Weiss Kreuz: Lady Killer 2
by K.Huntsman
released 24 December 1999

 

"What the heck--" gaped Youji.

They all stared at the monitors, which showed bodies decorating most of the building's twenty floors.

"Did someone decide to take them out before we could?" Ken wondered.

"If so, who?" Aya asked.

Omi's finger jabbed at monitor 20-03. "There!" A slender figure ran down a corridor towards Mitaka Koichirou's office.

"Let's get up there," Aya said grimly.

 

The figure leaning across Mitaka's desk didn't even flinch when they crashed the double doors open. Eventually she straightened to look at them, her face an eerie mask of white geisha makeup. Behind her the arms importer was silent and gasping for air, his face pale.

"Who are you?" Aya growled, his orchid eyes narrowed.

A deck of cards fanned themselves between the woman's black-clad fingers. "Call me Magician."

Ken's eyes fastened on Mitaka. "What's wrong with him?"

Magician shrugged, the movement calling attention to her bare white shoulders. The top she was wearing collared around her throat but swept down and around below her arms, leaving that pale flesh bare. Whoever Magician was, Youji thought, she was definitely sensual.

"It's poison, isn't it?" he asked, feeling a tightness of recognition in his chest. Those black ankle boots she wore beneath the long slit skirt were familiar. "You're the one from last time."

"Maybe," Magician replied. Behind her a man expired. "Who might you be?"

He smirked. "Call me Balinese," he said, parroting her own phrase back at her.

"And your friends?" she asked, shuffling the cards. Then she flicked them out into a fan again and carelessly selected one. She put it on the desk in front of the dead man, face-up. It was the ace of hearts, Youji could just see. The rest formed themselves into a neat stack in her hands.

Omi stepped forward. "I'm Bombay, they're Abyssinian and Siberian," he said, indicating Aya and Ken.

She smiled. "A sentai team short one member?" she teased.

Omi frowned and questioned, "Who do you work for?"

The Magician shrugged again.

"Look, are you deliberately being difficult, or what?" Ken demanded.

Magician looked at him, black eyes and red lips stunning on her geisha face. "Siberian, right? I find it unnecessary for you or I to know anything about one another. You go your way, I'll go mine, and when our paths cross, whoever gets there first gets the target."

"It's not that simple," Aya said as Omi fanned darts between his fingers. "You've seen our faces."

"No witnesses," Youji said softly, regretting the policy.

Magician slid off the high desk, revealing a flash of a long, shapely leg clad in black nylon. The rest of the pack was set neatly beside the one card. "So, four to one, then?" she asked. She smiled. "You'll have to catch me first." She was darting towards them before she'd even finished speaking and as Youji saw Omi move his arm back to cast the darts, she did something, a slight spring with one foot--

--she was in the air over them, tucked into a ball--

--she landed on the other side of the line the four of them made--

--and she was off running again before they were even turned around.

"Hell!" Ken exclained, and he was off after her, the rest of them hard on his heels.

The black-clad figure was not hard to keep track of against the white walls; when she made a left at the first dead-end, they too turned that corner and--

"She's gone?" Youji asked the air in surprise.

 

"I don't understand how she managed to vanish like that," Youji complained the next morning. Omi watched as his friend's fingers arranged some trailing ivy with baby's breath and baby pink hothouse roses.

"If any of us understood it, it wouldn't have happened," Aya replied.

"Still, she was pretty fast... and that flip she did...."

"Don't tell me you're falling in love, Ken-kun!" Omi said, looking up at the smile on Ken's face.

The sports fanatic shook his head. "Nah, not yet, Omi! But even you've got to admit that she had 'something'...."

"It's called 'style'," Youji said from where he was working. Omi glanced back to see him weave in a few fern blades as well. It looked nice.

"Good morning," a subdued voice said.

Ken yelled and whirled at the voice which was right behind him. Omi stifled a smile. "...I'm sorry!" their blue-eyed neighbor apologized, seeming as startled by Ken's reaction as he was at her greeting. "I didn't mean to surprise you...!"

Ken put a hand to the back of his head. "Ah, it's okay. What can I do for you?"

"I was just wondering if you carried white tulips," Shirayuki said softly.

"White tulips? Sure," Omi said, sliding off his stool and going over to the glass case which held the flowers. "How many do you want?"

"A dozen, please, Tsukiyono-san," she asked, her fingers clenching and unclenching at a fold of her blue skirt. That obsessive motion caught all of their attentions; even Aya looked at her.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Ken asked.

"...They're for someone who died," she answered. "Someone I kissed once."

"Oh." That subdued even Ken-kun fast, Omi thought, picking out a dozen of the nicest white tulips. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was his time to die... or that's what I keep telling myself, anyway." Shirayuki's blue eyes met Ken's brown ones. "It's sometimes hard to retain one's faith when death is involved."

"Is that why your shop is closed today?" Aya asked.

She nodded. "That and the fact that I'm moving into a new apartment. I'll hold opening day tomorrow."

