Sophie

Back on the rooftop of Mei's apartment, Sayako twirled her wrist, pointing behind herself.

Sophie's eyes followed the finger's trajectory.

Standing behind them were the three Dons.

"It's already too late."

Sophie's joints creaked as she wordlessly lowered her body into an inhuman stance.

But just as Sophie was surprised that the Dons could sneak behind her so easily, the Dons were surprised that, standing beside the Captain of their target, was their old comrade, the Dark Cloud Blade.

This was a situation that none of them expected. Maybe except Sayako herself.

"...What are you doing here?" A man stepped forward, his paper white hair flowing behind him as he paced closer. He positioned his crescent moon polearm behind his back, though it was far too long to be hidden by his height.

Sophie held her blank expression. Her stance remained unchanged.

Sayako, likewise, did not make any attempt to explain herself, instead hugging her blade closer to her chest to accentuate the silhouette of her breasts.

As the sheath pressed deeper into her slate grey kimono, her aura began to sharpen rapidly.

Behind the white-haired Don, a masked woman dressed in snaking linen sleeves reached into her clothes, pulling out her phone.

The standoff was tense and silent, except for the ringing phone.

After a few connection failures and more than a couple minutes of waiting, the other side picked up.

"That was fast. Is the job done?" The Patriarch's voice sounded from the speaker.

"There is a complication. In front of us, Miss Dark Cloud Blade is standing beside the Marionette. I believe she gave the target a warning; the Capo Killer's room of housing has been evacuated." The flowing-sleeved woman held a voice of dignity and detachment, a flat hum almost similar to Sophie's tone.

The Patriarch barked with laughter.

"Alright, give her the phone."

The masked woman cocked her arm back, flinging the phone into Sayako's hand from across the roof.

Sayako lifted the device to her eyes.

"Good evening, Patriarch." Her voice was cool and crisp.

"Sayako, dear," the man's voice was sickly sweet syrup, "this is why I said removing the arm would be better for you. Can't you see that your morals are being slowly and utterly corrupted by that thing?"

The man continued without a pause.

"I'm so sorry for you, dear. Your purpose in the clan lies much greater than this. I know you have the potential. That arm is twisting your mind, darling. Back when you were pure, you would never betray us like this. Don't you remember how innocent and loyal you were back then? Remember your roots, dear. We're all family, right?"

Sayako trembled as the barrage of saccharine words dripped into her ear.

She remembered the first time she showed her arm to the Patriarch. With those same honeyed words, the man tried to sedate her, to gouge her arm out.

The woman prepared herself, responding with a lighthearted laugh.

"You're wrong. I'm not betraying the clan; I'm just helping my friends out."

The Patriarch's voice froze. His tone changed.

"Oh, you poor girl." This time, his voice was utter pity. "Can't you see? That monstrous arm is changing your thoughts... If only your mother could see this right now, she would be so disappointed in you," his voice began to drip with rotted sugar. "But that can be fixed if you come home, Sayako. We can fix you."

Sophie spat onto the gravel. The sickly way those words were strung together disgusted every fiber of her being.

Sayako snarled. Her pupils became feral with rage.

"Don't you dare mention Mother again! That hideous mouth of yours... You sowed her suffering. You reaped her pain. And you left me without her."

The Patriarch's voice morphed into pleas.

"Not at all, sweetie... You never knew how much your mother meant to me. I knew her so well... I know that if she saw what you're doing here, she would be so disappointed in you - she would be so broken to see you devolve in such a horrible and crude-"

"You mongrel!"

Sayako crushed the phone in her fist. Veins popped out of her forearm. Shards of glass cut into her skin.

The voice on the other side, wreathed in static from the now mangled speakers, changed once again.

"You still have such childish tantrums, Sayako. Do you wish to meet your mother this dearly?" Cold and calculating. The man had revealed his true voice.

Sayako replied in the same icy tone.

"All those years ago, when you told me to say those words to the Sottocapo, did you anticipate for Mother's death?"

