1.20
September 3rd, 2006
Setsuna crested the steps in one easy teleport. The few fleeing vagrants glanced back at her and started running faster. One cried out with surprise at seeing her appear from nowhere. She let them go, giving them a head start into the maze of hallways. Her breath hissed between her teeth as she forced herself to wait.
"One… two… three…"
The old shipping building was a veritable warren of disused corridors. All of the rooms were packed tight, and most looked identical but for variations in how dusty they were. She'd long since given up trying to orient herself. Not that she needed to. They were trapped here, but she wasn't.
"Twenty-nine…"
Impatience won out. She'd meant to give them a full minute, but who was counting?
Move.
Her jump took her to the end of her hall; the corridor meeting others at a bizarre intersection- a Russian cross of hallways. There were tracks in the dust where the vagrants had run, but she ignored them. Instead, she listened.
The shipping building was dead quiet. It didn't even creak like most old buildings did. For a few moments, all she had was the sound of her blood thrumming in her ears.
A faint rustling from the right path. Rapidly receding footsteps in the diagonal hallway. A crash from down the left juncture. Setsuna hesitated, and then went after to the rustling. One of the vagrants might be trying to hide. The noisy ones were too easy anyway.
She stalked past a series of closed doors before settling on one hanging ajar. The tracks in the dust confirmed her hunch, and she pushed the door open slowly, letting the hinges squeal and grind. It opened on a storage room, dozens of rusting file cabinets stacked in haphazard rows. Drifts of old paper lay across the floor from where rats had gotten into them.
A scuffling sound, quickly stifled.
Setsuna couldn't help it. She grinned. There was someone hiding.
She strode past a stack of newspapers taller than she was. More tracks in the dust, peppered with tiny paw prints from vermin. Whoever was hiding was clumsy. They kept making little noises. She could hone in on them like a hawk. It wasn't even a power; just careful attention and focus.
When she turned into the second-to-last aisle of file cabinets, the vagrant actually gasped with fear. The sound was pitiful; the low, primal cry of a trapped animal. Utterly involuntary. They'd done a terrible job in hiding. She could see the edge of a coat peeking out of a gap between two cabinets.
Setsuna rapped her sword against the cabinet impatiently. This had been too easy. Barely a pursuit at all.
"You, come out."
She hated using English. Her words always sounded so stilted and awkward. The easy grace with the language Nori had was something Setsuna lacked. She kept meaning to learn it- Nori would appreciate it, but she just never found the time.
Quivering, the vagrant slid out from behind the cabinets. He didn't meet her eyes, just huddled deeper into his ragged coat. Hyperventilating already; so frightened that he couldn't even look at her. Boring.
"Run." She hissed.
His face, unshaven, road-mapped with burst veins, shot up to stare at her.
"Run, now."
She stepped aside, and the vagrant bolted like a frightened rabbit. He made it to the end of the aisle before she moved. The teleport was less than a step forward for her, bringing her out in front of him. He skidded to a halt just as the iterations drew their swords.
"No, please-"
The man's plea cut off abruptly as the blades went in.
Rapt, she stared into his face, watching him twitch as she cut him. Ten, twenty, thirty arcs of steel. Slow at first, then furious, again and again until the strikes blurred, building to a crescendo.
The final iteration twisted her sword, and the man split apart; a dozen fatal cuts triggered by one keystone strike. Setsuna cried out as his blood showered her; soaking into her shirt, staining her. Her hands were tight around her sword, clutching it to her body like a lover.
The vagrant was in pieces before he hit the ground, soaking the papers under them. The cuts were so clean that she'd practically cross-sectioned him. Her iterations blinked out, all wearing identical expressions of ecstasy.
The kill had taken less than ten seconds. From step to strike in a few heartbeats. The rush that followed lasted longer. Her iterations' memories flowed into her, prolonging the feeling with each memory. The kill, repeated again and again, from a score of different angles. Every bit of it like art; each impact of sword on flesh, every moment of resistance as she cut in.
Her hands were so tight around the sword it almost hurt. She needed to find someone special. Someone who could give her more.
It wasn't long before she'd tracked down the remaining three homeless and dealt with them. None of the kills were particularly interesting, and her excitement slowly faded. The initial thrill of the hunt diminished from the lack of challenge. The vagrants felt like the lead up to something bigger, something better, but there was nothing.
