発射を撮りる

They are a family.

No one told them that their targets are a family.

With her back to the ledge of the wall of the roof they are atop, she flicks through the uncharacteristically thin folder, rifling through the few papers inside that detail their targets. These files are supposed to be bigger, with more detailed information.

This one looks like someone did a cursory search on the internet of just their names and printed the single page out to make it look like they'd done more than they had.

Kiku said that their two targets are known to be flighty, using the pretence of their job, travelling to Sapporo from Kyoto and back. The higher-ups of the Sapporo branch want to tally these deaths as their own, rather than let the Agents at the Kyoto branch handle it. She doesn't know why – she shouldn't care why.

Not much is known about them, except the barest minimum of information that is enough to warrant sending Agents after them.

The first paper is printed back to front in Russian mixed up in code. So Fu knows their Agents will never let the files they receive on their targets be exposed to those not part of the organization, but they still take lengthy precautions. Every file she has ever received for a mission is encoded differently. This time, it is relatively simple. The file is in Russian, but the letters are coded in that they only make coherent sense when the letters are shifted three spaces ahead in the Cyrillic alphabet. She has spent hours doing mental exercises so that it is an automatic reflex to immediately translate the words so that they can be understood.

Clipped to the left-hand corner of the file is a picture of the first target. Her hair is long and dark, braided in two pigtails down her shoulders. Her eyes are a deep chocolate brown. Despite the schoolgirl hairstyle, the woman in the photo looks mature and capable of handling herself. The smile toying about her lips says she knows how to loosen up to have fun, too.

ФАМИЛИЯ ИМЯ: Mizushima [Maiden, Kaizaki] Kichi

РОДИЛСЯ: 29/08/1986

ВОЗРАСТ: 28

МЕСТО РОЖДЕНИЯ: Kyoto, Japan

ТИП: Tengu

РОДИТЕЛИ: Kaizaki Misaki [Mother, Deceased]; Kaizaki Ohga [Father, Deceased]

ОТПРЫСКИ: Kaizaki Yukiji [Younger Sister]

СУПРУГ/ НАПАРНИК: Mizushima Nishio [Husband]

ДЕТИ: N/A

ПОСЛЕДНИЙ АДРЕС: Kyoto

ЗАНЯТИЕ: Architect [Organic Architecture]

Why doesn't it say there's a child? she thinks, flipping the file closed.

All the other information on the next two pages details any past appearances So Fu is aware of. She reaches over and pulls the second to her. She lays it across her lap and opens the folder containing Mizushima Nishio's information. The picture is of a man with hair that curls just past the tip of his ears and a gentle smile on his face, eyes soft and kind. She quickly scans it, eyes shooting up and down the page in search of something that is not there.

ФАМИЛИЯ ИМЯ: Mizushima Nishio

РОДИЛСЯ: 14/08/1984

ВОЗРАСТ: 30

МЕСТО РОЖДЕНИЯ: Kyoto, Japan

ТИП: Tengu

РОДИТЕЛИ: Mizushima Sadako [Mother, Deceased]; Mizushima Ryo [Father, Deceased]

ОТПРЫСКИ: N/A

СУПРУГ/ НАПАРНИК: Mizushima Kichi [Wife]

ДЕТИ: N/A

ПОСЛЕДНИЙ АДРЕС: Kyoto

ЗАНЯТИЕ: Landscape Architect

There is no mention of a child in his file either.

They like to pretend they are powerful by withholding information and watching how you react, don't they? Kuniumi's voice is teasing, but she sounds vaguely nettled. It's a fun game, don't you think? Who slips first – the slipping one or the fallen one?

She makes no comment, instead letting her irritation at Kuniumi's confusing words wash over her for a brief second so that Kuniumi knows that she is annoyed at her. Then she lets it pass, slipping off her, and she focuses on the task – and the newly arisen problem – at hand.

