Red And Black - By Kirika 

 

 k_yuumura@hotmail.com

 ******

 

 The twelfth chapter. Oh, for those of you who didn't already realise this in the previous chapter, Sakamoto and Zhenmeng are the aliases Ryosuke and Vincent are using while in Paris, and what Simon and Jean (Ezza) know them as. 

 

 - Kirika

 

 ******

 

 Chapter 12 - The Test, Act II

 

 

 "Whoowee," Zhenmeng whistled sardonically, "what cosy little hole in ground you have here!" He trudged with apparent fearlessness down the stairs leading into the basement with loud, heavy steps; the dull clomping thuds echoing around the gloomy room to warn its two occupants of his and his companion's imminent--and portentous--arrival. But of course, there was nothing for him to be apprehensive of; those two aforementioned occupants were only teenagers--even younger than Jean--and were likely to pose no more threat than a pair of docile puppies. Still, Zhenmeng didn't know that. 

 

 Jean was shepherded ahead of the thug, suffering periodic violent shoves in the centre of his back to drive him onwards, oft times almost sending him tumbling head over heels down the staircase before he managed to regain his balance in the nick of time. Normally such mistreatment would cause ire to ignite and steadily grow inside the Soldats agent, but on this occasion the only feeling that grew was dread. While his cover as Simon's withdrawn assistant seemingly remained intact, it wasn't much of a comfort; Jean was in a bad situation, any way he sliced it… and a life threatening one at that. Zhenmeng and Sakamoto would probably kill him just for the hell of it--he certainly wouldn't put it past them considering that they were marked for death by Soldats. Furthermore Zhenmeng didn't look like somebody who would have any misgivings about torturing and subsequently murdering a few people… or, for that matter, did his scary partner. How Jean was going to get out of this without ending up face down in a pool of his own blood he had no idea. 

 

 Sakamoto followed wordlessly behind Zhenmeng as the three of them descended below the computer store front, a towering shadow looming over the other two men, an impassable sentinel who helped to further escalate Jean's fear every time the Soldats follower braved a glance over his shoulder. Zhenmeng was the obvious one to watch out for between the wanted pair with his brash and obnoxious behaviour, but Sakamoto held his own different kind of menace with his stoic demeanour, one in some ways more intimidating than his partner's. Silence could hide all manner of things, things a person's imagination had the unwelcome habit of making into their worst nightmares. 

 

 "What the hell? Ezza, you dumbass!" Simon yelled angrily as he spun his desk chair away from his ferret and to the basement stairs, glaring at Jean as he emerged--with a harsh push by Zhenmeng--from the murk into the fluorescent light glowing from his flashy computer box fixtures and monitor screens. "Can't you see I'm busy with… with…." Simon's reprimand immediately lost steam and choked off to a weak croak as Jean's captors entered the light and revealed their presence, the hacker's mouth still working although no words came out. "Oh shit…" he eventually succeeded in forcing out--albeit scarcely audibly--no doubt recognising Zhenmeng and Sakamoto from Bouquet's photograph. 

 

 "Oh no…" the ferret standing next to Simon meanwhile breathed. "I know yo--! It's--!" He practically squeaked out the halting words, pointing a shaky finger at the black-clad men with wild panic splashed all over his face. Jean certainly knew that feeling.

 

 Zhenmeng roughly barged past Jean, a roughish lopsided grin pulling up the left side of his mouth as he placed himself a short distance in front of Simon and the snitch. Jean was knocked aside as if he were just a scrawny child even though he and Zhenmeng were around the same height and build, and tripped over a mass of cables flowing along the floor from the many computers on Simon's desk, landing painfully on his behind. 

 

 "I guess you the guy in charge," Zhenmeng directed to Simon, the hacker somehow seeming paler than usual in spite of his normal pallid skin tone. The longhaired man put his hands on his hips and took a couple of moments to look around the basement, his eyebrows raised in apparent appreciation. "Wau…" he then said, while still studying the dimly lit room, "I bet could hold noisy parties and no one hear it…" The right corner of Zhenmeng's mouth slowly climbed higher on his face to join its mate opposite, the black suited man's grin becoming an all out sneer of malicious import, his teeth slightly bared. "And I bet no matter how loud you scream, no one hear it…" he added, his voice, formally conversational, now hard and nasty… and foreboding.

 

 At that second Simon's ferret, who Jean had observed twitching agitatedly all throughout Zhenmeng's examination, apparently lost his nerve and suddenly tried to bolt past the sneering man, making a reckless break for the stairs and escape. But escape would not come that easily. 

 

 Before the ferret could move more than a couple of steps Zhenmeng took action, his lightning fast rejoinder to the teenager's dash for freedom in the form of a solid elbow to the side of the head, the impact so forceful that Jean could hear bone colliding. The informant's flight was brutally cut short as he staggered ungainly backwards from the hit, like a punch-drunk boxer on the verge of being knocked out. He looked up at his assailant, only to get a devastating left hook straight to his face, the blow knocking his baseball cap clean off his head. The ferret collapsed to the floor next to his dropped cap, his left eye swelling shut; an angry red disfigurement on his visage. He then rolled slowly over onto his side before simply laying there sobbing pitifully in pain and terror, drawing his limbs close to his body while it quivered with his mewling. 

 

 Not a shred of sympathy had passed through Jean's heart as Simon's snitch was beaten; in his opinion the moron deserved every torture coming his way from Zhenmeng and more. There was no question in Jean's mind that the careless bastard was responsible for the predicament he and Simon were now in; the ferret's sloppy surveillance methods had to have tipped the vastly more competent Zhenmeng and Sakamoto onto Simon's curiosity in their activities, and consequently the duo had tailed the stupid kid right to the computer expert's doorstep. 

 

 Jean ground his teeth in combination of anxiety and resentment where he sat on the floor just to the left of Simon's desk, black cables running under his bent legs to the taxed power points on the wall opposite, vanishing into the shadows of the room. Damn that fool! In all of Jean's time in the field--short as it may be--he had never expected his life to be placed in very great and very real danger. And now, because of someone else's blunder, he may not live to see another day. Fuck! 

 

 The Soldats operative watched as Zhenmeng kicked the prone ferret in the stomach, the Asian's intense eyes hot amber that burned in the light, their prior playful lustre long gone as the mischievous imp showed his true colours as a vicious devil. It was fitting that the clumsy spy was the first to experience the repercussions of his own laxity. Jean hoped that he was in immense pain indeed; if Zhenmeng's ministrations didn't kill him, then the Soldats agent would definitely finish the job.

 

 Zhenmeng planted a foot on the informant's right shoulder and pushed his unresisting body over onto its back, glaring down at the teenager with a contempt that did not bode well for his personal safety. Zhenmeng then stomped his foot down on the ferret's sternum, before exerting most of his body weight on that leg and effectively holding his victim in place. The teenager cried out weakly at the abuse and writhed beneath the sole of the thug's shoe, his mouth remaining open afterwards in a silent yet earnest appeal for aid… but it would never come; he was begging to the wrong crowd. 

 

 "Brat!" Zhenmeng spat at his subjugated quarry, grinding his heel into the kid's chest with seeming glee at the torment he was inflicting. "You like to watch, ne? Ne, little spy?" Still grinning from ear to ear, he put a hand inside his suit jacket and drew out the gun he had shown threateningly to Jean earlier, its brushed steel reflecting in the light with dark intent. 