Her sigh blew a strand of hair out of face. The rest of her bangs stayed stuck to her forehead, stiff with dried gore. Coating herself in blood was fun only until the stuff dried. Now she was sticky and uncomfortable; her clothes ruined, her face a cracked mask of red.
Cleanup was going to be a nightmare. She'd have to dispose of the clothes, and then somehow bathe without Noriko noticing. Probably have to bleach the tub afterwards.
The whole affair was turning out to be a sticky mess. The days where she could be satisfied with a simple takedown in a back alley were gone. Her first girlish fumblings, so clumsy, but also vastly more exciting with their newness. The act itself was still enjoyable, and the rush it gave her was fantastic, but there were only so many ways one could cut their way through unarmed targets before it got a little old.
This hunt in particular… it was supposed to be better. Finally taking the itch off. Cutting loose like she hadn't done since she and Nori were in Thailand, almost a year ago now. Building from her previous, boring kills in the Bay. A leaden weight had settled itself behind her navel. A hunt hadn't ever failed to invigorate her, but this one had barely been good for more than a quick fix.
Setsuna eyed the final corpse. She'd split him at the top of a flight of stairs, and his lower half had gone tumbling down, spinning out viscera all the way. It had been downright artful. One of her best in recent memory, and doing it had evoked only a feeble sort of excitement. A detached pleasure; half of her distracted by her growing dissatisfaction.
She nudged the top half with her tennis shoe, considering kicking it down for a repeat. That might be… No. She was forcing it.
Maybe Lung was right after all. In the morning, she'd go see him and-
A door slammed shut down the hall. Setsuna looked up, still crouched over the corpse like a vulture.
The beam of a flashlight hit her. Squinting into the light, she could make out a dim figure in the hall.
"BBPD, show me your hands!" A man's voice. Decisive, used to giving orders. Cop or not, someone who sounded like that always meant trouble. If the cops were showing up, it meant her hunt was over.
Setsuna moved. The teleport was clumsy, her aim disoriented by the bright light. She came out not behind the man, but at his side. Blinking rapidly to restore her night-vision, Setsuna had to rely on her iterations' memories of the man, the copies at the end of the line already fading away.
He was buff, brown-haired, holding his pistol braced against his flashlight. A badge dangled from a chain around his neck. Street-clothes police officer, maybe.
When she appeared, he turned and fired with surprising rapidity. Better reactions than she was used to from a cop. The muzzle flash lit the corridor for an instant. The bullet clipping off strands of hair as she ducked.
One.
The recharge on her power had never felt longer. She danced to the side again, forcing him to shift his stance. He fired again, missing more even more narrowly, the shot cutting a line of fire across her ribs.
Two.
The man stepped back, keeping his distance as he realigned his shot. She lunged, already knowing she was too far away to stop the shot.
Three.
Her power clicked back to readiness; the sound of an imaginary hammer pulling back in her head. Three seconds; her recharge as fast it had ever been.
Move.
Setsuna stepped primly past the policeman. They turned at the same time, for very different reasons. He spun, raising his pistol, his eyes hard and focused. She turned to watch; to stare into those hard eyes of his as the swords went in.
There was no build-up here. Her iterations moved and struck as one, all business now. They pierced him; countless blades driven through and then held, pinioning him there.
He tried to say something. It came out as a cough; choked through a throat full of blood.
The iterations faded, and the man fell like his strings had been cut. The flashlight rolled away, illuminating a blank wall.
It took her a moment to realize that her heart was pounding.
What a difference a little resistance made! Not just wanton slaughter, but a duel. Life and death on the edge of a sword.
The hall door swung open again. A figure in white stepped through just in time to see Setsuna flicker in place. Her iterations splattered the man, painting him across every surface with their ferocity.
Setsuna looked up, staring at the figure through a fresh coat of blood.
They- she was small, wrapped up in a heavy white cloak. The doorway was almost ten feet away, and there were still patches of red blooming on the girl's cloak where the spray had hit her. Setsuna couldn't make out the girl's face under her hood, but what little she could see looked horrified. A sheaf of what looked like cards fell from the girl's nerveless fingers, joined shortly after by the girl's weapon- a baseball bat.
