Good Girls Gone Bad

by Alexa Nichols

  What could she have told him after all they’ve been through that could change the way he looked at her? It had to have been something huge, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might be. It hurt to think she had kept something from him, even when they’d…been so intimate. His pain was intensified by the fact that he hadn’t seen any sign of her since she left. Not a note, not a memento, nothing. Had she forgotten about him that quickly? Had she moved on? There was so much he wanted to say to her, so much he needed to know, but the gates of communication seemed to be shut tight. Maybe it wasn’t her fault at all. Maybe it simply wasn’t possible anymore.

  Or maybe she simply didn’t care.

  That last thought pinched Kaito’s heart, but he put it to the side and stepped through the kitchen doors to the bakery’s front lobby. Mr. Hirabayashi was politely talking with a foreigner, an American by the looks of her. She had long black hair, slim features, and the looks of a top-ranked model. But there was more to her. She also had a hint of darkness in her eyes, the look of a woman that was used to getting her way. He had never seen her before; he would definitely remember if he had.

  She looked his way and smiled, an act that took Kaito’s breath away. She was almost supernaturally beautiful. “You must be Kaito Fujiwara. My name is Miel. Miel Lucrox,” she said with a slight French accent, holding out her hand as she stepped closer to him. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. An immense pleasure.”

  “Right,” Mr. Hirabayashi said as he watched the pair shake hands, then turned and made his way back to the kitchen area. “Mrs. Lucrox asked to borrow you for the day, so go ahead and take off. I’ll see you in the morning. Goodbye, Mrs. Lucrox.”

  She didn’t take her eyes off Kaito long enough to acknowledge his leaving. Her constant, unblinking gaze was disconcerting, and his discomfort made it hard to speak. “Um, I’m sorry, but do I know you somehow? I’m sure I would have remembered.”

  The young woman smiled. “This might be a bit direct, but can we go back to your place? There is much we have to speak of.”

  Kaito thought instantly of his mother, and what she would think. Lately her health had been improving, so she should be fine with a visitor. Still, this woman was an absolute stranger, and he wasn’t sure he could trust her. Who asked someone they didn’t even know to go to their house?

  “It is about the events that took place here in Tokyo. The events the Japanese government is trying to cover up. And your involvement in those events.”

  Kaito blinked. “You’re a reporter then. I’m not interested. Thank you for visiting, Ms. Lucrox.”

  The raven-haired beauty shook her head. “No, Kaito, I am not a reporter, and I have no intention of exposing you or the events. I am a novelist, yes, and with your permission, I would like to write a fiction story centered around the events that transpired.”

  Kaito tilted his head. “What makes you think anything other than military tests happened here in Tokyo?”

  Miel smiled warmly. “Kaito, I am an avid student of the occult. You can almost say I am a living, breathing embodiment of it. I felt the shift in power, and traced its catalyst back to here. I did some research, a heavy amount of research, by the way, and discovered you. I have come all the way from America to speak with you, Kaito, and you were very difficult to track down. Please do not simply turn me away.”

  Toshiro opened the kitchen doors and looked at Kaito, his eyes wide. “Why are you always the one with the girl?! You are one lucky mother-”

  He was suddenly pulled back into the kitchen, no doubt by Mr. Hirabayashi. Kaito laughed, and Miel joined him.

  “Is your friend always so forward?” She asked when they calmed down.

  “Oh, you have no idea. Look, I’ll talk with you, but I can’t promise anything.”

  Miel nodded. “That’s all I can ask. Thank you, Kaito.”

  Kaito nodded and walked towards the shop's door.

  His life was about to change completely.

  Again…

  “Would you like anything to drink, young woman? Or maybe something to eat?” Kaito’s mother asked Miel as she poked her head into Kaito’s room to check up on the pair.

  “Not right now, but thank you, Ms. Fujiwara. You are a gracious and generous host.”