She looks up at Rikuto. He is completely frozen where he kneels with his eye lined up with the scope of his sniper rifle. His hands are clenched tight around the long underside of the gun, but carefully away from the trigger. Her lips twitch.

He won't do it.

He won't do it.

He can't do it.

He can't do it.

They did this on purpose.

She doesn't need to see Kuniumi's insane grin. She can feel it, in her heart, in her head, in her stomach – it is a stirring that makes her want to snap things, to break things, to hurt things. Sometimes it is hard to make the murderous feeling go away. Sometimes – sometimes, she doesn't even try to stop them. Sometimes, she doesn't want to stop them.

Power play. Obedience. They want to know he will heed their every order. You know what this is.

The plan Kiku outlined to them was simple. Eliminate the targets. Make sure not to be seen. That is all she and Rikuto need to do. The rest – retrieval of the bodies – will be carried out by Agents on standby at the closest hospital. They will use a fake ambulance painted to look like one belonging to the hospital to drive the bodies to the designated pick-up point rather than were they would normally be taken; the morgue.

So Fu wants the bodies because the Doctor keeps requesting for more Ayakashi. It doesn't matter to him whether they come to him dead or alive; he's happy so long as they're strapped to his gleaming steel table.

She doesn't ever let herself think about why he needs more, why he's always wanting more.

Kiku stressed on the point that it is Rikuto who has to complete the mission. She is only there for back-up, and to serve as an observer. She isn't supposed to be doing anything. Trainees call missions like these 'tests'. Everyone is assigned a mission at some point closer to the end of their training that is supposed to prove their loyalty to So Fu. To see how strong it stands.

If they pass, they become official Agents.

If they fail, they are cancelled.

She passed her test only a few days before she killed Akira. She looks at her test every time she walks in So Fu Headquarters in Kyoto – but Rikuto hasn't. Not yet. This mission is his test. If he fails it, he'll be cancelled.

She knows he will fail.

She stands and brushes off the dirt from the back of her tights. She has donned civilian clothing; black tights and a pair of mini-shorts paired with a dark blue oversized sweater that is big enough to hide the bulk of the gun strapped to her stomach. Rikuto is dressed in a similarly casual. A simple pair of dark blue jeans, a long-sleeved purple zip-up sweater with a striped black-and-white t-shirt underneath. A pair of black sneakers lined in white peek out from the bottom of the hem of his jeans to complete the look of the ordinary seventeen-year-old boy he is not.

She turns and folds her arms over the top of the ledge, letting the breeze blow through her hair and cool her face. She looks down below. It is just the beginning of winter, and everyone is dressed a little warmer than usual. Whether she is dressed appropriate to the weather makes no difference to her, nor has it ever. She is cold all the time. Her skin is ice. That is because of Kuniumi. Because of where Kuniumi comes from, a land where no such phenomenon as 'warmth' exists, where it is a mere story whispered by those who are lost and can never find their way.

Are you cold?

That is a stupid question to ask us.

Have you always been cold?

That is a smarter question to ask us.

Have you?

Kuniumi doesn't answer immediately. She doesn't like to talk about her past. Kuniumi prefers to show her what her history is, rather than use inadequate words. Kuniumi shows her who she is through her dreams, weaving her memories into the dreamscapes of her mind so that she is never sure if what she sees in the darkest parts of her mind in the dead of night are memories, or dreams, or a twisted little something of both.

She satisfies herself with scanning the surroundings while waiting for Kuniumi to respond. They are above the observation deck at JR Tower, a thirty-eight floor skyscraper, located are the south entrance of Sapporo Station. From where they stand, all the people meandering the city down below looked like colourfully bedecked ants.

Snow is just beginning to fall. It swirls, twirling and dancing through the air to land on top of people's heads. She rubs her nose with the sleeve of her sweater when a single snowflake lands on the tip of her nose, and continues looking down. People are huddled in groups or couples.

