Rock and roll, the bitter girl. Heart beat.

Rock and roll, the shifting gears, the mechanical break and screech of start and stop; they rode a train partway to their destination, and, for once, they knew exactly where they were headed. Nora knew where she was headed. She was headed to a means to an end. Reward me, finally, she thought, reward me and let me go. Baby, don't go. What if she didn't? I'm going. No doubt.

She leaned back against the seat, picking at the tight uniform she'd worn to the fight with Horde, picking at it and letting it snap back against the bandaged scrapes on her legs just to see how much she'd have to pull back to make herself flinch. It was a mighty fine distraction, in her advanced opinion. She'd already finished checking and double checking the state of her pistol. Nothing else to do. So flick, and flick, and flick.

But the fortune teller, she'd been a nasty one with that last question, oh, ho, and - flick, flick, flick - she just couldn't help but think of it. Intrusive thoughts and all. "What did your brother do to you?" Flick, flick, flick. "The night of your graduation?" Flick, flick, flick. It'd been like that the whole twenty-four hours that'd passed. The last word always lingered: graduation. She'd worn yellow. She hated yellow now, but loved it then. What happened? She knew. She knew why yellow was less like the sun and more like acidic bile.

Nora clutched her head in her hands and sighed roughly against her wrists. "My mind is fucking everywhere tonight. Can't I just...enjoy? Enjoy the train ride? There, Nora. Be quiet and listen."

But rock and roll, the shifting gears. Familiarity of sound. It felt like the subway train, this did, and Nora couldn't help that the rattling of the vehicle lulled her into something old. Say, ten years prior. The day before her graduation, with the cap, the gown, the hallelujah, the mazel tov. She sat on that train and felt like an adult, growing old and growing wise. She'd met an old man dying on that train. All skin and bones, rattling skeletally in tune with the speeding vessel. He'd been weak, that man, head lolled back and eyes lolled back and limbs lolled back, pressed sharply against the coldness of the seats. Nobody touched him but everyone looked at him.

Until Nora, young girl that she was (and not yet tainted by the curse of indifference), stepped over and shook him by the shoulder. The man's eyes were so big, then, and his chin was bladelike in how he shot forward. Nora'd shrieked, and the other passengers stood at the sound, but never took her by the arm. It was strange to touch a stranger, and she ought to have known that. But the man saw her sudden fear, and he gave a real tight smile, and nodded. "Never let your fear decide your fate." And then he fell back and continued on dying like before.

The memory put a stiffness in Nora's back, in her shoulders, in the entirety of her being, egged on by the constant flick, flick, flick of the black fabric. It's nothing. "It's nothing. Chugga chugga." She inhaled. "Choo choo."

There wasn't even any need to worry, the more she thought of it - everybody would die anyways, eventually.

When the train met its last stop, they - the remaining six and then some - packed into two helicopters, rented out and meant to take them to the base of the Empire (what the fortune teller(s) told a more successful client). It wasn't meant to be impossible to find, and it wasn't meant to appear criminal. It blended in, but far from the city, and the whirring of their blades above nearly missed the building - dark as the sky was - when they came to it. So easy to overlook.

As they slowed and the wind lashed blue hair into her face, Nora got strange urges, urges she typically didn't feel so strongly in her gut. Like calling Aiyana and finally making sure everything was okay. Like seeing if Nancy from next door wanted a cigarette or if the man with the flowers wanted to deck those lousy kids by now. Like answering the fortune teller's last question, direct and genuine. "Gah," she muttered, squeezing the bridge of her nose. "Gah, gah, gah." Flick, flick, flick.

"Are you okay, Nora?"

She didn't have to look up to know that it was Irene, and through the corner of her eye she could see the hesitance and the remembrance of her hand hovering, but never landing, on Nora's knee. "Yeah, just nerves."

"It's always a 'yeah, just something' when I ask that, isn't it? Doesn't that seem strange?"

