Chapter Text
Kagami finished buttoning up her shirt while her ragtag crew looked the other way. The vest slipped on nicely, but it did sit very differently from her usual one – it was a little tighter across the chest, but the shoulders felt more free. The shirt was a perfect fit, however. Marinette must have a good eye for measurements to hit the mark so well.
Clapping her hands, Kagami called for Marinette and Sabrina’s attention. “We have business to attend to,” she said.
Sabrina turned around a little awkwardly, because her hands were still bound. Marinette was also awkward, despite her hands being free. “What type of business?”
“Right now, every mob in the city wants to kill at least one of us. I’m wanted by the Agrestes, the Bourgeois, and the Couffaines. You are wanted by the Tsurugis,” she pointed at Sabrina, “and because you will be next to me, you will be wanted by the other three too.”
Then she turned to Marinette. “You are wanted by… probably every mob in the city at this point. Everyone is going to shoot at us the moment they spot us in the streets. That means we have to hit the mattresses.”
Marinette blushed extremely red. “Is that really necessary? Don’t we need to get going?”
Kagami blinked. “No – that means we go to war.”
“Oh.” Somehow, Marinette seemed disappointed.
“So to avoid all the trouble of taking out every group as they get to us, we’re going to go straight to the source and cut them off there. Don Gabriel of the Agrestes, Primo André of the Bourgeois, and Donna Anarka of the Couffaines. With them dead, the crews circling the city will be without a leader. And you, Sabrina, are going to drive us.”
It was absolutely, utterly, incredibly ludicrous. She was proposing they go around killing three separate mob bosses, and probably scores of soldiers and wiseguys. They would be hunted, shot at, and probably killed, and all the while they’d be destabilising the city’s underworld. The night either ended with the Tsurugi clan destroyed, or with three other mobs running around like headless chickens. Kagami would probably be dead in both cases.
But Kagami wasn’t one to hesitate. If it needed to be done, then she would do it – and she wouldn’t let Mamma Tomoe down.
The time for mercy was over. Now was the time for respect.
She picked up all the weapons off the floor – four tommy guns, nine box magazines, and five pistols on top of the three they already had. Sabrina hadn’t yet proven herself trustworthy enough to hold any of those for herself, and Marinette seemed averse to do anything with a firearm that went beyond just carrying it gingerly. Not that it mattered. Kagami was a damned good shot.
They went out into the dusk and loaded themselves into Sabrina’s five-seater, Kagami slotting herself together with Marinette in the back seat. At least that way, nobody except Tsurugis would fire at the car unless they looked into the back.
“Instructions, boss?” asked Sabrina. She didn’t sound like she was pretending – rather, she oozed determination and assuredness. Either she hadn’t been particularly into the Bourgeois mob to start with, or she was just that much of a sycophant that she’d throw her weight behind anything.
“Take us to Agreste headquarters. They’re to the north, along –”
“Butterfly Avenue, crossing in from Peacock Street. It’s the textile mill,” said Sabrina.
Kagami nodded. Sabrina was smart, then; there was more to her than met the eye. “Very good. Take us there carefully. We do not want to raise undue suspicion. And on that note… if you see a large man with a beard and a limp and a Chicago typewriter, or any woman who looks Asian and has a weapon, get away as quick as you can. They’re going to want to fire at you specifically.”
“Understood, boss.”
“Then we’re ready. Be careful.” Kagami looked sideways at Marinette, whose eyes sometimes darted nervously to the weapons, or to Kagami’s eyes, but otherwise looked forward. Kagami hesitated for a moment – but then she stretched out her hand and put it atop Marinette’s.
“I asked you to be my bodyguard,” she murmured, as the engine started up. “Was… that not to your liking?”
Marinette spluttered. “I – I would love to guard your body, but… are you sure about this? This is dangerous. I’ll protect you if you need it, but… going on the attack? That’s a little…”
“Would you prefer to stay back?”
“I…” Marinette blinked. Then she set her jaw. “No. If you’re going, then I’ll come with you. I’m responsible for putting you in this situation, and that means I’m responsible for getting you out again. Just… don’t expect me to use guns.”
“You seem to be more than capable enough without them,” replied Kagami, smiling briefly. “Okay, Sabrina… drive.”
Sabrina made a “Hmh!” sound, and the car wheezed to life. Soon, they were driving down the murky street at something that must have looked to outsiders like a leisurely speed, but in reality it was masking a tense inside. Sabrina sat with fingers clenching the wheel, and Marinette held tightly onto her bag of sewing supplies – which was quite heavy, and no doubt full of weapons more terrible than any boring gunsmith could ever imagine.
And Kagami never let go of the guns that lay by her side, moving her hand between the pistol and the tommy gun depending on how the road they were on felt to her at that moment. If there were lots of vehicles along the street, she might expect attackers to jump up suddenly, so she needed the spread of a submachine weapon; in a street with fewer hiding places, accuracy and ease of use would be better, so she moved to the handgun.
But nobody interrupted them. They spotted no roving gangs of mobsters, no passing vehicles with suspiciously dark windows. There was some traffic on the roads, more so on the boulevards, but the city seemed relatively quiet.
