Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Into The Void ❯ Path of Repentance ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: MellyN

:::

Into the Void

By: Melissa Norvell

Chapter 7: Path of Repentance

:::

"We saw some terrorists in town. They tried to trick me, but that wasn't working," Sari bragged. "I saw right through their deception." She let out a loud, confident laugh. Valentino wore a look of exasperation. "Oh yeah, and Valentino helped."

Her team mates, minus Valentino anime fell at the comment.

"What?" She asked.

"I bet Valentino did most of it," Vincent grumbled. There was no way in hell that he was believing that story at all.

"What did you find out?" Agata was interested in their information. After all, they were the only ones who came out successful. Talking to the assassin was a well of information for them. What else did Valentino know?

"The terrorists are headed to the west, to the Republic of Baztok. I ran into five of them in town. Valentino could tell you more about them," Sari stated. After all, it was him that she found out the things she knew from in the first place.

This queued the assassin's response, "Dark Renegade Interrogation Commander, Reiji Zidane, General Masatori Shigeki, Soldier Mosatori Hisamichi, and General of Weaponry Rouma Udo."

"Udo used to be General of Weaponry and Central Intelligence for the government, but he went AWOL," Agata informed. She knew a fair amount about all of them, but she was unaware that Udo was still on the grid like that.

"You mean he went treason…or terrorist, or whatever," Sari folded her arms over her chest. Whatever he went, it was bad. Why would a guy with that much talent want to go and work for someone like Ibuki, anyway?

"So…He went AWOL…Makes sense," Valentino contemplated to himself.

"You sound like you know him. I mean more than a soldier," the short haired girl noted. Were the two of them friends or something?

"You could say we're something called 'friends'."

"So, I guess we're headed to the Republic of Baztok," the woman replied. "Well, as soon as Ionna gets back."

"It's going to take her all day, isn't it?" Sari asked in an exasperated tone. The last thing she needed was someone who was way into the mission after the critical information had always been obtained. She didn't feel like waiting for her to get back, either.

"At least she's trying," the bounty hunter intoned. "Rubio here didn't even go and get anything."

"What!?" Sari was outraged. How dare he just sit there while everyone else did his dirty work! What a lazy son of a bitch! She wasn't going to stand for his shit this time.

"Why should I have gone? I trust in Valentino's words," Rubio stood by his previous statement. He could have seen Sari's maelstrom of anger coming from a mile away.

"I should have agreed with you. He turned out to be right," Sari sighed. As much as she couldn't wait to lay into the silver-haired man's face, she knew that he was right. For now, she would save him the beating.

"I prove my point."

IX.

"You're late," Ibuki's deep voice sounded disappointed with his troop's efforts. Cold eyes reflected his tone as he stared down the four men, waiting for whatever explanations that they had regarding the matter.

Udo had no response. The white haired man just stood there with his hands in his pockets, ice blue eyes glaring at his boss. He never liked presenting himself before this man, nor did he like spending any more time around him than he had to. He could only pray that this would be a short meeting so he could get on with his life.

"There's a logical explanation for this, sir," Shigeki spoke up. "You see, Zidane suggested using an alternate route and failed to tell us that he didn't know the way."

"I have to interject on this one," Zidane spoke, his cigarette bobbing up and down with his words. "I knew the way, but my dysfunctional team mates, if you can even call them that, didn't ask for my directions."

Mahogany eyes glared at the bald man's statement.

"At least, we made it. That's all that matters,“ Udo knew that the two didn't get along on matters like these. ”Let's sign in," He turned to the sign in sheet and scribbling down his name. Zidane followed suit as did Hisamichi, who wrote his name, then paused and looked shocked at the parchment that was before him. Udo cocked his head at the young soldier.

"Oh my gosh! I spelled my own name wrong!" Hisamichi finally said aloud. That was certainly embarrassing. What was he thinking making such an amateur mistake?

"That's not surprising," the white haired man noted sardonically. Out of everyone there, Hisamichi was the freshest, youngest, and had the least experience.

"Hisamichi, you can go," Shigeki dismissed the red-head. His services were no longer needed.

"But I went before I left, sir," he replied nervously, causing Zidane and Udo to burst out laughing at the comment, Shigeki, however, was not impressed.

"You mean…never mind…" Hisamichi finally figured out that he didn't mean bathroom break and felt rather stupid for saying something like that. How many screw ups could he make in that single day?

Ibuki sighed in exasperation, "they're impossible."