Nora's eyelids fell halfway down, tired, and her lips pressed themselves together. "It's nerves. I'm the jumpy one, like Azazel said."

"Alright."

It was good that they stopped talking there, as the wind slashed in loudly, and it was difficult to hear anything beyond the wide berth of Palila's mouth, directing and demanding things that Nora had no interest in hearing. Instead, she kept her sights on the ground below.

It was gusty and dark, the trees of silhouettes rubbing up against one another, but not in the "friendly" way, in the "we're desperate, keep shuffling along" way. Branches chafed and leaves flopped down against the sturdy walls of the base, every square inch donned in the color black save for the very bottom where fluorescents lined the outside against the grass, and intermittently across the top to illuminate the helmets of the guards stationed outside. It wasn't very tall, but if Nora had to guess, what they saw was merely the tip of the iceberg, and everything not meant for mortal eyes was kept far beneath the realm of roots. That's how it worked in that one zombie movie, anyways. Pharmaceutical companies were not to be trusted.

When she looked up, across instead of down, the lights of Tokyo sat yellow and blue and pretty in a distance not so far off, and parts of the sky that buildings didn't even touch were illuminated by all that laid beneath it. And, oh, Nora Belasco loved the city. I can catch a bus. Travel through Japan. Leave the group.

No.

Like the idea, the city disappeared from sight, and the helicopter descended down, down, down, beneath the trees. Nora wondered why, as they were very clearly seen by the enemy, and she turned back, wild-eyed and breathing tight, in confusion. Palila saw this. "The plan is for you six to go out all together in a group, protected by your power and guided by Maanyo. Had you been listening, you would've known this several minutes ago, but, as it stands, you've never been very good in group work, have you?"

Nora parted her lips, wanted to smart-talk, but figured it a waste of time for once, and clamped them to a close harshly, staring the woman down in the politest way she could manage. Considering it wasn't a very polite expression, this was very impressive. "Great. So I'm the human shield."

"Essentially, yes."

"What the fuck?"

"Listen," Palila started, rubbing the outer corners of her eyes, "you've done a plethora of things with that ability of yours. You've clawed open tin cans and flung out ropes of fire. You've sent out birds-"

Nora raised a finger. "That wasn't me."

"Well, regardless, if you can do all that, I believe that you can also conjure up a bulletproof shield with which to protect your fellow Project Phoenix members, if asked. Are you with us?"

Her skin felt tight around the eyes. She loosened up the squinting, loosened up the furrowing of her brows, loosened up the tension in her body. Just as well as Palila, she knew she'd very much be able to complete the assigned task, and if she denied, the woman could simply reach over and grab up her arm to force compliance anyhow. There were very few options sitting on that tongue of hers, yet still, she considered.

The helicopter made a soft landing on the wide roadway that led up to the front entrance of the base. With the wind less violent, she could finally hear the names of those around her in her head: King, Reason, Glacier, Maanyo, Irene. Six. There'd been twenty, once. But their numbers had dwindled every day, and all from the first night of the Empress's disappearance. Nora was a smart woman. She knew that the numbers would continue to dwindle until one of two things happened: the Empress returned, or the remainder of Project Phoenix abandoned their allegiance to her. If they went into this base, undoubtedly, someone would die before they came upon Sakura. She didn't need the eye to tell her that much.

Who would it be? Was that something Nora wanted to know? If she didn't participate, was that something that'd rest on her shoulders?

Think. Think for a second. If you get her out of here safe and sound, you're done. You're free. In an hour tops, your safety is secured. No more destination, no more pain.

Flick, flick, flick. She stuck out the arm that wasn't snapping the fabric, palm up. "Alright. Let's get this over with."

She kept her eyes facing the open side of the helicopter, the side that distant guards peered into without leaving their positions. It was easier to see the men and women with guns at their backs and shoulders and sides than it was to see the woman with nothing more than a bare hand reaching out to touch the skin of her wrist.

Flick flick flick flick!

