Hold Me Closer, Pyromancer

The Don had appeared without preamble, without announcement, not so much as a sound to herald his arrival into their vicinity. He simply, suddenly, was. Like daisies after winter – or a nasty case of herpes, rearing his foreboding head at the inopportune moment.

How had he gotten in without notice? Not once had a door slammed or unlocked, and the expensive looking dress shoes he wore weren’t exactly slippers. They should have sounded leather bats against the wood floor.

“Have you so little honor, that you would renege on our agreement without a second thought?” He waited for a span of moments in their – his and Kira’s – shared silence. “Answer.”

“Long con,” she replied, lying through clenched teeth. It had worked once before, after all. She retracted the master key’s blade, hoping a show of fealty would buy belief.

But the Don only shook his head. Heavily he sighed, chest quaking as though containing laughter, in efforts to wear serious airs at that moment. The posturing that had swayed his right hand would not work on the man himself. Lights from the ward below cast him in rainbow glow. Their fingers caressed the outline of that pristine white suit, haloed him, like a divine being whose reach knew no bounds.

And through him.

No more penetrating than beams from flashlights behind fingers, as children were wont to do – interest in their own humanity coming to light – but there, nonetheless. If the suit had been a darker shade they may not have stood out at all.

“Such deep agents I can abide, had you made your intentions known beforehand, but as of this moment I can no longer ignore the fact those actions you claim purposeful have run counter to my goals, regardless of intent.” His tone was formal and clipped, like the condemnation were delivered to a room full of board members. “Very well. Consider our present business concluded, Miss Ishikawa, for I no longer see any value in our continued partnership.

“You will be considered an enemy alongside Mr. Ogata,” the Don continued, acknowledging the still dozing wielder in name, without a glance. “Each claimant to the Pride down to the lowest will know this truth. Their orders will not be to detain, but to kill, and this judgement will be leveled against all co-conspirators.”

Co-conspirators. An all-encompassing word, yet nonspecific. Kira’s family would be on the chopping block, no doubt, at the mercy of suited, stringent headsman with mirrored shades and a freshly sharpened katana. Or a tantō for each member to plunge into their respective bellies, all of them sitting in a row, like ducks.

The Don spent his life in the West: perhaps there’d be a firing squad style of execution. Something quick and impactful. Something American.

She thought briefly of the old woman she’d taken, the man enthralled into being her steed, and of Allie. She was deep in territory far outside his own, which should afford her some protection.

How did he view failure? What about the Lieutenant who’d suffered a lapse in judgement? Blanket terms provided ample excuse for the man to dispense punishment on whomever he felt ire for.

Everything that’s happened is temporary. Get free, get a little jiggy with it.

Kira eyed the Don’s necklace: its diamond called to her.

“Not if we get you first.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘not if we get you first.’” The words left her mouth easily as a compliment. They left without effort, and were devoid of the malice she’d felt creeping into herself over these long days running. When Kira said those words to the criminal head who’d ordered her death, threatened her family and friends, dangled a carrot in exchange for betrayal, she felt only a calm certainty.

She’d seen that man – that old man overflowing with years. Decades.

Her throat hitched imagining him again. “Send every body you’ve got on your payroll. Bring yourself,” Kira said. “It won’t matter in the end.”

For the first time in their conversation, the Don’s face cracked a smirk. “You’ll have to make do with half of my men.” He gestured to the window behind him with an open hand, inviting Kira closer. Unafraid, she took his invitation.

Activity boiled around the high-rise’s base, but those swarming black dots appeared no more than a colony of insects from so far up. They congregated around a point, the mass of bodies allowing only thin slips of light to reach the street, numbers decreasing as she watched on.

“I require the rest. A fox hunt is in order, whose woods brim with falcons.” His smile curled upwards to his eyes.

Flesh struck flesh.

Kira’s hand landed heavy as an axe against the Don’s throat before clamping down, anger erupting through the calm. The older man’s smile only widened the harder she clenched, expression unwavering despite the contact that had overwhelmed all others. Correction: almost all others.