Which meant… the ABCs were probably already hunting Mamma Tomoe.
It would be too risky to follow them there, though. A sure-fire death sentence. Either the Tsurugis went out in a vengeful blaze, taking out as much of their opposition as possible; or Kagami would have to take over la cosa nostra, stepping out of her mother’s demanding shadow and into her over-sized shoes.
When they turned onto Peacock Street, and the textile mill’s tower rose up two floors above all the surrounding structures, Kagami murmured: “Be on your guards.” She could feel everyone’s tension rising – although Marinette also seemed curious. She must not have been to this part of the city before, maybe she was new to the city altogether.
Or maybe… it was just an act…
“Sabrina. How fast can you turn?”
“Very fast. Boss.”
The car turned onto Butterfly Avenue, Sabrina being very gentle on the throttle. There were usually many cars parked outside the textile mill, but now there was just one – and beyond the chain-link fencing, only two more cars were visible.
There was a guard posted – a humongous man with sideburns. He conspicuously held a gun. There was also an unlit lookout post in the tower, with the windows open. She wasn’t naïve enough to think even for a second that it would be unmanned, but the darkness of the night would probably make whoever was in there be a worse shot than usual…
“Keep driving straight. Don’t speed up. Turn when I tell you to. Marinette, roll down your window.”
Marinette obliged. Kagami picked up the pistol and aimed it. They were going very slowly – slowly enough to be suspicious, but they couldn’t exactly speed past this gorilla-sized guard if Kagami were to get a proper aim on him.
He eyed the oncoming car like it was a stray dog and he feared rabies. His hands tightened around his weapon, but he didn’t aim it yet. Sabrina kept going. As they passed, Kagami steadied her hand with the other arm, leaning down – and took two shots straight at his head. One went through his eye and the other cracked the bridge of his nose, and he toppled backwards onto the ground.
“Sabrina. Turn. Take us in.”
Sabrina’s turn was fast. She had them completely turned around in what barely felt like half a moment, and as they swung in through the gates the first shot from the tower missed them completely. They drove up almost to the door, where Sabrina parked and got out in a flash. Marinette also stepped outside quickly, moving straight up to the mill’s entrance. Kagami picked up her tommy gun and the handgun both, plus a magazine for each, before opening her door.
A shot rang out and grazed the hood of the car. Then there was a gurgle. Kagami turned – a mobster had just exited the factory and fired his gun, but Marinette had gotten in behind him and jammed two knitting needles into his back. He fell forwards, his weapon dropping from his hands and clattering across the concrete path with a bright and empty tone.
“Is… is he dead?” asked Sabrina, eyes wide.
“I got him in the heart and the spinal column,” replied Marinette, remarkably even-voiced.
“From the back?”
“It’s a lot easier to access the spinal column from the back,” said Kagami, perhaps a little too acerbic. She wasn’t used to Marinette’s improbable feats yet, but she would save her amazement for later – when there weren’t gunmen hunting them.
“I meant the heart,” mumbled Sabrina. Kagami looked at her. Perhaps it would have been wise to tie her up. But Sabrina had followed instructions to the letter, and nothing about her affect or behaviour suggested she had any plans for betraying them. In fact, she seemed almost inherently honest. She might be able to pull of subterfuge, but she didn’t seem like the person to initiate that subterfuge on her own.
“Pick up that gun,” she said, stepping past Sabrina and up to the entrance. She was going to give Sabrina a test of character. “Don’t shoot unless I give you permission.” Sabrina nodded, and went to pick the gun up. Meanwhile, Marinette had already retrieved her knitting needles, and blood was dripping from them as she clenched her fists around them.
They filed in through the door to no further interruptions. Kagami was unfamiliar with the layout of the place – she only knew where it was. They would have to be careful.
A huge, flat space opened itself before them. It was filled with mechanical looms, huge spools of fibres and threads, and large drums filled with fabrics and textiles that had been fully spun. The whole space was quiet, all the equipment shut off; every step of their feet rang all the way across the space and echoed back between the giant machines.
“It’s a trap,” said Sabrina. Marinette grabbed a sheet of cotton from a nearby drum – or rather, she took what must have been a long continuous sheet and tore off a large section, which she held in one hand while reaching into her bag of supplies with the other hand.
“Let’s move. Eyes sharp,” said Kagami. She indicated for Sabrina to go first, so she would be able to see the gal’s movements.
But there was nobody there – nobody lurking behind metallic corners, nobody taking aim at them between the looms and tenters. There was no sound of quiet breathing, of guns being cocked, of people sneaking through for a new hiding place – all they could hear were their own footsteps.
“Do you think they left?” said Sabrina. Her grip on the gun was that of a relative novice; she had enough knowledge for the basics, and must have some direct experience, but she obviously lacked practice and seemed uncertain in how she moved with it. Not a safe shot outside of an emergency.
“No… they’re here. We just have to keep our eyes o-”
A door opened to their right, along a side wall. It went up slowly, with a whine that was less threatening and more menacing; whoever was opening it clearly was in no hurry.