 

 Simon--who had stayed completely rigid in his chair up until this point, gripping its armrests as if he were on a roller-coaster ride, his knuckles as white as his face--started at the sight of the bared firearm. "What…. You can't be serious…!" he gasped, his expression a picture of abject horror. Jean wondered if the hacker had ever seen a real gun before, one that hadn't been confined to the harmless digital polygon realm of video games. 

 

 "Quiet," Zhenmeng said simply, before offhandedly lashing out with the pistol at Simon without even so much as glancing in his direction. 

 

 The unforgiving metal casing of the weapon struck the unsuspecting hacker in the mouth, slapping him back into his chair, which in turn propelled it into the desk with a bang, the collision toppling several stacks of CDs that scattered across the floor. Simon grabbed his mouth as tears collected in his eyes, and a muffled scream was emitted from behind his covering hands, accompanied by copious dribbles of blood that oozed from between his fingers--Zhenmeng must have dislodged at least one tooth. 

 

 Zhenmeng seized a fistful of the snivelling snitch's t-shirt with his free hand and hauled the teenager's upper body towards him, his previously restraining foot moving to the floor. He cocked the hammer of his pistol and bent down until his face was only a few inches from the boy's; his battered mug in stark contrast with Zhenmeng's handsome features. 

 

 "Yes, you like to watch," Zhenmeng hissed into the spy's face while brandishing the handgun where he could see it. The informant whimpered and tried to turn away from his attractive but merciless attacker, but the Asian man would have none of it. "Look at me when I talking to you, you shit!" he snarled, shaking the boy hard in his grasp until he complied. He calmed then, his wide grin returning. "Your eyes are odd, now," Zhenmeng remarked, scrutinising the ferret's swollen shut left eye. "You want me even eyes up?" He brought up his pistol to the boy's other, widely dilated eye, and pressed the end of the barrel against it, forcing it closed. "Well, little spy?"

 

 "Please…" the informant pleaded in a soft, frightened voice, sounding like the kid he merely was. He trembled before Zhenmeng, and Jean could make out tears leaking from his one good eye. "Please don't… please… PLEASE!" 

 

 The ferret's whispers rose to a final crescendo in Jean's ears, his shriek borne of pure, undiluted terror filling the basement and snapping the Soldats follower out of his stupor. What the hell was he doing, just literally sitting here on his ass looking on as events got more and more out of hand? Did he *want* to die?! Zhenmeng and Sakamoto were clearly hardened criminals; there was no way they were going to let any of them live! Simon and his informant were just kids at heart; they were both screwed the second Zhenmeng and Sakamoto came into the basement, but damn it, Jean had ties to Soldats; for god's sake he should use those ties! He had to inform someone--Breffort, his former superiors; frankly *anyone* with Soldats!--that the Asian men wanted in Paris by the society were here, underneath Simon's computer shop front. It was his duty! And if Soldats happened to deploy a hit squad to his location--and to his rescue--as a result then that would be fine, too. After all, Jean couldn't continue to serve Soldats if he was dead.

 

 While Zhenmeng further toyed with the snitch, jamming the barrel of his pistol harder into his eye as he spouted more intimidating suggestions about what to do with it, Jean began edging his right hand--the one furthest away from the black-clad man and hidden from view by his legs--across the dusty concrete floor and towards his pants' pocket. Utilising his mobile phone was the only option he could think of without resorting to suicidal heroics, something he was definitely not suited for. If Jean could get a text message to Breffort, the council member could have a taskforce dispatched to save his bacon before it was shot full of holes. 

 

 Jean crept his hand closer to his pocket as quickly as he dared, his movements offset by a slowing wariness--desperation and fear battling each other to a stalemate. Cold sweat trickled lazily down his face and stung his eyes, while also sticking stray strands of his shoulder length hair to his cheeks. His heart thumped rapidly in his chest, a manic beat that flooded his eardrums and one he thought loud enough for everybody in the room to hear. Contrary to his internal tension, outwardly Jean appeared to be sitting sedately on the floor, albeit somewhat restless but not beyond the level that one would expect somebody in his situation to be. Or at any rate, he prayed he appeared that way. 

 

 Jean's fingertips touched his phone inside his pocket; the feeling of plastic on his skin motivating him to proceed with a burst of both improved hope and heightened fear. Carefully, and using only his fingertips, he slid the mobile phone out of his pocket, gently lowering it to the floor to not make a sound. The partial darkness Jean had been pushed into by Zhenmeng worked to his advantage but also to his disadvantage; the movements of his fingers on the phone would be greatly concealed, however as soon as he started pressing buttons the device would light up in an condemning green glow; a beacon plainly displaying his actions to anybody who cared to look his way. He would have to work fast and simply pray that his body would shield the bright phone from everybody's gaze. 

 

 Keeping his eyes fixed on Zhenmeng and the abused informant while schooling his breathing to stay relaxed and rhythmic in an endeavour to preserve the innocuous look of a scared young guy, Jean commenced typing a short and succinct message to Breffort, his fingers dancing over the keypad with a speed and deftness produced by fear. The seconds past like hours, and as each one ticked by Jean's heart felt like it was going to leap out from his throat. 

 

 But then it was done. Jean hit the button to send the precious message to the Soldats higher-up and then allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief--there was no doubt in his mind that Breffort would receive and read it almost instantaneously; in his position the man had to be forever on the ball. Jean just hoped that he would send help in time. 

 

 Jean looked away from Zhenmeng… and unwittingly locked eyes with the steely violet stare of Sakamoto. He stood motionless directly in front of Jean with his head turned the Soldats operative's way, a black and white stone statue erected imperiously about a metre from the foot of the basement stairs; a silent sentry barring the sole route out of this underground torture chamber. Or perhaps a gargoyle in human form. The glow from the computers illuminated only half of Sakamoto, his features split down the middle in a mirror of light and dark; one side deathly pale, the other veiled in shadow--a man with one foot in the grave… or maybe emerging from it.

 

 Jean's throat dried out, what little moisture it had left vaporised by the manifestation of a sudden desert plain. Sakamoto had been so still, so quiet, that he had forgotten the man was even there. His rowdy partner's antics had also proved to be a magnet for attention, leaving him free from eyes and minds to lurk unnoticed and do as he wished, blending into the backdrop until he became indistinguishable from any other part of it. It was a fact that Jean had learned too late, and now had the potential to be a fatal mistake. Hysterical panic poised to snatch hold of him, and he swallowed hard in an effort to maintain control of himself although the action came with difficultly, a parched wasteland shifting. He unconsciously held his breath as he stared unblinkingly at Sakamoto, somehow unable to break the look in spite of fervently wanting to. Sweat pasted his clothes to his body and Jean felt chilled, but it wasn't because of the perspiration. Had Sakamoto seen him use his mobile phone? Shit. He was dead. He was dead!

 

 A muted buzzing suddenly emanated from inside Sakamoto's overcoat, the noise causing Zhenmeng to look over his shoulder at his associate, his gun still squashed into the cavity of the ferret's eye. Sakamoto, however, did not immediately react, instead prolonging the stare with Jean, much to the Soldats agent's dismay. But, eventually, he reached inside his ebony coat and fished out a phone, opening it up and bringing it to his ear while his gaze welcomingly wandered away from Jean.