"D-Detective Wickman." The girl stuttered. Her voice was strangled, but she sounded oddly… familiar. "Oh God, Detective!"
Setsuna tasted copper as she grinned. She inhaled deeply, letting the metallic coin-scent fill her. Someone this young, out this late, in those clothes had to be a cape. And there was only one thing she wanted to do with a cape.
"Fight me!"
The girl whimpered and took a step back.
Wrong answer.
Setsuna moved.
The girl had admirable reflexes. The instant Setsuna vanished, the girl threw herself to the side, landing hard on the dusty tile. The iterations could have reached her if they'd stretched, but they waited, prolonging the struggle.
Let her fight! Turn and struggle for her life, like the Detective had. Use her powers to fight back! Do something- anything to-
The girl scrambled away across the floor, tangled in her cloak, but undeniably fleeing.
And just like that, the mood was broken; her fire quenched. Hunting down a fleeing cape was no different than hunting down those vagrants. If they didn't fight back, what was the point?
She sighed again. Maybe the next cape would be more exciting.
Move.
Step and turn. The motion so practiced by now as to be muscle memory. She could watch their expressions as they died. Every movement of the blades played out across their face.
Step and turn and-
She looked into the girl's wide eyes, barely hidden behind a domino mask. Brown and tearful, desperate disbelief etched into them. Freckles sketched in a line across a pert nose. Short, black hair, mussed from her fall.
A face known better than her own.
The girl had time for two words before the iterations hit her.
The swords went in.
Two girls looked at each other, both faces twisted with horror.
The iterations flickered out.
The girl fell.
Setsuna stood frozen, looking out through a new mask of blood, the girl's final words echoing in her ears. Repeated ten, twenty, a hundred times. Again and again as the memories folded into her. On and on and on, replayed until they cut into her mind, and then onward still.
"Setsu… why?"
SPEAKSPEAKSPEAKSPEAKSPEAK
SPEAKSPEAKSPEAKSPEAKSPEAK
January 27th, 2011
"An… accident?" Noriko gasped.
She felt dizzy; off-kilter, like the world had suddenly shifted on its axis. The same numb shock she'd had when she'd seen Setsuna that night. Setsuna's manic grin had faded during her explanation; replaced with a smile so rueful that it was almost painful.
"I could never- never hurt you, Nori." Setsuna said.
Setsuna reached out to her, and Noriko flinched in spite of herself. Setsuna drew back, clutching her sword instead; her smile nearly a rictus.
"Never you."
"What about all those other people? Detective Wickman, and… all the rest?"
Setsuna looked away.
"I never wanted you to see that part of me."
It wasn't the answer Noriko had been expecting. Excuses, or explanations maybe, but not this.
"How… how many?"
"I'd like to say 'too many,'" Setsuna said slowly. "But… that wouldn't be true." Their eyes met again. Setsuna's were far-off, remembering. "I started just after we met. To protect you at first. Keep you safe. Provide for you."
"No!"
Noriko's fingers found the edge of her cloak and knotted there, clutching at the thick material for support. It couldn't be. Setsuna couldn't have been- not all that time! She'd been working hard to support them, not… doing that.
Click. Setsuna popped the first inch of sword from its sheath. The metal gleamed dully up at them, reflecting the kitchen ceiling. Shuck. She sheathed it. And again. Click. Shuck. Click. Shuck…
"I developed an… an appetite for it, after a while." Setsuna said.
She paused, frowning. The noise of the sword continued on, her hands working convulsively on the weapon. Noriko found herself unable to look away from it.
"I hoped you'd never find out."
The emotion she heard in Setsuna's voice wasn't guilt or sadness, but embarrassment. Setsuna was ashamed to tell her about it. Like she'd gotten caught doing something dirty.
A sudden roar shook the house. There was a crash, and then a cacophony of thunderous booms too loud to be anything but gunfire. The furious punctuation of a machinegun. Repeated again, and then once more, overlapping with another burst.
Noriko blanched. Taylor and Krieg! She'd completely forgotten when she'd seen Setsu. Krieg was dying out there!
"I've got to go back!"
"Stay." Setsuna said. She fell silent for a moment, listening. "That's Oni Lee shooting. His power makes it sound different."
Noriko pulled on the kitchen door, but Setsuna leaned into it, holding it shut.