We used to be warm. Kuniumi eventually whispers. She speaks quietly, burdened with a sadness and grief that makes Pai's heart heavy. He would hold us, and we were warm.

Then he betrayed you.

A twitch, a spasm of conflicted emotion. Silence. Then he betrayed us. And now here we are. Now we are here.

Now here they are. Now they are here.

She can see Kichi and Nishio, only able to identify them from this distance from knowing the colour of the clothes they are wearing from when she looked for them with the scope of the sniper rifle. Kichi wears a knee-length, smart purple coat with white ankle-length boots and dark trousers underneath. Nishio is dressed less formally, with only a brown jacket over a white shirt and jeans. Hengen don't feel the temperature changes of the world that so affects human beings. They are always warm.

She is envious of that.

They look exactly as she and Rikuto were told to expect when two Agents on look-out further in the city – with one difference. Cradled in Kichi's arms, with her own wrapped around Kichi's neck and a pretty pink headband in her straight black hair, a beautiful smile lighting up her rosy-cheeked face, is a child of six or seven years. She looks exactly like Kichi, a mini-copy of the woman who smiles as she plants a big kiss on the little girl's cheek while Nishio laughs and slings his arm around his wife's shoulders and ruffles the top of the girl's hair.

She does not need confirmation from any file, or from Kiku himself, or any other Agent. She knows that the girl is their daughter.

She turns her head to Rikuto. He stills has his eye lined up to the scope of the sniper rifle, watching their targets. Except for the wind sending strands of his hair flying around his head, hair that is getting too long for standard regulation at just past his ear, he doesn't make a single move. He is more a statue than a living being in this moment.

She looks at the targets. They are still there. She looks back at Rikuto.

"Do it." She says, staring at his twitching, hesitating finger. She knows he is not going to squeeze hard enough around the trigger. Not now. Maybe not ever.

He and Noriko are adoptive siblings, but they grew up together with the same man and woman, their parents, since they were eight. This mission hits too close to home for him. Pulling the trigger and terminating Kichi and Nishio will mean orphaning the little girl. Making their daughter watch her parents get shot right in front of her eyes.

That's the point. Those who raised him were murdered before his eyes, too.

"Take the shot." She repeats, voice hard and unyielding, leaving no room for misunderstandings or doubt.

Rikuto flinches when she speaks. He rolls his shoulders with his eye still to the scope, but otherwise makes no move.

"Just give me a minute." He finally speaks. His voice is uneven, and he swallows in an effort to level it. "Just a minute."

He's trying to think of an excuse, Kuniumi croons. He won't do it, even if he can't find any.

I know. She knows. Rikuto isn't like her. He is still something close to normal, he still has a chance to be redeemed, to be forgiven. She knows.

She pushes herself back from the wall and kneels down, pulling out a slim black phone from the pocket of the backpack she received. The bag is part of the outfit she wears to make herself look like an ordinary teenager hanging out with her brother, a cover story that is meant to divert any suspicion from the two. They look enough like each other to pass it off easily.

She stands and walks a few metres away. She tips her head back to look at the silver-grey skies overhead, then looks down and keys in Kiku's phone number. She puts the phone to her ear and listens to the dial tone and the little beeping that follows right after each dial. It is hardly noticeable, but a tell that the conversation is being recorded. The trigger is activated as soon as the completed sequence of numbers in the middle of Kiku's phone number is dialled.

Beep. She thinks.

Beep. Kuniumi returns.

Beep.

Beep.

"Why are you calling?" is the first thing Kiku says when he picks up.

"Do not hang up." She takes the phone from her ear and spins, turning to look Rikuto. "Kiku-san wants to speak to you." She calls out from where she stands.

Rikuto doesn't react. He is still wholly focused on their targets down below. She remains where she is. She needs him to come to her, and not the other way round.

"Rikuto." He moves then. He pulls himself away from the gun and looks at her with bleary eyes. He is blinking too much, dazed and confused. She waves the phone in the air. "Kiku-san."