 

 The Soldats follower's muscles relaxed and he resumed breathing again. Saved by the buzz--right now to him there was no sweeter sound. 

 

 After simply holding the phone to his mouth and ear for several moments, Sakamoto grunted into the receiver and started speaking what Jean believed to be Chinese or Japanese to the person on the other line, his voice monotonous--unemotional. "Kaede…? …Hmph…. Doko? …Ryoukai."

 

 The conversation was brisk and Jean got the impression it was rather curt as well-- whomever Sakamoto had been speaking to must not be regarded as a friend by the black-garbed man. His sour expression that was even bitterer than his regular ill-tempered countenance as he put his phone away helped to also attest to that likelihood. Whoever the caller had been, he or she should watch their back. 

 

 "Dare?" Zhenmeng said, although Jean had no clue as to what that meant. 

 

 Sakamoto shook his head slightly at his partner and then turned to Simon, the hacker still clutching his gushing mouth and crying softly. "You," the white-haired man said grimly as he took a couple of steps towards the computer expert, speaking French once again. "Find me an address."

 

 Simon looked up at Sakamoto, his eyes wet and his chest heaving as he blubbered, reduced to a bawling baby by a single smack in the mouth. Jean would have found it funny if he was sure he wouldn't devolve to such a state himself if--or rather when, he amended with worry--Zhenmeng or his partner transferred their attention to him. 

 

 Without warning a deafening bang exploded inside the basement, followed by a scream of excruciating agony. Jean and Simon jumped at the ear-splitting blast and looked to its source, while Sakamoto simply looked, unafraid and unsurprised.

 

 "My finger slipped," Zhenmeng said with a sheepish smile, holding up his smoking pistol for emphasis. Yeah, right. Jean knew that men like him did not make errors like that. 

 

 The informant was the one responsible for the scream. He writhed on the floor holding his left thigh, which was haemorrhaging like a busted water pipe. Blood pumped from the gunshot's entrance and exit wound on the front and rear of his leg as he futilely attempted to stem the top stream with his hands, screeching all the while. 

 

 Sakamoto looked at the bloodthirsty Zhenmeng for a few seconds as the shorter man shrugged nonchalantly, and then returned his attention to a now even more petrified Simon, apparently dismissing his partner's barbaric act. 

 

 "Find me an address," Sakamoto repeated to Simon over the wails of the informant. The hacker didn't seem to be listening however; his eyes were riveted to his spy howling at full volume on the floor as the teenager bled his life away. Simon had even ceased weeping, although his damp cheeks and red eyes remained as evidence to his lapse of nerve. 

 

 A series of bright orange flares lit up the centre of the gloomy basement as gunfire once more erupted, and the snitch's tortured cries were abruptly cut off--permanently. Jean looked on as Zhenmeng fired five or six rounds into Simon's ferret, ruby rosettes bursting out of his jerking torso like rupturing cists. And then he was dead. Just like that. Blood seemed to flow from everywhere, running freely on the floor. There was so much of it. Jean had never seen a dead body before, let alone someone murdered right before his eyes. It was horrific, but at the same time fascinating. He was surprised at how easy it was for someone to die. 

 

 "Finally!" Zhenmeng exclaimed in relief, shaking his head down at the corpse. "I thought you would never shut up! Don't you know it is rude to talk while others try to talk? Geez!" He pulled the trigger of his handgun again and sent another bullet into the carcass of what had previously been a living, breathing person; the projectile's entry lost in the swamp of red on its chest. 

 

 Sakamoto spared another glance at his murdering companion and then looked back to Simon. "Find me an address," he demanded yet again, this time in absolute quiet. "The name is Albert Laroque. Find him; find it. Now."

 

 Simon bobbed his head emphatically, his wide eyes staring at the remains of his informant; probably envisioning his own fate would be the same as his contact's if he failed to cooperate. 

 

 Jean blinked, his own, morbid curiosity in the ferret's cadaver disrupted at the mention of a name he recognised. "Albert Laroque…?" he gasped. Albert Laroque was almost on par with Breffort, a senior Soldats official just an echelon below the council. How had Sakamoto learnt that name?! Jean himself had only overheard it once from his superiors. "That's--!" Jean continued to blurt out, before the Soldats agent shut up abruptly, realising his slip. 

 

 But the realisation came belatedly. Looking frantically between Sakamoto and Zhenmeng, he saw them look back at him, fresh interest on their faces. Jean looked quickly away, his gaze moving to the unguarded stairs, fear fuelling the adrenaline that started to course through his veins at a frenzied rate. Escape. He couldn't wait for an armed Soldats unit to come to his rescue now; he was going to end up like the ferret if he didn't flee at once. He had made a small blunder, but to men whose heads a huge and influential organisation like Soldats sought, a small blunder may as well be a gigantic, glaring misstep. If the duo didn't pick up on it, it would be an act of god. 

 

 "You know, I have been smelling something in here that I cannot put finger on," Zhenmeng commented, as if merely talking about the weather. He strolled away from the body of the informant he had created, meandering casually towards the basement staircase. His pistol was still in his hand, spoiling the image of a man simply taking a peaceful walk. 

 

 Jean's heart raced, and sweat once again beaded on his brow. Fear. Fear gripped him like an entity; freezing his heart and numbing his limbs, lead weights tied to his arms and legs. The steps looked so far away and yet so close, tantalising before his eyes, a staircase to Heaven; salvation in wood. He could make it. All he had to do was move. Zhenmeng had the gun, but he had the Fear. And Fear gave people wings. 

 

 Jean leapt up and sprinted for the staircase. His feet seemed to float over the floor as his legs pumped furiously, his white-feathered wings propelling him to deliverance; the wings borrowed from the Angel of Mercy. Hope rose inside his heart--a giddy feeling, light and airy, as if he were soaring high amongst the clouds. 

 

 But then the wings disintegrated, the angel turning from him, and Jean crashed to the ground, to the hard concrete floor. Hope died as an agony exploded in his left knee, buckling it. His ears rang, the wailing song of fallen angels--demons, or rather, men and women as demons, the only reality in this world. No forgiving angels treaded where Jean was, and Heaven was a myth held onto only by the damned. The sole angels here were those of the ruthless kind--Vengeance and Death. The Angel of Death had cast its lifeless gaze upon Jean this night, and now its servant, the devil masquerading as an imp, was coming to carry out the seraphim's bidding. 

 

 Zhenmeng grinned at Jean hunched over on the floor, his eyes lingering on his shattered knee, a bullet having torn it apart. He squatted down to the Soldats operative's level, and prodded the wound with the barrel of his gun, still hot from its recent use--a burning pitchfork in Hell, a domain that was no myth. Jean clenched his teeth, grinding them forcefully together to prevent himself from screaming. 

 

 "You stink, pal," Zhenmeng was saying, his voice coming from the other end of a long hallway, tinny and faint. "You stink like Soldats…."

 

 Fear was a double-edged sword, all false hope and misguiding proposals. And as for the Angel of Mercy, if it did in fact exist… it was just fickle. But hell, Jean hadn't been much of a religious type anyway. 