  “And your Japanese is excellent,” Kaito’s mother countered, bowing and smiling genuinely at the young woman. It was obvious she liked Miel, Kaito noticed, though he had no idea why. She was an absolute stranger, and his mother wasn’t normally this receptive to people she just met.

  Once the door was closed, Miel pulled out a small electronic device. “A voice recorder,” Miel explained, fidgeting with it for several moments before placing it on the floor next to her. She was sitting cross-legged on his floor, despite being offered a chair.

  She looked at Kaito and smiled. “So, tell me about her.”

  Kaito shrugged. “She’s my mother. There’s not much to say. She had a heart attack recently, but-”

  “Not her,” Miel said, smiling. “Her. The girl from the other world.”

  Kaito flinched. “What? How did you know about her?”

  Miel’s smile widened. “What is her name? What is she like? How well do you know her?”

  Kaito leaned back on his bed and grimaced. “I…if you don’t mind...I don’t really want to talk about her…”

  Miel’s eyes widened. “Why not?”

  Kaito went silent, his mind racing. What should he tell this woman? He didn’t know her. But the fact that she even knew about Kira…and she was a student of the occult, whatever that meant…could she possibly help? Could she bring Kira back to him? Or him to her? Maybe there was a way. There had to be a way.

  He decided to tell her everything.

  As he did, Miel’s eyes widened alarmingly, though she didn’t interrupt him.

  When he was finished, he looked to her recorder and sighed. “Got all that?”

  Miel looked at her recorder, then back at him. “I did not turn it on. I did not need to. I just wanted to look legitimate, and I have seen people in movies do such things. I just wanted to put you at ease, Kaito, so you would open up to me more. And…and you definitely did. Wow…”

  Kaito nodded. “Yeah. Wow. I lost the love of my life to save my city. I bet that would make a remarkable story. It just sucks as a reality.”

  “Do you happen to still have that ribbon she gave you?”

  Kaito nodded, pulling out his wallet and taking it from its depths. “I always have it with me,” he explained as he handed it to her. “It means a lot.”

  Miel nodded. “I imagine it does,” she said as she took the ribbon in her hand and examined it. She then balled her fist, crushing it within, and held it up in the air.

  And that’s when everything went weird.

  The woman’s eyes, even the whites, darkened to a complete, absolute black, and the skin around her eyes became traced with dark, veiny lines, almost as if the very blood around her tainted eyes was becoming polluted and foul.

  And then the hand holding the ribbon burst into flame.

  She reached out with her other hand, beckoning Kaito to take it.

  “There is no way in hell I am taking your hand,” he told her as he took several tentative steps backward. He looked around for his cell phone, wondering if Toshiro would answer.

  “Take. My. Hand,” she said in a voice that was not her own. The voice was deeper, more menacing, and was accompanied by a slight echo. Kaito could almost see the corrupting effect her words had on the very air around them as they left her mouth.

  He had seen enough.

  Kaito ran towards his door full tilt, so fast and sudden that his feet barely had time to keep him balanced and upright. He was stopped abruptly by a strange small creature that seemed to pull itself out of a shadow in the corner, and it looked as if its body was made from the shadow it came from. The creature was completely unlike anything Kaito had ever seen: large, bulbous eyes, long, deadly looking claws. Its arms and legs
were elongated, a parody of a normal biped. It ambled towards him, its mouth widening to display several rows of impressively sharp teeth, its skinny limbs moving slowly and methodically.

  It was a living nightmare.

  “Gardi, calm. He is not an enemy. He is a friend,” the woman told the creature, her voice softer and more humanlike this time. The change in the small shadowy creature was immediate and alarming: its claws retracted, its eyes softened, and even its skin seemed to lighten and become less creepy.

  “Kaito, I cannot maintain this much longer. When the ribbon is consumed, your chance to rejoin your beloved will be over.”

