Notes:
Chapter Title: Burn - Flow
"Tokyo's citizens aren't the only people who've changed over the past eight years. The city not only used to be home to some thirty odd million people, but it was also a centre for international trade and tourism.
All of that changed in October 2022.
My grandmother, at least, is a die-hard Russian nationalist. She and my grandfather own a large house in the suburbs of Moscow next to the river, and I used to spend every summer there with my little sister. Every autumn, without fail, they would try to convince me to stay. I can't claim that it didn't tempt me. It did, but life in Tokyo was adventure and seeing something new and wondrous every few days. It had its terrifying moments—such as my fear of getting lost after it was dark when I was younger—but… it was worth it.
Anyways, I haven't heard from my grandparents in nearly a decade. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given the world and its restrictions that we live in. After all, most heads of state aren't concerned about recreating what we had before Edenra devastated the world. It's about guarding their own stick in the mud and wondering not how to rebuild the cities we have left, but how to emerge as a new world leader in a future that only they can see." —Ayase Eli
On the third evening after she'd completed the analysis on the knife, Maki finally ran into the district ruler she'd been itching to see for the past seventy-two hours. The crumpled piece of paper that held its results was still in her pocket, already worn from being carried around and scrunched unconsciously at occasional intervals.
She had wanted to storm to the district building the moment she'd printed it out, but Umi had stopped her, citing that she was unlikely to actually get an audience with Toujou and that her best chance to speak to the head of state in relative privacy would be whenever she came to the hospital next. Grudgingly, Maki knew she'd been right, although it didn't do much to curb her temper over the whole situation.
"I need to talk to you," she announced as she strode through the door of the hospital room and spotted a head of long violet hair standing by the corner.
Toujou half-turned, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as though she was amused. "Oh? What would you like to talk about, Nishikino-san?"
Maki bit back the words she would've liked to say, her temper already worn short by a certain black-haired woman that she'd had the misfortune of attending to for over an hour earlier that evening. She pulled the page out of her pocket and smoothed it out in front of her on a bedside table, flattening its creases. "This. I finished my analysis on that knife."
Both Toujou and Eli regarded her in a serious sort of way. There was determined anticipation in Eli's blue gaze, but she couldn't read Toujou's emerald one beyond the expectancy in it. "And what did you find, Nishikino-san?" Toujou asked her delicately.
Maki thrust the piece of paper at her. "Look for yourself."
She felt the fingers of her other hand curl into a fist as the other woman took the piece of paper from her, quickly scanning through the results, expression darkening by the slightest margin as she reached the bottom of the page before passing it to Eli.
"You're sure you performed this analysis correctly, I take it?" The tone of the district ruler's voice was no longer amused as she turned back to face her.
"Of course I did," Maki said tersely, reaching over after a few moments to take the page back from Eli before handing it to her again.
Toujou folded the piece of paper in half, slipping it into the pocket of her dress jacket. "Then you can rest assured that this information will be passed onto the right people."
Maki stared at her. "What? You're not going to order an investigation now?"
"Oh, I'd like to," Toujou returned, "but that's not always possible. We don't need a repeat of what happened last time, now do we?"
"You're the ruler of this district," Maki argued back. "Surely you have some power over what goes on here and what doesn't."
Toujou gave her a dry smile. "If that was the case, Nishikino-san, we wouldn't be here. No, we have all the necessary proof that we need to prove that this man is related to these incidents. However… I think even you can agree that rushing in too hastily might cause unnecessary complications."
There was a warning look in her verdant gaze, and Maki caught onto it almost immediately—though she had done her best to ensure that what they were saying at the moment couldn't be overheard, she understood that there were things that they could not discuss out loud. Imori's name was one of them.
There was a brief pause before the violet-haired woman continued. "I'll have someone I trust to follow up on this information, though it may take him some time to get back to me. Unfortunately, he can't get things done as fast as you can, Eli."
Maki felt the familiar twinge of anger when Toujou referred to Eli by her first name, and as always, she was surprised when Eli didn't react as she normally would've done—Maki hadn't forgotten her friend's reaction the first time they'd met Satou Fubuki when the two of them had gone looking for Umi in the outskirts of the city.
