a signal that didn't make sense, and their [[other]] half pounced…
The next sequence of events happened very quickly. Natsuki and Yuuki burst out of the undercover car at roughly the same time, and barely had time to put both of their feet on the wet asphalt that several hundred kilograms of force slammed into Ueda Tetsuo, knocking him to the ground effortlessly.
"ARGHH!" was his reaction to the impact. "AAAAAARGHHHHH!" was his reaction to finding Durhan's glinting fangs mere inches from his face.
Konishi spun around, package in hand, and started an exclamation, but Yuuki suddenly came around his door, gun raised. "FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR!"
"GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!"
Alone, held at gunpoint by an officer who'd shown himself willing to shoot, with his only partner pinned to the ground by a massive wolf made of metal, Konishi would have panicked. Konishi should have panicked. But the global importance of what he held in his hands—in his opinion and beliefs—forced his baser instincts down. Slowly, he raised his hands in apparent surrender, package in hand. As soon as both of his hands were behind the box, he focused a bit and tapped the ring on his right middle finger in a certain pattern.
He knew it worked when the officer's eyes widened in shock and seemed to lose focus on him. He burst into the fastest sprint of his life.
The ring emitted a smaller no-notice field—the name having been picked by Sunao and had been accepted by both of his partners before he could invent a properly scientific name for it—around his person. This worked just fine in hiding him from the kansaijin detective, but did absolutely nothing to hide him from Natsuki.
The little girl fired her guns twice, aiming for Konishi's knees. The shots barely reached mid-way through, leaving thousands of tiny ice shards clattering on the asphalt in their wake as the cold-based blasts wasted their energy on the rain. Natsuki reacted quickly, shifted her guns' mode with an instinctive movement she barely understood herself and fired again. The pressure shots left a visible trace in the air and smashed unerringly onto the back of the man's knees, sending him to the ground with a shrill cry. A second shot on the shoulder aborted his attempt at getting back up as Natsuki approached.
She was dimly aware, through Durhan's eyes, of Yuuki putting handcuffs around the terrified Tetsuo's trembling wrists.
"End of the road for you two," she declared when she came close enough. He'd spun around, staring at her with eyes full of helpless bravado. "Surrender quietly and I won't have to shoot you again."
"I—I can't… I won't let you…"
Even as he tried to produce a viable comeback, Konishi cursed and wailed inwardly at the fates who'd assailed him this insult. A HiME. A goddamn HiME. Of all things that would end up catching him like this, it was one of the very things his experiments had been meant to eliminate. It was ironic, it was poetic, and it was completely unfair. He wasn't one to believe in gods and destiny, but it was hard to believe that coincidence had sent him on a path barreling into this child-shaped monster, considering his aims.
The righteousness of his goals gave more steel to his soul than he'd ever felt before. At that moment, he would have defied a raging beast—no, he would have stood in front of a whole line of tanks. He couldn't afford to lose—he couldn't let himself be defeated here and now; the fate of the entire world rested upon his shoulders!
It was this patriotic, fanatical belief which had him reach for the other ring he'd modified. That special, untested, untestable ring, proof that his theory of the origins of Orphans was right and that all the fools who thought him deluded were wrong…
Power, warmth and strength and other indescribable pleasant-unpleasant sensations ran up his arm, picking speed even as they gained in strength. By the time they were past his shoulder and reaching into his chest, the burning was almost agonizing—orgasmic—and a victorious grin appeared on his face. Natsuki took a step back, instinctively knowing something was going on. She was forced to cover her eyes as the glow coming from the ring intensified to painful levels, and she barely heard the sound of her own call for his surrender; all sounds, except that damnably constant rainfall, seemed muted, as if the whole world was holding its breath at the sight of some horrible sacrilege.
Between the cracks in her fingers, she just barely caught a glimpse of his hair as it suddenly turned golden-white and glowed even more powerfully than the ring.
She definitely missed the glowing mark that appeared on the man's hand; a flame-like marking identical to the birthmark she had on her flank.
She didn't miss the way his grin vanished, replaced by worry, only to shift into the purest of horror—
Time stopped.
Tokiichi Konishi was aware only of the agonizing burning in his whole body, of how he felt—knew—he was falling apart, of the undescribable burning things clawing at his mind and sanity, screaming the agony of the damned into his soul even as they grabbed for it inexorably. The rain, cold, soothing, natural, had stopped, and the only death and fire remained…
He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He didn't need to. He couldn't think. He wasn't aware, yet he was. The monster-girl—not girl—not human—not monster—was unmoving, like a statue. Raindrops had stalled in mid-air like a million needles.
