“One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though ... betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.” - Steven Deitz
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” - Nelson Henderson
Silent Strike / Korinna Arasaka
Putting her cigarette between her teeth Finality walks purposefully up to Kori, “You made me a promise Ms. Arasaka, remember!” then suddenly sucker punches her across the jaw with a speed that surprises Kori. As she falls back and off the roof from the blow, her hand grabs the edge and using the momentum swings back up and behind Finality.
Spitting blood, Kori addresses her, “Well, at least you don’t hit like a girl.” as she takes out a handkerchief and wipes her mouth.
Finality turns on her full of fury. “REMEMBER!” she shouts, “In that piece of shit apartment! You made me a promise, do you remember?”
Kori answers calmly, looking back at her. I remember everything and no, to answer your question, I never left her.”
“Good.” and she draws forth a pistol with frightening speed and has it leveled at Kori’s head. “No, you just made her think you did. So then give me one good reason I don't put you back in the ground!”
Looking calmly at the pistol as if it was just her finger being pointed at her she answers. “If being physically in the same room with her *calmly looks at the pistol* is your idea of being with her, then yes, I did leave her.” she admits and Finality lets out a slow breath of smoke. “You know I am a real bitch... but you... you are one cold cunt.”
Kori’s eyes narrow a bit before she speaks. “Look at her now. Is she better off than she was? Is she a better person now because of choices, painful choices I made? She has found love and love has found her, she found a place to belong, and now she has her mother back and all for a moment in time that you see as painful.”
Finality’s finger tightens on the trigger as Kori’s words enrage her, bring up feelings that should have long been buried. “BETTER OFF? NO CHILD IS BETTER OFF THINKING THEIR MOTHER DIED!” She sucks hard on the end of the cigarette between her teeth pulling her emotions back under control and a part of her is wondering just why the fuck she gives a shit. “You are a piece of work Kori.”
“I never said I wasn’t.” Turning she looks out over the city again. “It had to be done.” her voice stoic.
The gun never lowers as it now points to the back of Kori’s head. “Yeah, lets see you sell that to her. I am sure she will understand that her mother put her through hell just to make her stronger, just like her first parents. That all the pain was a good thing, all the hurt a character builder, for fuck’s sake she trusted you.”
Her tone never changing; remaining flat, calm and pissing Finality off more for it as she speaks. “I don’t expect to ever understand what sacrifice really is. You live in a world that you define by your own standards as I do. If you want to compare me to her first parents then so be it.”
“I know what I am, Kori, I don't pretend to be anything else and I certainly would never have a child in my world.” That was true; she had given up any dreams of normality, of love, family, children. They were weaknesses for someone like her.
“And I do what I must do, not only for Akemi, but for the world.”
“Fuck the world! The world was a piece of shit before you were born and will be one when you are gone but for her, for a little while longer, you can make it seem better by being her mother for christ’s sake and not this... what ever you think you are!”
Kori turns and smirks, as Finality lowers her pistol. “What you see as a tainted world, I see as one worth fighting for.” Then taking a step towards her at the same time Finality takes a step towards her and spits, “Yeah, I wonder why I see it tainted...especially when I look at you.”
Undaunted, Kori’s eyes narrow again as the two look each other in the eyes neither wavering under the other’s gaze. “Tell me Fin, from your vast experience, what is a mother? Someone like you?”
“Fuck no!” she fires back quickly, “I am way to goddamn selfish and I don't love. In that I know my limitations.”
“I see.” Kori turns once more away from her and looks outs. “Limitations imposed by yourself and yet you inspire people around you.”
“The hell I do!” Finality interrupts, “I kick their ass or make them sick to their stomach Kori. You know what I am but hell, even I...” She stops her self, too close to and not wanting to take that step so she just finishes with, “…fuck it!” and takes a long drag off her cigarette while turning her back on Kori.
“Behind your callous exterior you have a heart; it’s very simple to see actually.” Kori offers knowing she is right. She has seen past her armor, past the bravado.
“Yep and it’s a piece of shit too but I don't hide it in a kind smile and promises, as some do.” Finality snaps like a wolf on the verge of pouncing.
Kori nodes, her head tilting to the right a bit, “Were I to believe you to be the cold and brutal killer that you suggest to the world, our conversation would have ended on the ship in that hallway.”
“Yeah... and If I had believed the woman I saw cry as she pulled pictures off a wall of a stinking rat hole was ever going to fuck over her daughter I would never had told you.” Remember back to that day she too Kori to the place Gale grew up in, the cardboard in the corner of the kitchen that was her bed and the small pictures she had torn from discarded magazine and hung low on the wall of her ‘bed’.
