The air was colder than usual. She didn't like it. Normally there was always a hint of lavender, or even a trace of Yano's rose perfume in her senses but here...in this dark alley, all she could smell was the freezing, humid steel and the faintest hint of soot and smoke.
Her eyes fluttered open slowly. The flickering lights were blurry, barely even in view. Her arms were blazed with pain as she groaned lowly, a blood trail filling her senses.
"H-Huh?" Akira mumbled, her teeth painted red, the scent of iron still raw in her tongue.
"Finally awake?"
She tilted up, her head immediately sagged down as she suddenly felt the weight of her blood pouring down at the back of her skull. She had a concussion— a very bad one too.
"You know, normally I wouldn't have done this to you, seeing as you have a personality crisis or whatever..."
The hand pulling her by the collar suddenly let her go as the back of her head banged against the cold tar, leaving a faint smear on the floor.
The figure—a woman in a black outfit that seemed woven out of the darkness itself—said retreated to the wall in front of them and said:
"...but then I noticed that look in your eyes when I called you by your name back at that store. That's when I realized... you're not her."
Akira's pulse throbbed in her eardrums, her head almost refused to lift up fully, as if it was magnetic against the floor. Her bloodied arms, mangled in directions that weren't possible, scraped against the floor as she failed to find the breath to scream in agony, getting only a few inches off the ground before she inevitably clashed with the cold, jagged concrete again.
The woman scoffed softly, disappointment lacing the sound "Jeez...and here I thought you were actually acting.Turns out I was right."
They sunk their gloved hands deep into Akira's scalp, pulling her head up by the hair as she twisted it a little, "You're not Akira, are you? You're just a poser. Someone pretending to be her..."
Akira's confused body could barely focus on the pain of her hair pulling ripped off her scalp, and her mouth spat out a deeper, darker blood that seemed like it had been clogged in her throat for a long time.
The wind blew past the street hallway like a terrified ghost, soft and hesitant against the figure's porcelain skin as they chuckled, low and amusedly, sliding their thumb over her blood-stained lip before sinking it deep into their mouth, eyes narrowing in a dark delight, "Ugh, even your blood tastes different. You're definitely not her."
She lifted her body just an inch higher just before they whispered with mock sympathy, bottom lip sagging slightly, "Aww, too bad, while I really don't wanna have to do this, the organization's laws warrant me to have to kill any outsiders that might bear our insignia..."
They grinned darkly as they leaning in, the hair letting a faint tearing sound as fresh blood dropped down her forehead and into her half-opened eye, "...and while the real Akira's never actually had our insignia, I don't think anyone will care if a rookie assassin dies at the hands of another, right Akira?"
Their eyes dimmed as the smile evaporated from her face as a dark twisted light gleamed in their eyes as they suddenly smashed Akira's face into the alley's dirty brick walls.
"Oh yeah, right— I forgot. You're not Akira. You're just someone that looks like her." They bellowed, husky and breathy, boots pressing against her neck with a slow but certain pressure, "Still... better to kill any lookalikes. After the humiliating stunt you pulled on me back in that Junchiki Shrill attack, I ain't letting what you did—or whoever did it—slide. From now on..."She paused, letting the moment simmer just a little bit longer, the barely conscious girl gargling for air, "I'll kill anyone that even remotely reminds me of you...andI'll start...with you."
The air stilled as she lifted her foot, "Bye, bitch."
Her foot came crashing down and—
"I don't remember assassins being given the leeway to kill rookies..."
Her foot stopped mere inches away from her trembling neck. Her eyes dilated as she took in a sharp inhale before placing her foot aside.
Her body spun around faster than Akira's blood pooled, "No, why are you here?"
Her gaze met a man. Short, about as tall as the average man, draped in nothing but a blue hoodie, short black shorts and black inside tights, protruding from his shorts.
He was dressed in nothing but casual wear.
Yet this arrogant woman's body had never known fear as great as this.
Why was this cursed man here?
Why was the deadliest man—
"Be grateful that I didn't bring my weapons with me, Ring."
His body moved like smoke, nonexistent and too infinite to stop as he stood behind her, back facing hers.
His hands in his jacket's pockets slid out slowly as he removed the mask from his mouth, "Otherwise I would've dissected your atoms the moment you licked her blood..."
Ring, taller, frozen and petrified, could only mutter in the faintest of whispers, "Yes, sir." before her body cracked by the pores and shredded itself into black rings from legs all the way to her head, leaving the man and Akira alone.
The man's eyes glazed over Akira's putrid body.
Bloodied. Mangled. Dehumanized beyond recognition. His eyes softened, a rare kindness paining his pale skin as his silver hair grazed his lip in a whispered suggestion, as if his whole body, even his hairs, were demanding that he help her.
Slowly, the man lowered himself to his knees, the air cold against his neck. What more her exposed wounds?
Without hesitation, he removed his hoodie, and with the gentlest of whispered kisses, infused his saliva with the tips of the cloth.
For a long while he did nothing but tend to her wounds, coating her body with silver essence, skin repairing itself at a supercharged rate as he sat there, her head on his lap.
It was almost as if...he knew her scent.
Like...maybe he'd smelled it from somewhere....
Or...someone.