And he realized she wasn't alone. A… something walked out of the shadows, its steps resonating like a judge's hammer in the unearthly silence. A form, smoky and diffuse as a wisp, appeared, floating—walking—crawling—on its four—six—thirteentwoseventwentyeight—legstentacleshowcanitstandhowcanit—
His vision averted, though his eyes couldn't move. This… thing was impossibly painful to look at…
And suddenly, the creature was gone, and in its place… in its place was
the boy, and Konishi immediately noted he was holding the book under his shoulder. Then he noticed the boy was wrong in some subtle, unconscious way. Whenever Konishi's attention looked away, it was like the boy's shape was different, not human but rather like some kind of strange, indefinable smoky shape, but the illusion vanished whenever he looked straight at him…
…or perhaps the illusion appeared instead?
And suddenly the boy was in front of him, staring at him with those cold, calculating crimson eyes—the eyes—the eyes—notbeastnotdemonNotHuman—were staring into his in cold amusement.
"My lord appreciates your offer," the boy said in a voice that wasn't his and in the tone of someone being pointedly diplomatic, "but I'm afraid he prefers his brides female. I'd tell you you'll have to go back, but I'm afraid this world won't keep you anymore, either. Not after the insult you just gave it."
He smiled, revealing pearly white normal—serrated fangs—teeth, and his eyes were glowing cheerful as he continued,
"As always, humans try to mess with things they don't know without understanding the risks. At least this time, you're the only one who suffered—well, from this example of foolhardiness, at least." He frowned—snarled—hissed. "As for those who suffered from the rest of what you and your partners have done, well, the blame mostly falls upon you, doesn't it? There were many things in this book which didn't need any kind of sacrifices, yet you went and picked the worst of the lot, and used it on the most innocent of innocents."
He shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, you got what you deserved, human. As always, the justice of Inari-sama and mother nature is fittingly cruel. Goodbye, and I hope I won't see you in the next cycle."
And he turned around and vanished, leaving Konishi alone with his pain—pain which kept increasing and growing and burning and burning and burning—as Tokiichi Konishi's hair suddenly flashed into flames, throwing blinding green light across the tenebrous street. The ethereal inferno burned its way down, ravaging his brow, devouring his cheeks and the insides of his screaming mouth. His body collapsed to the ground and rolled, curling into a ball. His hands reached to claw at the fire, which greedily made the jump and started devouring his limbs, running down his arms, jumping from his elbows to his knees and consuming his legs as well, seemingly unaffected by the rain. His screams continued as his skin cracked and broke, his clothes flashed into smoke, his organs charred. His eyes remained somehow intact, mad with agony and impossibly wide as his eyelids disappeared in smoke, until the fire redoubled in intensity and slashed at them like a snake—
—and as suddenly as it had started, it was over. The flames flickered out like a blown candle with the same abruptness as his screams leaving the defeated thief, the police officer and the shocked teenager to stare in shock at the charred carcass and try to deny what they'd just seen.
Seconds later, the stench of burnt flesh and clothing assaulted their noses, and Yuuki remembered that he had a job to finish even as Kuga gagged and Durhan whined. The shocked Ueda Tetsuo offered no resistance as Yuuki settled him on the back seat. His hands were remarkably steady as he picked up the radio.
"Tanaka to headquarters. One capture and… one dead. Bring people with a strong stomach, please."
"…Understood, Tanaka. Sending forensics to the scene. Is it over?"
"…yeah," he replied after a short pause. "It's over. Ten-four."
"Ten-four."
Yuuki hung the radio, laid back on his seat and took a deep breath…
…then he opened his door, threw his head out in the rain, and was violently sick.
Ueda Sunao was at the hospital, where he was expected to recover fully, in time for his trial and life sentence in a few months.
Ueda Tetsuo would be tried at the same time, and there was no way either of them were going to escape.
Tokiichi Konishi… had already received a fitting punishment.
It was over, Tanaka Yuuki thought, keeping as much attention as he could on the nearly deserted nocturnal streets. This damned, impossible, irrational and bloody case was finally over. Kumaji had seemed quite satisfied with the end result. He was still having trouble believing it, himself, and he personally felt as if not all aspects of the case had been closed, but the captain had warned him against obsessing over what he had no leads into—which was exactly what the rest of the case appeared to be.