Palila's fingers were cold and tight and dry. Her voice was cold and tight and dry. Nora got the sensation of ice sizzling in her ears. "Throw up a shield around all of you. Protect them."

Though she didn't want to, Nora thought it'd be better if, for once, she responded to the demands made of her. "I'll try," she said firmly. "As much as I can."

Of heated sighs and tired rise, a girl relinquishes control of her own body. Her forehead, ever the discreet hiding place, breaks in the middle for new sight, refreshed sight, sight that hasn't been used this frequently since ten years prior. But it has little time to feel welcome, for it sees the guns, and it sees the threat of a barrel.

It must do what it's been told.

Stepping up on strong legs, the host hops down from the opening of the helicopter and against the crumbly pathway leading up to the base of the Empire. Her boots grind a place for her, and she spreads her legs a fair distance apart to assert her presence to the opposition of routine security. It's a touch of Nora herself coming through. She cooperates splendidly, splendid girl, you are.

She spreads her arms out, and the infamous blue light of her existence spans out in a tight circle, a blue light visible only to the eye itself. Her fingers flick, flick, flick forward, beckoning the others. Each hops down and enters the bubble they can't see but nonetheless trust. Maanyo takes the lead, front and center, rifle carried tight against his bent chest. Irene takes the back.

And they walk.

It's the calmest advance the enemy has seen on their land and this is cause for hesitation. Project Phoenix steps right up to the front gate, and when they stop, they say, very composedly, "We request entrance. We're here for the Em-"

Bullet, ching! Bullet, ching! They ricochet against the bulbous shield, and when Nora glances up, she can see the unbroken ripples spanning out across the entirety of the thing. Pretty, yes, but we are not here to admire the colors, we are here to protect your companions. Keep walking, girl.

The bullets come and go, bouncing off with metallic rings that begin to mean nothing to Project Phoenix and futility to the guards. They exchange guns for swords, but with the first few steps of the first few individuals, Maanyo's rifle proves a far more efficient killer. Loud popping. Falling.

More threaten to step into the circle itself, but King and Reason are staring down the soldiers to the side, and some fall to their knees, exhausted; to their knees, struggling with the vision of their greatest desires. Fight is impossible even if they want it and so they step through the front entrance with the careful eyes of two dozen guns on them at every given second.

The inside of the building is as dark as the outside, lit sparsely. This is done purposely, the eye decides, given that they've allowed an enemy into their base of operations. And they know full well they are the enemy. The media of the modern age works wonders in the spread of information.

Again, Irene speaks up. By all means, The Girl, say what you must. You're nearly as ingenious as I. "We're here for the Empress. We've learned by word of Azazel that she's being kept here. It'd be pretty nice if you let her go. We don't need a fight."

Another voice, disembodied, and outside of their safe circle. "The Empress has merely returned home, children. She hails from this place of ours and, well...let's just say us she owes us for her various crimes against, hah! Not only us, but humanity. She was one of us, once. Would you like to see the proof?"

The host glances around, observing carefully through the darkness where this voice might be coming from, but a cluster of blackness ruffles in a small corner. Her eyes catch on this for quite some time; it hops up on two twiggy legs, perching, staring.

A pleasure to see the ravens here to protect my host! Ah, but are you truly here to help, trickster gods? I implore you, do not make me leave now! The bullets shall ring, and someone shall die. I will no longer have any bearing on what happens to her. She listens now, yes, but will have no remembrance of it. Trickster gods, dirty things! I will leave, but only under threat of being pecked out. Be smart, girl. Do not listen to these fraudulent creatures. They might seem like heroes, but dare I suggest it, kill them. Kill your heroes.

Good night, 'til waking calls again.

When she retained the full extent of her senses, she thought she was still outside, given the dimness of the place. It looked like stone, like the place had been twisted outside-in, and her eyes darted around quickly at this perverted inversion. Aw, shit. It fell apart. It fell the fuck apart. Guns. Masks. Guns. It fell the fuck apart.

