Corpse March

Chapter 33

“Haru?”

A voice in the distant dark. 

“Haru!”

What the hell? Just as the pain in her head was just starting to get comfortable. Slowly, she peels open her eyes to see Tsumugi’s warm face, wet with tears.

“Oh, thank Lady Tsubame you’re okay.”

She wraps her arms around her in a giant hug. It doesn’t hurt. Not in the slightest. Tsumugi holds her like she’s nestling a baby. It’s sort of embarrassing but ah, who cares. She just lets herself melt in her warmth, in her comfort. 

“Where… where are we?”

“We’re in the Curia, we made it, Haru!”

She claps her hands excitedly, like a small child. 

“What… what happened to the others?”

“We’re still digging them out of the rubble, but there shouldn’t be any casualties… save for the ones we lost in the attack.”

There’s a visible pain in Tsumugi’s eyes that she hides well. Haru doesn’t dare pry. 

“Oh, I see.”

Haru lifts her head off the bed of rocks she was using as a pillow. Looking all around her, the train seems trashed. The roof completely collapsed in on itself. There are small groups of what she assumes are improvised emergency response teams trying to move the rubble out of the way. Every so often, they pull a person out, dazed, confused, and only a little hurt. 

“Where’s Kuroko? The, um, girl in a suit.”

“You mean her?”

Tsumugi points to a small crew carrying Kuroko out of the train in a stretcher. 

“Yeah… wait here. I have something to finish.”

“H-Haru?! What are you doing? It’s over. We made it to the Curia. There’s no need to fight anymore.”

“But if I just let her go, she’ll keep coming back!”

“What are you saying? Are you going to… kill her?”

Yes. Haru wants to say, but for some reason she doesn’t. It’s like she’s ashamed. Since when? She’s always killed without hesitation so why now? Is it because… Tsumugi’s here? Does she not want Tsumugi to see this side of her? Curious and curiouser. Her own heart, hiding things from her? How strange.

“Alright… fine. At least help me get back on my feet, won’t you?”

“O-oh yeah. Of course.”

Tsumugi lifts Haru’s arm around her shoulder and stands up. Haru follows suit, the exhaustion weighs her down but all she has to do is lean on Tsumugi and it all just seems to evaporate into thin air. Outside the train, a familiar face is waiting for them. 

“Bravo! Bravo!”

Tsuki claps her hands as she welcomes both Tsumugi and the still-dazed Haru. 

“See? I knew it would work.”

“We toed the line between illegal and legal but yes, I suppose your plan did work, Tsuki.”

Tsumugi rolls her eyes. 

“Did you take all of this into your calculations as well?”

She gestures at everything. At the collapsed wall and the Monarchian train running through it. This used to be such a nice place. Now, Haru can barely imagine any more meetings happening here.

“I just gave you the magic. The whole crashing-the-train-into-the-Curia thing, you made that up yourself.”

“Oh please.”

“Regardless, you should be safe now. No soldier can enter the Curia willingly. So long as you stay in here, you should be safe from Gleam–”

The ground rumbles. 

“Speak of the devil…”

“Not good.”

“Not good? What do you mean not good? Like, oh god we’re going to die not good or mild inconvenience not good?”

“Something like that.”

The ground rumbles again, twice as hard this time. Outside, the sun glares brighter… wait, that’s not right. That shouldn’t be possible. And yet, it is. The light passing through the stained glass windows is nearly blinding. 

“I advise taking cover.”

Then, with a flash of blinding blue light, an entire section of the wall on the side of the Curia is blasted away. All the stained glass windows shatter with it. Haru instinctively moves in front of Tsumugi to protect her from the shards. None of them even reach her, but still, better safe than sorry.

Then, amidst dust, something with a fury that hell cannot ever hope to match emerges. It holds a wicked blade, with a sheen like a wolf’s snarl, like a hiking stick as it climbs through the rubble. Kuroko stirs in her stretcher as she turns to face the beast. 

“Lady Gleam…”

“I’ll deal with you later.”

There’s a frigid fury in her voice. Haru’s blood runs cold. So this is her. The one behind Kagami’s death. She feels her fist clench unconsciously. The desire to walk up to her and deck her across the face is strong, but not irrepressible. Gleam stands on top of the tallest piece of rubble, looking down on all creation. Her wicked blade by her side. Her soft eyes are a frigid burning. And her stance, in spite of her short stature, exudes an aura of imitation. It compels one to kneel. And yet, here Haru is, standing anyway in defiance. 

“I see now the tune you wish to play, Tsumugi.”

She smirks a mirthless smirk filled only with venom. Her eyes do not realize anyone else is in the room. Right now, it’s just her and her mortal enemy, Tsumugi. 