"Don't worry about him." There was an edge in Setsuna's voice now. Desperation. "Go help your friends after we're done."
She tried to shove Setsuna away, but her sister was just too strong. She didn't budge, and the door stayed shut.
"I'm not going to kill you! Now let me go!"
"Please, Nori. If you… if you won't do that, then just… give me your judgment so I can end it."
Noriko pulled at the door even harder.
"I don't want you to die either!" She shouted.
Setsuna's fist slammed into the door, and she loomed over Noriko.
"Then what do you want from me, Nori?! You came back for answers. I gave them to you. Now make it even and kill me so you can get on with your life!"
The icy silence that followed was broken by another round of machinegun fire from outside. The gunfire was split with sporadic explosions, and Noriko swallowed hard. It sounded like Taylor and Allfather were fighting World War Three out there.
"Setsu… you understand that… I'm not coming back, right?"
Setsuna stared at her; face slowly going slack.
"You… mean…?"
Noriko nodded.
"Oh." Setsuna said in a very small voice.
Noriko barely heard her over the clamor from outside, and the word still hit her like a fist.
"I-… Sorry." Noriko said, wincing. "I thought you realized… I'm only back to see you. When I said I had a second chance… it'll last until we're done."
Setsuna's sword hit the floor. She stepped over it without a glance. Noriko retreated before she could stop herself, her back hitting the kitchen door.
"You- you-" Setsuna growled. "You idiot! Did I raise a blockhead for a child?! You get one chance to come back and you waste it on me?! Why didn't you be a hero for a day or something? Or go see that superhero you like? Something- anything besides me!"
Setsuna choked off, too angry to speak, gesticulating furiously at her.
"Sorry." Noriko said again.
Her sister's face twisted with rage, and she flickered.
Noriko had an instant of terror; flinching away from the memory of the last time she'd seen Setsuna teleport. A dark hallway. Blood and dust in the beam of a flashlight. A spray of warm, wet, dead pieces of-
Strong arms folded around her, and her face met Setsuna's chest. The hug was almost bone-breaking.
Noriko opened her eyes.
Arms bloomed from Setsuna. Ethereal, almost ghostly. They overlaid the real Setsuna's arms in the embrace like an afterimage. After a moment, they faded, leaving only her sister's arms wrapped around her.
Setsuna smelled differently than she remembered. Of blood and a sharper smell that she thought was alcohol. But beneath those was the scent of Jasmine soap and sweat from a hard day's work. She smelled like memories. Of pressing her face to her sister's shirt when she returned after a long day. The smell of home; not a place, but a person.
"Setsu..."
"Damn you, Nori." Setsuna said, her voice muffled from where she had it buried in Noriko's hair. "How dare you be sorry?"
Something wet was hitting her hair. Setsuna sniffed, and then redoubled her hug, nearly lifting Noriko from the ground.
"How could you think that I'd be okay without you? I'm n-nothing." Setsuna inhaled raggedly. "Nothing without you."
Noriko had cried thinking of this moment. Cried a lot in general just thinking about Setsuna. It had hurt, thinking of her sister alone out there. That Setsuna might be hurting too and no one would help her. That she'd been hurting back then and Noriko had failed to notice.
Now that the moment was here…
"Second chances stink." She whispered. She rubbed her streaming eyes on Setsuna's shirt. "This is all so- so messed up."
"Yeah."
"I wish… I wish we could just go back to how we were. Just the two of us, together."
Setsuna didn't reply, but her crying intensified. Noriko kept speaking, relishing the warmth of Setsuna's body against hers.
"Just us, and we'd… just live. Travel around and stuff."
Setsuna managed a thick "yes" to that.
"And… nothing bad would ever happen." Noriko said. "No gangs or Endbringers or-"
"Killing."
"And no killing."
The moment spiraled out, just the two of them embracing silently, before another explosion sent dust sifting from the ceiling. Setsuna redoubled her hug, but Noriko knew they could both tell that the moment was broken.
"Setsu… I need to go help Valkyrie and Krieg."
Setsuna looked down at her, drew a long breath through her teeth, sighed, and then laughed softly.
"Always the hero." Setsuna said hoarsely. "Go on. But… promise me- promise me, that you won't leave me again."
Noriko's eyes went wide.
