Finalization

It came around to our last day of training. Up to this point, we'd both had the ins and outs of the high life drilled into our heads.

Going through the motions of trying to fit into a haughty crowd felt oddly similar to blending in while we were taking our pills, so it was suspiciously second nature. It didn't feel good, but we had to keep ourselves focused on the end goal.

We were fighting to allow everyone to break their chains and feel again.

That motivation came up time after time when needing to join in on a simulated case of bullying of a poor guest, or learning how to fire a gun in case things got ugly.

How quickly Ekko and I recovered from teary eyed nights when it felt like the world was out to get us. It disgusted me what we were forced to hone, but even that feeling passed like I was some robot able to delete the pain and memory of trauma.

It felt like being back at square one. Denying my emotions to see something through.

But there was that light at the end of this tunnel. A beautiful goddess known as freedom. She called for us, and at all costs, we needed to reach her and bring her back with us.

***

"You've both been some of the best students I've ever had," Patricia, one of our instructors, said as she placed down a frilly looking food item on our plates at lunch time. “Consider this my graduation present.”

"What is this?" Ekko asked.

"Give it a taste."

Ekko reluctantly took a spoonful of this treat and tasted it.

Within the span of a blink it was gone from her plate.

"That was a slice of lemon cake," Patricia smiled. "You try it too, Kitsune."

I remember vaguely hearing that lemons were sour. If my experience with sour had any condolences, it's that I probably wasn't going to like this.

But as it turns out, sour when paired with sweet was actually really good.

For a brief moment, the cold treat gave me such warmth. I could just barely imagine myself in some brightly coloured establishment, decorated in a calming yet lively atmosphere. Ekko was sitting across from me, smiling like this was some date. She was dressed in a cozy outfit, and there was snow outside…

Nothing like that has ever happened to us. Perhaps this was some ancestral memory of the life humanity used to live before the pill. Either way, I wanted more of it.

"Don't get too lost in the mission that you both forget you're human," Patricia advised. "You'll have every Guardian of the Soul standing beside you, and we all want the same thing for the world. Lean on us."

Her words put my heart at ease a fair bit. I'd been stressing over this ordeal, rightfully. But we were still human and could only do so much alone.

"Take some time to rest. When you two are ready, go see Miyazaki-sama to finalize the last parts of the plan."

With that, Ekko and I were temporarily left to our own devices.

Ekko was smiling at me as she rested her arm on the table and held her head in her hands. Her cute gaze made me snicker.

"We have a few hours. Wanna take a walk in the park?" she asked.

By park, she meant the big area in the center of this complex that was an indoor garden.

I stood from my seat, then held my elbow out in a courteous manner for Ekko to take hold of. One of the few good parts about high society I learned.

"My lady."

Her arm wrapped around mine, and we both took our walk.

Kids were playing in the flowers, giving us a glimpse of what children were supposed to live like. Elderly were holding hands, watching it all unfold with smiles. And the smell from all the natural foliage just made all our worries disappear.

At least, disappear momentarily.

***

We walked into Miyazaki-sama's office along with Ko. Not only were we both refreshed in mind and body, but our purpose had been renewed, and we were prepared for our mission to save the soul of mankind.

"You two look cheery," Our leader commented.

"You could say that," I replied.

Miyazaki-sama was well aware of how our training had been going. He even periodically dropped by to check on us. His confidence was high, and he had no troubles trusting us with the next bit of details on the operation.

"The party is tomorrow night. The two of you will be posing as newly weds representing the Yamazaki family. Conveniently, the two people you're impersonating have suddenly disappeared before making their debut to the public."

He tossed some papers on his desk.

"These are their profiles. Memorize them and play the part well."

The guy I was playing was Kishimoto Yamazaki. He's going to inherit his father's factory where they produce military grade steel.

Ekko was playing a girl named Hibiki Miyamoto. A person whose family has ties to a lot of people in political positions. Luckily her character isn't very well known, so her personality can be more improvised than mine.

"Question," Ekko said. "They didn't disappear because someone killed them, right?"

"We have them locked away nice and safe somewhere. The location of which is highly classified."

That put both our minds at ease.

"Ko, you'll be joining them as backup in case things go south. Understood?"

"Understood."

Having Ko there was going to be nice, but how was she going to get around without being noticed?

When I brought that up, Ekko joked about hiding her underneath her big skirt. I playfully suggested she could play our daughter.

Which, oddly enough, was the intention.

“The two people you'll be impersonating have been out of the public eye for a long time,” he claimed. “Their marriage certificate served as a blip on the elite's radar, which is why they got invited in the first place. We can effectively spin the narrative for a single night however we want.”

My little sister playing my daughter felt strange, but given how she'd had a hand in our training the last few days, we already had a professional partnership brewing.

Miyazaki-sama presented us with three more things. A high quality portable scanner, fake ID cards, and two guns.

The scanner is what we'll be using to copy the card we'd need to get into the factory. And the ID cards would let us get into the party in the first place.

The thing that made me freeze was the gun, and that was because I knew what this could be used for.

"Incase of an emergency, we can't have either of you caught. If you have to shoot your way out, do it."

"I hope it doesn't come to killing anyone." Ekko sighed.

"It's not just for shooting other people, it’s also an exit," he clarified.

That's what I was afraid of. This was an exit from conviction we'd be holstering in our pockets. But it held many purposes, and we were trained to wield it responsibly.

Ekko came to terms with his implication, but I knew her well enough to know she'd fight death to the very end. Especially knowing that we had more options from training. We weren’t as helpless as we once were, and we certainly weren’t alone.

It was time to begin this operation.