  He took a step forward to join her without thinking, but then reality came crashing into his mind. He could not leave his mother, especially now that she was just starting to get better. She was barely getting over the death of his father; she would never be able to come to terms with his sudden disappearance. Without his help, she would die, if not of physical complications surely of a broken heart. He couldn’t leave her.

  He wouldn’t leave her.

  But if he didn’t go now, he knew he would never see Kira again. He would never know another girl like her, never share what they shared together. She was his one.

  “I can’t,” Kaito said finally, sitting down on the floor and clenching his jaw. “I can’t leave my mother. She’s all I have left. She’s…she’s all I have left.”

  The flame in Miel’s hand died down and she opened it, revealing a small pile of ashes where Kira’s ribbon once was. It was all he had to remind him of her. And now even it was gone.

  Miel turned and looked at Kaito, her eyes normal, the black veins of darkness surrounding them gone. Her underling, Gardi, crawled up her leg, then arm, then placed itself on her back like a small demonic backpack.

  “You do know what you have just done?” She asked Kaito softly.

  Kaito nodded, looking up at the ceiling. “More than you know.”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to be with you if you would have left your mother anyway. That’s not the Kaito I fell in love with,” Kira said.

  Kaito jumped to his feet and nearly fell back down as he spun around, looking for her. She was leaning against his wall, her slender body wrapped tightly in a thin form-fitting towel. Her face flushed as she saw how intensely he was looking at her. “I just got out of the bath,” she explained, smiling shyly, “not that I should be shy around you anyway.”

  Kaito looked over at Miel, who was staring at Kira with her mouth open. He got the impression that it was not an expression her face often wore. Miel’s eyes widened, and Kaito looked towards Kira to see why. Kira was glaring at the older, exotic looking woman, her fists balled and dark power surging through them. “Now who the fuck is this girl that’s been following you around?! I will cut a bitch!”

  Kaito couldn’t help it. He laughed. “Calm down! She just wanted to know what happened when you and the other Morituri came here. She’s going to write-”

  Kaito quit talking when Miel’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Did you just say Morituri?”

  Kaito turned to face her. “Yeah. Why? It’s the group Kira’s a member of.”

  A change came over the face of the raven-haired beauty. It was a change that was impossible for Kaito to interpret.

  “How sad. Tragic. I had no idea. I am sorry.”

  Kaito looked back and forth between Kira and Miel. Both had completely different expressions. Kira looked downcast, nervous, and a bit apprehensive. Miel, on the other hand, looked sad and empathic. He turned and faced Miel fully.

  Kira took a step forward. “Kaito, I’ve been trying to tell you-”

  “Miel, what exactly are the Morituri?” Kaito said, cutting her off.

  Miel sighed. “People who are genetically blessed with power because of a physiological abnormality. Because of their genetic differences, their bodies are unstable, directly proportionate to the amount of power they possess. In other words, the lifespan of a Morituri is drastically short. Very few make it to adulthood; almost none have families.”

  Kaito’s mouth dropped open. “How - why -”

  Miel crossed her arms and shot a quick look at Kira. “How? It is not a choice. It is a curse. Why? It is basically a type of birth defect with fascinating results. Their name, however, has roots in this world. Perhaps that is because at one point in history, our world and their world were one. Long ago. In a sense, they still are, but that is a discussion for another time,” Miel smiled, looking towards the young redhead.

  She looked at Kaito with an almost amused expression and continued. “The word Morituri came from the phrase Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant, which means Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you. It is said to have been commonly said to emperor Claudius during mock naval battles by gladiators fated to die. Emperor Claudius would allegedly reply Aut non, which means or not. Interestingly enough, the enemy of the Morituri of her world, powerful beings who branched off from the Morituri, are called the Negori…”

  “Of which my father is the leader,” Kira finished. “How do you know all this? Who are you?”

  “That is not important. How is it that you are here, child? I was not able to complete my transference.”