 

 ******

 

 Kirika ducked her head back under the protection of the table after Millet's closing words, her last sight of her and Mireille's target one of him brusquely waving his arm in a signal for his assembled men to recommence their attack. And then suddenly bullets were falling like raindrops, a deadly downpour that descended from all angles and were released by a gathering of men, rather than one of clouds. And no storm that was birthed in the heavens could match the fury or danger of this particular tempest. No, a storm like this could only be akin to those in that place called Hell, wrought by the same kinds of people: sinners, for those of pure, peaceful hearts did not create such things. Hell was a sinner's final destination after Death claimed them, or so it was written. Kirika wasn't sure if it were true or not, but if it was, then many new faces would be appearing in the depths of its fiery pits tonight, joining the ones she and Mireille had already condemned to that wicked place. 

 

 A deluge of slugs showered the tabletop above Kirika's head, the pitter-patter thuds of lead compacting against wood loud in her ears. She could make out the crashes and tinkles of breaking glass above the storm--gunfire heavily saturating Mireille's position behind the bar, bottles and glasses destroyed uncaringly in its wake, liquor spilling like blood. But Mireille would be okay. Kirika had utter confidence in her abilities, and in the woman herself--if she didn't, then she could never wholly have faith in her while in the midst of combat; their duet would lack cohesion, lack trust. Still, the girl was also aware of the limits of the blonde's abilities, and as a result she would feel more at ease if she could take some of the pressure off of her partner; Mireille was effectively pinned down where she was with very little opportunity to shoot back, the dual automatic fire from Millet's FN P90 on the gantry above and his goon's AKSU-74 on the floor the main culprits. But Kirika's desire to assist her love would have to wait; the darkhaired assassin had her own troubles to deal with right now.

 

 Kirika saw that the five sets of legs in amongst the tables' and chairs' metal ones were rapidly bearing down on her, weaving around the furniture or in some cases, throwing them roughly out of their path. The group was close, almost upon her, a mere handful of metres separating them. She had been sitting here in shelter for long enough; it was time to venture out into the raging tempest… and deliver calm. 

 

 Kirika pinpointed the lead gangster's legs and fired a round from her Beretta into his left shinbone, producing a scream and causing him to trip forwards and land on all fours, temporarily halting his fellows' progress behind him and also distracting them… just as the sharp girl had predicted. She rolled backwards in a tight ball, out from under the table, and then smoothly uncurled onto her feet, standing upright. The glare from the spotlight mounted on the gantry hit her full in the face as she rose, harsh white making her squint and painting her as clear target. But there was no time to worry about that, nor could she let herself be sidetracked by her marred vision. A moment's hesitation would spell a swift end--she had to keep moving, she had to stay fast on her feet. And she had to have faith. 

 

 As if in answer to Kirika's silent conviction, the spotlight suddenly cut out in a burst of glass along with its neighbour highlighting the ravaged bar, both smashed by a well-aimed 9mm bullet shot by a guardian angel. Even when under intense suppressing fire Mireille played her role as Kirika's vigilant partner to the absolute best of her capabilities; one eye on the battle, one eye on the girl, and then acting on her behalf when necessary. It was much like Kirika herself behaved in regards to her pledge to defend Mireille; the only difference was, the girl's vow endured beyond the heat of combat. Although if she thought about it Mireille did look out for her during their everyday lives too, her recent conversation with the woman in the bar nearby Millet's headquarters earlier tonight coming to mind. But that was due to no childhood promise--Mireille had not made one like Kirika's at any stage of her life to the girl's knowledge. Instead, Kirika believed it was a product of love. 

 

 Kirika bounded up on the table, the previous incoming gunfire that had battered it only seconds before ceased with the approaching gangsters' attentions diverted to their lamed comrade. She took two quick steps across the deeply gouged surface of the table and leapt off it, aiming straight for the goons a short distance behind it. The men looked up from their still howling friend as Kirika hurled herself at them, their faces registering their shock at her unexpected manoeuvre and appearance, while the hands wielding their weapons reacted sluggishly. 

 

 Kirika moved her gun to the right and pulled the trigger twice in quick succession as she sailed through the air, her legs tucked neatly underneath her body, muscles taut and primed. A gangster on her far right took the two rounds in the forehead, dropping him immediately. He fell backwards onto a table, before he slid limply off it and to the floor, lying dead amid the surrounding chairs. One down, one crippled, and three left. 

 

 As soon as Kirika was in range, she uncoiled her legs from underneath her and lashed out with both her feet in a wide midair scissor kick, striking two gangsters standing to her left and right hard in the face, while leaving a central one unmolested. But the remaining man's reprieve was short-lived; while the two other gangsters were reeling from the assassin's twin blows, she folded her legs back to her body before clamping her thighs around his head with crushing force, a choking sound escaping his throat. Kirika grabbed his right wrist with her free hand and kept it well away from her as he desperately attempted to shove his pistol into her ribs to free himself from her vice-like grip, his shots discharging harmlessly into the floor instead. Meanwhile the momentum of her jump toppled the goon, and as they fell together the girl put the silenced barrel of her Beretta M1934 to his left eye and fired a single, decisive time, putting a lump of lead into his brain. 

 

 The dead gangster's back hit the floor and Kirika released his head from between her thighs before rolling forwards, agilely ending up back on her feet. By then the pair of still upright enemies--their injured companion remaining hunched over on the floor, whimpering in pain--had recovered themselves and were turning around after her, their faces furious and marked with blood; one with a split lip and the other with a bloodied nose. Their guns were raised and about to voice their anger in a way mere words never could--sinners often spoke in such a method. 

 

 But the gangsters' voices would be ineffective; the darkhaired assassin was already relocating--fast. Kirika dashed for the nearest table, jumping upon it and then running atop it before hopping randomly to the next one, preferring to use them to swiftly traverse the sea of round tables and chairs instead of wading through it. True, she was completely open as she sprung from table to table--a bounding blur--but in some cases speed and deftness more than made up for cover… like this case. 

 

 The sights of the goons' weapons tracked Kirika, the men unleashing their rage in a hail of bullets. However, they trailed slightly behind the lithesome assassin, the shots chasing her staggered, somewhat circular path around them with a delay of at least a full second--much too slow. Yet Kirika would not be able to dodge their gunfire forever, and more importantly Mireille was waiting for her support--one rule of being an assassin Altena's training had indoctrinated in her was to perform a kill quickly and without hesitation; if someone was deemed to die then die they should as soon as possible, the means did not matter as long as it was efficiently done. In the opera of Death to play around invited it. And this dance had gone on long enough.

 

 The instant Kirika's feet landed on a table again she abruptly stopped in its centre and spun around, her right leg extending outwards and lodging in between a nearby chair's backrest and seat, bringing the piece of furniture with her. The chair wasn't too heavy--a steel frame with the rest made up of an aluminium alloy--nevertheless one would think a girl of Kirika's build would find difficulty in lifting it in such a manner with only a single leg. However, she did so with minimum effort. The muscles of her outwardly belying scrawny leg tightened to firm cords, revealing a power beneath the veneer of frailty along with a fine muscle tone developed over many years of arduous exercise. Kirika's body was a weapon, and to be an effective weapon it had to possess a degree of strength great enough to brandish hefty firearms with consummate skill and to be a rival to any foe's in close combat. Breaking bones--for example, necks--did require some effort, after all.