Glacier saw her looking around so fearfully, and he caught her glance and shook his head. Nora wasn't sure how to interpret this - maybe he knew it'd fallen apart by the look on her face. But the thing was, if he knew, that meant that everyone else who'd been staring at them so solemnly knew too.

One of them cocked a grin at her. Dirty, rotten smile. Dirty, rotten mind. Dirty, rotten bullet. "Fuck."

The metal came in an onslaught. They fired their guns and Maanyo fired back but the painful cries of those around her were harsh and terrible and fed by agony and Nora felt the graze of something hot and cold all at once on her ear, the sticky warmth of it oozing out, dripping and colored by her. It was death and it was fear and it was fate, and, God! Her fate was fear and it took her up above the carnage through flight! It was always the easiest thing for her, flying. Killing her heroes, she flew.

"I'll find the Empress!" she promised, she lied, excusing herself violently.

Pop and pop and pop and flick and flick and flick until the pop, flick, pop, flick became faint, muffled, and she was far from the spray. All along the path of abandoning her team, she fired that little dinky pistol of hers, never shooting to kill, but shooting to keep them silent, to keep them on the ground while she soared above. Her feet landed in a desolate hall and she ran, legs hammering the tile until she came to the double doors she saw around the corner.

The doors were heavy, and against the desperate thrash of her lungs, she hauled them open, stepped through, and hauled them closed. Her body turned against it, leaned against it, rested against it. Slumped and tired. "Christ," she gasped, "Christ, almighty, I- don't even know what happened, what- I'm..." Breathe. She sucked in air like a deranged savage. Was that blood on the back of her hand? Whose was it? Unimportant. Wipe it away. Breathe.

The more she recovered, the more she came to realize things. She'd just abandoned her team in the midst of a firefight. She was alone now. Alone. Usually she'd be ecstatic over that, but this place was unfamiliar, and someone was undoubtedly watching her at that very second through the lens of a camera. They'd be there any second and the hallway was a long one. Floors, black and glossy. Light, minimal, and cast only on the ceiling. Some of it reflected on the ground. That was about all, though.

Above all, it was quiet.

Until it wasn't.

A click sounded from the ceiling, and then a mechanical whirring, like that of some old antique projector. It made Nora scream, and scream again when an image appeared on the wall left of her. But when the screaming had ended, and the smiling image of a young Sakura Sato had painted itself on the wall, a calmness swept over Nora's chest. She stepped forward to watch the clip play out.

Sakura was a small thing. Her hair was long, lush. Her hands were clean and nimble, and they wove their way around a gun with careful consideration. In this particular clip, her eyes were cast somewhere off-screen, and she smiled softly at whoever existed where one couldn't see. Looking briefly at the camera to be sure that she was being documented by those there to study her, she sighed, lifted her arm. A sharp muffled cry erupted from the side but a gunshot interrupted it and Sakura walked away. As she did, she could be heard saying, "One does not steal from the Emperor. That was his favorite coat."

The clip continued on, staring at nothing but the wavering grass in the back, but another flash of light appeared beside it, and Nora stepped to the side in order to see the next clip. Sakura was older in this one, and much more identifiable as the woman she was now. That made the knife in her hands seem more sinister, and it made the sickness in Nora's gut more prominent. The camera followed her. "January session, week three of year six," Sakura said, moving rapidly around an individual tied to a chair, and holding no expression in her features. "The Emperor has called for the interrogation of a prisoner."

Nora's hands moved subconsciously to her lips, and then to her ear, where the blood still oozed. When the first bit of blood was released from the "prisoner's" leg on-screen, she looked down at her own hand. The blood's mine. Not his. It's mine. Not his. But the scream was not hers. It was his. Scream, scream, scream, agony - repeatedly. The hand by her ear quickly slammed against it, trying to block out the sound, but it was horrid and screechy and desperate.