"Sir, everyone's accounted for," a woman, who had shoulder length black hair, all the same length and hazel eyes spoke. She wore black, knee-length boots and a navy blue skirt with a black belt. This woman also wore an ashy blue long sleeved shirt, which was tucked in and buttoned up the front. There were pockets on either side. The dark haired female also had the red headband and symbol embroidered arm piece.

"Go join Zidane, Shigeki and Udo in their quarters. Tell Esta to go with you. I'll inform you of further missions, tasks and actions when the need arises," Ibuki told her.

"Yes, sir," she saluted and left.

In a small beige room with a couple of couches, a table, and some chairs the henchmen all sat. Loreli stood by the end of the couch, Zidane leaned against the wall, smoking, Shigeki stood with his arms crossed and Udo and Esta were seated on the couch.

Esta was a pretty woman who wore elaborate dress. She wore a tube top with a triangular piece of cloth over the front, which wrapped around her shoulders. Esta wore arm wrappings from the wrist to the elbow. The woman had black hair and blue eyes. Her hair was pulled back in a mid-back ponytail. She had long, breast length bangs which were parted in the middle and hung to either side. Her dark blue eyes were slender and her lips painted with maroon lipstick. She wore a skirt of sorts that wrapped around and was navy blue in color, with white rims and a slit up the side, exposing her leg. White wrappings were placed around her knees, and where the wrappings ended her black leather boots began.

"Man, I'm hungry," Udo sat a hand on his stomach. "I haven't eaten all day."

"Forget it," Esta waved. "Last time you cooked the stove blew up."

An unamused look crossed Shigeki's face, "I remember that…Unfortunately."

"Be quiet Shigeki or I'll hit you so hard you look like him," Udo said casually, jerking a thumb at Zidane.

"Ok, enough with the ugly jokes," Zidane came over and sitting in-between Udo and Esta.

"Hey!" Esta yelled. "Watch where you stick that thing!"

"I heard that our pictures came in. I got the ones that they identify us by. Want to look at them?" Loreli pulled out a small packet of pictures.

Shigeki said nothing, but Esta hopped on the offer.

"Sure," she commented. "I don't have anything else to do."

"Here," Loreli began to hand Esta the photos, but before they could get to the black haired woman's hand, they were intercepted by Udo, and then Zidane took them from him and began to flip through them.

"You know," he finally said. "It's pretty rude to take a picture of someone's ass…Oh that's Udo's face."

Udo snatched them away and came to some pictures of the bald man and replied. "Oh look, pictures of Zidane." He pulled out a magic marker with a mischievous grin. "Mustache time!"

Esta grabbed them from the white-haired man, who was trying to draw a mustache but missed, marking on his hand. He looked to Zidane and held up the marker in a menacing way, wearing a devilish smile.

"Write on me and there will be one less human in this room," Zidane threatened.

"Write on him," the navy blue clad woman replied. "I need more room on the couch." She began looking through the pictures, coming across various ones that the back of her head was featured in. "Hey! These pictures are worthless! This one didn't get my best side." She exclaimed, holding up the picture with a visage of disgust.

"It's the side I like. It's the side with no mouth…" The blue eyed man responded, and then the corner of a picture got his attention. He pulled it out of the stack. "Hey, you take pictures well," he looked to Loreli.

"Oh, well thank you," the woman looked flattered and blushed a little. It was nice to get compliments from her fellows. In reality, she didn't find herself the best-looking of the bunch.

"Well, with a face as beautiful as hers. She could have been a model," Udo complimented, contributing to the chain.

"Why does she get complimented?" Esta asked, offended that she had gotten no compliments on her pictures. Why the hell was Loreli the center of attention? She took images with model quality.

"I like you, Esta," Shigeki spoke up.

"Hm?" Dark blue eyes locked on the dark skinned man and a small blush crept to her cheeks. She didn't expect anyone to say anything, and the fact that the man she found attractive was the only one to compliment her made her heart skip a beat.

Loreli leaned in close to Zidane. "What's with them?"

"Who knows? Who cares?" The bald man shrugged. He didn't even want to be sitting by Esta, much less have any kind of involvement in her life or the choices that she made.

"What love birds," the white haired man scoffed. "It's so obvious to everyone but them…" He sighed. Not to mention it was gross to watch. Affection really wasn't his thing, especially between the two of them.

"I really don't care about their love problems," Zidane replied coldly. He was there to work, not be involved in some shitty drama series.

"You're right," Loreli agreed. "We should concentrate on the mission."