 

 Kirika flung the chair at the two gangsters trying to shoot her at the apex of her whirl, the flying package of metal bashing into the men and knocking them off balance, as well disrupting their aim. The assassin then dived towards them, her Beretta held in both her hands. She fired twice, splotches of crimson appearing on the goons' chests before they collapsed beside the thrown chair, defeated. 

 

 Kirika landed on another round table to the rear of the slain men and skimmed across it on her stomach before she came to a halt, shifting onto her side. The first gangster she had shot finally clambered to one knee beside the table, his gun lifting to target her in a quivering grasp. The man's countenance was pale and drawn with the affliction of fear combined with pain, sweat plainly visible on his brow and coursing down his face. He looked upon Kirika as if she were not a mere young girl but a monster come to get him, as if she were a… a demon. But he was right. She was a demon, wasn't she? A demon that wore the guise of a girl. His was an expression she had seen countless times on just as many different faces. And she understood it; she understood why they looked at her like that--they had been sinners face to face with a sinner worse than themselves. A sinner amongst sinners. 

 

 <A sinner amongst sinners….>

 

 Kirika casually kicked the goon's pistol out of his weak grip where she lay, and then shot him squarely in the head, putting him summarily out of his mental and physical misery. Let the sinners fear, let the sinners think what they like; she didn't care. What did it matter? The only person's feelings Kirika was concerned about was Mireille's; everybody else's were unimportant. Kirika was a demon--so be it. She was a demon loved by an angel--she could be the most terrible sinner in the world as long as Mireille looked upon her with eyes filled with affection, as long as she was bathed in the soothing light of her partner's all encompassing love.

 

 There was a sharp crack from a short distance away followed by a rapidly nearing piercing whistle, prompting Kirika to roll quickly off the table and to the floor, a split second before the whistling reached its climax. A rifle round suddenly took a chunk out of the table where she had lain moments before, the impact rocking it above her head. One of the snipers on the gantry with Millet had set his sights on her. 

 

 Kirika tilted her head to one side as she ejected the depleted clip from her pistol, a single reddish-brown eye peeking out from under the table to verify her deductions. She saw that Millet was blazing away at Mireille's position with his submachine gun, barking orders and curses in the same breath. His escort to the right of him armed with a rifle was in the interim occupied with trying to pick off Mireille every time the woman stuck her head out of cover to return fire. Thankfully, the gangster had been unsuccessful so far; his bad aim likely caused by the bloody wound in his upper right arm--Mireille had no doubt categorised that particular man as a priority threat. 

 

 Millet's second accompanying minion also bearing a bolt-action rifle had abandoned Mireille as a target however and was now focusing on Kirika, the girl's swift despatching of five of his friends a probable motivation. At this range it would be tricky for her to take him down, not because she wouldn't be able to hit him, but rather because her Beretta M1934 lacked the stopping power needed to deliver a fatal injury. Kirika would have to get closer, but that would mean racing into an open space without even tables to bounce around on, as well as risking being shot by the other gangsters still on their feet. 

 

 Kirika pulled back her head just as the sniper fired at her once again, the bullet whizzing by the edge of the sheltering table and striking the floor next to her leg. The assassin ignored the near miss and retrieved a fresh magazine from the ammunition holder strapped around her left thigh under her skirt, her eyes meanwhile gazing ahead of her, assessing the rest of this theatre of conflict. From under the table she could make out that the cluster of men who had gathered on the peculiar stage beside the curtains appeared to be all wiped out, their bodies slumped unmoving and chaotically about the vicinity. Kirika had known they would be among the first to die--Mireille would never let such vulnerable targets go unchallenged, nor would she allow them to rectify their serious error in judgement. 

 

 Kirika slid the new clip into her pistol, her eyes moving to the left hand side of the stage's catwalk. She observed that the group of enemies assembled there were still more or less intact; only two corpses sprawled at the feet of their more lively comrades. Unfortunately the gangster armed with the AKSU-74 was not among them, instead joining his friends in spraying the bar Mireille was hiding behind liberally with steaming lead. Something still had to be done about him; his constant barrage of fire upon the blonde's location was making it hard for her to counterattack.

 

 "Son of a--!!" Kirika heard Millet roar all of sudden, his tone teeming with agony, while the drone of his spitting FN P90 was brought to a halt. She chanced another peek out from cover, and saw that the leader of the syndicate she and Mireille were currently assaulting had taken a bullet in the right shoulder… and seemed to not like it one bit. 

 

 "God damn it!" Millet continued to loudly and most vehemently cuss, gnashing his teeth in pain. He turned angrily to his left escort, the rifleman intent on sniping at Mireille. "Use 'em, use 'em! I don't give a shit about the damage; just kill that whore! The place is already so fucked up anyway!" 

 

 The gangster nodded and put down his rifle, before bending down to retrieve something hidden behind the provisional wooden fortification running along the gantry, the numerous pockmarks dotting it no doubt a result of Mireille's stray shots. When next he stood upright he was holding a glass bottle containing a dark amber fluid in one hand, a dirty rag stuffed down its neck and dipping into the greasy-looking liquid. It was a Molotov cocktail--an improvised firebomb, makeshift napalm. Kirika was familiar with them; they were crude, but effective anti-personnel weapons. Typically the best ones were made of a mixture of petrol and oil, but any flammable substance worked. Flammable substance… Mireille was sitting behind the bar, where a myriad of alcoholic beverages had been spilled during the firefight… and all equally as flammable as the fluid in the Molotov. Even the slightest lick of flame would plunge the area into an instant scorching inferno, and the woman Kirika loved with it. 

 

 The cacophony of fierce shouts and spewing gunfire faded to a distant murmur as Kirika pulled back the hammer of her Beretta with her thumb, the click as it locked in place sharp in her ears; an underscore to her steadfast determination. A ghost of the past whispered to her, its feminine voice softly insistent, a reminder though she needed none. All other threats were suddenly relegated to the lowest precedence as a higher purpose cried out to the girl. With her pinned behind the bar, there was little Mireille could do to evade any Molotov cocktails tossed in her direction, nor was there any way she could flee from her current location without exposing herself to a variety of fire, automatic and otherwise. Mireille--Kirika's partner--needed her. And Kirika would answer her silent but unmistakable call. It was what she lived for. 

 

 It would take speed, dexterity and precision, but the girl knew she would succeed; she would *not* let Odette Bouquet down… and of course, she would not let Mireille Bouquet down either. A righteous purpose fuelled her, one rooted in love, not hate. And with that strength, Kirika would be unstoppable. 

 

 As the gangster on the gantry lit the cloth emerging from top of the Molotov cocktail he was holding with a lighter and prepared to launch it, Kirika rolled out from under the table and into an upright stance. Her manoeuvre placed her in reach of another table, close enough that she followed up her sideways roll with a second one across the tabletop without pause, fluidly rolling over her shoulder. The assassin moved swiftly, aware that she still had the attention of the now lone sniper who was tracing her every step with his rifle. 