"Ha! So what if I did?" The Patriarch didn't bother to hide anymore.

At that moment, Sayako realized something.

The woman spread her arms wide, admiring the cold but beautiful moon above.

Words flowed past the woman's lips, into whispers that formed plumes of frost in the chilled night sky.

"I thought that my loyalty to the clan would honor Mother's existence..." She allowed a hiss of guilt to escape her. "But it turns out, with each action I took, all these years of effort, I was simply defiling her memory further and further."

Sayako slowly undid the leather binds constricting her left arm. The crackling husk whispered and wheezed in the night air.

Even the Patriarch fell silent, waiting for her next words. He could hear the arm's whispers through the phone's broken microphone, utterly inhuman.

"This arm gave back Mother's last moments. It gave me the memories of her that I had repressed. It saved my soul."

The two bloodshot eyes inlaid in her palm began to shiver, releasing two lines of blackish tears.

The Patriarch clicked his tongue.

"That's too bad. This goes without saying, but you're expelled from the clan. The existence of the Dark Cloud Blade does not exist anymore. And now - let's get this over with. Dons, kill them. You were a nice pawn until the end, Sa-"

Before the Patriarch could hang up, Sayako clenched her fist, destroying any functionality the phone had left.

She let the bits of electronic fall to the floor as she shot a smirk at her once-comrades.

"So, how's your day been?"

Sayako's blade finally revealed itself from its sheath. The sky darkened as the moon was obscured by a dense, smoky cloud.

The white-haired Don seemed the most unwilling to fight, spreading his fingers in a placating gesture.

The other two, however, had already begun to charge forward.

The masked Don twisted her body, blinking toward Sophie as her sleeves shimmered with purple electricity.

At the same time, Sayako leapt in the air as the surrounding shadows began to twist into unnatural shapes. Somewhere among them hid the third Don, an assassin who could blend his presence in formless dark.

Sophie gave the two butterfly knives in her hands one last twirl before facing the clash head on.

-

Hidden on the rooftop, Asher blinked as a vision flashed through his eyes, containing everything Sophie saw up to that moment. Their senses could be shared, and this was simply another product of that ability.

"So the fight's already started..." He whispered beneath his breath. Hopefully he could finish his escort mission soon.

With Sophie faced against three individuals as strong as Sayako, he wasn't sure how long his partner could hold out.

"-Oh! Right, she has [Puppet Movements]!" Asher tapped his temple, his confidence restoring somewhat.

Little Red butted in, confused.

"[Puppet Movements], was that the joint manipulation you used against the Wolf? But how can she use it if it's your skill?" Little Red used the other half of his mouth to talk with him.

To answer her question, Asher imparted some of his memories, explaining verbally at the same time.

"Well, it's not my skill, per se... I was just borrowing it for the mission."

Little Red flipped through the memories Asher gave her with amazement, with ecstatic pleasure. Memories of a living, breathing shell, filled with a soul that could one day be her own.

Asher shivered as his chest blossomed with an emotion that wasn't his own.

"I thought you were just messing with me... I'd really have my body back? My full freedom?"

"Mhm." Asher's eye softened. He knew a thing or two about being controlled by an unwelcome outside force.

Little Red opened her mouth, preparing to say something that would break her previously established character. But then she stopped.

"We got distracted, quick-!"

Asher's eye widened. In the street below, the leader of the Stray Dogs had already begun his attack.

Little Red's hands drifted to the inside of his cloak, automatically seizing his dual weapons.

He leapt into the air, allowing Little Red's abnormal wrath, which he previously held back, to surge through him.

The glistening veins in his pistol shone with blood, splitting apart the bullet inside the barrel into dozens of metal shards.

When Asher came back to his senses, he found himself in the middle of the Stray Dogs, staring at a enraged yet fearful Gyeong-mi.

He flicked his eye to the left, then to the right. Then he swivelled his head back around.

"So it's the Stray Dogs this time..." A hoarse, jaded whisper slithered in the air.

Asher wasn't quite aware of it himself, but he was becoming quite the model actor.