"You should let me do it, then," Eli said, her cerulean gaze resolute.
"No," Maki refuted instantly. "Until you can actually get out of this bed on your own, I don't want to see you going anywhere near a computer. I still haven't chewed you out for nearly getting yourself killed, by the way."
Toujou chuckled as Eli scowled at her.
"Well, I suppose it's time I took my leave," the district ruler said serenely. "It seems like I have a few important calls to make tonight." Straightening out her dress, she let herself out of the room, accompanied by her pair of security guards.
Maki glared after her. "Doesn't even thank me," she muttered under her breath, before turning her attention back to Eli. "What the hell does she even want, anyways?" she asked, trying to keep the curiousity out of her disgusted tone.
"To apologize, mostly," Eli replied. There was a slight tone of hesitancy in her voice, and Maki knew her blonde friend well enough to know that she wasn't telling the complete truth.
She snorted. "Whatever. I don't care. What you two do on your own time doesn't interest me. What I do want you to remember is that there's no way in hell you're going to put your life on the line for something this stupid ever again."
Eli was silent for a few heartbeats. "So, you don't think it was worth it?" she eventually asked.
"No," Maki growled. "Are you trying to say that it was? Eli, name one thing that you think you actually got out of this. Well?" she demanded.
Maki studied Eli's expression closely as she hesitated. "I was able to speak to Alisa again," Eli ventured at last. "I think that's worth it."
She quashed the familiar pang of pain whenever the younger Ayase was brought up in conversation, swallowing it under a familiar flare of irritation. "It's not like she was exactly friendly that first night though, was she? You—" Maki cut herself off before she said what was on her mind.
However, her rare moment of restraint was for naught, because when she caught Eli's eye, the intensity in her friend's blue gaze told her the blonde knew exactly what she had wanted to say.
"I know that," Eli replied, the tone of her voice weighed down by the memory. "But still… it worked out, didn't it? Better than I could've hoped for at the time." She glanced over at the darkness outside the window. "I know you and Umi probably think that it was a stupid decision for me to make. And maybe you're right," she acquiesced, "but as stupid as it might be, the chance to make that happen was one of the only things left in this world I'd be willing to risk my life for. Can you accept that?"
Unable to argue with the sincerity behind Eli's words, Maki found that there was absolutely nothing that she could say that wouldn't somehow discount her feelings. I guess I'd feel the same way if someone tried to tell me that my research isn't worth it—because I know it is. She breathed in before letting it out slowly. "Fine. Whatever. Just… keep yourself out of trouble in the future," she muttered, feeling her neck growing hot.
The ghost of a smile quirked at the corner of Eli's mouth. "Believe it or not, Maki, I was trying to."
"Yeah, yeah… I know you've already listened to Umi's lecture, so I guess I'll let you off light today. Work on getting your red blood cell count and GFR up instead of entertaining Toujou, will you?"
Eli raised an eyebrow at her. "Who got on your nerves today? It sure wasn't Toujou, because you were like this before you even spoke a word to her."
The honest answer was Yazawa Nico, but Maki would rather stop her blonde friend from bleeding out again than admit it in front of her. "Patients," she ground out. "What else?"
"Uh huh." Eli crossed her arms over her chest, wincing slightly at the motion.
"Watch the IV. I don't want to have to put it back in your hand if you pull it out," Maki snapped at her.
Unfazed, Eli regarded her in the same way that Kousaka Honoka had when she'd gone to the bar with her; unfortunately, Eli knew her far better than the orange-haired lab technician, and Maki knew the standoffish answer wouldn't work nearly as well on her as it had on Honoka.
The blonde shook her head. "You're insufferable."
"Look who's talking. Don't forget that I saved your life a few nights ago," she retorted. "Look, Eli, I know you really want to pick apart why I hate Toujou with a passion because it's obvious you have a different opinion of her, but at least do it when you can stand up straight to look me in the eye without hurting yourself in the process. Why don't you worry about getting yourself discharged first, and then we can talk about why I can't stand her so much?"
Eli snorted at the word her, and Maki grimaced, knowing that she had accidentally let the intonation on the one-syllable word slip. The slight change in articulation might've escaped Umi's notice, but Eli was more perceptive than that, especially when her attention wasn't otherwise occupied by some piece of technology.