 

 As Kirika's perspective of the room spun around, the goon on the gantry threw his flaming concoction, the bottle flying end over end on its destructive course for the highly combustible bar. Knowing that timing and accuracy were everything, as Kirika righted herself once again--her feet touching the surface of the table--she propelled herself off it, executing a midair cartwheel without any support whatsoever. Her vision spun yet again, a topsy-turvy world, but the girl's concentration remained focus. While she was completely upside down, Kirika targeted the Molotov cocktail and fired once, her solitary shot destroying the firebomb well short of its goal. Liquid flame mixed with glass shards drizzled down--Hell's rain--with small puddles of fire speckling the floor and continuing to burn long after the initial shower. 

 

 Kirika finished her cartwheel with her feet firmly on yet another round table, her landing perfect. She immediately leapt back the way she had come however--a simple jump this time--barely avoiding an incoming rifle round which instead struck the backrest of a chair that had been to her rear, bowling it over. 

 

 While the Molotov-chucking goon's first effort had failed, he would not give up that easily. He stubbornly set fire to another cocktail--evidently having several pre-prepared for Kirika and Mireille's coming--and then tossed it once again at the bar. 

 

 Kirika, seeing another prime danger to her love's safety, dived to her left and fired at the blazing object, her Beretta held steady in her two hands. A rifle round flew by inches from her face courtesy of the sniper, but the dedicated girl's aim held straight and true, blowing the Molotov cocktail apart in a fiery explosion and sending its blistering contents and its broken container down its predecessor's route--harmlessly to the floor. Her task accomplished, as the darkhaired girl sailed over a table she slammed her free hand on top of it--a prop. Her momentum continued to carry her through the air, her hand halting her upper body's motion but allowing her lower half to go on, and as a result, arranging her in a one-handed handstand. The position was fleeting however, Kirika letting herself continue onwards and out of the vulnerable pose until the manoeuvre had become another cartwheel, albeit one with a single arm for support. The lithe assassin finally ended up with her feet on the floor in the dense lake of tables and chairs. 

 

 Meanwhile, Millet had not taken kindly to Kirika's interference. "Someone shoot that little brat!" he shrieked, briefly breaking off his attack on Mireille with his FN P90, which he had been continuing to fire in spite of its vibrations that had to be aggravating his shoulder wound. His voice was somewhat hoarse and cracked near the end of his furious order, the consequence of bellowing non-stop at the top of his lungs throughout the battle. 

 

 In response, the gangster sporting the AKSU-74 submachine gun swung his weapon around to face Kirika, partnering with his rifle-wielding comrade hanging in the air above the stage in trying to kill the dexterous girl. 

 

 Kirika bent low and scurried under a table and didn't stop running as she was abruptly inundated with gunfire, the high-calibre AKSU-74 shredding apart the flimsy and already substantially pounded wooden tabletops in its path, their thin black vinyl covering proving to be no obstacle. It was going to be exceedingly tougher to dodge such heavy fire while defending Mireille from the Molotov cocktails, a fact that stood out like a bright flashing neon sign in Kirika's mind, much like the ones she had witnessed outside in the street before entering Millet's headquarters. Nevertheless, she would do it somehow. She would grow wings if she had to. 

 

 But Kirika's need to suddenly sprout wings turned out not to be necessary. As she spared a look over her shoulder, back at the goon who had been throwing the homemade firebombs, she was treated to the spectacle of his latest Molotov exploding in his grasp. The man using the AKSU-74 had made an oversight; he had redirected his formerly suppressing fire from the bar to assail Kirika, inadvertently freeing Mireille from a large portion of what had been keeping her more or less pinned. Millet's and his handful of remaining men's combined firepower--while formidable--was not sufficient enough to restrain an assassin of Mireille's talent indefinitely; in other words, they had uncaged the blonde. And now she was showing them her displeasure. 

 

 The gangster was completely swallowed in flames as soon as Mireille's Walther P99 burst his Molotov cocktail, the man becoming a human-sized conflagration--a literal screaming inferno. A third of the rickety gantry was set alight also, its wood walkway and the makeshift barricade succulent morsels for the hot flames. 

 

 Millet reacted quickly to the spontaneous combustion of his companion, kicking him in the chest and knocking him to the end of the gantry, wisely if heartlessly preventing him from spreading the fire. However as the melting gangster fell backwards and disappeared behind the stage's curtains, the said drapes caught on fire, the flickering flames scaling their entire length in a matter of seconds. Very soon half of the curtains on the right side of the stage were ablaze, and time was the only factor holding the fire back from consuming them all. 

 

 Mireille wasted no time after slaying the Molotov goon in a resourceful way, focusing her sights on the AKSU-74 man making life gruelling for Kirika now that his attention was diverted elsewhere. She blasted the oblivious gangster in the side of the head, her 9mm round splattering blood on his nearby friends as it drilled into his skull. He keeled over limply with his eyes rolled back and his mouth hanging open--as dead a person as Kirika had ever seen.

 

 Kirika altered her course when she realised her partner and her had traded roles again; Mireille was now watching her back, permitting the slender girl to perform hazardous feats she wouldn't normally do without backup… or without a valid reason, when the blonde woman's personal wellbeing was on the line coming to mind. 

 

 Kirika swerved around to the surviving gathering of men bordering the catwalk and charged daringly towards them, her pistol loosing death without pause. In the meantime, Mireille directed her fire to Millet and the sniper, forcing them to crouch behind cover and letting the girl proceed without having to worry about being shot from above. They were a flawlessly coordinated duet preparing for the grand finale. 

 

 Kirika gunned down the trio of remaining gangsters in as many heartbeats, the men not knowing what hit them as she unloaded all of her ammunition into their bodies, ensuring their quick deaths. She was executing a rush attack, an attack that stressed total commitment--if any of the enemy were left alive to retaliate it could be fatal… unless of course the rusher engaged them in close combat to tie up their firearms. But in this particular situation, Kirika couldn't even afford the few seconds for such an action--Millet and the sniper wouldn't stay in cover for long in spite of Mireille's efforts, and the darkhaired girl was in a ripe spot to receive a bullet… or several.

 

 Kirika threw herself to the floor as flush to the catwalk as she could, anticipating that she would be under fire at any second. But instead she heard the rapid muted discharge of Mireille's silenced pistol as she fired at will, and then all of a sudden there was a loud snap. Kirika poked her head cautiously above the catwalk and saw that the right foremost rope securing the gantry over the stage had broken, the probable result of the flames eating away at it and Mireille's further weakening gunshots. The blonde assassin then quickly shifted her aim to the opposite rope--one of two holding up the other end of the gantry--her blue eyes narrowing as she pinpointed the very slim target, before she unleashed a volley of rounds at it, her intentions obvious. 

 

 Millet and the sniper stumbled forwards into the barricade as the gantry jerked suddenly, before half the structure gave way, the support rope Mireille had shot at-- fraying it--tearing in two. The pair of men were thrown from their perch and deposited unceremoniously onto the stage, momentarily stunned and open to attack, their weapons having escaped their hands. The end of the play--of the opera--was upon Kirika and Mireille. 