They turned – and came face to face with Don Gabriel himself, a good twenty feet away. He was hideously tall and wore a suit and tie that made him look like he belonged on the sign of an old-timey barbershop – and he looked them all over with a look like they were mould on his morning onion.
His eyes fixed on Kagami. “What is the meaning of this?” he said. “Why have you shot two of my men and invaded Agreste grounds?”
“Don Agreste. I am aware of your designs on the Tsurugi family.” Kagami held her gun trained at the floor. “I decided to strike back.”
“Tsch. Insolence,” replied the don. “You have no idea what my designs are. But I will humour you just for a moment, Ms Tsurugi. Your little crew from this evening should already be dead. My buttons have already been sent out against them, and the Bourgeois and Couffaines have also sent theirs. Your presence here will not undo their demise.”
Kagami’s blood ran cold. Caquet and Anciel were good friends; Duparc and Wang were very good soldiers, and Lee would have become one with time to grow into her role. Their losses were a tremendous blow to the Tsurugi family – and to Kagami.
Astruc… not so much.
“Wheels are in motion that you can neither understand nor stop,” gloated Don Gabriel. Kagami heard a sudden, sharp intake of breath from Marinette. “And your petty arrival here will save nobody. So lower your weapons, and ghlk –”
He had scissors jutting out of his neck. He had scissors jutting out of his his neck. Kagami looked to her right and saw that Marinette was already throwing her cotton sheet over – over a man’s head, someone Kagami hadn’t noticed, and she yelled “Look out! Guns!”
There was muzzle fire from the left, but Kagami was already ducking down. Two more shots rang out, each of them missing whoever it was aimed at, a tommy gun started clicking out bullets. Kagami dived behind a loom.
“They’re in the drums!” shouted Marinette. There was a nauseating sound of something crunchy and splashy, and then Marinette ran past Kagami with the piece of cotton in her hand, trailing blood behind her…
Kagami spotted another figure rising from a drum, to take a shot at Marinette – but it ricocheted off a machine instead. She took aim and fired her submachine weapon at his chest, landing a row of shots across his lungs, and he fell backwards and out of the vat he was standing in.
“Sabrina!” she yelled. “You have permission to fire!”
A gunshot went off almost immediately and also went wide, the bullet glancing off an edge and embedding itself in a spool not far from Kagami.
“But fire better!”
She listened. A number of people were already taken out. Judging from the sound of the guns and the directions their shots were coming from, there were six people left shooting at them – no, five – no, four.
Kagami stuck her head up and saw Marinette crush a man’s skull against a wooden roller, so hard that bits of him actually went flying. One of the remaining gunmen lifted his weapon to fire at her – but Kagami cried out “No!” and took the shot first, landing at least three bullets in his head. She also seemed to catch the woman behind him, who clutched at her firing arm’s shoulder and screamed out in pain. Next to Kagami, Sabrina stood up and took a shot at the third one, but again she missed the mark. He turned to fire at them – towards Kagami.
As the man trained his weapon, though, Marinette threw something. It wasn’t a pair of scissors this time, but instead a spool of thread, with one end of that thread tied around her finger. It wrapped itself around the man’s gun several times, and then Marinette pulled hard on the string, yanking the gun away. This incredibly unlikely feat somehow did not break the thread. Kagami peppered his stomach with bullets after, and he keeled over and fell to the ground.
“Any left?” said Kagami, scanning the area. No other goons materialised; all the gunfire had stopped. Marinette stepped forward, though, towards the corpse of Gabriel Agreste – and Kagami followed, waving Sabrina along with a lazy hand.
Don Gabriel was incredibly dead. His expression was almost stereotypical in its deadness, his mouth hanging open and his tongue lolling out, his eyes wide open in shock. The scissors had pierced his skin and windpipe, but this time they hadn’t reached the spine – instead, they had just impaired any chances the man might have had of ever eating or breathing again. Though given how quickly he died, Kagami was willing to bet it was the shock that killed him, and the wound and blood loss were more like incidental details. There definitely wasn’t enough blood on the floor to assume a still-pumping heart. Or perhaps he just never had a heart to begin with.
“That was a very accurate throw, Marinette,” she said, as Marinette pulled the scissors free and dried the blood off on the man’s dreadful tie.
“I suppose so.”
“And a very powerful one.”
“Maybe.”
Marinette got up from her crouch and looked away, but Kagami sighed. “Come on. We need to move on to Hotel Bourgeois,” she stated, only now letting herself recognise the message that the man in front of her had given her: her crew was dead. With a multitude of ABC soldiers lining the city, and many of them provably in the same neighbourhood as her crew, there was no way they could still be alive. Maybe one or two of them could have survived through a stroke of luck – maybe Caquet, or Anciel or Wang – but not if they’d stayed close to Astruc.
There was no time to mourn them, though. She turned around to face Sabrina, who immediately stood to attention. She’d passed the gun test in every way except for her aim.
“I know where it is,” Sabrina volunteered.
“I should hope so.” Kagami raised an eyebrow. “However, Hotel Bourgeois is also where we’ll find all your colleagues.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Tell me why I should keep trusting you in that particular nest of vipers.”