"Sure." The false amicability could've been dripping from her words. "Let me pencil that in."
"Shut up and take your painkillers," Maki said irritably, goaded past staying and tossing the words over her shoulder as she made her way to the door before Eli could dissect her speech further. "Umi said she'll come see you tomorrow morning before she has to go hunting. At least try to get some sleep tonight instead of staying awake all night. I heard sleep helps you heal faster."
She slammed the door shut on Eli's soft laughter.
Maki's foul mood did not improve once she sat down in front of her newly-arrived batch of samples. Irritated that it had taken Honoka so long to fill out her order, she reached into the bottom of the cardboard box that she'd picked up from her office before heading back to her lab.
Her fingers brushed an aerosol can—an item she did not want—and she cursed out loud. "Why is that she can't get anything right?" she snarled to no one in particular; apart from herself, her lab was deserted.
She pulled it out of the box furiously, reading the label on it. Maki distinctly remembered asking for liquefied—not aerosolized—Namidite, but it was clear that Honoka obviously hadn't been very careful when she'd checked the order. Of course there had to be something wrong with the order. It wouldn't be Honoka's work without a mistake.
Angrily slamming the aerosol can down on her spare gurney, Maki pulled the rest of her samples towards her, counting them under her breath and making sure that the Namidite was the only mistake Honoka had made. When she had double-checked everything else, she sat back down on her chair with a sigh.
At least it was only one mistake.
Still, she needed the liquidized Namidite if she wanted to continue with what she was doing last time, although Maki supposed that it wouldn't hurt to get the samples she had received ready for when the right supplies arrived at last. No thanks to Honoka, of course.
Carefully, she placed her newest set of samples in individualized petri dishes and transferred them one by one into the incubators that lined the back wall of the lab. Though it was tedious work, at least it required some modicum of concentration that didn't allow for her to think about just how many things could go wrong in one day.
Just when she was about to finish, Maki tripped over the leg of her rolling chair and she brought her hand down on the surface of the gurney to steady herself. Unfortunately for her, the palm of her hand landed on the nozzle of the aerosol can, and within seconds, she found herself surrounded by a thick haze of aerosolized Namidite.
Coughing, she waved her other hand frantically to clear the air around her, only to realize that she had left the lids of the petri dishes off of last few Ceresis samples. Swearing furiously under her breath, she strode back to her work station to inspect the extent of the damage she'd done.
Now I'll need more. Can this day get any worse?
To her utter surprise, when she inspected what remained of the samples, Maki found that the Ceresis tissue in the petri dishes were already dying, turning a familiar ash grey. Intrigued, she plucked a scalpel from one of her many beakers that held her instruments and carefully dissected one of the samples underneath a lab lamp.
Underneath the skin tissue, she found the same grey consistency of dead and dying cells—a result that she had come nowhere close to achieving with her other concentrations of liquid Namidite.
She swiped the aerosol bottle off the second gurney where she'd left it, reading its label again carefully. The beginnings of an idea began to form in her head as she reached hastily for her cell phone, picking a number out of its contact list, all traces of tiredness gone from the edges of her consciousness as she held it up to her ear.
The person on the other end of the line picked up after a few rings.
"Maki-chan?" Honoka yawned into her ear sleepily. "What do you want from me now?"
"Honoka," she said urgently into the phone, completely forgetting to be short with the orange-haired lab technician while her mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour. "How many of those aerosol bottles of Namidite can you get me?"
Umi gripped her phone tightly in one hand as she swept dark blue strands of hair off her forehead. Though it was close to September, the warm summer weather persisted as it did every year, making the long trek back from Tokyo's outer districts an uncomfortably sticky one.
Normally, she would have taken a little more time in returning to the city after her hunt had it not been for the text she had received that morning from Eli, whose restless frustration with the hospital ward had consistently increased in direct proportion to her improving health. The text had simply said that there was something important she wanted to talk about, but Umi couldn't imagine that Maki had let the blonde anywhere near a computer to figure anything out. What could she possibly have to discuss?