And so here he was, with a promise of some kind of reward from the chief herself the next morning—which he assumed was a promise of continuing employment, or at least so he hoped—back on the highway system of Tokyo, driving his young partner back to the Himeno Orphanage. The little bluette was staring outside thoughtfully, her head bobbing left and right with the rhythm of passing streetlamps. She wasn't asleep—not quite—but she was starting to develop impressive rings under her eyes. He didn't feel so hot either, but he wasn't a growing boy.
The clock showed twelve-twenty-nine. Barely more than half an hour ago, they'd watched a man burn to death.
He shook his head, still not quite believing what he'd experienced. Spontaneous combustion was not something addressed by police training.
He'd expected Kuga to be in a worse state than she was, but then she hadn't been all that shocked by discovering mangled bodies of girls her age, so who was he to assume how she'd react to anything?
He felt no embarrassment by the fact that she hadn't thrown up. Whatever she was made of, it was tough stuff. He knew that, now. He'd known that since they'd discovered those girls.
The radio was off. The rain had abated, but not much, just enough to make its sound a relaxing, pleasant drone over the purr of the car's engine. Neither had spoken to each other since they'd boarded the car, but it wasn't a bad silence. It was, in fact, as good a silence he'd ever shared with his partner.
It wasn't what he'd expected, coming here. She wasn't, either. But… all things considered, it wasn't so bad. Sure, she was a little girl, and she hadn't had proper training beyond what Kumaji had taught her, and she could be a bit of a brat, and she was defensive and abrasive and aggressive and willful. But she had potential… and the chief had been right. She could be downright terrifying when she wanted to. More importantly, she wasn't useless; she had a keen eye and damn good instincts.
Some part of him considered what she'd look like with a few more years on her. That part was tied up, gagged, silenced and murdered, then cut to pieces and hidden in creative places no one would ever consider or find.
He wasn't so desperate as to turn into Hikaru Genji. The thought made him chuckle a bit, and he noticed Kuga turning to look at him in curiosity.
He waved off her unvoiced question. She shrugged and turned back toward the window.
A light up ahead turned red. He slowed the car to a stop, and the comfortable silence grew deeper as the engine went nearly silent.
To his surprise, it was broken by his partner's unusually soft soprano. What she spoke about surprised him even more.
"As far as I can remember, I was always alone with my dad," she suddenly begun. He looked at her; she was staring outside, her chin lying on her arm and the top of her head against the window, her eyes unfocused. "He was… he was a very angry man. We used to live in a crappy apartment in Nerima, since he never managed to keep a job for more than a few months. He wasn't abusive, but he just… he hated me, but didn't want to harm me, if that makes any sense. He always said I looked a lot like my mom, and I think that's the only reason why he didn't do anything to hurt me outright. At the time I still liked him, I guess. He was my dad, even if he was a waste of human flesh."
Yuuki blinked at the disgusted hostility in her voice. He found it rather unsettling that a thirteen years old girl could produce that kind of tone.
But then, this wasn't an ordinary thirteen years old, was it?
He was tempted to ask what brought this on, but his curiosity held him back.
"When I started school, it didn't take very long before I realized my dad wasn't like the others; all the other girls in my class talked about their parents like they were the center of their lives, people who loved and protected them. I made a friend that year, and when I went to her home I was completely floored by how attentive her mother was, and how nice her father was, to her and to me. I think that day was the first time someone had been nice to me… I think."
"Sorry to hear that," Yuuki said. What else could he say?
"It's all history anyway," she waved his concerns off with a shrug, but the way she said it made his frown deepen. "I confronted dad about that a while later; I'd only wanted to ask a question, but… well, my temper came up, and we ended up yelling at each other. What really got me was what he said; apparently mom had left us right after I was born because of me, because of this," she raised her pull a bit, revealing the flame mark on her right flank. "He apparently had a cousin that was involved in Princess Week, and mom believed in the genetic HiME theory—she was an egghead somewhere, I forget where—so she blamed him for 'tainting her' with a monster," she spat those words with an unsettling anger. "That night was the first time I could remember him ever hitting me, and… well, with everything I felt that night, I couldn't bring myself to love him again after that.
"I think he realized that, or maybe he just felt guilty about hitting me, since I looked so much like mom, I guess. Either way, he started talking to bottles after that, coming home late and stinking of beer or sake or whatever the bar he'd raided that night had decided to serve him. That lasted about a year, then…"
She took a deep breath. It trembled a little. He almost offered her to stop talking, but some morbid curiosity held him back.