“Then very well, let us make merry and dance.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You gangsters are all the same.”

“Wh-what?!”

Tohru looks at the flames sputtering out on her palm. She  tries over and over to revive them, but to no avail. Eventually, all that remains is smoke. That famed Sorcery of hers is an issue no longer. Girls Won’t Cry’s chief is reduced no more to a terrified girl, backed into a corner. Kazuko drinks up schadenfreude pleasure as her ancient grudge is slowly paid in full. 

“Your eyes. They’ve lost their focus. Too much time away from the front lines will do that to a person.”

They’re not like Kazuko’s eyes. Eyes always forward. Towards her prey. The eyes of a warrior.

“If you wanted to play house, you picked the wrong line of work, my friend.”

Kazuko levels her rapier between Tohru’s eyes. She tries to back away but the hungry wolf doesn’t let her. The distance between the bridge of her nose and the sword tip does not change in the slightest as the two move.

“We had a deal.”

“No. You had a deal with Barrakuda. This? This is personal. Does the name ‘Kazumi Kure’ ring a bell?”

“...”

A moment passes. Then two. All the while, the chief’s face remains blank in defiance. Yet, Kazuko does not find it in herself to pity her in the slightest. Rather the opposite, the rage she buried in her chest consumes her.

“The girl you had killed?!”

“I regret to inform you that Girls Won’t Cry is that sort of establishment. I’ve had many girls killed in the past–”

“DON’T TEST ME!”

She cleaves through one of the nearby desk tables in twain. Before Tohru can take advantage of that tiny opening, she returns to leveling her rapier at her chest.  

“My patience is running thin.”

“Do it then.”

Tohru spreads her arms out.

“Kill me.”

“...”

Without breaking eye contact, Kazuko lowers her rapier, sighs, then gives Tohru a wry smile.

“...alright.”

Without flinching, Kazuko retracts her arm and viciously stabs Tohru directly in her heart. It’s clear by the surprised look in Tohru’s eyes that she didn’t quite expect that sort of response. A gurgling sound makes its way up her throat as the internal bleeding starts to take its toll. 

“Don’t get me wrong.”

She stabs even deeper, pinning Tohru to the wall behind her. 

“The only reason I didn’t go for the head is because I need you alive.”

Kazuko lifts up Tohru’s head by her hair and lowers herself down to her ear. 

“With the pitiful speck of life you have left in your body, tell me where the girls who killed my friend are.”

“What are you… talking about?”

“TOT-THE-ROCKER! WHERE IS SHE?!”

She takes a breath to calm herself down. 

“Where is Tot-The-Rocker?”

“Ha… and what… makes you think… I’ll tell you?”

“I have snipers trained on every single member of Girls Won’t Cry. Every. Single. One. Save only for Tot-The-Rocker, and Kuroko Shindou. Give me their location and you have my word, I’ll spare everyone else. I only want the heads of Tot-The-Rocker and Kuroko Shindou. Understand?”

“You… son of a… bitch.”

She’s heard rumors that the once almighty chief of Girls Won’t Cry’s gone soft. She’s started to actually care for her subordinates, treating them as nonexpendable. Irreplaceable even. Sadly, a common first and last mistake anyone makes in this business. Kazuko looks Tohru in the eyes and knows that the rumors are true. 

“The Neo… Neo Magical Academy…”

“Pardon?”

“You… heard me… The Neo Magical… Academy… You’ll find Kuroko there…”

“And Tot-the-Rocker?”

“Hell… if I know.”

“...”

As unbelievable as it sounds, it seems like she isn’t lying. Kazuko pulls her rapier out of Tohru’s chest and lets her body fall to the floor. She lands with a distinct splash in a pool of her own blood. 

“Very well then. I thank you very much for your cooperation.”

She lowers herself in a mocking bow. 

“...”

“Hm?”

Oh, right, she’s dead. She bled out. Ah, c'est la vie. She had hoped that she would be alive to witness what comes next. She retrieves a walkie talkie and lifts it to her mouth. 

“All units, fire.”

Her chest fills with just a trickle of pride with that declaration. She remembers the olden days when she was just a newbie. Now look at her, a fully-fledged Barrakuda lieutenant. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, not all of it her own, but here she is. Finally ready to accomplish a longstanding dream of hers. To annihilate Girls Won’t Cry.

Birds scatter into the open sky as a series of ‘BANGS’ from all over the city ring out. They sound like a symphony to Kazuko’s ears. Each one signals the death of one of her mortal enemies. She almost wishes the sounds would never end. But alas, too fast, too soon, they do. A pity. 

“The Neo Magical Academy…”

How interesting. Well, she knows where she’s going to be spending the rest of her vacation.