  Kira smiled. “You’re not the only one with power. I’ve been watching Kaito almost every second we’ve been apart. I can’t hear, but I can see, and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make it back to him. And then when I saw you and your ugly little creature, I knew you had some sort of abilities, so I waited to see what you would do. Then I saw you take the ribbon, and…took advantage of the weakening of the barrier between our two worlds. I just happened to be in the bath at the time,” she finished, smiling at Kaito. “Lucky you, huh?”

  Miel shook her head, glancing at the floor and frowning at the same time. “Child, you have no idea what you have done.”

  Kira shrugged. “Probably. But right now, I want to be alone with my man. As you already mentioned, my time is short.”

  Miel looked up just in time to see Kira shift, causing her towel to fall off her naked, brightly colored body.

  “Kaito? We need to…talk.”

  Miel smiled.

  And then, in between blinks, she was gone…

  The End?

  “Wait mom! I don’t understand! If you’re a Morituri, how are you still alive? That lady said-”

  “Because I’m not really a Morituri,” Kira told her daughter wryly, picking her up off her lap and lifting her in the air. Her daughter was still small enough that she could do this - in another year or two, she wouldn’t be able to. She was growing so fast! “The abilities I have are…something else.”

  “And what about that weird winged creature that invaded your school? What happened to it?”

  Kira laughed. “It actually wasn’t invading, it was trying to enroll. Our school was created to help Morituri learn to control their gifts, and his gift, the ability to change into an alternate form, came unexpectedly. He couldn’t figure out how to get back to normal, so he came to our school to learn how. He actually turned out to be a really nice guy. His name was Hideo.”

  “But I gotta know what happened to Imp, and what daddy’s mom whispered in your ear!”

  “Enough talking,” Kira told her daughter, lowering her and placing her in her bed. “It’s time for you to go to sleep. This story took way longer than I thought it would. If your dad knew I told it to you, he would flip.”

  “If I knew you told her what?” Kaito asked, walking in the door and unbuttoning his dress shirt cuff. Kira spun around and ran into his arms, overjoyed.

  “You’re home early!”

  Kaito smiled. “I am. Now, what manner of lies were you filling our daughter’s head with?”

  Kira grinned. “I was telling her how we met. And before you get mad at me, I didn’t tell her everything, just the important parts.”

  Kaito gave her a look.

  Kira responded by widening her large green sparkling eyes.
“OK, the child-friendly important parts.”

  “Mom?”

  Kira turned. “Yes, love?”

  “What about your friends? The other Morituri? Are they still alive?”

  Kaito slipped his arms around his wife, holding her. “When you get older, we’ll discuss all of this,” he promised his daughter. “for now, go to sleep. I love you.”

  “I love you too, daddy,” his daughter answered sincerely.

  Kaito and Kira walked out of their daughter’s room hand in hand, submerging her in darkness.

  - THE END -

  Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Let me know either way!

  Each of these stories holds a special place in my heart. I know a lot of authors say things like that, and while I understand the commercial reasonings for doing so, I'm completely serious. Each one of these stories represent a hallmark of my writing career:

  Amore: A Love Story is my first ever lesbian novel, and writing it was an unexpectedly comfortable and enjoyable experience, especially since I am bisexual. It paved the way for other stories such as Girl Fight, and much more like it to come.

  Girl Fight, while it contains strong lesbian elements, is not a lesbian love story - though it is the first time I have ever tried to hit my readers in the guts. It was a harsh, dark story to tell, and even though it had a happy ending, the journey there was anything but easy - for the characters involved and for me as an author. Out of all of my novels, this is the one that received the most reader feedback and apparently caused the most feels...

  Killer Lolis is the first time I ever tried to write a story containing elements from anime (which I am a massive fan of) and reality blended together, and gathering from reviews and reader messages, the gamble paid off. It opened an entirely new universe to me, one I already have books slated to be released in.

  So yes, each of these stories holds a special place in my heart. They are the firsts in so many ways, and though they were uniquely difficult to write, they were also undoubtedly worth it.