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D N A ([info]cosmicdesign) wrote in [info]regretthatpony,
@ 2008-02-03 15:47:00


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her heaven
And this is the Yumiko fiction



This building was his haven, her heaven, his headquarters, her home. Red brick walls standing against wolves that hungered to huff and puff and blow him down. White doors, creamy pillars, windows made to reflect his God's creation, clean and kept that way by the power of Faith and Windex.

She twisted her hands, waiting for the wrought iron gates to welcome her. Cold disapproval emanated from the entrance, from the black spikes daring, daring, double-daring sin to climb over. "Necessity," he once said and brushed escaped strands of white-gold hair out of his eyes, behind his ears, perfect. "Even Heaven is a gated community."

Carefully, the young woman took a step back to maintain respectful distance between her and the unrelenting barricade separating her from unmarred perfection.

Her weight shifted from foot to combat-booted foot. Boots too big for her slender body - but a build she was none too proud of, considering her profession. Delicate arms merely a guise for someone else’s lean muscle; trembling legs whose toned appearance hid beneath her heavy skirt; she knew they weren't 'really' hers. Only the glasses perching precariously on the tip of her nose felt like her own, the rest was rental.

Becoming aware of her own body worried her philosophically as she turned her gaze away from heaven. Chicken or egg? Human or demon? She couldn't remember a time before Yumie – was she being taken over completely?

Now her hands wrung in perpetual wariness. Head hung low in an undecipherable mixture of shyness and shame - neither of which seemed provoked by outside influence. Her eyes intently followed invisible specters of dust swirling about her feet.

Her posture betrayed the confidence her form ought to radiate.

At last - at last a sudden creak alerted her presence, and Yumiko was invisible no longer.

--

Yumiko had little memory of walking the seventy-three paces to the entrance; she barely remembered climbing the fifteen steps to the door; she had no recollection of ascending twenty-five up one spiral staircase (mahogany rails, she thought), nor did she realize until it was too late that she had entered the third room on the right and closed the embossed double doors behind her.

Fear controlled her, signaling to her fingers and hands a frantic message to shake uncontrollably, numbing her toes, freezing her feet to the floor as she faced him. Her backbone was not her forte.

The silence between the two was infinite, lasting seconds or minutes or centuries. Yumiko lost count, staring at the back of his head, focused on the smoothness of his hair; blonde ripples down his back from its tie at the base of his neck.

Pristine. He was Pristine. The word floated to her mind in a suddenly angry snarl that was also not her own, snapping her head up with a pathetic whimper.

At this, the man finally turned, expressionless save for a raised eyebrow - could mean anything. Concern? Hardly.

It wreaked havoc on Yumiko's stomach as she pursed her lips to keep from staining the (no doubt expensive) carpet at her feet with the remnants of her lunch.

By some stroke of luck, Father Enrico Maxwell chose this moment to take pity on the young woman.

"Your mission was a failure." Unorthodox pity, but the torturous silence broke.

Yumiko's head fell forward, an unenthusiastic half-nod Maxwell gathered as assent.

"Your sheer presence caused destruction," he continued, "Not only did you blatantly disobey orders to stand down, you killed the target and destroyed the church." She flinched with each accusation, avoiding his gaze, bespectacled eyes focused on all but him. She whispered something about an accident, though clearly had not meant for the words to be heard.

Cold and calm, Maxwell spoke through his teeth. "Accident?" Yumiko decided she liked it better when he was yelling. "You strangled a nun and lit the church on fire." Yumiko realized her lips tasted like salt.

In another bout of silence, Maxwell tugged roughly at his vest, pinched the bridge of his nose and, sighing, sat behind his desk. His frustration hung palpable in the air, coupled with the scent of sleepless exhaustion, fleeting worry, and Italian cologne. He understood as he watched her that this was not the same murderer who brought Hell into that church ten hours ago. He knew her body was not her own, and was well acquainted with the demon within. The ridiculous interrogation and admonishment was a show - a ruse to assert his power over his proverbial pack, made even sillier by her obvious weakness.

He realized not a touch too late her fragility. The shocked look in her eyes as she suddenly realized why her mouth tasted like salt. The trembling fingertips she could barely bring to her cheeks. Her soft terror. Where others succumbed to obedience through fearful respect, all this child needed was compassion and a kind word with which she would follow him into the deepest Hell.