She looked up to the clip again, hoping that it'd be over, but instead, she caught sight of the wicked slash of metal on flesh, and the irreparable spurt of a man soon dead. Bile rose, acidic, hot. Nora gagged. The clip ended, and still, she gagged. "That's sick," she heaved, "that's twisted and sick. That's what psychos do."

For the first time, she thought: this is the woman who hired me.

Her hands clenched into fists and she battered the walls once before moving on. Her lungs inflated heavily. Hoarse.

And those clips - they kept coming.

Nora walked. Nora watched. She watched every single one of those clips, and the heat and tremble of her chest grew and grew. It was rage. The Empress was a woman who appealed to disregard. A bitch. A bitch!

Near the end of the hall, Nora began to skip the clips, knowing that she'd see some new kind of horror she'd never be able to remove from her cranium. Near the end of the hall, she saw blue. Undulation.

A lake. A rope. Two ankles, two concrete blocks. "Please," the victim weeped, "please, I won't say nothin' I promise, I won't play these games again, I won't. Please! Please! Help me!"

Nora's mouth opened and she wanted to scream along with the girl all tied up to the blocks, but no sound came out, and instead her neck jutted out, veins pulsing.

Sakura struck the girl across the face, but that didn't stop the rising cry. "I don't wanna die, please!"

"You should've thought about that, dearest."

Ebb and flow, the bitter sea. "I want to play a game." This, from her brother, the bitter sea.

Nora looked up at him curiously, innocence and interest plain in her face, and she knew quite well what sort of games he liked to play. She displayed her arm for him to take, but he didn't; his face was troubled- no, no, it wasn't. It cracked, and he laughed, and he composed himself. "What?" she asked, smoothing out the yellow of her sundress.

"You're a fuckin' dumbass is what," he said, unable to hold back another quick burst of laughter. "I remember what you said to me this morning. I'm the cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo bird! Bird flies out of the nest! Cuckoo!" Another sprig of laughter, and then composure.

And, even though she'd retracted her arm, he reached out and snatched it up in his sweaty fingers, and said, roughly, "Swim to the bottom and don't come back up."

He pushed her in and she had no option but to comply.

Nora felt herself drowning along with the girl in the clip, thrashing and heartbroken, swimming up, up, up! but never getting any higher. The video broke off midway, mostly because Nora stopped watching, and she goddamn near stepped on and broke the little neck of the raven waiting for her by the door. "We're going," she growled to it. "She isn't any fucking boss of mine now."

I'm not getting that reward she promised. Lying whore. I've got no reason to help her anymore. Let's leave.

She slammed open the door at the end of the hall, cheeks red, neck red, hands red, body trembling and tightening and loosening with all the stages of fury that Nora knew. Boots pounded along with the intent of finding an exit, but a few steps in, this proved not to be the case. The raven flew up, into the air, and behind it, after it'd flown up and perched itself up on another slab on concrete, was a woman.

The room itself was spacious and made of the same dark stone she'd seen everywhere else. It was also moist, and the humidity didn't help the loud thump of blood in Nora's head. Sakura only heightened it by being there, and, oh, there she was.

Her wrists were pinned up high on the wall by shackles, adjusted to her bones tightly. The Empress, reduced to nothing more than a woman, hung limply from her hands along the back wall, dragged down like the vision of a martyr. She looked quite like the man on the train, actually, with how skinny and sharp he'd been, and how weakly the breaths came out but how heavily the chest moved atop shifting lungs.

The shaking in Nora's body became ferocious. Ferocious, frigid, fearful. She was afraid. But she moved closer. Knobby kneed and wavery lipped, she approached. Limbs wanted to lash out like they did trying to find the surface of the water. They didn't. She kept everything close to herself.

Sakura looked up. Nora saw blood but there was only genuine emotion, a twisting of the lips and a widening of the eyes and relief, hopeful, helpless relief. "My team." She swallowed and even that seemed to be a struggle. "My team is here. You're here for me. They're here for me." She seemed to talk to more than Nora; she seemed to talk to the air around them.