 

 Kirika leapt to her feet, shoving her empty Beretta into the waistband of her purple skirt at the small of her back. She then sprung onto the stage in one spry jump, Mireille vaulting effortlessly over the bullet hole ridden and glass-strewn surface of the bar and dashing to assist her as she did so. Millet and the rifleman began to rouse and clamber to their feet, but it was too late for them, even if they had maintained their grasps on their respective firearms. Kirika pounced at a nearby brass pole--one of those strange decorations running across the stage and along the middle of the catwalk--and latched onto it with both hands, before swinging herself gracefully around it, her feet leading the way. 

 

 The sniper looked up and was unexpectedly met by Kirika's feet planting squarely into his chest, violently smashing him backwards through the air. The back of his head then connected with an audible clang against the railing of the dangling gantry to his rear, painfully halting his flight and dropping him onto the stage in a heap. The gangster then struggled onto all fours, only to be lethally shot several times in the ribs; Mireille finishing off her partner's handiwork. 

 

 In the meantime Kirika continued to whirl around the pole with her lingering momentum, using what was left of it to reach Millet. She twisted her exceptionally flexible body into the required posture and then locked her legs on either side of his neck, trapping his head between her strong calves. Next, utilising his own bodyweight in conjunction with her physical strength, she overbalanced him and flung him headlong off the stage, dumping him hard against its side and in front of Mireille's waiting gun. Kirika then completed the flowing manoeuvre, twirling around the golden pole gradually lower and lower until her feet touched the stage, the agile girl coming to an elegant stop. She released the pole and hopped to the floor to join Mireille and their subdued target. All adversaries had been neutralised and the room was quiet; still--the opera had concluded. 

 

 Kirika pulled out her Beretta from behind the waistband of her skirt and replaced its depleted magazine with a full one as she walked to Mireille's side--just because the fighting was over didn't mean she could relax or become careless; there might be some remnants of Millet's syndicate still lurking in the building. As she approached her partner, she scanned her eyes over the woman's body, checking for injuries. But Kirika had upheld her earlier promise; there wasn't so much as a scratch to be seen on Mireille. Her light lilac coat and white pants were soiled with dark patches in several places however, probably the result of copious amounts of alcoholic drinks spilling down on her from bullet-cracked bottles while she had been behind the bar. 

 

 Millet glowered up at Mireille and Kirika from his spot on the floor, one hand reaching up to apply pressure to his gunshot wound in his right shoulder. Blood trickled down the side of his head also--no doubt caused by one of his recent tumbles--and sweat rings stained the underarms of his white shirt, with dust also tarnishing the garment. All in all, his once immaculate bearing was ruined. 

 

 "You think you can do this to me?! And don't care how good you are; I'll see you both dead! DEAD!" Millet threatened the impassive duo of assassins, spittle flying from his mouth. But he had become a dog devoid of teeth; all bark and no bite.

 

 "You will tell us everything you know," Mireille said flatly, her Walther levelled at Millet's chest and clearly unintimidated by the man's vow. "Who hired you, what details regarding us you have learned, how you knew to expect our arrival here; *everything*." Puddles of flame burned around the blonde assassin's feet from the destroyed Molotov cocktails, while the raging fires continuing to steadily engulf the stage's maroon curtains painted dancing orange lights on her cool face--an angel standing tall and proud in Hell before its cowed populace. Millet would talk. 

 

 Kirika's gun abruptly snapped to the curtains adorning the left side of the stage--yet untouched by the fires devouring its neighbours--as her keen hearing detected footsteps coming from that direction. Seconds later her suspicions proved correct, and a man emerged from behind the drapes, black square sunglasses shielding his eyes and reflecting the hot blaze nearby him. Kirika recalled him as the goon who had been on the gantry talking to Millet minutes before the firefight. 

 

 "You're wasting your time," the sunglasses man spoke as he rather nonchalantly traversed the stage towards Kirika and Mireille and their captive, apparently undaunted by the former young woman's pistol aimed his way. However, Kirika saw that his forehead was streaked with glistening sweat, but if it was caused by the heat of the adjacent curtain fire or by trepidation she couldn't be certain. "He doesn't know anything." 

 

 "Jacques! What are you doing?! Shoot them!" Millet wailed as he craned his neck to look over his shoulder at his apparent associate, although Jacques' loyalty did seem to be questionable. 

 

 "Nah, I don't think so," Jacques said as he jumped off the stage, landing a few feet away from Kirika and Mireille, the darkhaired girl's Beretta M1934 warily following his every move. 

 

 "WHAT?!" Millet yelled incredulously, his body tensing as if he were about to leap up in outrage and prompting Mireille to remind him of the Walther pointing at him with a slight wave of the weapon. "You traitor! I knew there was something strange about you today! How much did they pay you, you mercenary bastard?!"

 

 Jacques said nothing and just smirked, albeit a bit uneasily, a nervous tick repeatedly pulling up the raised corner of his mouth.

 

 Mireille's eyes flicked briefly to Jacques before returning to a seething Millet, wordlessly putting her trust in Kirika to watch their new guest carefully. "You had better talk fast before we decide to treat you like another one of his men," the woman then warned in a no-nonsense tone, motioning at Millet with her Walther P99. 

 

 Jacques bobbed his head, his gaze roaming around the room and at the carnage it enclosed. "Heh, yeah, real impressive that," he commented in a weak chuckle. He then threw his hands up in a gesture of peace for Kirika's benefit, before slowly moving his hand to his blue suit jacket pocket and retrieving a cigarette. Squatting down with equal care, Jacques lit the end of it in a small nearby pool of Molotov flame with a slightly trembling hand, before standing up again. 

 

 "He's just a tool, an ignorant pawn, really," he revealed after taking a quick inhalation of his cigarette, breathing out the smoke in a sigh. He then smirked again, his eyes drifting to Millet who sat incensed on the floor. "But then what other kind of pawn is there?"

 

 "Bastard…!" Millet snarled, his fury held in check only by Mireille's gun. Kirika was sure that if it weren't for her partner he would be ripping Jacques to shreds with his bare hands by now. The girl wondered though how long the threat of eating a bullet would dissuade him however; Millet looked very angry.

 

 "It was his employers who provided the specifics to set this up, along with last night's ambush," Jacques went on. "Two Asian guys I'm sure you're familiar with…" 

 

 "That's a lie and you know it!" Millet shouted heatedly. "It was *you* who set the attacks up!"

 

 "Be quiet," Mireille snapped at Millet in a stern voice. "Why should we trust anything you say?" she then directed to Jacques in a tone not much less harsh.

 

 The brown haired man smiled and slowly took the cigarette from between his lips. "Let's just say we have a… mutual friend… whose interests coincide with your own."

 

 "Does this friend have a name?" Mireille asked scornfully, although Kirika suspected the blonde already knew it, just like she herself did--Soldats.

 

 Jacques simply continued to smile, not saying anything--he didn't have to.

 

 "Still, I say again; why should we trust anything you have say?" Mireille then said, the contempt she possessed for the organisation Jacques evidently worked for an almost tangible thing. 

 

 "Funny," the Soldats operative deadpanned.

 

 "I wasn't joking," Mireille said coldly. 

 

 Jacques merely looked at the imposing blonde for a few seconds, an expression of discomfort frozen on his face, before he took a quick, anxious breath and shook his head slightly. "Look, we're on the same side here. What's more I'm just a messenger in the right place at the right time," he confessed. "You really are wasting your time; this trail leads to a dead end--there's someplace else you have to be." He paused to nervously puff on his cigarette. "Pierpont," he then stated in a plume of smoke. "I was told you would recognise that name." 