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Rikuto steps forward and away from the gun and walks towards her. Once he reaches her, he takes the phone from her. He puts it to his ear and cocks his head to the side in the way he always does when listening to someone on the phone. "Kiku-san? What's up?"

She wastes no time.

She immediately goes to the gun, closing her hands around it, the cold metal scrubbing against the palms of her hands. She puts her eye to the scope and everything blurs for a quick second before clearing. She is not Rikuto – she hasn't received specialized training to be a sniper. She doesn't have his [ability] or accuracy, where anything he uses as a projectile missile always, always finds its intended mark. She doesn't have any of that.

But she needs to do this. If he won't, if he can't, she needs to do it for him.

You've already lost everyone.

If I lose him too, there will be nothing left.

We're here. We will always be here for you.

No, she thinks back as she aims the gun. You are only here to make your beloved pay for what he did to you. I am just a means to an end. A tool for you to get what you want. And that is what you are to me. You are a tool I use to keep myself sane enough to live. Even if I don't deserve it.

The scope passes over a tall man's head, and her stomach gives a lurch as heat pools in her abdomen. For a moment she freezes, keeps the gun trained on the back of the man's head. She watches him slowly turning, slowly, to face a man standing beside him with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his head. She can tell, even from this distance, that the dark-haired man is Ayakashi. It is not only because of the warmth she feels, but because of the fierce intensity of his glowing blue eyes that she just manages to catch before he looks away again.

She saw him frown. She wonders if he can tell there's a gun trained on his head, even from this distance.

She uses the gun's telescope to follow the man's sight as he looks at the blond man next to him. The same warmth, slightly cooler, twists her gut. Then the edge of the circle of the telescope catches a flash of red-brown. Her eyebrows twitch as she shifts the gun down and to the side by half a centimetre to focus on the familiarity of the red-brown hair.

Before she can, she hears something clatter on the ground behind her. Her eyes flick out to the side. She sees Rikuto staring at her in horror as he realizes what she did by using Kiku to distract him long enough for her to get to the gun. His foot is already stepping forward, already moving to run to her and stop her from doing what needs to be done.

Her lips flatten to a harsh line. She aims the gun again. Mizushima Kichi's forehead comes into focus, a red dot trained right between her eyes.

She squeezes.

The gun only makes a light puff of sound as the bullet shoots out. Barely one second later, the woman holding the little girl in her arms jerks back. She falls to the ground, dead in an instant. The girl slips from her limp arms, her own hold of her mother's neck slackening from surprise.

She lands on the ground with a hard thump, and starts up a wailing cry at being so suddenly let go. Pai shifts the gun to the side and aims at Nishio's head. She waits for him to drop down beside the body of his wife, reaching for his daughter while his hands flutter over Kichi's prone body frantically, desperately calling her name.

He dies not two seconds after his wife.

She is yanked back from the gun. It is so forceful a move, so unexpected, that she doesn't have time to stop herself from falling on the ground as Rikuto roughly shoves her away. He tugs off the scope from the gun, expertly twisting it around so it pops free of its built-in clasp to the top of the gun. He puts it to his eye. Rikuto is breathing hard, like he just ran a marathon, as he moves his head around inch by inch and tries to find what he is looking for. She stands up and watches his body tense like a tightly-coiled wire when he finally sees it.

The shock loosens his fingers around the scope. It falls to the ground. There is a loud crack of the glass in the telescope breaking upon impact. Rikuto stumbles toward the wall, hands gripping the ledge so hard that his knuckles go white with strain. He leans so far forward that he looks like he is about to pitch forward and fall.

She looks at the gun abandoned at his side. She looks down at her fingers twitching spasmodically, staring at them like they are somebody else's. In her mind's eye, another layer of dripping blood coats the already crimson-stained skin of her hands. She can't tell if it's really there or not.

