Red Lady Cigarettes

Chapter 16: Take Me Back

"You know, it's times like this when I look for someone to blame. Although this time I couldn't find any, not even you."

Elias stood, rain trickling down, tapping lightly on the covers of the umbrella. Shinkiro is not quite far, standing in the pouring weather, quiet and reminiscent.

"Oh well." The man looked up, sniffing. "Lost the battle, won the war."

The lady remained silent, staring at the freshly engraved names on the shiny tombstone commemorating the memories of their fallen comrades. She took another breath, before stepping back, eventually turning her back but he spoke before she could make another step.

"Linares trusted you, did you know that? You were never supposed to go with him that day, but he insisted on your capabilities."

"It's funny, how people around me just die. It's either I kill them, or they just leave."

"You're wrong." The man sighed. "The Kousetsu kid, he was the one who took initiative on the proposition for your family to accept our deal. He contacted us, told us that he can convince the Kumori to sell you out, because you didn't serve any better purpose and the Commission from Japan hired him to get rid of a certain villain codenamed Red Rum." Every word that came out, gutted her painfully that she wanted to throw up. However, Elias wasn't done. "Here's a piece of advice before I let you go." He turned. "If you keep trusting anyone, everyone will eventually betray you."

She didn't want him to know, but again, she had never felt this pain of losing for a long time. She thought she had been unbreakable after her mother died, but the world just kept finding ways to ruin her life. Unable to sleep without closure, Shinkiro oftentimes goes back to the sea side and investigates.

There's just this urge to know more, even if the case was closed. Everyone within the radius died when the sky fell down, even the terrorist's hideout.

On a walk, she discovered broken vials with residues of fuchsia pink powder at the bottom, and there has been an abundance of these broken vials scattered around. Asking the forensics about it, she came to know that it was a drug that prompts someone to be subjected to obey orders as if everything told to them is absolute. Effects lasts short, but it's addictive. This was nothing peculiar considering that the people who sacrificed for the summoning was potentially drugged.

On another note, it sounded familiar, eerily close to home.

So by the next day after the eulogy, Shinkiro was reported missing. Her things were left behind, and only a pair of militia suit was taken from her wardrobe. Clearly, she left, and she didn't bother if anybody knew. Elias could only close his eyes and let her go. He doesn't want to be responsible for Shinkiro, sure, the Lanceo wanted her to be one of their soldiers secured in a tight leash but everyone knows she's a hurricane.

She can't be tamed.

[ Undisclosed Location, Philippines ]

Muffled and hurried sentences in filipino were exchanged from outside of her confinement. It was difficult to breathe, but there's enough air to keep someone alive despite how cramped the space is.

A sudden shift and a zipper sliding open dropped her out of the bag and quickly rolled down the dirt. "Tangina!" It was probably only the word she knew in the native tongue. She sat up and looked around, seeing two unknown men sitting by a bench looking in shock and the person she forced to smuggle her out of Elias' vicinity. It was inside a tavern of some sorts, it smelled of cigarette smoke and liquor, outside the door and windows she saw the outside world. The place was just as they told it was, the empty skyscrapers, the ruins, it looked like place from a post-apocalyptic setting.