"Nah!" Esta blew her off. "Let's pick on Hisamichi," she noted as she saw him stroll past the doorway. She was feeling like taking her aggression out on someone, and she knew just the target. New recruits were the best punching bags.

The red head stopped and backtracked into sight. "Yes?" He asked. "I heard you guys call my name."

"Come here and sit down," the navy blue clad female said, patting the cushion beside her.

Ice blue eyes glared at the two from across the room as his head was filled with nostalgic flashbacks. Udo didn't like where this was going one bit. He knew the type of soldier Esta was, and it brought nothing but terrible memories to the surface that he would have rather had buried with his past.

A group of former generals were all laughing.

"They cheered like this "shhh!" and you cheered like this "AHHHHHHHHH!" One of them said, waving their arms around wildly as another general put his hand on the back of his head in an embarrassed way.

A small child walked in, looking no older than tweleve in age. He had white spiky hair and closed eyes. He wore a shirt with a belt wrapped around the mid chest area and navy blue baggy pants that came to his mid calf. He had wrappings underneath his pants and wore black sandals.

"I must be in heaven,” one of the male generals said, and then looked at the child. "No wait, Udo's here, must be hell."

A female general spoke up. "Hey Udo, what are you doing?"

"Thinking," was the monotone response from the boy.

"Lay down before you hurt yourself," the other general spoke up, joining in the bashing session.

"You guys are lame."

"No one needs to make you look lame," the female general fired back. "You do that on your own."

The generals began to laugh at him.

"You guys are assholes…And I don't mean the good kind. " Shortly after the utterance of that sentence, Udo was slammed harshly against the wall. He made an airy noise as the breath was beaten from his body. He panted heavily before his back registered the pain of being rammed onto a spike from the wall. The boy yelled sharply.

"You need a muzzle, just like a dog," the general sneered. He was tired of that child's sassy mouth, and half of him had a mind enough to sow it shut.

"I'm on a spike," Udo replied in a pain-filled voice.

"What? I don't understand barking," The other general teased as the flashback began to fade to black.

"So," Esta said. "You're the kid who can't spell his own name right, eh?"

The red head blushed. "Sorry about that. I feel like such a twit."

"Heh, you don't know your own name," Zidane said nonchalantly. He found the situation slightly amusing; he wasn't going to deny that.

Udo remained silent and said nothing, frowning deeply. Why did Zidane have to have a comment about that? More than anyone, the bald man knew about the shit he'd been through.

"Hmpf," Shigeki turned, facing the wall. He didn't have time for their stupid games.

"This is childish," the white haired man finally spoke, the anger getting to him as he grabbed Hisamichi by the arm and pulled him out of the room. He couldn't stand it anymore. He didn't even care if it was just light-hearted fun.

"Ah!" The red head vocalized as he was drug out. Hisamichi had no idea what was going on. Sure, Esta was picking at him, but she always did it. It wasn't that big of a deal.

"Why does he have to ruin all our fun?" Esta sighed.

Loreli looked at them with an odd expression on her face. She had no idea what was going on, but Udo undoubtedly looked angry. She wondered what was going on.

Outside of the room, Udo and Hisamichi stood in the dark hallway. The red head grabbed his arm and looked at the other male. "What was that for?" Hisamichi rubbed his arm.

The spike haired man had his back turned to him with his hands in his pockets. His form was slumped and his head angled down. Udo said nothing to the boy.

"Tell me!" He yelled. If he was going to be drug away like that, then he deserved an explanation.

"They were just going to pick on you. Be glad I saved you," the defensive man hissed.

"Uh…" Hisamichi blinked. "Thank you…I guess."

XI.

"Still no luck," Ionna sighed. "It's either Polport Harbor or the Republic of Baztok. Maybe someone else got something on it. I'd better report back. I'll probably be the last one back."

When she got back, everyone looked at her. "Yeah, I'm the last one back."

"What took ya so long?" Sari asked.

"I've got a few leads," the black haired woman gave her information report. Ionna would be damned if she came back with nothing at all.

"Like what?"

"Polport Harbor or the Republic of Baztok," Ionna replied. It wasn't much, but it was the closest clues she had. She didn't want to come back empty-handed, and she hated giving incorrect information. Ionna hoped that someone else had the answers, or at least something affirmative.

"The Republic of Baztok," Valentino was firm on that place.

"What?" Ionna was surprised that someone knew what was correct.

"That's where they're going."

"I should've just come back before."

"Well hey; you made up for Rubio's laziness," Sari mentioned how Rubio contributed nothing to this session of information gathering.