"Are you sure? I mean-"
"Go." Setsuna's bitter smile made a reappearance. "You've wanted to be a hero since you were seven. And… you never got a chance, because of me."
"Where are you going to be?"
Setsuna bent down, fingers closing around her sword.
"Who do you think is going to be protecting you, Noriko? Besides-"
Click.
Shuck.
"I need to quit the ABB."
Noriko beamed at her. "You will? So you're going to stop…" She trailed off, unable to say what they both knew she meant.
Setsuna nodded. "That too." She sighed again. "That's… that's all over. That and- oof!"
Noriko's furious hug knocked the wind out of Setsuna. She buried her face in Setsuna's shirt again.
"I knew you could do it! I knew you wouldn't stay bad!"
Setsuna stepped back, her hands coming up to rest on Noriko's face. One callused thumb brushed away a tear.
"That makes one of us." Setsuna's smile was almost sunny this time. "I love you, Noriko, you know that?"
"I love you, Setsuna." Noriko said. And she meant it wholeheartedly. Her doubts and worries about her sister had never even touched the love she had for her.
Another explosion from outside, this one let off a noise like a tornado before it faded.
"Valkyrie is still in trouble." Noriko said. "Shall we? I'll take us."
"You'll take us?" Setsuna said slowly.
"Watch and see."
Setsuna took her proffered hand, and Noriko reached out, mapping out her runecards in her head. They were like pinpricks of light in a void; laid out almost like a star chart around her. Many of them were on her person, but a few were further out, matching up to where her bond told her Valkyrie was.
They moved.
The world compressed to nothing, and then-
Fire.
The field outside the house was in flames, dry stalks feeding the blaze. Thick, black columns of smoke rose high into the sky, choking off the feeble sun.
She glanced around wildly, searching.
The house wasn't on fire yet, but something had smashed a hole the size of a truck in the dining room wall. Another hole matched it from the other side of the house, like something had plowed straight through.
A woman in a gas mask lowered a grenade launcher, staring at them.
"The fuck is this?" She said, her voice weirdly electronic.
"Runechild?" Someone gasped.
She turned. Valkyrie was behind them, kneeling over Krieg in a circle of scorched grass. Half her costume was burnt black, her cloak in shreds, the dress pocked with what looked like bullet holes.
"Noriko, get behind me." Setsuna said. Her eyes were hard; all business now. "You- Bakuda- hold your fire."
Bakuda stepped back, shaking her head in confusion.
Noriko ignored them, pushing past Setsuna toward Valkyrie.
"Valkyrie! What happened?!" She reached out to help her up.
Valkyrie winced at them. "Is that Black Kaze? Runechild, what-"
Noriko's hand met Valkyrie's.
(contract complete)
She felt the change at once. A fundamental shift already started, even as she drew back from Valkyrie. Her fingers went first, losing color, then focus, then shape.
"Nori? Nori?!" Setsuna screamed from behind her. "What's happening?"
Setsuna seized her shoulders and spun her around, grabbing her arm where the change was occurring.
"Nori!"
"Setsu!" She cried back. "I didn't think it would happen like this. My deal is done!"
The shift continued past where Setsuna held her; the arm going wispy. She could still feel it, but it was distant, not as much hers now. It was a little frightening, but also somehow right. Natural.
A different feeling rose in her mind. Taylor's bond; intensifying, growing larger.
"Nori, don't- don't leave me!"
Noriko had time to brush Setsuna's face before her other hand went dark.
"I'm sorry." Noriko said. "I don't want to go, but I have to."
"What the hell?!" Bakuda yelled from somewhere behind them. "Kaze, what the fuck?"
"No! No no no no!" Setsuna was trying in vain to brush the change away, to push it back. "You can't go! Not like this! Nori!"
"Setsu… Please, don't be sad."
The change rose up her neck, streamers of shadow climbing into her vision. She was crying, tears falling down darkening cheeks. Taylor's presence flowed down the bond like a river of gold, filling her. She could feel herself fading; her vision going now.
"I… love you, Setsuna. I will always-"
The shift finished, and her lips were no longer hers. The wave of Valkyrie submerged her, and Noriko sank into the well of Taylor's power; down into memory.
She was so warm. Content. Like… falling asleep, but…
They were… together. She understood… this was…
Coming…
…home.