Feeling conspicuously contaminated in contrast to the sterile white walls of the hospital, she had her answer as soon as she walked in through the door of the hospital room.
Maki was leaning against the window, arms crossed over her chest and wearing a disgruntled expression on her face. It was not difficult to see why, because the tall, slender form of Tokyo's district ruler took up the opposite end of the bedside table. The bed itself was empty, as Eli was curled up on one of the chairs next to the window and absentmindedly picking at the tape of her saline lock on the back of her left hand. All three of them looked up the moment Umi entered the room, as though she was late for an important meeting she had just gotten the memo to.
Maki uncrossed her arms as she pushed herself off the wall. "Now that she's here, I'm sure you can start sharing," she said impatiently.
Instantly feeling flustered—as though she had been volunteered to be put on the spot—Umi bowed hastily before she set her bow and arrows down on an unoccupied chair.
Toujou, however, seemed unconcerned by the nervous energy around her and calmly walked over to the window, gloved hands clasped behind her back. "The evidence you provided me last time has been thoroughly investigated," she began, her tone uncharacteristically serious. She paused, gaze fixed on the landscape outside the window. "My chief of security agrees with you, Nishikino-san, that an investigation is necessary."
There was a pause that no one saw the need to immediately fill.
"Then… will he be sending out another public notice?" Umi ventured, more than just a little intimidated by the mere presence of the district ruler and feeling self-conscious to be addressing her directly.
Toujou half-turned. "No. That would give him the notice that he needs to escape the district. I was willing to risk it on someone like Izayoi. I'm not willing to take that kind of risk for this."
Whatever else she thought about the head of the district, Umi could admire her shrewdness. Though there was still the chance of them being overhead, nothing that had come out of Toujou's mouth was immediately identifiable as sensitive information. It would take more than a few lucky guesses to pinpoint the exact subject of their discussion, and by then, it would likely be too late for an interested party to do something about it.
"But sadly, that isn't the point of this conversation," Toujou continued, meeting Umi's gaze directly. "I'm here because my chief of security was quite impressed with your skills last time, Sonoda-san. He'd like to offer you a position on his task force this time… if you're interested, that is."
"What?" Maki instantly sputtered, taking a few steps forward in indignation. "You haven't even told her what he's planning on doing, and you're here to ask her for her help?"
Toujou ignored her, and Umi caught Eli's gaze over Maki's shoulder. It was clear that Eli, at least, had had this particular discussion already with Toujou behind the redhead's back. Her cerulean gaze was composed, though Umi could read the troubled question lurking in its depths.
"Oh Nishikino-san, I'm not here to ask you about your opinion in regards to what I'm doing," the head of state replied lightly, a hint of her usual nonchalant tone creeping back into her tone as refocused her attention on Umi. "I only want to know if you're interested, Sonoda-san."
Umi studied her expression. The intensity in the violet-haired woman's eyes did not match the serenity in her tone at all. Somehow, it echoed the determination that had crept up on her ever since Toujou had mentioned her chief of security. She had known where this conversation was going and why Eli had said that there was something they needed to discuss with her.
"Yes," she said steadily, without hesitation.
Toujou swept past her on the way to the exit, beckoning to her security guards as she went. "Good. Meet him in front of the hospital tomorrow afternoon at 1730." Umi watched one of them closed the door behind her as she left.
It was quiet for a few minutes.
"You're really going?" Maki asked her from the window in a low voice at last.
"Yes," Umi repeated without turning around. A familiar sort of icy calm was spreading through her limbs; she might have been terrible at navigating through mundane, everyday life events—such as wedding planning with her fiancée—but Umi knew without a doubt that fighting was something that she knew how to do. One day, she would hang up her bow for Kotori's sake, but at the moment, that day did not seem to be remotely close. If anything, given what has happened in the last few weeks, that day might never come.
There was the thump of someone sitting down on a bed behind her. "What the hell is this? I don't get it," Maki snapped. "She comes along and refuses to tell any of us what's going on like usual, then says, 'Umi, I just want to know if you'd like to tag along.' Who does that? I'm sure she has a million other people she could probably ask, so why us?"
Umi turned to find the redhead angrily twisting the hem of Eli's sheets in her fingers, fraying the fabric underneath them. "The choice to go is mine. You know that, do you not?"
