Master Key of Damocles

Night had fallen by the time Kira woke.

Without a clock she had no method of telling what time it was, but she could guess. The ward itself had a measurable rhythm: advertisements playing at certain times, frayed ends of light on either end of the horizon, the pulse of nightlife, and so on. The high-rise provided an optimal vantage point to take in all the signs at once, extrapolate from there the answer for comparing against the digital clock down below, across the street, for whom the current time – it proposed – was the optimal time for a fizzy, carbonated beverage,

3:00 AM, on the dot. She’d wagered it’d been nowhere past 1:38 AM.

Zero degrees Celsius – fitting for the 31st. End of the year providing a baseline to build up from.

Arata snored from the other side of the futon, half his face buried in the pillow so only one nostril drew air. Down his chin meandered a sleek cord of drool. Kira’s rise caused him to snort, pig-like, for the warm truffle-den that marked where she’d slumbered, now cooling in the unheated air, before he fell back asleep. It was his nature.

For her, nature called.

She tiptoed through the open hallways of his high-up home, palms skimming the walls to guide her through the darkness. He’d passed out before giving her the grand tour, and the cigarette embers remaining in the tanks of spent alchemical lanterns hung about were of little help in that cavernous expanse. She allowed her feet be her eyes.

Wood. Wood. Wood. A metal lip – more wood. Crack.

Ledge, debatably, made of wood. Stars bloomed bright but useless. The mass of gauze on the side of her head produced a scratching noise in tandem to her wince, slightly damp now. Bandage wrappings kept it adhered over space formerly occupied by an ear.

Finally, tile. Stepping forward, Kira fondled at the dark until grazing porcelain, shutting the door afterward to little change in the ambient unlight.

Those stars haunted her even in the moment of peace, taking on the rotund shape that had taken center stage in her dreams: the old man whom she still knew nothing of. He was pressing close, folds of clothing and flesh and always smiling that damned smile, mocking the one behind the stage with his splendor. Arms out to embrace, unaware power gifted by her father would twist his mind like a wet sponge. Wring out identity from that plump body.

Just as she’d done Arata upon breaking contact. He’d hit the floor smiling, laughing right along with her in their moment of combined triumph, but the moment she detached herself his mind took note of the strains her magic had inflicted, the limits of body bypassed through sheer influence of directed will.

Unconsciousness came all too slowly. That his screams hadn’t wormed their way down to her subconscious was a miracle in and of itself - likely because they weren’t his screams.

She envied the fat man. Circumstance hadn’t led him to brain his mother, his father into taking the old college try at filicide. He still retained both ears and his peace.

Kira finished up her bathroom business, ignoring the mirror on the way out, and had intended to return to the futon when a thought occurred. Arata’s residence was a mystery to her. The size certainly had come as a shock. Not having been allowed to return home (if she took his claims at face value, dubious as they were) it was likely still in the state he’d left it before their heist. In some ways it held his essence, his fingerprints, like clay air-drying.

The Don’s reward for their efforts should have been a clue as to how much money Arata had socketed away over years of service, but before then she’d never have assumed profits such as these. He must have made a mint; the proof was, quite literally, all around her.

But first she needed a light. Fortunately, she knew where one lay.

She’d seen him use the master key before, but now, having pulled it from the pocket of his pants, she realized just how heavy the thing was. Closing her eyes, she pressed a finger underneath the barrel to ignite the blade. White light blasted through the room.

Remembering his warning of what little fuel remained, she ran down the hall from the living room, bare but for the futon heaped with blankets. He’d owned no electronics of course. No fancy lights or appliances. None of the creature comforts enjoyed by the general populace. An open kitchen connected to it. Discolored glasses, greasy bowls, and utensils collected in the sink. Crushed takeout container had forced his trashcan lid partway open.

The hallways were just as bare. Alchemical lanterns were the only decorations. Not even a plant took up space to break up the monotony of white walls.

