It had been too far for even her clever eyes to spot any details of the face, but she'd seen the uniform. It had been one of their own that made the shot. A traitor. Someone in a PLF uniform shooting other PLF snipers. She'd had suspicions before that something like this might be going on, but she'd never seen concrete evidence.
They wouldn't get away with it. This was the building they'd used as a nest, an unfinished husk of a construction site, reaching up to the sky like a dark monument mocking the pitiful achievement of humankind. Bandomia was really falling to pieces even before the war started.
When the PLF was fully in charge, they'd see about fixing this urban blight. Heaven knew the HPSC and the rest of its corrupted governmental bloat had never seemed to care, so it wasn't as if the PLF could do worse than its predecessor... first, though, the problem at hand. Stay focused.
Floor after floor, Lady Nagant moved up the stairs on the balls of her feet. A stray nail clattered down the unfinished steps behind her. How careless. She had really let her stealth training go in. Whatever. She was plenty quiet, and it wasn't as if she were confined to the shadows anymore, so it didn't matter much. Still, a refresher course might not go amiss...
She turned a corner and emerged into a dusty, open floor, not a single interior wall assembled yet. The place was filthy with leaves and dust, overflowing with construction detritus from nails to packing foam to rebar and two-by-fours. What a mess--ah. There was the little bastard.
He was one of Sone's kids, the excitable, pretty one with the green hair. He was surprisingly good in hand to hand, wasn't he? She'd seen him wiping the floor with an MP during training once. She'd never have pegged him as a spy, though, but he wouldn't be a good spy if he were easy to spot.
"Major?" the corporal blinked at him in surprise, the perfect picture of confused innocence. He had good eyes for it, puppy dog eyes. That wouldn't work on Nagant.
"So it was you all along," she fixed him in her sights and he dropped his own rifle promptly.
The confusion on his face didn't seem feigned. "Major? What?"
Yeah. Sure. It was a nice act, but Nagant had seen better. The HPSC was full of snakes like this. "Don't screw with me, kid. I'm the best sniper this half of the globe. I saw someone in our uniform shoot one of our own from here," she gestured to the upper floor from whence the traitor had come. "And I know you're the only one here, and you're running." Well, there could be someone else in this building. Someone could have slipped past Nagant with a stealth quirk or jumped off the roof or just hidden behind a half assembled wall somewhere, but it wasn't likely. "Fleeing, guiltily."
The confusion on his face crumpled into devastation and tears budded in his eyes. He looked like a kicked puppy. God, how old was this kid? "I'm not--it wasn't on purpose," he hiccuped a sob. "I screwed up! I was aiming for the Chain but the shot was too hard and I missed and I killed one of ours and I can't believe it," there wasn't the slightest hint that any word was anything but sincere, but again, she'd met too many snakes. "And I was... I was going to report it! I--just didn't want everyone to know." The green kid hung his head in shame, a tear running off his cheek. Seriously, how could someone this fragile make it as a soldier? He had to be faking this, right? There was no way he could have survived this long with such a soft heart.
But... if Nagant had accidentally shot another PLF soldier... well, she certainly wouldn't sob but the emotion was kind of understandable, maybe. Whatever. It didn't matter, did it? That's what The Reader and his ilk were for. "Pathetic. I almost believe you, but we'll let the truth quirks sort it out." She grabbed the ridiculous, green hair, took out her frustrations with a tug and a sharp jab between the shoulder blades, and marched her prisoner towards the stairs.
She'd shove him at the MPs and they'd find out whether he was a traitor or an incompetent waste of equipment. The PLF needed ditch diggers, too. There were plenty of people who ought not be trusted with a rifle and plenty of alternative uses for them.
Red hot fire ripped through her stomach and Nagant shrieked, stepping back instinctively--a solid kick to the legs nearly brought her to the floor. Snake! Little fork-tongued bastard! He'd stabbed her in the back--well, the front technically but it was the same thing! Ooh, he was in for it now, daring to play with her like that! Making her waste a teaspoon of pity on him!
"You little bastard!" Her own knife flew to her hand. "Almost had me fooled! Filthy little demon!"
The pathetic kid act vanished like a fox diving head first into his hole. Small, delicate, fast, strong. He dodged instinctually, a knife fighter on par with any Krypteia agent. This was no opportunistic saboteur, nothing like Camie. This was a professional. Someone with training, possibly the same training as Nagant herself, an HPSC pet who hadn't dared to bite the hand that fed, that hadn't been betrayed and left to rot, that hadn't seen the truth of their enslavement, that hadn't the bravery to rebel and change the status quo.
She charged, pushing her opponent back, but the little fiend led her in a circle, somehow failing to fall through the holes in the floor or trip on any wayward construction supplies. "You think you can wait me out?" Nagant did not have the patience for this game. The battle was going on without her. Enough time had already been wasted.
She leapt forward, knife out for his throat--and the blade plunged through the snake's hastily raised wrist, straight between the bones. Ooh, that had to hurt! Served him right, fair turnabout for the aching wound he'd carved in her.
The green kid's face twisted up in pain and Nagant made no attempt to keep her grin from spreading from ear to ear. This might be fun, worth the wasted time after all.