"Sure I do. I know you well enough to know that you'd say yes," Maki retorted. "But this is another case of her asking people she shouldn't be for help, and I thought we all agreed that people who 'help' her don't reap the benefits that they should." She swivelled her head around to glare at Eli.
The blonde uncrossed her legs from underneath her, rearranging the blanket on her lap so she could sit up straighter. "She asked me if Umi would be interested. I told her probably, but she wanted to ask her herself." Eli raised her head slightly to look at her in the eye. "But… you know there're risks involved, right? I'm not allowed to be there right now, so if you do go, you'll have to be on your own."
"That's fine," Umi responded. She turned to Maki. "We also agreed that it was time to stop letting things happen to us, and to start taking our own initiatives. Of course there are risks involved—someone has already tried to kill one of us. We said that we wouldn't let it happen again, so this is a good place to start."
There was no further argument to her words as Umi picked up her bow again and made her way to the door. "I need to tell Kotori where I'm going tomorrow."
Exiting the taxi, Umi stared up at the two towers silhouetted against the late summer skyline. Even though she was currently standing in the heart of downtown Tokyo, it was as though the sounds of the city had been turned off, and the scarlet tint of sunset made the atmosphere around her more ominous than it had to be.
The words of Toujou's chief of security rang in her ears as Umi cautiously made her way forward. "Remember, even though he's probably not expecting us, there are no doubts that he'll likely have hired some private military company to guard him. Since you prefer to work alone, I want you to arrive half an hour after we do and make your way up the second tower after the first team I send in. We'll be in radio contact."
The gates that led to the two towers that Imori owned were unlocked, as she had been told they would be. She glanced upward as she silently crept forward to the entrance of the second tower, the corner of her mouth twitching in slight disgust. Most businessmen who wanted to show off their status struggled to rent a single floor of an office building in downtown Tokyo, let alone an entire building. Imori Shinn was wealthy enough to own two, connected on the thirtieth floor by an overhead bridge. How many people could this have saved during Bloody Valentine? she wondered.
There was no time for her to dwell on that particular errant thought as she approached the glass doors of the entrance. The lights were still on in the entrance foyer, flickering senselessly as though someone had tried to shoot them out.
Quietly making her way up to it, bow ready and drawn, Umi stepped over the body of a dead merc. The room on her left was empty apart from a reception area and some chairs.
Ducking down behind a row of potted plants, she scanned the area immediately in front of her. The way forward through the foyer to the stairs at the back was blocked by a thick plane of glass—she would have to wrap around the hallway to the side to make it to the stairs that led to the upper level. It was quiet except for the distant hum of alarms coming from the building across the street, though Umi did not expect it to stay that way for long.
The small hallway on her right was similarly empty, save for the lone body at the next doorway. As she made her way up to it, she had to swallow her anger. The man was dressed in what was obviously a janitor's outfit, and it was clear that he had died trying to open the door to escape. You hire mercs and tell them to kill anyone that moves—even the innocent workers who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carefully, Umi moved his body to the side before palming the door control with one hand, wincing as it opened with a slight whine. No one was waiting to greet her on the other side, however, as she made sure her earpiece was still in. There was no Eli this time to keep an eye and ear out for her—something that she could only now fully appreciate on her previous excursions—but Toujou's chief of security had assured her that any sounds that the tiny mic picked up would be broadcast back to the district's situation room.
The lights were off in the next hallway, the only source of illumination coming from the sunset filtering through the windows, casting an eerie red glow on her surroundings. Back against the wall as she crept forward, Umi tensed when she heard voices up ahead.
"Got lucky I slipped past the security force. Time to cut ties with him, I suppose, because I didn't sign up to get prosecuted by the government."
"Yup," a second voice agreed. "Time to get out of here before things get stickier than they already are. Imori's screwed, even if he doesn't know it yet. No need for us to get caught in the crossfire."
Her warning shot caught one of the men in the shoulder as they approached the doorway. Letting out a yell, he dropped his gun as she rounded the corner, bow already reloaded.