She turned down to the next hall and a series of doors. One was the bathroom, at the other end was a storage container for dust that made her sneeze up a storm upon opening, another opened to a closet with a single unused dust pan and broom, and the third was locked. She was just about to decide Arata’s life was hopelessly empty, and a bit sad, until her hand holding the master key drifted close to the handle.

Sigildry circling it lit with unearthly light, and she heard a lock turn at the behest of an unseen hand. Then two more, then two more again, and two again and again and again, sound cascading along the door’s frame until it finally swung open, no longer bound by blacksmith’s art.

She’d heard him discuss his workbench before, but she hadn’t known truly how honest he was on the subject.

Pyramid-shaped piles of ingots. Jars of iridescent powders all labeled, arranged in neat lines. Sacks stamped in various languages. Heat-resistant gloves and aprons beside a welder’s helmet. A crate of porcelain shards. Wooden poles of oak or willow. A miniature forge – cold, for now. Clamps, hammers, leather straps, spools of wire, buckles, shivs, chisels, mallets, knives that weren’t for cutting flesh, molds for esoteric devices and more hung in organized racks along the wall or from pegs in perforated wooden boards.

But those were only the components.

Two objects shaped like backpacks were on a far table: one clearly a work of love, the other an unwanted stepchild. Sparkling chips of fuel for the master key were lined up like books in a row, amounting to as many playing cards in three combined decks.

Kira’s makeshift torch fizzled out then, plunging the workroom into darkness. Retrieving another chip from the lineup, memory a faithful guide, she slid it home after clearing the receiver and regained her light.

On the workbench was a strange apparatus that drew her eye. It was a skeletal frame of some sort, loops for tightening like ribs flanking a thick, metal sternum rife with sigildry script. Beside it was a bottle stopped up with cork and filled with black powder. Strangely apart from all its regimented brethren, Kira thought to replace it. Powder emptied everywhere when it was barely a centimeter moved.

Frowning at the vessel, she found that the bottom was gone altogether. All that remained was an opening for the contents to escape, glass edges smooth, as if the bottom had been severed with a hot knife. She turned it over in her hands, finding the label.

Ground blackstone.

Kira slammed the vessel down with a solid clack and left it there. There was a book there, too, on the workbench: an old looking notebook, spiral bound, the same bought in bulk before the first week of classes. “Worklog” had been written in black marker on its front. Curious, Kira shook it free from the blackstone powder and flipped through the pages backwards until she found the latest entry. A date had been written denoting the day of hers and Arata’s heist, the master key providing sufficient light to read by.

Key delivery system successful! Lieutenant’s advice about grammar actually paid off! Big strides today, big strides! Reloading still sucks majorly and I can really one get one shot off, but it works! Need to keep plugging away at it until the Don gives me a chill assignment for testing in combat.

Kira gave the apparatus another reproachful glance, now understanding its purpose as a weapon. Before long she was flipping again with her eyes open for key words. Another from a month previous caught her eye.

Finished Kira’s necklace today. I should have charged her for his crap. Not. Easy. But I’m a sucker for her pretty eyes as usual. Without the Lieutenant it probably would have been impossible. Reminder: find out what chocolate she likes best. She’s always got some stashed on her.

Sigildry runes followed: words for “satiation” and “suppression” and “denial” in their free-flowing script matching that on the real product. Kira touched it lightly, feeling the metal against her throat with each swallow.

She kept on turning.

Hiroshi asked me to make him a new cane –

Kira paused. This one was dated over half a year ago.

– said his old one wasn’t cutting it anymore with the changes his potion was causing. He had to wear a hat today to cover those ears. Maybe if your potions make your pain worse then it’s a sign to stop making them, but that’s just me. Can probably put in a request with the Don to retrieve a pair for cheap instead of wasting my time. He got all poetic when talking about Kira’s power while we hung out, too, calling it way to force others to understand you – see you for who you are. That shit’s control. Plain and simple.

The notebook shook in Kira’s hands. She flipped further to the past year.