So much blood...she thinks emptily. Will I ever be able to wash it off?

Will you?

"Our reports," she says. "Will say that you delayed in terminating the targets because of the crowd, and you could not get a clear shot." She lifts her eyes from her twitching fingers and looks at the tension in Rikuto's back. "Understand?"

Rikuto is not listening. He is white as a sheet, staring down in horrified shock with his eyes widened so big that she thinks the universe can fit in them. He is looking down at Mizushima Kichi and Nishio's dead bodies. Their daughter sits between them, crying so loud that the sound of her child's grief is carried by the wind all the way up to the top of the building Pai has just killed her parents from.

She approaches the wall and looks down. Even from this height, this far, she can see that the girl sits in a puddle of blood steadily pooling around the heads of her dead parents. It is a gruesome sight.

Rikuto turns to look at her. He stands there, by the gun that still has a thin stream of smoke coiling up into the air, staring at her like he has never seen her before. As if he has never seen her kill before when he is the one who made the game of which one of them kills more than the other.

But this is different. This is different.

This time, she has orphaned a child right in front of their eyes. This hits Rikuto too close to home because it is the same thing that happened to him and Noriko when he was twelve and she was ten. Rikuto trusted her enough to tell her of the siblings' past – she is the only one who knows how they lost their parents.

She, and So Fu.

You helped him.

He won't see it like that.

Did he think you would plot something with him to avoid this? To stop their deaths?

Maybe I should have. Maybe I shouldn't have killed them. I acted impulsively.

If you didn't end their lives, we would have.

She frowns at Kuniumi's words, even as a sliver of something strange twists her stomach to knots. What do you mean by that?

Do not pretend. You know who we are.

Her lungs are constricted in an ice cage. Her breath is cold on her lips. Kuniumi.

You know what we do.

No.

You know what our job is.

Was. What it was.

Was. Is. Will be. It's all the same, it's all now, it's all then, it will be, it's all right in front of us. We see everything now, everything that was and is and will and can be. It's all now. There is no difference.

Kuniumi is slipping.

She is slipping with her. She can't let that happen – but she's barely managing to keep it from happening.

She can't let Kuniumi fall back into who she was, who she had been for so long, who she was forced to become because of what she needed to do for all that time just to survive. If she falls, the only one she'll let get hurt was herself. She will end her life as soon as she feels that she has tipped over the last edge, the last line.

But if Kuniumi falls, if she tips, there is no way back for anyone. She isn't strong enough to hold Kuniumi back then. She is barely that now. There is no way anyone can bring Kuniumi back from crossing that final line.

Pai is barely keeping her in line now.

That's not who you are anymore. That's –

Rikuto swallows the feet between them in one bounding step. His hand shoots out and grabs the front of her shirt. He swings her around; she's small and it barely takes any effort on his part to do it. Her back connects with the wall behind her with a jarring thud, and black spots dance in front of her eyes.

"Why did you do that?" he growls, so close that she can feel the heat of his breath on her cheeks. His eyes are no longer the light brown that so match hers – they are a glowing amber that burns with so much fury, she is scalded by it. "Why did you do that!"

She was not expecting such a physical reaction for him. She doesn't know how to respond. Her defensive instincts scream at her to attack him, but her mind is telling her to think rationally. Logic tells her that Rikuto is just acting out blindly, emotionally, because of how close this mission is to him.

Instead of retaliating, she lets herself go limp as Rikuto holds her to the wall with his fist clenched around the front of her sweater. She drops her hands to her sides and rests her head back on the wall. She watches through half-lidded eyes as he breathes heavily, panting. She can see that it is only through his iron will that he doesn't snap and try to kill her.

She admires him for that. If their places were switched, she isn't sure she'd stop herself. Maybe she wouldn't kill him, but...a black eye never killed anyone.

"You know what would happen if they did not die." She coldly informs him, keeping calm and reasonable.