"I was nine. I'd been digging around his stuff looking for money so I could buy some instant Ramen for both of us—for me, really, but it's not like I could stop him from taking it—when I found a hairclip in his room. I thought some whore had left it behind in his room, so I put it on; I remember thinking it matched perfectly with my hair," she sighed. "I should have realized it then… it used to belong to my mom."
"What happened?"
"I didn't find the money in the end, so I waited for him at the table. I must have dozed off, 'cuz the next thing I remember was seeing dad even more wasted than usual, looking at me and saying mom's name… and…" she broke off there, shuddering, then continued sotto voce, "I told him to stop, told him I wasn't mom, but he didn't listen. He pushed me down and… and started touching me and tried to kiss me, and I panicked…"
Yuuki felt a chill run down his back. He hadn't—she hadn't been—…
"…then this happened." She raised her hand, and without as much as a twitch her Element materialized in her palm, blindingly bright in the darkness of the car. "I think, if I hadn't been a HiME, something awful would have happened to me that night. As it was… well, Durhan ripped him to shreds; the biggest piece of him that was left would have fit in a doggy bag. The light is green."
Yuuki looked carefully at Natsuki's face. Her eyes stared fixedly at the traffic light—he took a quick glance in front and pressed on the accelerator—and while her expression showed nothing, that was a message in itself; poker face. Those memories had to be hurting her a lot even now. He couldn't blame her, but didn't believe it was up to him to try and heal her. If Fujino-san and Himeno-san hadn't managed to tend to them, he couldn't, either.
"Do you know how they keep HiMEs in prison?" she suddenly asked after a few seconds of silence.
He gave a tentative nod, eyes on the road as someone moved out of his way—a common occurrence while driving a squad car. "Some countries use sedatives, we use the black rooms."
"A perfect name for them," she spat with a disgusted sniff. "HiMEs materialize their elements from light around them, from photons—I've done my research," she added at his surprised look. "We need a certain level of light to materialize them, and the black room is a place where that level is never reached; the darkness is total, the temperature is kept at around fifteen degrees—I don't think it needs to be that cold, mind, but the people who made those things…—the food is given cold, we're given a blanket so we don't die, and that's it." He knew she was speaking from experience. "Supposedly it's more humane; personally, I think sedatives are nowhere near as bad. People don't go nuts from sedatives. They just wake up and they're older—when they wake up, that is. Probably has more to do with the fact that black rooms are a hell of a lot cheaper; you don't even need to heat it."
"So you…" he felt like a douche for asking. She didn't wait for him.
"I spent about month in one, before my trial… well, I think it was a month. Pretty sure anyway. During that time, people kept coming to my room at all hours, telling me to confess, to say I did it on purpose because I hated him… and I did, but I wouldn't say anything, and nothing they could do to me was more than I could handle. I had killed him, there was no doubt about that; the cops that came in found me standing in the middle of the room, covered in my dad's guts and holding my guns. But they didn't just want proof that I'd done it, they wanted a confession of int…in…that I had meant to do it."
"Intent."
"That," She nodded. "It was a good thing Durhan realized he was scaring me and vanished when he did, since… I don't want to know what he would have done when they took me away."
Yuuki winced. "And then?"
"To make a long story short, I was rescued by… someone," Kuga's voice turned wistful, "She spoke to me in my cell, told me what she thought had happened; she'd been very close, to a few details maybe." A smirk appeared on the bluette's face as she continued, this time with both fondness and mocking in her tone, "she up and declared myself a victim, herself a hero of justice, and made herself my lawyer when everyone else thought a death sentence was the least I was looking at."
"Hero of justice?" He repeated in disbelief. Natsuki shrugged.
"She was that kind of person; she was silly, immature for a grownup—I think I'm more mature now than she was back then… probably still am, thinking about it—but she was very focused, and damn good at what she did. It's all thanks to her if I'm here now," she finished, her element vanishing like a wisp of smoke as her hand moved to her collar, "as stuck as I am now, with this thing around my neck, my life is a lot better than it used to be."
"So then, the reason you're helping the police is…"
"That I have to; I don't know how she did it, but she convinced the judge that I'd be better off doing this than ending up rotting in my cell for nine years, waiting to be old enough for the gas room. I guess she must have told him it'd be convenient to have someone at hand who could kill Orphans if they show up, or to stop a rampaging HiME—this was only a few years after Princess Week, and I heard there'd been another… problem while I was locked up." Her hand released the little bit of black plastic around her neck.