The master key followed, Kira jamming the tool up to its handle in the Don’s stomach. Light spilled forth and pierced through the enemy body, its tip hatching from his back where the spine curved. The Don was all teeth now. White glistened between bloodless lips.

“Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you.”

Air rushed over Kira’s skin when the clone popped, leaving her alone with unbloodied weapon in hand. She drew back the blade as the reality of her situation set in.

A siege was underway, and an army of foes were coming to deliver the Don’s justice.

---

“I suppose that’s my cue.”

The futon creaked behind her, and Kira watched the reflection of its occupant stretching away the last vestiges of rest in the window. How long had she stood there, staring out into the city, and the swarm of foes packed shoulder-to-shoulder at the choke point, wasting valuable time? Too much time, that was the amount – exact and nebulous.

“You were awake the whole time?”

“For the most part. You were handling the Don well enough without me, so I didn’t feel a need to interrupt.” Arata yawned, clicked his tongue wetly a few times, strangely unimpressed with the current threat that loomed over their heads – under, really – looking as if he were deep in thought over what meal he’d begin the day with. His eyes weren’t even open yet.

Kira tossed the key into his lap. “Sure are taking your sweet time knowing what’s coming.”

“We’re on the eighteenth floor, and the elevator’s been busted long as I’ve lived here. Relax. I’ll arrange some stuff and we’ll be out of here no sweat.”

She scanned the skyline while he lazed. Full of lights as Shinjuku was, it made searching out unusual ones difficult. “I don’t think I could be more relaxed. It’s almost frightening.”

“That’s the spirit.”

He stopped then. There was a clipped emphasis to his last word that made Kira turn. Someone had taken a scalpel to the final syllable from “spirit” and squeezed the letters between their palms so thin it sounded more like a gasp.

In Arata’s gaze, his eyes open now, she caught the tail end of a queer expression before his face hardened.

She ran a hand through her remaining hair. Comfortable as it was, she still wasn’t accustomed to the lack of weight. From Arata’s point of view the change was undoubtedly shocking, but one he’d get accustomed to before long, she figured.

“You didn’t take anything from the Don when you made your little agreement, did you?” he asked. As she pulled out the talon, his face fell. “Nothing to be done about it now. Toss it here.” The master key blazed to life as she did, and he swiped the filigree as it flew to nothing with the flat of the blade, kicking off bedsheets in the same motion. He broke into a run, Kira at his heels.

She caught him in the workroom stuffing a soot-covered duffel bag. Into the bag he swept an armful of his key’s fuel from the bench, tools, handfuls of porcelain and wire spools, jars too swiftly for Kira to read the labels of. He flung open a drawer and withdrew over a dozen weighty thief stones before dumping them into the bag and zipping it closed.

“Aren’t you going to give me anything?” she asked.

“What for?” After he was done, he slipped his arm inside the apparatus atop it, started tightening the straps while Kira watched, his face a mask of focus – or maybe frustration. Kira couldn’t tell which.

“For fighting off the Pride coming to kill us.”

“Are you nuts?” Laughter barked out his chest. “Us? Against that many? Yeah, real funny joke there. We’re running, not fighting.” He jerked his head towards the backpack-looking objects on the room’s side.

“These’ll get us through them?”

“Over them, Kira. Please try to keep up. Take the one on the left and put it on.”

She picked up the more refined looking of the two he’d directed her towards. It was heavy, whatever it was, but not overly so. Liquid sloshed around with every movement. Sigildry decorated the metal surface and the leather straps holding the contraption in place around her shoulders. Two squat cone-shaped metal pipes jutted off each side like legs.

Arata led them back to the living room. White light burst from the master key as he delivered a slash to one window, heat shattering the entire pane in one short go. Glass tinkled down to the streets and enemies below taking the room’s heat with it.

Thief stones followed: three for each hand once he’d unwound their wires. “Should soften the bastards up enough. Let’s get going.” A chorus of echoing cannon blasts sounded through the night, screams of the wounded riding atop their backs. He tossed the wires out the window also.