 

 "Pierpont?" Mireille parroted, frowning in puzzlement. Kirika was no less perplexed--Pierpont--or rather, Simon Pierpont--the horrible boy she had visited with her love unfortunately on more than one occasion. What did he have to do with the false Noir? Had he somehow tracked them down?

 

 "Yeah. Pierpont," Jacques confirmed. "And that's all I was told. So now I guess I should take my leave. This place is gonna be crawling with cops pretty damn soon anyway… that is--" He grinned at Millet, provoking a scowl from his 'boss', and then flicked his cigarette at the bar. It sailed over it and vanished behind the structure, flames suddenly erupting like some sort of incandescent plant life where it had landed out of sight. The fire spread quickly with all the potent liquor that had been splattered haphazardly about the bar, and in moments it had become an unbridled bonfire, the peaks of the pyre clawing upwards to scrape the ceiling charcoal. "--if the Fire Department doesn't get here first."

 

 "You're a walking corpse," Millet swore in a low, dangerous voice, his headquarters literally going up flames around him. "You'll never be able to walk the streets of this city again without always looking over your shoulder. I'll see to it."

 

 "Look around; this place is finished," Jacques chuckled, unafraid. "*You're* finished." He then nodded in parting to Mireille, his eyes passing for an instant over Kirika--who had yet to lower her gun from his chest despite his claims of being on her and her partner's side; he was still Soldats, after all--before he turned around and began to walk to the front doors of the building, his prior entrance into the room via the rear of the curtains now an impassable firestorm. 

 

 "Oh, one more thing, Richard," Jacques said, looking back over his shoulder. "Did you know you're in the company of Noir? I mean the *real* Noir." The Soldats agent grinned smugly. It was the grin of a winner. "Like I said; you're finished," he concluded, and then resumed casually heading towards the exit, putting his hands in his pants' pockets. Kirika waited only until he had departed before she at last repositioned her Beretta, moving it to accompany Mireille's Walther in watching over their prisoner.

 

 "Noir…" Millet whispered, Jacques duplicity forgotten and his ire deserting him in the face of fear. "It can't be…."

 

 Kirika noted that this time Mireille did not deny the allegation. "You mentioned before that it was just business between us," the blonde instead reminded him emotionlessly. "You were wrong." 

 

 Millet's head snapped back and banged against the edge of the stage as a 9mm Parabellum slug brutally invaded his cranium at close range and tore out the opposite side. A streak of blood containing very dark red, almost black, coagulated lumps plastered the floor of stage behind the dead man's head, while more of the substance dripped like syrup from part of the golden railing lining the semi-circular structure and the adjoining catwalk. 

 

 Kirika let her arms fall to her sides with Millet's demise and looked at Mireille as the woman did the same, relaxing her posture. She wondered what her love had meant by her final words to Millet. But the petite girl supposed it didn't really matter; Millet was dead now. And his entire syndicate was dead too, if the number of bodies littering the vicinity were any indication. There could still be a few lingering survivors, but for all intents and purposes the small criminal organisation had been wiped out with its leader.

 

 Kirika looked away from Mireille and gazed around the room, surveying the massacre that she'd had a substantial hand in. She had slain a lot of people tonight, but she had done so with no hesitation, with no misgivings. She had simply done what she'd had to do to protect Mireille's life; she had done what was necessary to honour her oath…. And that was to kill. This fight had not been like the previous one where Kirika had faltered, even if it was only for a moment. This time she'd had no such reluctance and furthermore she felt no remorse for the fallen sinners. This experience had been a test for her--a test whether she was truly devoted to Odette Bouquet's last words--and she had passed it. A murderer Kirika may be, but she was a murderer with virtuous intent.

 

 <And that makes all the difference, doesn't it…?>

 

 Kirika returned her soft brown eyes to Mireille and was a little surprised to see that the woman was looking at her. Seeing that she had the girl's attention, the blonde then motioned with a gentle tilt of her head back to the hallway connecting to the room. It was time to go. There was no need for Mireille to declare where they were going next, either--Simon Pierpont's place of residence. Kirika was not looking forward to it. 

 

 Where Jacques had taken the direct course using the front doors to vacate the burning building, Kirika and Mireille opted to use the proven route they had navigated to infiltrate it earlier--it was a path they were familiar with, and hence was the wisest to choose. If the two assassins were to be waylaid by any leftovers of Millet's syndicate while leaving the group's headquarters it would be to their advantage if they knew the layout of the combat zone. It was also that possible danger that encouraged Kirika and her partner to keep their weapons firmly in their hands as they walked. 

 

 As Kirika crossed the threshold into the corridor that eventually led out of the building, she peered back over her shoulder. The fires that had been consuming the stage's crimson curtains and the wrecked bar had crept away from their birthplaces in search of fresh nourishment, half the room now lost in an intense inferno. Flames climbed the walls and crawled along the floor, and most of the stage was alight, the carcasses of several gangsters lying there granted an impromptu cremation in their former headquarters. Kirika doubted whether the Fire Brigade would be able to save the building from being completely gutted by the raging conflagration. But maybe that was fitting; it had been a lair of sinners--Hell had come to claim its own. 

 

 And now Kirika and her love were departing that fiery, wicked domain; leaving behind its citizens also. A demon and an angel, side by side, partners against the darkness… and partners in life. Once they stepped outside into the cool night air, they would be bestowed a reprieve from their near constant war, even if it could never be a lasting one. Pseudo peace would be theirs. 

 

 And then of course the hope would come, the dream that the peace could endure forever more, that tomorrow it would all be over, just a nightmare woken up from. Or at least that was how Kirika felt. One day that dream would be realised. One day. But not today. 

 

 Mireille's blue eyes turned surreptitiously to Kirika as they travelled together down the corridor, stepping over the bodies of the men they had killed beforehand. A small smile formed on her beautiful face, one of barely controlled mirth if the introverted girl read it accurately. 

 

 "You looked… good… swinging on that pole back there," Mireille remarked matter-of-factly, her smile growing. 

 

 "Hm?" Kirika uttered in bewilderment as she looked at her love, her countenance similarly mystified. The blonde's amusement appeared to have doubled now, although the girl hadn't a clue as to why. Maybe Mireille was thinking of a funny joke. Not that Kirika ever understood any of them. On the numerous times her partner had attempted to explain them to her all the woman had done was cause her to feel even more baffled--she was starting to believe that perhaps Mireille had an odd sense of humour. She did seem to enjoy dressing Kirika up in a variety of clothes for some reason, after all; why couldn't her sense of humour be likewise affected?

 

 In any case, it didn't matter what Mireille was thinking--or what she took pleasure in, either, regardless of how strange it was--as long as she was happy. As long as she enjoyed the fleeting peace as much as Kirika herself did. 

 

 ******

 

 To be continued….

 

 

 Author's ramblings:

 

 I decided to give Kirika something to hold her ammunition clips in when she wears outfits with no pockets. She can't very well shove magazines in the waistband of her skirt now, can she? That's where her gun goes. ^_^

 

 Also, I figured Kirika has to be pretty strong. She did use an M16 once and handled the recoil effortlessly, plus breaking necks isn't exactly easy.