He twitches when she speaks, grinding his teeth, lips pulling back in a feral look of loathing. She wonders if the sound of her icy, logical voice is grating on him, twisting him inside enough that he actually wants to hurt her. When she gets emotional the way he is now, Kiku, as her handler, is supposed to be there to calm her. He always speaks in the same voice. She hates it.

Hy-po-crite.

"Who the fuck gets to make that call?" he grounds out, eyes flashing. The hem of the sweater tightens around her neck, minutely restricting her airflow, but she doesn't try to move. Instead, she can only stare into his eyes, at the torrent of emotion boiling in them.

It is that fire, that rage, that means he is human – that keeps him human. It is that passion for life and the anger at it being so easily expunged that she lost months ago, when she realized that So Fu can do anything they want and get away with it, simply because they are doing it for the sake of humanity's survival.

How many have been 'cancelled' because they could not complete their tests? Kuniumi asks curiously. How many was it, again?

Too many.

"If they did not die, this mission would be viewed as a failure." Her heart aches to see him looking at her like he hates her with every fibre of his being, but there is no other way to get him to understand. "So Fu does not tolerate failures. You would be cancelled." She reaches over, slowly so that he can see her every move, and taps the back of his neck. His skin is warm, flushed with adrenaline and anger. "You know what is here. All it will take is for someone to press a button, and your head will explode."

They remain like that, frozen, with Rikuto holding her to the wall, his other hand tightened in a shaking fist at his side. She withdraws her hand and lets it fall back to touch the wall, fingertips brushing the raised bumps of the cement at her back. If need be, if Rikuto doesn't back down and only gets worse, she will break his wrist and knock him unconscious to stop him.

She hopes it doesn't come to that.

So far, all she needs to do is make up an excuse for why she called Kiku in the first place. But if she knocks Rikuto out, it will take longer for the two to get to their pick-up point. Questions will be asked about the delay. She doesn't want to lie any more than she absolutely has to. So Fu are good ferreting out even the simplest of untold truths. They make a habit of meting out what punishments they deem fit to anyone who keeps those truths a secret.

Slowly, he releases her. His hand loosens around the front of her sweater, and he stumbles back from her, as if drunken. She watches him heavily sit down on the ground right under where the gun is propped up on its stand on the ledge of the wall. He braces his elbows on his knees and shoves his fingers through his hair, lacing them over the top as he presses the heels of his palms to his temples.

"You know I am right." She remarks, watching him stare at a spot between his boots.

"She shouldn't have seen it." He mumbles. His voice is hoarse. It is more broken than she has ever heard it. When he raises his head to look at her, she can't move for a second, stunned to see tracks of tears rolling down his cheeks. "She shouldn't have had to – she shouldn't have seen that, Pai. We could've – for fuck's sake, she's a kid."

Children the world over have seen far worse than their parents shot in the head in front of them.

"Children the world over have seen far worse than their parents dying in front of them."

He chokes out a sarcastic, half-hearted laugh that scrapes at her ears like a pitchfork over a blackboard. "Standard So Fu textbook answer." Rikuto looks on at her, shaking his head. He looks...disappointed. In her.

"Does it matter where the answer is from?" she asks in a dull tone.

"It does, because you're slipping, Pai. You're falling into the black hole So Fu's trying to dig us all into."

He's wrong.

She walks to him and picks up her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder as she straightens again. She looks over the ledge, down at the people crowding around the dead bodies. Someone picked up the girl from the blood she was sitting in, but she is still close. The child's cries are reaching new heights as the reality of what happens begins to sink in.

In the distance, the wail of an ambulance fills the air.

You've already fallen into it.

She looks down at Rikuto still seated where he fell, and something in her – it hurts to see him like this, broken by a repeat of what happened to him. She hates that she had to do this.

She hates that she ever has to do this.

"If you want to live, and protect those you care about, you will stop fighting so hard against them. There's no point."