“To the Don, right?” Kira asked.

Arata returned a funny look. He stroked up the contraption’s strap and the legs began to glow, warmth swimming back into the room as the light swelled. Tongues of flame leapt from the pipes.

“Of course not. We’re going back to finish the ritual.”

“But we still need the diamond!”

“Yeah, but we’ll get it when the Don isn’t surrounded by his men. Two people aren’t gonna do shit there, or here for that matter.”

“But we’ll win!” she argued. She cupped a hand over her missing ear, shielding it from the tempest of icy winds her shortened hair offered no protection from.

“Where’d you get that impression?” The winds were intensifying up there, and incredible heat from the device whipped them up into further frenzy, so he needed to shout to be heard. His ponytail slapped wildly against his head.

“My vision! I know what I saw now!” Kira pointed to herself with her free hand. “It’s the future! I saw me! I…” Emotion held back her voice more than the winds ever could. It felt surreal to say out loud. Doubly so for Arata: he'd received knowledge from the memory crystal, but her – the vision of her future. His face took on that indeterminable expression again. “You were right. Everything works out in the end!”

“But it’s not a future you want.”

She blinked. “What?” Winds were kicking up everything not nailed down, and the glowing heat had steadily risen to a thunderous roar in the enclosed space of Arata’s home. They had to have mangled his words.

“How can you want a future in which you destroy yourself, where you’re alone and in pain?”

Now Arata was yelling. Fighting the power of the device he wore, he’d even stumbled closer. Not close enough to touch, of course, but close enough to ensure his words were clear.

That there’d be no misunderstanding.

“With the Don’s men split I can finish the ritual without interruption. We can solve all of this today.” He waved his arms in circles to emphasize everything. “There are plenty of jewelry stores we can hit along the way. We don’t even need to risk fighting him! Does that make sense?” Bringing both hands to his chest, he cupped a fist directly over the spot where his heart should have been as if modeling for Kira what muscle supposedly beat there.

Kira’s mind was static as he explained the contraption’s functions. She ran on autopilot, mumbling out responses that Arata would find acceptable.

Okay.

Okay.

Jetpack. I’ve heard of it.

I get it.

I’ll follow you.

The ritual is what matters now.

It’ll all be fine in the end.

Nothing that would raise his hackles. No going against the grain he put forth.

She followed his lead, hands running along the straps to active the sigildry and achieve thrust through blacksmithing and magical techniques, trusting her life to the same hands that had made the necklace she wore even while sleeping. She barely felt the heat at her back, nearly forgot the words of warning to keep her legs extended straight lest turbulence at that dizzying height kick them into the flames and burn those important limbs from her body.

Kira was flying, but she felt only a fly.

Musca domestica – the common house fly. Short-lived. Miniscule. So common she hadn’t felt a need to keep one for posterity. All the freedom to see the world and enough brains to spend most of it near the ground in the presence of larger, more dangerous beasts. Two great red compound eyes always hunting for filth and the bright light of bug zappers.

From on high, Kira could pick out all the landmarks she’d become familiar with during her time spent earthbound picking insects like flowers, undertaking tasks in pursuit of an education now far out of reach, dreaming in secret of life metamorphosed from the one she’d been given. Her own personal cocoon, from inside which she knew every surface’s taste, the texture of every piece of chitin.

Shinjuku passed below as she wandered the night sky at Arata’s side, his device at her back, approaching a destination of his choosing, part of a present he’d made.

Falling for his lie of an alternative way to source their required component for the ritual.

It was his high drama – his damn need for physicality – that gave it away.

Elsewhere, light called her name – intent, by purpose of design, to draw her into its annihilating grasp.

What sort of fly would she be to ignore it?

Kira’s hands flew along the jetpack’s straps, sigildry script glowing bright as stars in proportion to the flames she forced from the polished thrusters, her burning path through the night drowning out Arata’s shouts to return.