Her opponent twirled away, moving with the eerie liquid elegance of a river as he twisted his arm in an arch, wrenching the blade from her fingers as Nagant reeled back in shock. That had to be incomprehensibly painful. The snake moved as if running on autopilot, as if he didn't feel it at all. Who was this kid? Even Hawks back in the day--may he rest in peace--couldn't have pulled that move.
Before her backup knife was steady in her grasp, her enemy's right hand blade flew at her, slashing yet another cut in her and then the insane bastard pulled the knife out of his wrist like it was nothing. "Who the hell are you?"
She should just shoot him. It would be better if there was someone for the truth quirks to interrogate, but this kid wascrazy and dangerous, too dangerous to bring in alive.
The kid lunged for her, a rabid snarl on his face, eyes gleaming with radioactive conviction. She'd seen this type before. They could bring themselves to do anything, no matter how painful or unethical. Logical argument was no defense against their reckless ideals. No amount of sense could convince them to change their minds. They were the devoted, the obsessed. Yeah, there was no way she was bringing this one in alive. There was no way he would let her. God, how long had this snake in rabbit's clothing lurked in their midst? How many had he killed? How much had he stolen? How much damage had been caused already?
Blood spattered from their wounds as they slashed at each other, moving back and forth across the treacherous floor almost as if they were dance partners. The kid might be crazy but he was young and small. She had a reach advantage, a strength advantage, too, and better equipment. Yeah, he might be crazy but that wouldn't save him. The smirk that had fallen from her face crawled back into place.
The snake was smart; he knew he was doomed, his expression turning colder, calculating.
What a reckless strike--a feint. He was down on the floor what was--oh damn.
There was no moment to think, no moment to move to defend herself before the enemy swung the rebar at her, sending Nagant reeling back as the pain of a broken, bleeding jaw struggled to register through the shock. Some incoherent cry of pain gasped its way out of her throat. Where was her--
"That's for that poor kid at Hosu!" What poor kid? What was he talking abo--
She couldn't breathe, the eruption of pain in her throat sending her to her knees.
"That's for Utsushimi Camie!" Filthy nest of traitorous snakes, all banding together to--
She couldn't find her balance, couldn't register where her limbs lay as she groped for something to defend herself with. The world tilted. She sprawled out on her back.
Huh. She'd lost...? No. She couldn't lose, not like this. That didn't even... she hadn't just lost, had she?
This scrawny little kid with the crocodile tears and the mad dog snarl... she didn't even know his name, not even his fake name... He couldn't be the one--
"This is for everything else!" She'd seen a movie once where the hero screamed that while throwing the villain off a bridge. But here it was the other way around, the villain screaming it--she couldn't die here. That wasn't how it was supposed to end. She wasn't the bad guy, no, he was the bad guy. It couldn't end like this. It wasn't fair!
Kaina had come so far. She'd changed. She'd tried to repent, to make up for everything the HPSC had her do, to tear them down so they could start an--
She'd nearly managed to get a hand under her before the next blow landed and sent her reeling, another bolt of pain ripping through her nerves. Come on. She had to--had to--it couldn't end like this.
"Who's helpless now? Who's forced to watch you murder teenage prisoners now?" Hosu... that was what he meant... but it wasn't like that. It had to be done. The Chain were the enemy. They had to be dealt with. Someone had to do it.
How could he be so foolish? So much like she'd once been... a pet believing the ends would justify the means... maybe, maybe he'd wake up, realize... maybe he'd remember her, remember what he had done and understand some day.
She stared at the ceiling, gasping for each breath through the screeching pain of broken ribs.
He stood above her, looking down like a spirit of heaven judging a human dragged before his gates. There was no hint of rage left in those eyes, nothing at all. Empty and cold as the devil and the deep blue sea...
The knife in his hand dripped. They had both lost blood to that blade.
She'd been him, been the one looking down. That had been her how many times? But now he had become the predator and she had become the prey.
It was like a mirror trapped in time, and here she was gazing into the eyes of Nagant a dozen years in the past, the eyes of a dispassionate predator sent to kill on a commander's whim.
There were times in prison when the memories of her work haunted her, when the emotions broke through her carefully constructed walls, beautifully phrased euphemisms, expertly crafted justifications, times when it all fell apart and Kaina wondered if suicide might be the only honorable escape for a soul as dirty as her.
But then she'd found the PLF and thought she could make up for everything... and here came death by her own reflection.
Kaina stared into his eyes--her eyes?--and the closer she looked the more reality twisted, delirium consuming the scene.
Voices locked within her hidden memories whispered curses and screamed in pain. Others cried out for mercy, begging the nameless predator Nagant had been to spare their lives.
The brick walls of Hosu's shipping district rose about her in a sooty maze, the city's lights reflecting on a low cloud layer. Shadowy figures fled, shrieking in terror. Puddles splashed up about the pursuer's fitted boots. A final cry of fear--steel ripped through muscle with a decisive hiss. Dark water in the gutter darkened further, tinted in scarlet. Panting as a body collapsed against a rough wall--
Predator and prey--Kaina watched Nagant stalk nearer, merciless in dispassion, the very blade she'd used here a decade ago brought to bear on her own throat this time.
So much was lost in the sum of all these things that should never have been. They slipped through her fingers and cold steel met her throat--