Sabrina glanced to the side for a moment, before focusing in on Kagami again. “I have no loyalty to the Bourgeois,” she said. “I only have one good friend among them, who is the reason why I joined. She is Primo Bourgeois’s daughter, Chloé. As long as she isn’t harmed, I have no reason to oppose wiping out the Bourgeois mob. My loyalty isn’t to the name itself.”
Kagami regarded her in silence. She again hadn’t sounded dishonest; in fact, if anything, she sounded painfully honest when describing the Primo’s daughter, in a manner that Kagami could only start to guess the reasoning behind. But it was still possible that Sabrina was a double agent, a turncoat, that she would refuse to go against her own mob and instead aim her muzzle on Kagami and Marinette.
Also, there was the thing about loyalty – to Kagami, loyalty to the family was incredibly important. Without that, how could the organisation put any trust in her? You needed cohesion. Every member should be able to rely on every other member, or the whole structure would fall apart.
Then again… Sabrina had personal devotion. And now that they were working alone, that kind of devotion was absolutely cardinal. Right now, it was more important that she had renounced the Bourgeois mob – and had proven herself trustworthy, though with terrible aim – than to expect oblique and nebulous devotion to something she hadn’t even been exposed to yet. That was part of the principle of mercy – to not expect more from people than they would be able to give.
“… Very well, Sabrina. Though I won’t allow you to hold a g-”
She saw Sabrina tense up and clench her hands around her weapon, eyes fixed somewhere in Kagami’s direction, and for a flash of an instant she thought Sabrina was actually turning coats – but then she heard a riffling noise and a groan from behind her, and spun around, weapon raised.
It was the woman she apparently shot in the shoulder earlier, clutching her hand around the wound as she stood up from her drum of textiles. She was groaning, too, starting from when her chest began to rise above the rim of the container and continuing all the way to upright. She didn’t have a weapon, but Kagami was no fool – she held her barrel steady and pointed at the woman’s head.
She snarled and spoke through gritted teeth. “Hey – I’m not trying to fight you. It’s not like I could use my Thompson with only one arm, either.” She was pretty tall, with short brown hair in a pointy pixie cut, and she wore the standard Agreste pinstriped attire – but without the tie-pin. She had also wrenched off her jacket and vest, leaving only the shirt.
“You were still aiming a weapon at us before you got shot in the shoulder,” said Marinette.
“I wasn’t planning to shoot!” The stranger turned around slowly as she spoke, her feet catching somewhat on the tumult of cloth she was standing in as she did so. “As you can see, I’m completely unarmed. And I already had my misgivings about where the family was headed before tonight. Hnnh…”
“What’s your name?”
“Lila. Lila Cerise Rossi. And I’m done with the Agrestes.”
Kagami looked at Sabrina, then at Marinette. Sabrina seemed nonplussed – Marinette seemed almost angry.
“Hey – don’t you trust me? See, I couldn’t hurt a fly,” Lila went on, inclining her head towards her hurt shoulder. “Look, I’ve got a proposal.”
She tried to climb out, but struggled to cross the rim with one hand gripping her shoulder. With some groans and grunts of effort, she managed to heave herself across – Sabrina had her gun trained on Lila, and Marinette obviously had no interest in helping her, so that left Kagami to handle the actual gunning duties.
“So what is your proposal, Rossi?” said Kagami. “Do you just wish to leave this room alive? Because if you’re not going to shoot us, we won’t cause you any further harm.”
“Gh. No. But I’ve got info on what’s going on. I was attached to the consigliere, Ms Sancoeur. I can tell you what’s happening, how, and why.”
“And in return?”
Lila’s expression turned into a twisted grin. “Allow me into the Tsurugi family. I’m done messing around with the small leagues. I know the Agrestes are a sinking ship, and I want to jump to one that can actually stay afloat. Hell if I’m staying with them. I could help the largest mob in the city remain on top at the end of the night.”
It was a tempting offer. Like with Sabrina, Kagami couldn’t see subterfuge in Lila – she could see anger and a taste for blood, but those seemed aimed somewhere else. Presumably, they were aimed towards the other families. And they needed support, and any knowledge Lila could provide would be invaluable, even if Lila herself would struggle to be helpful in combat with that arm.
But then Kagami looked at Marinette. And Marinette looked at Lila like she were roadkill arranged to spell out an insult to her mother. Gaining an ally in Lila might have been helpful… but not if it came at the cost of losing Marinette. Marinette was intensely devoted, a lethal bomb on legs, and also – just incidentally – an absolute bombshell. The foxiest lady Kagami had ever laid her eyes on.
She turned back to Lila. “I’m sorry, Rossi, but there’s no more room in this crew. But you’re free to leave this room unharmed. And…” There was cloth everywhere. A lot of it was cotton. She grabbed a wad from the drum next to her and carried it over to Lila, who just stood there watching with a somewhat perplexed look on her face.