Tried surprise poking Kira in the back again today and didn’t feel a thing. Starting to hypothesize it’s not touch based as she says. Sight-based magic? Needs further testing.

Surprise registered in Kira’s face. He’d been testing her abilities without her knowledge? Like a lab rat? The betrayal stung, but not as much as the line after.

She doesn’t put any effort into learning her own power’s intricacies. Guess it’s gotta be me who fills her in.

Except he never had filled her in. Far as Kira knew, he had amassed a plethora of knowledge about her he’d kept private in his own brain beyond what was written in this journal. Worklog, she stewed, it’s a journal. At least have the decency not to lie to yourself. Her opinions had also been soured by his words on Allie, more so than at the train station, and she felt using the master key like a real torch and burning his collected thoughts and ideas to ashes.

Once she’d cleared another suspicion first.

Flipping faster than before, she scoured entry after entry for mentions of blackstone. Each time her own name came up, or Allie’s former one, her brain urged her to stop and read, see what else he’d recorded, but she pushed on.

And her own name came up repeatedly. Kira. Kira. Kira! Kira, Kira, Kira… Pretty. Cute Smile. Sad girl. Scary. Compliments in various forms he’d brought up at one time or another. Nothing else about blackstone or the box. Not that this would clear him, but it did ease personal suspicion – enough, at least, not to burn the evidence of his crimes. Yet.

Scowling, she slammed the notebook down on the workbench and sent puffs of blackstone dust in all directions.

The expression made her wince. Repeated facial motions were starting to rub raw the skin pressed into the gauze. Having avoided the bathroom mirror she’d done a poor job wrapping herself up, and the toll was due. She needed new bandages, a better patch job, and rest for her mutilated head – two of which she could accomplished with a modicum of enduring her own appearance.

Taking several fuel chips for additional light, she returned to the bathroom. Medical supplies were still strewn on the counter. Making sure everything needed was at hand, she got to work. The blacksmith’s tool made quick work of the bandages, the rest falling away after to expose the injury and hair lost at the Lieutenant’s hand.

“Still think she’s such a treat?” she grumbled, moving her face closer to the mirror.

And she stopped.

Kira turned her head, shifting the key to her wounded side to offer better light. With a hand she moved the remaining hair upward, giving the appearance of a shorter, coifed style.

Her mouth felt lined with cotton balls. Blood pounded in her skull and the one remaining ear.

There’d been a medical kit under the counter. The contained scissors were meant for the cutting of gauze and elastic bandages, but were sharp enough for hair in a pinch. Kira opted for the master key instead, bringing it closer to her face, wary of the heat that had scarred her once already.

She held her breath against the odor of burning hair. For danger of losing fingers, she kept one eye painfully open. Before long the image of the white-hot blade appeared when she shut her eyes, tears leaking down from hurt and light. Strands of onyx hair longer than her own arms matted the floor, collected in the sink, made a carpet on the tile.

When she finished, she observed the face in the mirror.

Gaunt. Skin pulled tight over high cheekbones so thin it would split with a kiss. Angles where she’d seen rounded, full flesh, but yet…

She tried smiling: hers mocked where the other was genuine. Pushing out all her air until none remained in the lungs, Kira held her breath. Imagined flatter all those parts that hadn’t been starved into deflating, the notion taking root despite the logic of it, and yet…

Wind whistled through her gaping not-ear as Kira tore from the bathroom, but the discomfort had been squashed into nothingness by revelation. No longer did rest seem important. Arata had to be woken. He had to be told, grievances against him be damned.

Kira turned around the corner, his name on her tongue –

And froze.

Someone was standing at the window overlooking the ward, but the silhouette resembled Arata’s not in the slightest. They stood straight-backed with all the confidence of one who had their run of the place.

The five collective talons on his fingers clicked together: a set of knives to be plunged into her belly, if he so chose. Slash a loved one’s throat to send a message. The one in Kira’s pocket burned ferociously against her thigh as he turned, eyes alight with living flame.

“Perhaps the fault did lie with you, Miss Ishikawa.”