His friend scrambled backwards in shock, fumbling for his weapon in his belt, casting a panicked look in her direction as Umi approached the pair of them. "Look, lady," he stammered, "we're leaving, okay? We're not here to throw away our lives for no reason!"
She narrowed her eyes at them, kicking away the gun at her feet as she approached them. "Do you really expect me to believe that?" she asked.
"No, but listen," one of them pleaded. "You're with the government, right? We'll tell you how to get up the tower without running into most of the mercs that are still around if you let us walk away," he bargained.
Umi contemplated the words for a few heartbeats. "Give me that gun, and you have yourself a deal."
The two men looked at each other for a moment before the first one pulled the shotgun out of its holster on his belt and handed it to her.
The second pointed in the direction to her left. "If you get past the door in the next corridor, there's an entrance to a catwalk that goes up to the service elevators. The last government company went up the main elevator, but they'll have cut the power to that to try to trap them. There'll be more mercs waiting for you if you try to go up that way too, so if you go around in the service elevators, you've got a chance of sneaking around them."
She regarded the two men carefully, watching their body language for the cover of a lie. Umi waited for the telltale signs—the shifting eyes, the nervous hands—that she had learned after years of dealing with bounty hunters and mercenaries alike. Finding none, she decided that he was telling the truth… or at least, he thought he was.
She jerked her head in the direction that she had come from, and Umi did not turn back until the pair had disappeared from sight, their footsteps echoing loudly in the deserted hallway. She tossed the shotgun into a corner of the room before moving on.
Creeping forward, carefully stepping around debris from smashed crates and broken glass, she peered around the next bend of hallway before stepping into it. Thankful for the plush carpet that absorbed the sound of her footsteps, she met no resistance until she reached the room just before the way up.
There was a single mercenary looting the dead bodies of both soldiers and mercs alike, bending over the corpses to rifle through their pockets. Planting her feet in the carpet, Umi drew her bow. Unfortunately for her, the moment she chose to fire was the moment he bent down to look through another body.
Cursing silently in her head, Umi rolled forward to dodge the pistol shots he returned at her as she ducked behind a couch. Staying in a crouching position, she reloaded her bow quickly as she counted the approaching footsteps, meeting the barrel of his weapon with a drawn arrow as she released the string, the shot catching him in the neck at point-blank range as he stumbled backwards, away from her.
On any other day, she might have felt remorse for his meaningless death, but tonight, she did not have time to mourn mercs who were either too stupid to realize what was going on, or too greedy to care.
Casting a glance at the bodies lying beyond the office area, noting the different uniforms, she hit the door control to the next landing. A ramp loomed in front of her as she climbed upwards rapidly, making sure the door had closed behind her before opening the next.
Voices immediately greeted her as she hid in the shadows of the open area.
"Hey—I think they went through here," a man's voice echoed from somewhere across the room.
A woman's voice answered him. "Well, go get them then."
"You go," he replied.
"Get your ass in there," the woman snapped back. "Imori's not paying you to stand around. They're having enough trouble over there in the first tower already. You want to be the one to tell him we let another company slip through?"
There was a pause as Umi took the opportunity to tiptoe forward, straining to see in the half-light and muscles tense for any sign of movement in front of her. Her fingers tightened around the bow in her hands.
"Fine…" the first voice replied at last. There was the sound of boots on linoleum as he strode forward. "But I…"
Umi did not get to hear his counterargument, because the sound of several shots followed him almost immediately, and she heard the thump of a body falling to the floor. Swallowing her disgust, she dashed across the open area that led to the next hallway, surprising the female merc as she spun around, her SMG still drawn from shooting her squad mate.
She buried an arrow into the woman's back without hesitation, knowing that she had shot her ally for nothing apart from personal spite before she moved forward, dropping behind another row of potted plants as a third merc closed in on her location, drawn by the sound of gunfire and the woman's cry.
Inching forward on her knees, Umi crept around the base of the planter until the merc's back was facing her as he discovered the bodies of his company. Scrambling up, she drew her bow the moment he turned around at the soft sound of scuffling against the tiles, releasing the string of her bow the same moment he fired at her.