Nora looked at her numbly, emptily.

Sakura looked up and mumbled again, and there, Nora saw a man perched up on the wall, watching and saying nothing.

Still, she looked on numbly, emptily. Flick, flick, flick.

"Please," Sakura said, so moved by hope that her cheeks sat wetly against her bones. "Get me out of here." Then, gruffer, "Get me out of here. I wanna tear them to shreds! I'll tear them to shreds. I'll get us all out. I'll get rid of them."

The masked man looked down at Nora, and the Empress looked at Nora, and the raven looked at Nora, and it was there that she came to find that she had a choice to make. That she held the power in her hands without anyone else having to grab those hands of hers. People were always grabbing those hands of hers.

"My daughter, oh, mi hija, darling! Are you okay?"

Nora crawled without aim in where she went across the grass, sopping, gasping for life she thought she'd lost. Anything said around her - which was a lot - went in one ear and out the other. Her uncle lay in the grass beside her, drying himself off and weeping with relief. She couldn't share in what he felt. Coughing was abusive. "I'm dying," she wheezed, "I'm dead."

Nora looked at the Empress and lifted her lips up in a snarl. "You killed those people. You gutted them and shot them and drowned them."

"No, no! I did, but that wasn't me, I promise you, not anymore. I hated what he did. I hated what I did. I hated all of that, and, listen, listen, I bet you some of what you heard was changed to seem-"

"I want to kill you."

Her mother looked at her but didn't touch her. Her father looked at her but didn't touch her. Her brother looked at her, and he frowned, but only because he knew he'd fucked up. Nora looked at him the longest. "I want to kill you," she said, still sputtering lake water. She said this twice, but didn't stand. If she stood, would he grab her again? Would he strike her across the face and break her bones and send her sprawling to the ocean?

She was afraid of him. She was afraid of the whole lot of them. She was also sad. And hopeless. And she cried but she did not kill anybody.

Nora knew exactly what would happen if she left the Empress there. She would be killing a hero.

The man on the ledge spoke, finally. "I won't allow you to kill her, but I can assure you that if you leave us to do what it is that we need to do, she will die. Will you leave without a fight?"

"Baby, we love you more than you know," her mother said, gesturing and speaking so rapidly with that accent of hers that the guests had to ask each other what she was saying.

Nora couldn't see. Everything was blurring together and the house in the background was shaking. Her feet lifted off the ground, then fell back, then lifted again. She was testing the bitter sea, the bitter sky, wing beat. "He tried to kill me. He tried to kill me."

"I ask again. Will you leave without a fight?"

"Yes."

She flew up into the sky with nothing to her name except her name. The moment she did, it was like the entire audience below knew that she wouldn't be coming back down. Her mother called and wailed. "Baby, don't go! Baby, please, don't go! We love you!" She ignored every statement. It hurt. It hurt to ignore her but the fear decided her fate and so she killed off everything in her mind that told her that the people on the ground were her heroes and she flew.

Then she was gone.

Then she was gone. The calls of Sakura Sato were lost to the chamber in which she hung and kicked and screamed, and when Nora left and the door to the hall from before closed behind her she knew a great many things.

She knew she'd just killed a hero.

Down that hall she flew, but her body collided with sad ones that she recognized, and her arms wrapped around these people before detaching. She pulled back and looked at those who remained of Project Phoenix.

Maanyo swallowed, blood on his cheek. "Did you find her?"

Nora looked at him. Do I lie? She decided to tell the truth, and sucked in an empty breath, and shook her head.

"Sakura was dead when I found her. There's no point. We need to leave now."

With somber and unsmiling faces, Project Phoenix hung their heads, and they stepped away, undaunted by the threat of guns any longer. The guards knew they were leaving. They had no reason to shoot, and so Nora had saved them from that threat, at least.

It had always been easiest to flee anyways.

Kill your heroes and fly. Don't cry.

Feel your heart beat. We're alive. We're bitter. We're gone.