"Kuga Natsuki, the Minato ward police's secret weapon."
"They don't of you like that," Yuuki noted.
She shook her head. "You're wrong. The captain does, at least. A lot of the people at administration think so too. I… might not have made the best first impression, though."
"I can imagine," he smirked, and was surprised to be able to feel so honestly amused after hearing what he'd just been told. At her sniping glare, he shook his head. "I don't think the captain does. She sure bit me in the ass when you ran off on me."
Kuga snorted. "Please. That was because she was afraid she'd lose her big guns, not because she cares about me. The only one who really does is Kumaji. Ishigami too, I guess."
He was still pretty sure she was wrong, but after quickly digging through his meetings with the ferocious chief failed to bring up more arguments, relented. However, it surprised him that she'd hesitate on Ishigami's topic. "You guess?"
"He's… I dunno." She shrugged. "I always feel weird around him. It's like he likes me too much—not that way," she immediately corrected, seeing Yuuki's sudden alarm, "it's just… well, I dunno. He's just not… right, y'know? I can't explain. He's too nice."
For someone who'd been treated like her, anyone who'd be kind to her on a frequent basis would be too nice, he figured. He made a show looking at the right lane to avoid looking at her in the face; she wouldn't react well to pity, he knew.
"And besides, he's scared of me," she continued, then at his unspoken question, explained, "I can just tell. He's good at hiding it, but I've seen the way he looks at Durhan and my guns when they're out." She shrugged, "I'm used to it, though. Most Tokyoites are scared to death of HiMEs because of the morons who did Princess Week."
"Even Kumaji?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Surprised me when I found out, too. 'course, he's good at being scary, too, so that's why we ended up together. If anyone has the guts to hit that remote, it's him."
Yuuki's eyebrow rose. "I'm surprised you like him so much, then."
"I said he'd have the guts to do it, I never said he'd like it. That's more than I can say for a lot of people," Kuga remarked. Yuuki winced. To hear a thirteen years old say things like that screamed wrong to him, and he wasn't a person of mass destruction with a collar around his neck.
It occurred to him that treating HiMEs this way was a fantastically bad idea. They seemed to have learned the wrong lesson from Princess Week, if anything.
"Then there's… you, I guess." Kuga continued, quietly.
"Hm?"
She didn't reply immediately. In fact, she said nothing until he turned the corner at the street leading to the Orphanage several minutes later, by which time he'd assumed he wouldn't get an answer.
"You're not scared of me," she finally said just as the Orphanage came into view.
"I'm not," he confirmed.
"You should be," she noted.
"Why?" He asked. "I'm carrying a gun right now. If I wanted to, I could shoot you now and there's not much you could do about it. Are you scared of me?" she raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "Because you know I'd have no reason to do that. Same thing for you; just because you've got the power of a tank platoon, that doesn't mean you're going to use it all the time. I'd be scared of you then." He shrugged. "You threaten, you sneer, you yell, but you don't bite." Then, with a small grin, "not seriously, at least. I haven't forgotten that you shot me with those pea-shooters of yours when we met."
She snickered. "Perv."
"Honest mistake," he retorted, grin growing.
He slowed the car and parked it in front of the path leading to the Orphanage's front doors.
"Kuga," he said just as she reached for the door handle. "…we didn't start out on the right foot, and I admit it was partially my fault. Chances are, the chief will keep us together after this, so…"
"I know," she cut in, shrugging. "We'll see what goes on next. It was kinda my fault too… and you're not as bad as I thought you'd be, anyway. Even though you're a hopeless perv." She smirked.
"You're not as useless as I thought, either," he retorted with an equally snippy smirk, "even though you're a brat."
She made a sound, half amused half angry, then tugged on the door handle and pushed it open.
"See you later," she called as she stepped out into the rainy night, turning her head to look at him between her wet and tangled bangs, her expression growing playful as she shot a final parting word: "Tanaka."
"Yeah, 'later, Kuga," he replied.
And she closed the door.
Epilogue:
"SURPRISE!"
It was this chorused word, along with a subtly re-used banner saying "Congratulations!" hanging near the entrance, that welcomed Tanaka Yuuki in the Minato Ward Police HQ's lobby, the next day near noon. He didn't quite manage to hide his surprise to the perceptive eyes of his colleagues, and was still connecting names to grinning faces and clapping hands when Sakurazaki Haruko put a small package just a big bigger than his fist and wrapped in red and white in his hands, before standing on her tip-toes and planting a kiss on his cheek.