This was mercy in practice. She spoke as she uncoiled the cloth and wrapped it around Lila’s unresisting – though stiff – shoulder. There was blood on the shirt around the hole, but actually an unusually small amount. Perhaps the wound was more of a graze. “I’m going to stop your bleeding. You might have a bullet in there if the shot went in, so you need to get to a doctor. There’s one on Turtle Street, just a ten minute walk. Ask for Wang Fu. However… this is where we part.”
“But I would be a great asset to the Tsurugi family! Without me, you’ll be running through the city blind!”
“We’ll manage,” said Kagami. And just for a moment, she could spot a flicker in Lila’s eyes. Something that suggested she had lost something she really wanted. And in that moment there was a trace of anger and disappointment shooting in Kagami’s direction, before Lila got it back under control and wrapped it up in the layer she had from before.
“Do you really think you can win on your own, boss?” she said, with a strangeness to her tone, a sweet acidity, sugar poured into turpentine.
Kagami shook her head. “I don’t know. But we’re not going down easy.”
“Yeah… I can see that.”
They left her there frowning, exiting the mill to go back into the car. As Sabrina shut the door and started the engine, she asked: “Any other stops before we hit the Bourgeois joint?”
“No. Take us there slow, don’t raise any suspicion. And Sabrina?”
“Yes, boss?”
“You’ll not have a weapon for as long as we’re in Bourgeois territory. I trust your loyalty, but I don’t yet know if I can trust your impulses.”
Sabrina looked momentarily concerned in the rearview mirror. Then she nodded. “Understood, boss. Just… don’t shoot Chloé.”
Kagami nodded, too. Then she turned to Marinette – who had been completely silent since she accused Lila of trying to shoot them. Even now, she seemed reluctant to look Kagami’s way.
“Marinette. I need you to answer a question for me,” she said, as the car started up and pulled back out towards the road. “Do you know Lila? Why did you want to reject her offer?”
“I… I can’t tell you that. But she’s bad news.”
“I need your honesty, Marinette.” She reached out her hand between them, resting it on the seat. “She could have been an asset to us.”
“No.” The word was spoken with a finality that bordered on a nail being driven into a coffin. “She couldn’t.”
Kagami sighed. “How can I trust your judgement of her when you won’t tell me what is wrong? As I said… I need honesty. And yet you sit here on the day of my family’s downfall, and you offer me… nothing. Only vague denial.”
“It’s all I have to give. I’m sorry. Isn’t it honest to just tell you that I have a secret that I can’t share right now? I won’t lie to you.” She grabbed Kagami’s hand and lifted it to her lips, pressing a kiss to it. “Can’t you trust me to know this without knowing my reasons?”
Kagami pulled her hand back a little roughly. “Clearly you don’t trust me.”
“I do!”
“I am the second most powerful crime boss in the city. But you hate the mafia.” Something shifted in Marinette’s expression, but Kagami held up her hand to forestall any interruptions. “Yet you expect me to trust you blindly. Even so, I have trusted you with my life. And I expect to be shown some trust in return. I am the boss right now, and that means I need to expect devotion from my crew.”
She felt angrier at the end of her speech than she was before she started it. She should be able to trust her underlings, to expect them to inform her about important things. And she would keep digging until Marinette divulged what she knew.
“… I’m sorry,” said Marinette. She hadn’t yet learned the etiquette. So Kagami looked away from her – difficult though that was – and stared out the window instead.
The ride passed in silence, though they occasionally heard gunfire – coming from inside buildings, for the most part. There was a lot more of it at the Roth Bank – nominally in Tsurugi territory, and not one that had been ordered attacked in the foreseeable future. But wherever she looked, no conflict was happening openly – no robberies or drive-by shootings, no roving crews, no bodies on the sidewalks. Either the hostile takeover was being done behind closed doors, or something strange was going on…
Kagami clutched her handgun closer as they rolled into Hotel Bourgeois grounds. However, Sabrina kept the jig up, and drove them safely past the posted guard, parking the car next to a back entrance. Then she handed her gun back to Kagami handle first. Finally, Kagami stepped out and took a shot at the back of the guard’s inattentive head, dropping him immediately.
“The sooner we get this done with, the better,” she said, as Sabrina and Marinette exited the vehicle. “These sciocci will pay for daring to oppose the Tsurugis.”
The hotel was well-known turf to both Kagami and Sabrina. Kagami had been her a handful of times before; it had been Sabrina’s base of operations for as long as she was in the Bourgeois mob. There were also minimal guards for the first two floors; the six soldiers they found were quickly dropped, as were the two concierges, neither of whom were packed. A couple of patrons stuck their heads out of their rooms; they were quickly encouraged to hide back in their rooms by Kagami’s muzzle.
Trouble only arose when they reached the third floor: the people there had heard the gunshots by now, and had mounted a barricade at the entrance to one of the corridors. The hotel was split into two wings; to even get to the barricade from the corridor they were currently in, Kagami and her tiny crew would have to cross the space to the other wing, easily twelve feet or more of unguarded, open space, all of which could be fired into by the mobsters’ guns.
Not only that, these mobsters were actually playing smart. They didn’t pump out bullets the moment they saw someone; they saved most of their shots, and seemed to fire in turns. Which meant that one person could reload easily while the others kept firing, should they need to keep up more sustained fire.
