Corpse March

Chapter 25

It’s nice to have KANNIBAL’s weight in her hand again. Defying the laws of comfort, Asuka finds Haru in the backseat, asleep on top of KANNIBAL. Which, by the way, is a huge chunk of steel with a slightly sharp edge. And yet, here she is anyway, sleeping on it. 

“We’re here.”

“Mmmm…”

Asuka pokes Haru’s side, causing her to jerk. 

“Five… five more minutes… mmm…”

Fading in and out of the border of sleep and wakefulness, Haru hears a pair of footsteps approach.

“Ah, Asuka. It’s pleasant to see you again.”

It’s only been one night, but it feels like it’s been a full year since Haru heard Tsumugi’s voice. It’s still not enough to make her get up, though.

“Lady Tsumugi.”

“No need to be so formal, Asuka, you can just call me Tsumugi.”

“Yes, Lady Tsumugi.”

“Anywho, should we wake Haru up or…”

“I’m up, I’m up.”

She rubs the schmutz out of her eyes as she sits upright. 

“What time is it?”

“Eight, eight-thirty. Around there.”

That’s pretty early. For Haru’s standards, anyway. Regardless, she finds it in her to drag herself off the seats. Though, she does forget where she is and accidentally rolls right onto the floor. Ah, the perfect start to any day, concussive cranial trauma.

“I’m sorry, what’s happening?”

“Like… right now or in general?”

“Sorry, wrong question, what did I miss while I was gone?”

“Kikimi’s debriefing my armies after their training exercises so they should be back at any moment and the Elites are resting up at camp. Other than that, nothing really.”

“Huh. Sounds good.”

“How about you? How’d things go on your end?”

“Pretty well, I would say.”

“Great! So we can enter Takakumo freely now, right?!”

“Uhhhh…”

“...”

“Uhmmm…. Well, no…”

“No…?”

Tsumugi visibly deflates and for some reason, Haru’s chest starts to feel heavy as well. Maybe it’s just her, but when did she start caring so much about how Tsumugi felt? 

“Ah! But it’s no big deal! ‘Cause…”

Haru fishes around in the backseat. 

“Of this!”

She cheerfully waves around the roll of papers Tsuki handed off to her. 

“What… are those?”

“No clue! Tsuki said it was a surprise, so…”

“Wait, Tsuki gave this to you?”

“Uhm… yeah?”

Her eyebrows furrow so much they touch the cusp of her glasses.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re about to find out.”

She gingerly takes Pandora’s papers from Haru before slowly unrolling them. With every millimeter of paper unrolled, the muscles around Tsumugi’s eyes tense up wider and wider until, for the very first time, Haru sees what the whites of her eyes look like.

“N-No! No way! This is insane!”

“What is it?”

“Madness! Forget it!”

Tsumugi throws the papers in the air and the leaves scatter in the wind.

“Hey hey hey!!!”

Asuka gathers up the falling papers in elegant swipes, Haru just desperately grabs them out of the air. As she snags page after page, she catches glimpses of what’s written on them. Concentric circles upon concentric circles nestled in many-pointed stars nestled in concentric circles and arcane scribblings written on the rims. All written in blood. Haru tries to read them, but the depth of the writings escape her and she knows not of any magic that needs to be written in blood. 

“Asuka, what are these?”

“A moment.”

She blinks, as she does, there’s that horrible feeling of being dissected again. 

“These are samples of Lady Tsuki’s magic.”

“You can tell?”

“My eyes can see more than what’s material.”

“That’s possible?”

“With my gift? Yes.”

“And… How useful are these to us?”

“With sufficient knowledge of the arcane. Very”

“I refuse, I refuse, I refuse! There’s no way I’m going along with Tsuki’s plan! Not this time!”

“Lady Tsumugi!”

Oh great. Those are the first words that enter Haru’s mind when she hears Kikimi’s voice. A full day of not seeing one another hasn’t quite been enough.  She leads a small party of… backup dancers, she assumes. These girls seem a lot more… How should Haru put this… trendy?. Painted nails, tans, and leg warmers. Like they just got back from a twelve episode extravaganza of girls camping in the mountains. 

But most of all, Haru sees it in their eyes. These girls, none of them yet know the value of a human life. How can they when they’ve never held one in their hands and watched it crumble away? Still, girls like these are a rarity in the outside world, it’s interesting seeing so many of them in one place. It’s like looking at a treasure trove or, more accurately, a pack of gazelles in the savannah.

Ah, there go those thoughts again, firing off nonstop. Then again, Haru wouldn’t be Tot-The-Rocker without those thoughts. Tot-the-Rocker of Girls Won’t Cry. She always liked the moniker, it has a ring to it, makes her out to be some kind of daylight serial killer. She remembers way back when she was still an independent contractor. Her dark past, when she tried to look as cool as possible by dismembering the corpses she would leave behind. Ugh, just thinking about it is enough to make her wince. It’s a good thing that the old chief told her to cut that out when she joined Girls Won’t Cry. She isn’t sure she’d be able to live with herself if she didn’t. 

“Ayyy, wassup girls.”

“Ayyyy.”

“Um. Hello.”

One of the trendy-looking girls shoots both Tsumugi and Haru with a pair of finger guns. Haru fires back with the trigger finger of a seasoned outlaw. Kikimi pinches her nose bridge in frustration.

“Are you all done playing around now?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, yes we are.”

“Riiight?”

The voices of both Haru and the trendy girl echo in sync. 

“You both can stuff it! You!”

Kikimi points at Haru. 

“I’m still not convinced you’re not related to Lady Kentomi’s death! And you!”

Kikimi points at the girl. 

“Your training wasn’t even training! You were all just camping!”

“Hey now, no need to be such a KJ. It’s not like we weren’t working hard, like… learning survival skills and stuff, y’know? It takes a lot of effort to cook with a bonfire, y’know?”

“Kh–!”

Kikimi points at Tsumugi.

“And you! You need to discipline your subordinates better!”

“Ah, about that… Ummm… but they always seem like they’re having so much fun.”

“See? Lady Tsumugi’s got the program down on lock. Riiight?”

“R-right.”

Maybe it’s just Haru but right now, Tsumugi’s exuding a strong motherly aura

“Am I the only one here who takes her job seriously?!”

“Aw, c’mon. Lighten up, Kikimi. We can be soldiers later. For now, it’s break time. Riiight?”

“Riiight. So true, bestie.”

Kikimi clenches her fist so tightly her knuckles go white. 

“Alright, whatever. Can we at least get into Takakumo now?”

“It’s…”

Haru looks at Tsumugi’s hesitant expression.

“...complicated.”

“It’s insane is what it is.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“No…”

“Then I’ll take insane.”

Tsumugi nervously plays with the braids in her hair. 

“...fine, fine. But you’re not going to like it either, though.”