"Where are you moving into?" Omi asked, wrapping clear cellophane around the tulips.

"This building," Shirayuki replied with a vague gesture towards the ceiling. "Apartment 401."

"You're right above me," Ken said. "I'm 301. Pleased to meet you, neighbor!"

That brought a faint smile to Shirayuki's lips. "It's nice to know someone in the building already, when I'm only just moving in," she admitted.

"Here you go!" Omi said, presenting her with the flowers. "We all live here; I'm 202, Youji-kun's 201, and Aya-kun's 302."

"Thank you, Tsukiyono-san," she said with a bow, and pulled the necessary coin out of a beaded clutch purse. "I'll look forward to seeing you all around, then. And I'll try to be a good neighbor."

Omi noticed that Youji-kun's and Ken-kun's eyes both followed her as the young woman left, and wondered what they were thinking.

 

Yuki shifted the two heavy bags in her arms, trying to find a more comfortable way of holding them. They were very heavy; the problem with starting fresh in a new apartment like this was that it meant she had to get new furniture, fixtures, everything. Her packages contained drapes and cups and plates and utensils, soap and dishtowels, as well as pots and pans and bags of rice and salt and flour.... Her attention slipped back to the bags and she shifted them again.

"Ah--!" she cried as the right one began to slide from her grasp, and tried wildly to regain the balance of the overburdened bag.

It was plucked from her insufficient clutch, and she looked up to see a certain redhaired florist holding it easily for her. "Fujimiya-san!"

"You seemed to be in danger of losing this," he replied.

She smiled. "Thank you very much!"

"I'll carry it the rest of the way for you."

Yuki blinked. "I don't mean to impose...."

"I'm going home anyway."

"Thank you," she repeated, smiling at him.

It was only a few blocks from the store to the apartments, and he carried the package all the way up to the fourth floor for her, then stood waiting while she opened the door. "Please, come in," she said, kicking off her shoes by the door. "I'm afraid it's a horrible mess, but would you like some tea? And I think I have muffins in one of these bags...."

 

"Sure," Aya replied, taking off his own shoes. He glanced around the apartment as he followed Shirayuki to the kitchen, a bag in each of their arms. He hadn't seen an apartment look so empty since he first moved into his. It was bare and stark; there was no furniture aside from a low table, and nothing on the walls. The bedroom door was ajar and he could see that room was equally vacant. "You haven't got any furniture?"

"No," she answered, setting her bag down on a counter in the kitchen. "My last apartment building was destroyed in a fire. I lost everything. I got enough from the insurance to move here, to open Magic House and make a new start, but I'm not sure yet what direction I want these four walls to take...." She started rummaging in the bag he had carried and pulled out a tea kettle. "How long have you lived here?" she asked as she ran water from the tap into the kettle.

"A couple of years," he replied.

"And your friends, Fujimiya-san?" She set the kettle on the stovetop and flicked the heat on beneath it. Then she was back rummaging through the bags, placing food into the cupboards above her head. She wasn't very tall... probably just a few centimeters taller than Omi.

"They've been here longer."

"I see." She stood on her tiptoes to push a stack of instant ramen packages back onto a shelf. She laughed at her own height. "I think I'll need to get a stepstool if I'm to take advantage of those top shelves."

"Where did you live before?" Aya asked quietly.

"Tokyo." She answered, uncharacteristically, with just one word. He wondered if he'd touched a nerve. Then she turned and smiled at him. "What sort of tea would you like?"

"Umm..." he said. He didn't know about teas. He only drank coffee.

Shirayuki looked at him, her head tilting a little to one side as she studied him. "You're not a tea person, are you?" she asked.

"Not really."

She looked back at the counter, at her hands nesting brand new pots into one another. "Mama loved tea. I guess it was because she was British. But she loved Japanese tea too... she adored the tea ceremony, studied it. I never understood that, but nonetheless I grew up with a taste for tea. I have some coffee, though, if you'd prefer." She took out a package of grounds for instant coffee.

"No, it's all right." He only drank Youji's coffee blend. He didn't know anything about coffees either.

"I'll make blackberry tea, then," she said. The instant coffee went away in a cupboard too. "It's good with honey... lemon honey especially. I bought some." She looked at him again. "It's true what I said, you know. You do have a good voice. My sister was an opera singer, so I got exposed to voice as well as tea. But you don't speak much, do you?" She looked back to her task. "I probably speak too much. I'm sorry."

The tea kettle began to whistle.

 

"Are you sure this is all right, Ken-kun?" Omi asked, looking at the door before them.

"Why shouldn't it be?" Ken replied. "It's perfectly decent to stop by a new neighbor's house with a welcoming gift. And she did give us those presents already."

"Besides which, bringing flowers to a lady is always in good taste," Youji added.

"Okay," Omi said, sounding reluctant, and knocked on the door.

It was opened a few seconds later by Shirayuki. Ken held out the large bouquet of flowers to her. "We thought we'd welcome you to the building," he said as explanation, smiling.