Kagami huddled beside the doorway with Sabrina – Marinette stood on the other side. They luckily had a big buffer in the wall that surrounded the doorway, and the structure itself was constructed from thick wood and bricks. Unfortunately, that meant they wouldn’t be hitting the Bourgeois wiseguys either without nailing them through the doorway.
“Are there any explosives in the building?” she whispered to Sabrina, whose eyes widened.
“No! They are – there aren’t any explosives here,” Sabrina hissed back. “And you promised not to hurt Chloé.”
Kagami didn’t bother pointing out that she hadn’t promised anything. She wasn’t aiming to hurt Chloé if she could help it: however, if Chloé was hurt as collateral because there was no other way through, then Kagami wouldn’t hesitate. The success of the job was the most important thing. “Then we’ll need another way through. Suggestions?”
“There’s the elevator that enters their hallway, but they’ll be ready for anyone using that. The only alternative would be to… smoke them out. But…”
“I see,” said Kagami. She sighed, tried to poke her head out past the jamb – but could only see overturned tables and chairs, as well as thick oaken doors that had been lifted from their hinges and stacked as a last defence – and then the glint of metal beyond. She pulled back straight away, before those guns could land any lucky shots.
“So our options are… set fire to the hotel, or a death run across an open space with wiseguys firing at us,” said Kagami.
“They use doors for their barricades,” said Marinette suddenly.
Sabrina nodded. “So?”
“These doors are thick enough to protect against bullets,” Marinette went on.
Then, without any further preamble, she kicked her leg backwards – into the door behind her. Somehow, with just that one kick, she buckled the hinges and smashed the lock: the door shifted into the room beyond by at least a couple of inches, dust and plaster scattering from above. The whole hallway seemed to groan from the impact; Marinette, however, just stepped in after the door and hefted it sideways so she could pull it back out.
There was a man inside – one that looked absolutely terrified – and at the sight of Kagami’s gun, he let out a little whine and escaped into his bathroom.
“So you want us to build a barricade,” said Kagami.
“No,” said Marinette. “I want to be more direct. Stay back.” She took the door out into the corridor; it was remarkably whole, with most of the damage having been done to the doorway itself. And she stopped there, taking a deep breath like she was plucking herself up.
That was when Kagami realised what was about to happen. “Marinette – no. Don’t. Don’t even think about doing that.”
“It’s the quickest way to get through.”
“And the quickest way to die. Stay back. Do not step through that doorway.”
“I’m doing you a favour,” Marinette replied. Something had shifted in her tone: she sounded aggressive, irritated. She shifted her bag of sewing and murder supplies more safely onto her shoulder. “Stay out of sight.”
“Marinette. I am capo of this crew. I give the orders.”
“And I’m not in the mafia. So I order myself.”
Before Kagami could say a single other word of protest, Marinette stepped out into the hallway, holding the door in front of her like a shield, fingers clutching around the sides. Kagami tried to reach out for her, but she was too late – the guns behind the barricade were already firing, and she had to pull back. Several thumps and cracks told her the door was holding up, even as she held back and couldn’t see what was going on.
It took ten seconds before they heard sounds of splintering wood, and shouts of surprise from the far side. The gunners had lost their nerve: they all fired together, and the gap for reloading was noticeable. Then Kagami heard more fleshy and bony thumps, gunfire that started and then abruptly ended, shouts of pain, and one roar of anger that could only have come from Marinette. There was a sound much like when Marinette kicked in the door, except it was somehow more dull, more muffled, and yet more painful to hear. The last thing Kagami heard before everything went quiet, was a yelp and a thump.
A while later, Sabrina said: “I’m going to take a look.”
Kagami didn’t stop her. She only followed when Sabrina waved excitedly for her to come along, before stepping out through the doorway herself.
The barricade was broken. As was one of the doors that had been in the barricade. It had been splintered down the middle, probably by one of Marinette’s kicks.
‘Probably’. Like it was probable for a person to be able to kick her way through a door that could stop machine gun fire.
When they entered the corridor, the sight that met them was only slightly less improbable. One woman had been attached to the wall via her neck through the application of knitting needles; there was a man lying in a pool of his own blood with Marinette’s scissors poking out of his ribcage. Past him, a man with his neck snapped; past him, a woman with her throat slit, presumably with the seam ripper that was embedded into the floor next to her. There was a man who had had the top half of his head liberated from the bottom half and into a toppled paper basket, and then the probable cause of the painful door sound: a door that had been kicked in with extreme force, and the man that had come between it and Marinette’s foot, who seemed unlikely to ever again come between anything other than a coffin and its lid, on account of his collapsed ribcage. An array of weapons and rounds lay scattered around them.
“… I don’t see Chloé anywhere,” whispered Sabrina, with a tinge of hopefulness to her.
And then they saw Marinette, just around the corner, standing with her back to them. She held someone’s lifeless body in her hands. Someone pale and blonde, without a jacket but with a vest, and a pristine white shirt.