She then left his sight, hid in a corner somewhere and had an impressive, nearly terminal nosebleed. Such would never be known to him, however.
"Ah… ah?" He noised intelligently.
The Chief, standing next to Kumaji, sniffed with a bit of annoyance. "Just a welcome party those lazy employees of mine decided to throw so they could avoid work for ten minutes. Be grateful I'm even allowing that, Tanuki."
"Ma'am!" he saluted as sharply as he could—with his free hand.
She made an annoyed grunt and eyed the crowed with fiery eyes, "I need to make a call. You lot had better be back to work by the time I get back."
A chorus of affirmatives was her answer, and the ferocious woman turned heel and left.
"I'm pretty sure she knows she's not fooling anyone," Kumaji noted with a wry grin, "but let's pretend anyway."
"Captain's orders," Ishigami quipped with a sharp salute, which was welcomed by a handful of chuckles. Turning to Yuuki, Ishigami raised an eyebrow and pushed his square-rimmed glasses up on this nose. "Aren't you going to open it?"
"Ah…" Yuuki monosyllabled once more, glancing down at the package. "Um, sure?"
Inside the package turned out to be a coffee cup. Drawn on the side of it was a golden retriever, sitting calmly and smiling anthropomorphically. And at its feet stood a poodle, white and fluffy and adorned with pink bows, which growled and snarled at the viewer.
"There's a shop not far from here that sells all kinds of stuff like this," noted the Ann Lê, the radio operator. "Everyone here has one of those cups… and, well, this one's yours. Welcome to HQ, Tanuki."
"Hah…" he noised, eying the dogs. The poodle was… obvious, but was the other one supposed to be him?
"There was one with a raccoon on it," Lê continued, grinning impishly, "but the position it was in was… inappropriate for Princess, if you get what I mean. If you'd like, we can go back and—"
"It's fine," he interrupted immediately, causing not a small amount of laughter. "Well, I'll make sure to put it to good use, then. Thank you."
The Vietnamese woman grinned. "No prob. Enjoy the party while it lasts."
And he did. Some part of him felt it was a little weird not to have Kuga trailing behind being a sourpuss or cracking wry comments, but today was Monday, and nothing could ever justify a Japanese child missing school, ever. By the time the chief returned to break up the celebrations, they had mostly broken by themselves.
"Oh, by the way, Tanuki," the chief declared once her station had once more become a work place, "I expect to have your report on your last case by this evening. Doctor Tachiki was quite startled to get another burned corpse to look at, and she wants to know how that happened."
Yuuki rolled her eyes. "Tell her not to get her hopes up. I'm not quite sure myself." He ran a hand through his hair. "This whole case was by far the weirdest I've ever been involved in."
The fierce and cruel woman smirked. "Yes, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much you actually include in it. Remember that I won't be the only one reading it."
He grimaced. "Oh, thanks. And what about Kuga? Does she have to write one, or…"
It was her turned to make a face. "She did, once. It was an indescribable mess. I'm not gonna bother asking that of her until she's old enough to understand just why reports are important."
He did his best to keep his face level, while inwardly measuring how likely this was going to be. A good case could be made that someone who isn't an actual member of the police force has no business writing reports, and he had all kinds of suspicions that the overly clever little girl would figure that out far before she'd have to write a single word for the chief's eyes.
The chief left him with an encouragement that wasn't much of one, and for the first time since moving to Tokyo, Yuuki actually sat down at his desk, settled a familiar form in front of him, and got started.
Twenty minutes later and about a few hundred words scribbled in, Kumaji turned the corner of his cubicle to find him leaning back in his chair, ballpoint pen doing little sideway flip-flops over his upper lip as he stared at the ceiling.
"It helps if you say factual," Kumaji commented helpfully. Yuuki rolled his eyes and let the blunt end of the pen roll into his mouth.
"How do I shtay facthual abouth a plasth—" he dropped the pen in his hand and idly wiped it on his vest, "plastic chair being thrown through a bulletproof window?"
"You write that a plastic chair was thrown through a bulletproof window," Kumaji replied flatly. "It'll probably make a good step-in, before you introduce the invisible box, the disappearing car, the unnoticeable open door and the spontaneously combusting bodies."
"Do I really have to make myself look like a loon on my very first report here?" Yuuki protested.