"Your behavior was so atrocious - " A smile spread his lips, half the selfish demon he was and half the loving father he could be.

Yumiko's eyes expected the punishing blow. She considered where her life would go if Maxwell left her - tried not to think about who else could want a half-demonic berserker, not useful for anything beyond murder and carnage. Already, she could smell the copper staining her hands each day, waking in places she had never slept in, meeting strangers, introducing her to strangers that already knew her face. Two lives for the price of one - a terrible bargain for the consumer.

" - I have seen it fitting for you to receive a partner."

So lost in her own head, Yumiko finally registered the words with confusion. "Sir?" The word cracked her lips.

Maxwell either ignored her or had not heard, instead lifting the archaic phonepiece to his ear and murmuring something like, "please send her in" before lifting a hand in a motion to the door. Yumiko leapt aside, suppressing a yelp as she pressed her hands over her fluttering heart.

The woman who entered cared not for upsetting the skittish girl, nor for the respect of the priest sitting at the end of the room. She did not close the door, nor did she put out the half-burnt cigarette smoldering in her hand, and did not remove the heavy coat sitting on her capable shoulders. It became clear she did not have Yumiko's dutiful respect to the Persian rug, dropping the object between her fingers and crushing it beneath powerful boots.

Had Yumiko not been standing so close (close enough to smell the smoke and the gunpowder clinging to the leather) she would have mistaken her for a male. Unevenly boyish, her blonde hair had been cut haphazardly close to her scalp, framing an otherwise attractive face. It teased at the corners of her opaque sunglasses.

Her presence would have been entirely intimidating if not for the silver crucifix that glimmered upon her breast, catching the light as she breathed. A grin pulled gently at Yumiko's lips.

She noted that, while Maxwell was smiling as well, it was for an entirely different reason. His was one of bare tolerance.

"Sister Takagi," he said to the young woman, "I would like you to meet Heinkel Wolfe. She will be...assisting you...from now on." Heinkel's lackluster expression read "boredom" as she cocked her head towards Yumiko.

"Vat? As babysitter?" The corner of her mouth turned up into a distasteful sneer. She joined Iscariot to be a soldier of God, not an escort to some pathetic Asian nun, an opinion she voiced moments later.

Yumiko shrank back, faint smile vanished. This new woman intimidated her. Her look, her voice, her terrifying accent (German? she thought.) Hardship outside of Iscariot's walls seemed now a better alternative to working in constant fear of her partner. 'She'll eat you alive!' piped the voice of irrationality.

She stood quietly as they argued. Hands clasped, feet together, head down. She heard nothing - she wanted to hear nothing.

Only a hand on her forearm pulled her out from the veil of shyness, and Yumiko blinked, staring at the foreign object. The hand belonged to the German (Wolfe...how appropriate). Small, short fingers, callous and cold to the touch. They gripped her arm firmly and with purpose, but lacked the cruelty she had expected. Yumiko's lips turned up again. Capable hands.

"You are coming, no?" Her voice just as impatient, just as callous, but Yumiko obeyed it with a silent nod and a tentative smile. It was not returned, but she did not expect it to be.

"Father Maxwell has made you my burden." The Wolfe pulled Yumiko from the chamber without allowing her as much as a parting glance to the priest, "And my burden you shall stay."

Yumiko's short legs struggled to keep Heinkel's brisk pace, stumbling and tripping in a wildly uncoordinated jig down the corridor. Heinkel fell silent, her pace unbreaking and unaffected by the clumsy weight.

She struggled to right herself. "Um - I'm Yumiko."

"I know."

She finally caught up. "Um - there's kind of two of me in my head."

"I know."

She slowed. Stopped. "The other one of me hurts people."

When the German turned around, she did not stop, nor did she ease her pace. Instead, she grinned, shrugged, and chimed, "As do I."

That was when Yumiko allowed the real smile to cross her face and she jogged to catch her new friend. It would only be a week before she realized Heinkel was not joking.


(Post a new comment)


[info]integra
2008-02-18 06:43 am UTC (link)
Oh Maxwell, you insensitive git. Don't make me come out there and take your nun like I took your manhood.

(Reply to this)




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