She blinked at them, then at the flowers. "...Thank you," she said. "Thank you very much... please, won't you come in?" She stepped back from the door and held it open for them. Ken walked in and shucked his shoes, noticing hers there and a set of men's shoes as well. He looked down the hallway and saw Aya, wearing that damn orange sweater of his, sitting at a low table, a cup in his hands. Shirayuki followed his glance. "Fujimiya-san was kind enough to help me home from the store," she explained. "Please, would you all care to join us in tea?"

"Sure!" Omi said from where he was just toeing off his high-tops.

Youji smiled gallantly, having slipped out of his own shoes easily. "It's always a pleasure to drink tea made by a beautiful woman."

Shirayuki smiled a little. "I'll just go into the kitchen to put these in some water, then, and get more cups. I'm sorry I haven't any house slippers put out yet, but I promise the floors are clean. Please..." and she gestured towards the living room where Aya already sat.

Aya raised a cup of steaming tea to his lips and sipped as they approached.

"Aah~!" Omi exclaimed, looking over into the corner of the room. Ken followed his gaze and saw, on top of a low box, the flowers Shirayuki had bought earlier in the day, held in a clear crystal vase. Beside them a stick of incense sent up delicate tendrils of spicy smoke and a black ribbon had tied itself into a neat bow.

"I thought... she said those were for a funeral," Ken wondered aloud.

"They are," their hostess replied, walking back into the room, more cups and a pile of muffins balanced on a tray in her hands. "It's... neither possible nor appropriate for me to attend, however... a makeshift shrine and prayers are all I can offer to the deceased." She knelt down beside the table and began transfers from the tray to the tabletop. Then she returned to the kitchen and brought out the flowers they'd given her. The vase she'd put them in was a larger version of the one which held the tulips. Her gaze flickered around the room and she set them before the center of one wall. Somehow they looked right when she put them there.

"Your place is a little bare," Youji remarked, looking away from the flowers. He glanced around speculatively.

"I have no things, yet," Shirayuki replied, kneeling down on one side of the table again. She poured tea into three new china cups. They matched the white ones they'd used in her shop the night before. "My last apartment building burned down, and everything I had with it."

"That's terrible!" Omi exclaimed. "Was anyone hurt?"

Her lips pressed together. "Many people died. I was away that night; I wasn't there for it. I came home only to find ashes...." She blinked as if holding back tears. "It was only two months ago."

"I'm sorry," Ken helplessly said for the second time that day.

She shook her head and finished pouring the tea. "Don't be," she assured again. "You had nothing to do with it."

 

Youji was troubled as he left Yukiko's apartment. He couldn't understand why his nerves were jangling about in his head, only that it was something to do with the identity of the mysterious Magician. Maybe he needed to cut back on dating and get some more sleep for a while if he was getting this frayed, letting his "day" life and his "night" life blur with one another.

"Something wrong, Youji-kun?" Omi asked, reading his look.

He forced a smile. "Nothing, nothing at all!"

Omi didn't look convinced.

"I'll tell you tomorrow. It's something I gotta sleep on," Youji softened his denial. "Something about 'Magician'. I'm probably wrong."

"You, Youji, wrong about a woman?" Ken cackled from behind the two of them. "That'll be the day!"

Youji frowned to himself, and went to his apartment, shutting the door behind him. He needed to think....

He found a pencil and dug a notebook out of his bookshelves and sat down on the floor by his bed. Slowly he started listing out things--height, hair color, eye color, style, speech, everything he could remember about Magician. Everything she'd done in the few moments he'd met her.

She was good, he had no doubt of that. By herself, she'd taken out an entire building of people. It would have taken all four of them to do the same. And she hadn't even been carrying a weapon.

Where had she been wearing her poison? On her lips, he had no doubt, remembering the sight of those blood-red lips against the pale, painted face. But that alone wouldn't have been enough to take everyone out. Tracing their way back down through the building, they hadn't found any traces of weapons or nerve gas bombs, nothing....

//Think, Kudou. If you were a female assassin, if poison was your main weapon, how would you take all those people out without a mark?//

His pencil doodled on the paper, drawing a rough image of a cloud. Lines radiated out from around it. //What was on her?//

He sighed and went to get himself some coffee. //Omi's the smart one. Maybe I should have asked him for help on this.// He stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, waiting for the machine to percolate enough for a cup. Then he took his favorite blue mug and returned to his bedroom. The notebook was where he had left it, still blank of conclusions. He sat down and drew it closer to himself.

//Black eyes.//

--"It's just very rare to meet someone with true green eyes."--

Youji pushed away memories and concentrated.

Then he paused.

Was it possible...?

 

As background for this story, I've been allowed to take two stories. One is Yuki Scorpio's fic "When You Gonna Learn"; the other is Youko Fujima's fic "Know," an offshoot chapter of her story "Dying in Your Dreams," which can be found along with several of her other works here. I highly recommend both of their works!

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