"It's only lunacy if there's no evidence supporting you, and I'd appreciate not looking like one in mine, so please write the honest truth," Kumaji retorted. "Wanna take a break? I need to talk to you anyway."
Yuuki gave another glance at his report, noted that his squiggles had been growing increasingly squigglier with each line, and shrugged. "Sure."
Kumaji waited until both of them were settled in the perpetually secluded break room, coffee steaming easily from their cups before talking. "Have you solved my little riddle yet?"
Riddle? What riddle…
"What's in a good team," he clarified when Yuuki's confusion made itself known on his face. "I take it you haven't even thought about it?"
Yuuki shrugged. "I've been busy."
"I bet," Kumaji replied with a mustached smile. "Can you think of an answer now?"
"Ah… well, people who get along, I guess," Yuuki shrugged. "To be honest, I've never really been partnered with anyone, and Kuga isn't exactly the most normal partner around."
"Hm," Kumaji agreed silently. "But that should only make answering my question easier."
Yuuki raised an eyebrow. The older man sighed the sigh of a grandfather explaining something simple to a particularly dull grandson. "What are you good at?"
"Well, uh… figuring people, making connections, I guess," Yuuki replied hesitatingly. "Not incredible at it, but not bad."
Kumaji made a noncommittal noise. "And Kuga?"
"Spotting things," he replied immediately. "Not just stuff that's invisible for us common mortals, or even with her dog, but she seems to remember a lot of stuff I gloss over."
"She should be; I trained her to be like that," Kumaji confided. "She's a really quick learner, and she's got a good head on her shoulder even with all the schooling she's missed. Sadly, she's got one big problem."
"She's crappy with people." Yuuki noted. "Considering the way she grew up and how people treat her, I can't say I blame her."
"I see she told you about that. Nasty business all around, that," Kumaji sighed, then brought the coffee cup to his lips and drained it by half. Yuuki followed with less enthusiasm.
"The thing is," Kumaji spoke once he was done drinking, "you're pretty good with people. I've been looking at you myself; you have no problem whatsoever getting information from witnesses, and you're pretty good at figuring out how people tick. You're not quite there yet, both I see the beginnings of a future profiler in you. That same potential is something your superiors back in Misato-cho noticed and passed on in their reports," He paused a second, giving time so Yuuki could absorb that little bomb, before continuing, "As for Princess, she'll never be good at that. She's more of a detective in the traditional sense. When you add up the fact that she's stronger, faster and has a better sense of smell than anyone human bar another HiME, she's got the potential to be the best detective in the force, if she decides to continue that way past this… evaluation period."
"That's a pretty big if," Yuuki noted, "but I think I get what you're saying. What goes well in a team… it's people whose talents complete each other, right?"
Kumaji nodded. "Even though I pretty much had to spell it out, you got it. And we know it's a big if. And your job, among others, is to make sure that if happens."
"What? How?"
Kumaji grinned. "By being you."
Then the large man drained the rest of his cup, got up, and left Yuuki to his thoughts.
Although he handed his report late, Chief Akitori said nothing.
As he'd expected, it made him sound like a loon.
"I apologize, but I must go back before my absence is noticed," declared the young man, bowing in reverence, a knee on the tiled floor.
Lounging on the simple, elegant white lazy-boy, which he'd specifically made center-piece of his rented hotel room, Homura Nagi turned his attention away from the gift he'd just received and gave a honest smile at his agent. "Then, I'll let you go. Thank you very much," he added.
The agent smiled with equal honesty and left, silently clicking the light but solid lacquered doors behind him. Nagi made an approving noise; help as useful as him was rare to find and precious to keep, thus one should always make them feel appreciated—and they were. With him gone, however, Nagi lowered his masks and sprawled across the seat until he was fully on his back, head against the armrest, one leg upraised on the seat, one arm likewise, but dangling in front of his face. He remained in that position for several seconds, resting, his body light, but his mind heavy.
"He has left the building, Nagi-sama," a disembodied, lilting female voice spoke.
"Hn," Nagi noised. "Thank you, Satsuki-chan. You can go, now."
"…hai."
And although nothing in the room changed, Nagi knew he was suddenly alone. From his dangling hand, Nagi allowed the precious bauble he'd just received, a small purple bead on a simple necklace, to drop and hang from its cord. For several seconds, he stared tranquilly at the bright hotel lights glittering on the glass, eyes unreadable. Finally, he sighed, his peace broken.
"So much blood and tears split for so little," he mused aloud.