“Chloé!” shouted Sabrina. It was obvious she wanted to run forward, but something about Marinette seemed to hold her back. Or perhaps just something about knowing that every corpse behind them had held on to Chicago typewriters, and would now never typewrite again, and it was all because of Marinette – whose only weapon had been a bag full of seamwork tools and a double set of piston legs.
Marinette turned around fully, still cradling the body in her arms. She had blood on her now, spattered across her front, staining the skirt of her dress and painting the skin of her arms and legs. She looked like a vengeful saint of retribution and death. A Bloody Mary.
“You killed her! You killed Chloé!” said Sabrina; the tears waiting behind the words were obvious.
But Marinette just hefted the body a little higher. She looked… less terrifying now they could see her expression, which was fretful with nervous eyes. And Kagami saw that Chloé’s body wasn’t bloodied at all, nor was the neck at any unusual angle.
“She’s not dead,” she said, putting her hand on Sabrina’s shoulder.
“I just knocked her out,” said Marinette. “She was trying to get up to the top floor.”
Chloé stirred faintly in her arms. She didn’t seem to wake up, though. Sabrina rushed forward and grabbed hold of her, practically tearing her out of Marinette’s arms; she put Chloé gently down on the floor, holding up her head with one hand.
Kagami frowned at Marinette. Normally, this type of behaviour would have earned someone in Marinette’s position a reprimand and a dock to her pay and privileges; she was seriously walking across the bridge.
“You disrespected my authority,” she said, voice low. “You are never to do anything like this ever again. The leader’s orders always come first. Capisci?”
Marinette sighed and turned away. “We need to get to the top floor.”
“What you did was reckless and dangerous. A soldier doesn’t work independently of her crew and capo. She does what she is told.”
But Marinette just looked sidelong at Kagami, with eyes that seemed at once tired and sorrowful. And Kagami bit her tongue before she could continue. She thought about Astruc: why was Marinette’s behaviour right now so much more frustrating than Astruc’s had been? Astruc, too, endangered the safety of operations with some frequency because of his hot head.
Even so, Marinette’s behaviour felt different. Maybe it was just the different situation – with attackers out to destroy the Tsurugi family completely. Maybe Kagami just wanted something to just be stable right now.
She shook her head. Despite everything, Marinette was right. They could have their tiff later. “We still need to find Primo André. Both of you, keep your eyes peeled.” Sabrina picked Chloé up in her arms, refusing Marinette’s offer to help.
They moved through the corridor and took the stairs up to the fourth storey. It only had half the floor space of the three below, but they couldn’t see any guards – no people waiting suspiciously around corners with cocked pistols, no stetsoned heads peering around corners. Which either meant that everyone else was outside in the streets, hunting Tsurugis, or that as soon as they opened the Primo’s office they would be pelted with a thousand bullets.
“Sabrina,” she whispered, “do you think they’ll be waiting for us?”
“They will. I counted fourteen dead so far, and Chloé incapacitated. There are at least four more mobsters, as well as the boss and advisor.”
“So what do you propose?”
“I think… um…” A nervous look fell over Sabrina’s eyes; she looked back and forth between the end of the hallway and Chloé’s face a couple of times. “I think…”
Once again, Kagami found herself uncertain how much she could trust Sabrina. Ostensibly, Sabrina had gotten what she asked for – her dear Chloé’s life, even though Chloé wasn’t particularly awake to appreciate her livelihood right now. She hadn’t done anything to interrupt the mission yet. But could she still be enough of an actress to fool Kagami? Could she be cold enough to watch her fellows get dropped again and again, just for a shot at an ambush?
“Is there another way inside?”
“… Yes. Chloé showed it to me. It leads to a side room at the back of the office.”
“Should we use it? Would it give us an advantage?”
“I… maybe. I…”
“Tell me, Sabrina. Why were you so hesitant to mention this?” Kagami didn’t point her gun at Sabrina – but she tried to make it clear through her posture that the gun could be pointed at any moment.
Sabrina didn’t seem to catch on, though. She just avoided Kagami’s eyes, her fingers clamping a little more tightly onto Chloé. “Look… I don’t… I’m no good at taking charge. Don’t ask me for advice. I can tell you information, but I shouldn’t –”
“What are you hiding from me?” said Kagami, keeping her voice calm, though her fingers were twitching around her weapon.
“Nothing! The last time I made a decision for a group, I got them killed! I’m no good at decisions! I need instructions, not responsibilities.” The words weren’t shouted, but they were as close to that as they could be in a whisper; as she said them, Sabrina finally looked Kagami in the eye again. “I’m just a soldier. I’m not a consigliere. You’re in charge, boss. Tell us what to do.”
Kagami’s twitching fingers suddenly solidified. Sabrina was being genuine – there was no longer any doubt about that.
“Sabrina. You and I will go through the passage and take down the Bourgeois heads. And you, Marinette, will hide with Chloé inside one of the rooms, until we come back to retrieve you.”
“No.” Marinette sounded clear as a bell. “I won’t accept that plan.”
“I’m the leader.”
“And Sabrina can’t use a weapon. Furthermore, if Chloé wakes up next to a stranger, then she is going to get hysterical. Sabrina would be far better suited to watch over Chloé. And if things go belly up inside the office, you need me to help you.”