The shot grazed her shoulder before she had the time to duck completely out of the way as her arrow pierced the merc's forehead. Swiping her free hand across the cut, she assessed it quickly. It was bleeding, but it wasn't deep enough to seriously hamper any movement of her arm. She ripped off a piece of her sleeve to tie around it, knowing she did not want to leave a blood trail for anyone that was still lingering on the floor for her to follow.
Umi approached the landing next to the service elevator the merc had told her about cautiously. She caught sight of two shadows standing guard on each side of the elevator doors, guns at the ready. There were more bodies littered around the area, and a clammy salamander of unease wrapped its sticky fingers around her heart. How much money—and lives—is this man planning to throw away for the sake of his own? She had a feeling she was about to find out very soon.
She slowly inched into position behind a low railing, testing her injured shoulder to see if it would still hold her bow's weight and feeling reassured when it did. She loaded another arrow into her bow before she stood up, picking off the man closest to her side of the room before he had seen what had hit him.
His partner let out a yell of shock and anger as he fired a round of bullets in her general direction, unable to see her clearly in the dark after the power had been cut to the lights.
He lurched in her direction as he put away his empty pistol, trading it in favour for his shotgun. "I know you're there," he called out, voice echoing in the otherwise silent room.
Umi removed another arrow from her quiver with her other hand and loaded it into her bow as he approached her position slowly. "Get out here before I have to shoot you," the man ordered into the darkness.
Not likely. She dropped into a half crouch as his footsteps neared her, knowing that it would put her at a disadvantage if she wanted to shoot him with an arrow, but she was counting on him misjudging her height and actual position.
The moment he turned the corner to the spot where she was hiding, she darted forward as he unloaded a shell at the spot where her chest and shoulders would have been. Scrambling into a standing position, her arrow buried itself into his diaphragm as he dropped the gun, fingers scrabbling at his chest wound and trying to pull out the arrow impaled in it before his fingers went slack.
Umi left him behind as she strode up to the service elevator, wishing for perhaps the umpteenth time since she had entered the building that Eli was there to tell her what lay beyond it. Then, she reminded herself that it was precisely because Eli was not with her at the moment that she was here to begin with.
She hit the elevator control before a thought struck her. I'm… a little exposed out here, especially if there is someone coming down that elevator. Nervous energy seized her limbs as Umi looked around for a suitable place to conceal herself as the floors began ticking down on the display above the elevator door.
She spotted a large desk towards the back corner on the opposite side of the room that she had entered from. Using her good arm to vault over it, she pressed one knee into the tiled floor as she readied her bow in her hands.
A feminine, robotic voice issued out of the elevator door. "Mezzanine. Have a pleasant stay."
There was the sound of soft footsteps exiting the elevator and Umi caught the sight of silver hair tucked beneath a visor as she peered over the desktop. Her heart suddenly pounding against her sternum, she realized who she was looking at.
"More of you?" The man's voice was quiet, but impossibly cold as he paused at the entrance to the elevator. "I thought I dealt with you all."
Umi felt her fingers tighten against her bowstring as she tried to come up with a plan. She had known that it was a possibility that she would run into him here—had even anticipated meeting the man at last, knowing the full gravity of the crimes that he had committed, but furthermore, knowing that he would have killed Eli without any hesitation had Maki not come home at the time that she had.
She heard the safety being released on his gun.
If he was just another merc, then she would have felt safe trading shots with him from where she was currently hiding, but Umi had seen the man's aim for herself. No, I have to think of a different strategy. She knew the man was an assassin, which meant that he was trained in stealth and skill and not extended fights, but brute strength was not one of her fortes either.
The glint of silver hair registered in her peripheral vision as the man calmly walked over to the entrance to the elevator lobby, clearly expecting her to have hidden there. She heard his soft snort of contempt when he found the side of the room to be empty.
Cold sweat broke out over her skin when Umi realized she did not have much time left to think of something. At the last moment, she remembered the knife in her belt. The chances of her plan working were slim, but she was running out of options faster than she was running out of time.
Muscles tense in anticipatory preparation, she worked the knife out of her belt soundlessly with one hand as the man neared her hiding spot, the undisturbed pace at which he approached grating against her nerves until he was only a few feet away. Umi held her breath as he drew closer to her—the moment he was within her reach, she lunged forward, stabbing the knife in her left hand into his leg before he pinpointed her position exactly and dodging out of the way as he instantly fired reactively.