"I had not wanted it to be this way," another female voice, this one sorrowful, spoke. Although it was equally lilting and young on the surface, there was an unsettling note of ancientness within it, in the way the words were spoken.
Nagi raised a single eyebrow and twisted his head upward and around, so he could look at the newcomer in the face.
"Well, well. The unfaithful wife makes her grand entrance," Nagi declared, his voice betraying amusement which both of them knew was completely devoid of truth. "Have you come to apologize for your lapse of judgment?"
The young(?) girl's long lavender hair waved as she shook her head.
"We both know that won't happen," she replied.
Nagi shrugged. "I know, I was just wondering if you'd grown a warm enough heart to feel guilt at what you've done, my dear queen of hell. Evidently not." With a twitch of his hand, he sent the necklace whirling in a spiral around his hand until it came close enough for his fingers to close around it once more. Then, with baffling agility, he twisted his body so he sat on the armrest, his legs off the couch. "Although I am the jester and animator of the festival, even I would have never done anything as cruel as that, Mashiro-hime."
Mashiro's piercing green eyes closed. "I did what I had to do. The festival—"
"—was necessary, and you knew it better than anyone else," Nagi snapped. "Yet even now, you still try to interfere with what must happen and cannot be stopped by mortal hands. I hope you realize how much suffering happened because of how you tried to hide the necklace behind those seals on the Torii. Even one of the true HiMEs was harmed, not to mention all of the innocents who died—"
"That was your mistake," Mashiro was quick to point out.
"Yes, because you forced me to find a few human thieves to use before those treacherous idiots discovered what this was!" He waved the hand containing the amulet. "As for your supposedly brilliant idea of spreading the curse far and wide, I have no idea what you were thinking. Certainly, it allowed you to leave the gates unattended without taking the risk of having them suddenly open—well, more than they did, at least—but what will our lord think when he awakens to find so many filthy commoners usurping His power? He will be furious."
All signs of amusement were gone. The seemingly young girl's eyes remained shut, while those of the seemingly young boy glared with a cold fury unbefitting of his age. "He'll be furious," he repeated, "and the innocents you selfishly afflicted with the cursed fate of HiMEs, and their loved ones, will be the ones who will pay the price."
"I thought that if… if a HiME was to be defeated—any HiME, not just the twelve, then…"
"You were wrong." Nagi snapped, and for the first time, Mashiro winced. "Countless HiMEs have lost their loved ones to the curse, yet only one pillar was raised—only one true HiME was defeated. That is a sign that those fakes are unfit replacements. Now, if they were of the HiME's bloodline, then perhaps our lord would consider it—but fate is careful, and the HiMEs are always the only female children of their blood." He sighed. "I suppose that, to someone who seeks to break the cycle at all costs, doing what you did seemed like the best solution. Sadly, it was not.
"He's coming, Mashiro-chan," Homura Nagi told the estranged queen of hell, closing his eyes as the weight of his words pressed down on him. "He's coming for the end of the cycle, and I'm afraid that because of what you did, this festival will be the most violent and bloodiest festival in history."
He opened his eyes.
Mashiro was already gone.
"…but of course, you already know that," he sighed, his eyes trailing to the open window and the orange hues of the setting sun, "don't you, Mashiro-hime."
High in the sky, the HiME star glowed red.
And somewhere underground, a massive clock advanced by a single minute…
Aku-dono's final words:
Some lecture to follow up on this chapter: (3w)/ irishtimes com / newspaper/ world/ 2009/ 0728/ 1224251492461 .html (remove spaces). Not everything is suns, flowers, giant mechas and huge eyes in Japan, especially for suspects. And while Natsuki is a child, she's a HiME, and… well, I hope most of you have figured out what Princess week was about, well it did nothing to make them more inclined toward treating Natsuki gently.
Yes, a good case could be done claiming that black rooms are cruel and unusual. The same thing could be said for sedatives, but how do you want to keep a person of mass destruction locked up? HiME or not, they are people, and one of the few things HiMEs managed to keep for themselves was the designation of "person" to themselves, which limits the conditions in which they can be given a death sentence.
Not that they don't try. Premeditated murder is one. Accidental murder and self-defense are not. If Natsuki had "admitted", well…
And with this ends the first part of My∞HiME. The second part will be here... eventually.
Hope you enjoyed this ride, as long as it was... dear gods, I'm slow. Anyways. Remember to review, please. Good reviews are an incredible ego boost and keep me writing ;)