"Do you have to make me feel bad about it?" Rubio asked.

"Yep, Should've helped me… I mean us," Sari shot. She wouldn't have been nearly as hard on him if he wasn't such an intolerable sack of shit.

"Don't you think that we should go?" Vincent questioned, "I mean, we're just standing here. They're probably already there."

"Most likely," the assassin agreed.

"Then let's go. What are we waiting for?" The bounty hunter said loudly, voice strong and filled with excitement and determination. There was no use in standing around all day and doing nothing.

"Oh," Ionna said before turning to go. "Before we go. I just have to say that it's nice to have you aboard brother."

Sari's head snapped back to her. "What!? Brother?!"

Vincent quirked an eyebrow, "onw that I look at them, they do look a lot alike."

"We should," the black haired girl educated. "We're twins."

"It was very obvious. She did state her name earlier," Agata pointed out, having figured this out a long time ago. She thought that everyone would have mentioned something about the two of them sharing a similar last name ages ago when they faced off against Ionna in battle.

'My name is Ionna Valerio, and yours will be on your tombstones.'

"She did tell us her last name. You guys just didn't care enough to notice," Agata further reminded them of the prior battle.

"We were getting attacked!" The angry girl yelled. "Are we supposed to care about last names when we're having things thrown at us?"

"I know she said it, but I didn't quite catch it," Rubio replied. 'Great, now there are two of them.' He really hoped that Valentino's sister wasn't the terrible person that he was.

The red eyed girl put her arm around her brother. "Hm…" She smirked. "Feel intimidated yet?"

"Why should Valentino be in our group?" The silver haired man posed. There were tons of reasons not to let him join them: he was sketchy, he killed his lover, he was a wanted man, and he looked like a robot devoid of feelings. They couldn't trust a killer like him, and no matter how much he wanted to, his contributions wouldn't mean anything to them. For all he knew this guy was setting them up to go straight to Ibuki. He called the guy sama for crying out loud.

"You have a problem with that?" Ionna shot.

"I have many problems with that."

"Um…Actually," Sari stated, "I can think of about ten myself."

"And those are?" Ionna arched an eyebrow. She was a little curious as to what Sari had to say.

"Number one, he's a felon and a killer," Sari listed.

"So am I. So is she," a purple fingernail was pointed at Agata, "and him." It then moved to Vincent.

"Number two-He's creepy."

"Maybe he thinks you're creepy," the red eyed female pointed out nonchalantly.

A vein popped out of Sari's forehead as she continued her list, "number three- he's stalking us, for what reason I don't know.”

"Maybe he's trying to help you," Ionna stated in his defense.

"Okay, number four- he confuses people. Number five- he shows up out of nowhere. Number six- he tried to kill me with his gun. Number seven- he's too quiet. Number eight he's weird. Number nine….Uh…I already said he was creepy. I can't think of nine, so there is naturally no ten either, but hey, eight out of ten isn't bad."

The woman was unamused by this and her brother remained quiet.

"He's providing us with good information," Agata stated the positives. "If nothing else, he makes a good scout and a good person to supply us with information."

"Uh, that kind of sounds like we're using him. Ouch!" He earned a punch by Sari, who cast him a look that told him to shut up. Why was he defending this guy, anyway?

"Yes," a lone, blue eye looked to the red and black form. "It does."

"Well," Sari cast her gaze to Valentino. "Do you want to be in our group?"

Red eyes glanced to her brother, "it's not like you have a choice."

"Technically…I do."

Ionna felt the sweat run down the back of her head as her brother went silent again. "Do you have to get technical?" She asked as eyes looked back at her.

"Can't you say yes?" The Sari groaned. "I mean, is yes in your vocabulary?"

He still spoke not.

"Oh, here we go with that crap again!" Sari was annoyed and she still earned no answer. "Look! I know you can talk." Still nothing. "What? Do you feel pressured?" She taunted as the black haired man felt sweat run down his forehead.

The girl could feel a rush of anger seethe through her form before she let out a semi-psychotic giggle and smiled widely. "Right…Come on, Valentino! You know you'd like to join the group. You have some pretty hot and sexy women…or men." She gestured to Rubio, who made an annoyed face.

His widened ever so slightly and he sweat dropped.

Rubio shoved her hand to gesture to Vincent, but he shoved it back to Rubio. They both grabbed her arm, pushing it to each other, but it didn't go anywhere because of the opposing forces.

Pop!