Kagami tried to protest, but something about Marinette’s demeanour made her hesitate – she was confident, assertive, and far too reasonable; at the same time Kagami was starting to see that her own feelings towards Marinette went a little beyond the field of ‘reasonable’. Perhaps even into the range of ‘irresponsible’. And Kagami’s hesitation was enough for Marinette to push even more forward.
“I might not be a capo or a don or whatchamacallit. But I’m not here to be bossed around, either. I’ll follow orders if they make sense, but I’m also gonna speak my mind. And if you can’t take that, then I’m going in there on my own. Got it?”
“I…” started Kagami, though she had no conception of anything she could possibly follow up with. So she swallowed, partly for something to do, partly to still her thundering heart. In the end, she plopped down on “Capisco.”
Kagami hated insubordination, but this – this was hot enough that she didn’t mind it as much as usual. And much though she hated to admit it, Marinette had a point.
Sabrina gave them instructions for how to enter the passage – into room 408, then pull on a string behind the curtain; this would let them into the otherwise-unavailable room 409, where they could access the office through a regular door – before taking the potentially-unconscious, potentially-sleeping Chloé into suite 4-3. Then Kagami and Marinette went together through the passage, quiet as they were able.
Room 409 was messy. Not disordered or filthy, but it was clearly not regularly kept by hotel staff, and the bed seemed to have been in use recently. Dust covered the tables, a used set of clothes lay haphazard on a wooden chair in the middle of the floor. A crate of whiskey stood right next to the door that worked as the office’s side entrance. There was scarcely a sound to be heard.
Kagami inched her way up to the door, peeked through the keyhole. She could see an office desk, with Primo André sitting behind it on a desk chair in his checkered suit and his wife, consigliere Audrey, leaning against the desk the other way, clad in a flapper-fashion dress – about twenty years out of style, just like the Bourgeois themselves. It was impossible to see the whole room, but Kagami did spot the backs of two people further ahead, both of them postured like they were aiming their guns at the opposite side of the room from the desk.
In other words, the advantage was all Kagami’s.
The very moment Marinette pushed the door open, Kagami stepped in and filled the front half of the room with bullets. Two of them dropped before they even realised people had entered, the other three had time to turn around but not enough time to fire before they were torn apart by Kagami’s tommy gun. Primo André tried to pull a handgun out of his desk, but Marinette was already on him, her hand on his wrist and her arm around his neck.
When the bullet echoes stopped ringing, Kagami turned her gun towards the two Bourgeois leaders. “There’s no use resisting,” she said, and noticed to her relief that the Primo fell limp; his wife seemed entirely paralysed. Marinette started to rifle through the desk for weapons.
“You… you…” started Primo André.
“We’ve learned of your plans,” Kagami went on. “And I’ve come to make sure you won’t see the light of tomorrow morning, whether or not those plans succeed.” Marinette finished her search; she returned to Kagami’s side with three pistols in her hands.
André scoffed. “You are but one girl and her little crew, against a whole city full of goodfellas. You’re dead the moment you set your foot outside the hotel.”
“The Tsurugi family has many allies. We are the largest family in the city.”
There was a sudden noise from Audrey. It was at once the sound of her waking up and the sound of her laughing. “Ahaha! You think we are after the Tsurugis? Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. This isn’t about destroying the Tsurugi family. This is about destroying you.”
Kagami froze. Her grip on the gun wavered again. “… What?”
“This isn’t a simple grab for power, you dimwit,” said André.
“All the dons are working together, dearie,” cackled Audrey. “We’re taking out the police. And we are pruning the weaklings from all the mobs. After this night is over, this whole city will be under complete mafia control! And you – Konami, whatever your name is, I don’t care – you are one of the weaklings being pruned, along with your little crew. As well as this… monstrous specimen, she looks like an escaped chimpanzee, she’s also going to die like the animal she is. You’ll all bleed out in the gutter, and the city will be ripe for the taking!”
André banged his fist into the desk. “Who helped you? You were not alone when you arrived, and you would not have found that entrance without help. Give me names!”
Kagami clenched her grip on the gun again, but that grip was the only part of her that wasn’t crumbling. Her shoulders drooped, her knees trembled, her stomach tried to turn itself inside out. If this was true – if they weren’t lying – then Kagami could trust no one. Least of all Mamma Tomoe. And the name slipped past her tongue before she even realised: “Sabrina. And… Chloé,” she said, at some volume she didn’t know; but it must have been loud enough for them to hear, because their eyes shot wide open, and then Audrey was roaring in fury.
“You – you thief! Mongrel! Cur! I swear I’ll make you pay!” In her hands was, she only noticed now – a telephone handset. Their conversation had been transmitted somewhere. To the Couffaines, or to Mamma Tomoe herself. Audrey had realised they were already dead, and phoned for someone else to finish the job. A strangely selfless act for someone of her caliber.
The night was going to end in blood and fire. That was certain now more than ever. And Kagami pulled the trigger, letting the last of her magazine bore its relentless way through the Bourgeois.