Scrambling into a standing position, she dashed for the opposite side of the room, using the crates and scattered pieces of furniture for cover as he fired shot after shot at her. One of them clipped the side of her head, but only caught a lock of dark blue hair.
Keep him at a distance.
The pistol in his hand was much less deadly than the sniper rifle she had seen him use, but his aim was still as accurate as it had been from the rooftop. Even with her reacting the moment she saw the shot, she barely made it out of the way before the bullets hit her.
Umi returned a few shots from her bow over her shoulder, but she could not aim and dodge at the same time. In her mind, she knew what he was doing. He knows I can't afford to trade shots with him—and that I'll get tired eventually. Her muscles ached from her continued efforts to keep an ample amount of distance between them so that he could not shoot her point-blank. She had to come up with a new strategy—and fast.
Something caught the corner of her eye as Umi whipped her head around to take a closer look. It was an unused grenade, still clutched in the limp fist of a dead soldier. An idea formed in her head, but she would have to reposition herself drastically to even try it. Try, of course, was subjective. A more accurate description of her situation was that she only had one chance to make it work.
Ducking under the heavy fronds of a potted fern, she mentally judged the distance between herself and the corpse of the dead man. The man pursuing her would have to be between them, which meant that she had to somehow make it over to the open area of the room before swerving back to a column she could use as cover to shoot from. Her grip tightened on the handle of her bow. I have to do this.
Pressing her free hand against her chest for a few moments, she gave herself three seconds before the assassin closed in on her. Pushing herself to her feet the moment he was close enough to get a shot on her, she ran.
Her lungs burned as she sprinted and Umi winced when a shot clipped her ankle, deep enough to leave a cut but not severe enough to make her stumble. Drawing her bow mid-stride, she cast one glance back to make sure he was still following her, slower on his injured leg but still sure of his prey. She was not going to give him that particular satisfaction.
The moment he stepped over the soldier's body, she fired.
Umi had barely a heartbeat to cover the remaining distance between herself and the column she intended to take cover behind before the blast rocked the foundations of the building, sending smoke and flames billowing into the air. She held her sleeve over her mouth and nose as she waited a few minutes before stepping out from behind cover, heart pounding painfully in her chest as she worked to inhale the smoke-saturated air.
She loaded another arrow into her bow, but there was no need.
The man lay on his side, one arm wrapped around the barrel of his pistol; burns covered his fingers and palm and had scoured away the side of his face. Against all odds, he was still breathing.
"Who do you work for?" Umi asked him, her voice a hoarse rasp from exhaustion and smoke.
He coughed, glaring up at her underneath his semi-reflective visor. "People like you don't understand. My brother's only doing what's best for this city," he wheezed. His other hand slipped off his chest, sticky with blood.
Umi stared down at him as understanding clicked inside her brain. His brother must be Imori. Of course. That explains the results and why he never showed up on the citizen registry. She raised the bow in her hands with the intent to finish what she had started, but she had one more question for him. The words scraped against the back of her raw throat. "Why did you try to kill Eli?"
The man laughed, the sound petering to a desperate pant for breath. "He ordered it. She had to die—it was unfortunate that I couldn't finish things properly."
"And you don't question those orders?" The words sounded so obvious in her head, but Umi realized that they might only have sounded that way for her.
"If you knew better," he rasped, "you'd understand why not."
"Whatever goals you have, killing people for no reason is not the right answer," she responded. Briefly, she wondered why she was still wasting time here, but it was as though an invisible gravity drew her to the dying man on the floor in front of her. I want to know. Why you do these things. Why anyone of your status does these things.
"But there is a reason. You'd just never understand it. Besides... you're no different from me. All those mercs back there? What do you tell yourself… the wrong place at the wrong time?"
"No," Umi said quietly, drawing back the string of her bow. "The difference between us is that none of this is for my personal gain. I just want to protect the people I care about."
The man's final laugh was cut off by the point of her arrow driving into the side of his neck.
She turned her back on his dead body as she palmed the elevator control again, stepping into the cool, dim box as it rose into the darkened skies.
This still is far from over.