She smacked both of them upside the head. They both yelled 'ow' and rubbed the back of their heads.

"That's my arm, not a lever, dorks!"

"I'm not gay!" Vincent said defensively.

"Compared to me, you're definitely gay," Rubio remarked.

"You look gayer then I do."

"What?" Rubio asked.

"Maybe you should both be gay," Sari suggested.

"With each other," Ionna added onto her sentence with a smirk.

Blue and green gazes burnt into each other as a call in unison of "Ugh!" was made and they shoved each other away. Valentino's features were still a little astounded as he witnessed the events taking place. Never in a million years did he think that such a thing would come about, especially about being gay with someone like Rubio.

"Come on guys," Agata noticed the assassin's expression. "You're creeping him out. My team mates aren't gay…Well, that I know of. You should join us. We won't turn you in. I promise. That will be clearly a score settled after we find Ibuki. Right Vincent…Rubio?"

"Right," Vincent replied.

Rubio said nothing, just looked as if he were dreading agreeing. After a short pause, he was elbowed in the stomach. "Oof!" He breathed as he almost doubled over, and looked annoyed as he had a hand on his stomach. "Right…"

"Don't agree out of spite," the assassin told him.

"From Rubio dot com: I am a dork," Sari teased

The silver haired man began to sing a little tune. "Three, two, one- One, two, three.What the hell is bothering me. I think her name is Sar-i."

"Grr…" The girl growled, before her line of sight was covered with a pale, well-toned stomach and yellow frills.

"Don't even try it," Ionna warned.

"Hm?" Sari and Rubio snapped out of fight mode.

Agata sighed. "You know, Valentino. You may possibly be the only other sane one besides me."

"Ahem," Ionna cleared her throat.

"Yeah, and the maniacal assassin who tried to kill us while thinking we worked for Ibuki." She noted afterwards.

"Just because I accidentally thought you were Ibuki's men doesn't mean I'm not sane," Ionna defended. How many times did she have to tell all of them that it was a misundersranding.

"YOU TRIED TO BLOW US UP WITH A BOMB!!!" Sari yelled.

"Isn't that how you get rid of a terrorist?" Ionna asked.

"We're not terrorists!!"

'Speak for yourself.' Rubio thought.

"I know that now. What am I supposed to be, psychic?" Ionna asked.

"It would help. Then we wouldn't need Sari," Rubio said. It would get the girl off of his back for sure.

"What?!" Again, Sari was offended.

"Here we go again," Ionna crossed her arms and sighed, resting her weight on one leg.

"She's always offended like that. It's kind of cute," Vincent smiled. He couldn't deny that Sari had a special charm about her. He liked girls with a strong personality.

"Can't you keep your mouth shut, Vincent?" Ionna glared at him.

"You're cute too," the bounty hunter complimented. "But you know who's cuter?"

"Do I care?" She scowled; a flicker of jealousy ran through her blood red sights.

"Valentino?" Rubio asked with a sly smile.

Valentino looked to Rubio.

"Uh!?" Sari glanced to the assassin. The bounty hunter looked at him with a freaked out and disgusted look on his face.

"I feel the same. Don't worry."

"As long as it's mutual," Vincent stated.

"Hey!!" The yellow-clad girl said aloud, earning the attention of all three men. "Are we going to the Baztok Republic or not?" She was tired of their little charade. They needed to stop freaking out about stupid things and get a move on.

"She's right, let's get a move on," Agata instructed.

Everyone began to walk towards the Republic. It was silent for about two minutes, until the spunky girl remembered something.

"So Vincent," She cast a catty look towards him. "Who's cuter than Ionna…And of course…" She put a hand behind her head and another on her hip, looking as sexy as she could pull off. "Me?"

"Why, Agata of course!" He replied with a big, flashy smile. Honestly, there was no contest. Sari had a spunky personality, but her preferred the more mature

Sari and Ionna spoke in outrage in unison. "Agata?" Then fell. She couldn't believe he had a thing for women like that.

"Why her?" The black haired girl asked, a frown plastered to purple lips and a sharp edge to her voice. Didn't he find her attractive at all?

"Yeah!" Sari popped up. "What's so great about her!?"

"Guys…" Agata frowned, "I'm standing right here."

"Shall I name the ways?" The green eyed man sighed romantically.

'Should I be offended or flattered?' The woman wondered to herself as they all walked down the dusty roads, on their way to the Baztok Republic. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know or not. It was bad enough that Vincent was starting to become attracted to her in general. Why couldn't the people in this group just be normal?

TBC