Arashi ("Storm"): A NOIR fic (2 of ?)
2: HOME
“Pass me the knife, please?”
Kirika picked up the small dinner knife and flipped it expertly before handing it to Mireille, handle-first. “What?” she asked, as the blonde grinned at her in amusement.
“I guess some things don’t change,” was the only answer she got.
“Have I changed a lot?” Kirika asked curiously.
“Some.” Unwilling to go into detail, Mireille left it at that. The true answer lay somewhere between the way the blonde assassin’s eyes had widened at the taller, more assured, though still very young, woman that had stepped up to receive her diploma yesterday, and the way her heart hadn’t quite gone back to its settled pace during the entire ride back.
“You grew a couple of inches,” she added lamely. “The Provencal air must agree with you. I like what you did with your hair.”
Kirika blushed. “It was something we did after exams. Jacqui’s aunt owns a salon, and she insisted on treating us for graduation.” She fingered the edges of her short hair, a touch sleeker and more sophisticated than the longish pageboy she’d worn before.
Mireille paused in her slicing, imagining Kirika with friends and giggling over a haircut. Would wonders never cease? “It suits you.”
That garnered a smile, and suddenly it was as if no time had passed at all. Lunch was laid-back and, to Kirika, beautifully mundane, just the two of them talking about simple things over freshly baked bread, cold cuts and twirls of pasta cooked al dente.
Until Mireille asked in a deceptively casual voice, “What do you think about returning to Japan for college? Tokyo University is trying to attract foreign students or at least students with foreign backgrounds. With your French schooling, they’d probably jump at the chance to have you.”
Kirika’s hand tightened on her cup. “Mireille...”
“There might even be a chance for a scholarship. You’d have to take an exam though -”
“Mireille!” They both started as the normally placid voice cut through the air like a knife. Kirika struggled to maintain some semblance of composure. “Can we please stop pretending?”
“What do you mean, pretending?” The blonde looked up, her eyes cool and inscrutable.
Kirika hesitated. The years away at school had brought some changes. Compared to the quiet enigma she’d been before, she was practically sociable now. But talking to Mireille, contradicting her, actually arguing with her...there were too many undertones for that to ever be easy.
Too many debts that Kirika was conscious of never being able to repay. “I’m glad I finished school. But since I got back, you’ve been treating me like that’s all I am - a student who just graduated. You used to tell me everything. What’s bothering you now?” she asked. “Do we have a new job, a target? Tell me his name, how do we get to him, who’s the client?”
“Kirika!” Mireille’s disapproval was cutting.
It made the girl pause. Under any other circumstance, it might have made her stop. But two years in another part of France almost 500 kilometers away was one thing; returning to Japan across God knew how many oceans was another. “No matter how we both want it to be otherwise, the truth is I’m a killer. You, above all people, know that.”
“It’s not like I’d forget,” the blonde said curtly.
The smaller girl fell silent but inside she was reeling. What had happened while she was gone? Why was Mireille acting this way? “Is that...is that what this is about? Have you decided...?”
“I haven’t decided anything!” Mireille exclaimed. “I was simply asking where you wanted to continue your studies. God, is that a crime?”
“But why Tokyo? Even high school, why Lyon and not here? You sent me away and I thought...I kept waiting for you to come and visit or to send for me in the summer. But you never did.” It was the closest Kirika came to an accusation.
“I was busy,” Mireille said in tones of studied indifference. Then, as if realizing how harsh that sounded, she relented and continued in a more conciliatory tone. “Kirika, I know it’s not exactly easy, getting away from our old lives and building a new one that doesn’t involve killing, but we should try, right? Besides, didn’t you enjoy school, meeting new people and making new friends?”
The girl nodded.
“Then there really isn’t anything to complain about, is there?”
“There is. You know there is.” Kirika looked at the blond assassin almost challengingly, though her voice remained quiet, almost pained. “Why are you doing this? If - if you want to get rid of me then,” she swallowed, “all you have to do is say so. Just say the word and I’ll go.”
Uncharacteristically, the older woman refused to meet her eyes. “Is that what you want?” she asked.
“You never asked me what I wanted before.”
A hint of the usual impatience. “I’m asking now.”
Now or never. Funny how Kirika could kill dozens with a steady hand, and now she was practically quaking inside. “What I want...” she stumbled over words so little used by her, “what I’ve always wanted, is to stay here in Paris. With you.”
“Kirika...”
“You can send me away, but no place will be safer than here. We both know that to some people I’ll always be nothing more than a weapon.”
“But it doesn’t have to be that way!” Mireille remonstrated, and there was real anger in her voice. “You’re young, Kirika, you’ve got a chance. You can go to university, graduate, find a proper job. You can be your own person and move away from this life.”
“You mean...away from you.”
Mireille toyed with her fork. Her eyes staunchly catalogued the leftovers on her plate. “It has to be that way, doesn’t it? No matter what we do, for as long as we stay together, the Soldats will see only Noir.”
“We are Noir,” Kirika reminded her softly. “Even if in the end we refused to give in, in their eyes, we passed the trials and completed the ritual. The Soldats are everywhere. Going to Japan won’t help. The first time they came after us was there, remember?” Suddenly a chilling possibility occurred to her. “While I was away, did they come after you?”
“Kirika...”
“Just answer me, please. Did they?” she asked nervously.
“Once,” Mireille confirmed with reluctance. There was a suspiciously self-satisfied gleam in her eyes as she continued, “But I took care of it and the orders for sanction were... rescinded.” That was the problem with the Soldats. Their leaders had forgotten that they were no longer amorphous, mysterious entities. She’d taken a good look at the men who’d silently waited as they’d emerged wounded and bloody from Altena’s mad ritual. Men with faces could be tracked down, reasoned with, and reminded of their mortality. Kirika and she would have some peace for awhile.
“I wasn’t here.” The girl sounded stricken.
“I took care of myself for a long time before you came along,” the proud Corsican snapped. “I may not be as good as you -”
“It has nothing to do with that!” Kirika clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking.
“Then what?”
“If something did happen, and I wasn’t there...” Just the thought made her quail. “How could I live with myself, Mireille? Your own mother told me to protect you -”
“Before you shot her.”
Kirika rocked back with the unexpected blow. “Yes.” She bent her head. “I can’t - I can’t atone for that, I know. But I can try.”
“By being with me?” Mireille asked stiffly. “I don’t need a protector. I’m an assassin on my own terms, a damned good one. I -”
“You,” Kirika interrupted quietly, “you don’t need anyone. But Mireille, I need you.”
It was the one thing she could’ve said against which Mireille had no defense. The woman sighed, completely disarmed. “It’s not that at all. I’m not - I should know better,” she said, “but when it comes to you...”
Kirika waited, her silence betraying none of the turmoil she felt within.
Mireille sat back, picked up a napkin and wiped her mouth. “Well, if you’re staying, you get to make the tea.”
And that, finally, brought a smile.
(To be continued...)