Kori turns once more to face her and nods. “That’s fair and expected. I do what I must to make sure that events occur for the better, even at some measure of sacrifice.” She also remembered seeing where her daughter grew up and the way her heart broke and the pain and guilt.
“Yeah… well next time sacrifice yourself and not someone that thinks you hung the fucking moon!”
“And don’t pretend to turn your back on the people that truly care about you.” Kori counters.
However, Finality isn’t done with her yet and ignores the comment. “Someone, who even now is so goddamn willing to forget everything just to have you back! She is happy again in that... you gonna take that away form her again?”
“Am I?” She asks and Finality is visibly irked.
“I’m asking you Kori.” She growls.
“No you are telling me and assuming.”
“NO… cuz if I was, you would be dead.”
“Perhaps.” Kori offers and Finality snaps back with conviction. “Perhaps my ass! I may be laying there with you, but by god, I would take you to hell with me.”
Kori’s eye narrow again at the challenge then with breath calmly states, “Of course I never thought to ask your permission or approval as to how to raise my daughter.”
“Yeah... good cuz my answer would be fuck you.” Finality snaps and Kori replies with a smirk, “I would expect nothing less.”
“After the 11th, I don't think I’ll ever have to again. Although to answer you directly, No, I don't plan on it.” She looks calmly at the barrel pointing at her. “Shoot me and you will have found your answer. All I ask is that once you kill me, you look after my daughter as you have been.” She then walks up to the barrel and presses her forehead to it.
“Yeah I know you ain't afraid to die Kori, I see that in your eyes.” Then she removes her sunglasses and looks back. “And I know you see in mine that I am more than ready to.” The gun rises and the hammer is gently set down. “But no… won't do it. Shit maybe I do care for her more than you.” She holsters the pistol. “But right now she needs YOU in her life. You gonna be there?”
Kori turns her back to her. “I do things that most people are too lazy or too arrogant to do and if it upsets people then so be it. As for your question, where am I now Fin? In Japan? Behind a desk in New York? On the ship? No… where am I?” She stops and draws a slow breath not waiting for answer. “And I was there last night, watching.”
“Yeah, I see.” She blows a long plume of smoke and shakes her head. “Kori… you lost your parents, your uncle right?”
For the first time, there is emotion in her voice as she cuts Finality off. “Don’t Fin, don’t compare or bribe me emotionally. I know what I have lost and what I have gained. I won't let you use my parents and uncle as emotional blackmail.”
“Hey fuck you Kori... you put your kid through hell but you think you can place limits on what can be discussed cuz it might hurt you?”
There is a fire in Kori’s eyes now as she speaks. Her words are stones, heavy and immovable. “I love my daughter with every fiber of my being, and if I have to change the world and destroy every evil soul to keep her safe, I will. It hurts me yes, but what I am telling you is your answer.”
“Then shut up and listen. My mother died last year.” Kori bows her head and listens as Finality continues. “I came home and there was a box waiting for me from someone that I should have killed years ago. I opened it and looked down into the face of my mother's head.” Kori closes her eyes and offers a small prayer while she still speaks. “I thought I had said my goodbyes years ago when I found out my father was a serial killer and I blamed my mother for not knowing... hated her even... but looking down in her face... seeing the horror and pain she went through in the last moment of her life I realized one goddamn thing.”
She throws the cigarette from her mouth and takes out another, lighting it with a wooden match she strikes with her thumbnail. “You never get over missing your mother and you never get over her death. What you did... you made her look where no child should have to look. And you can say all you want about it being for her good and for saving the world but in the end you made her look where should never have had to. You remember that.”
“I remember everything.” Kori says flatly and then her voice softens a bit. “I am sorry, Betty.”
Finality heads to the roof door, “Don’t be sorry for me... be sorry for that kid down there and just remember.” Opening the door, she stops. “And Kori... you still owe me a favor, remember?”
“I remember, Fin.”
“Well I am calling it in... you best love her and take real good care of her from now on!” then storms through the door slamming it. Laying back against it on the other side, her voice low, “So she doesn't turn out like me.” Then she pushes off and heads down stairs.
Outside Kori watches as the sun rises and smirks as she thinks, ‘No one can turn out like you.’
((for more on the back ground of this story I invite you to visit Toons of Theresa and read the threads for Nightingale and at Simple Treasures and read the forums.))
