Lethe

[S.L.Cipher]

Hi, this is my original story. Hope you like it.


Kanashimi no naka de
Yume o dakishimeteta
Doshaburi no ame ni
Karada ga kogoetemo

In the sadness
I was holding my dream tightly
Even though I was
freezing cold in the rain

? Towa no Mira;
Everlasting Future
Rurouni Kenshin



Glimpses ? glimpses past her eyes ? beautiful, wonderful, happy, sad, disturbing, gloomy. They were so close? yet so far but so familiar? ever so familiar. Every time she was close enough to see and almost understand ? an unseen force would pull her away ? away from something that could make her understand ? what she had to understand, she did not know ? all she knew was that she needed to understand.

Lethe

The Revelation Arc
Session I.I: Those Cold Winter Days
By: S.L. Cipher

BEEP? BEEP? BEEP?

The loud noise of an irritating alarm clock jolted a sleeping woman up from her bed. She turned towards the black end table at the side of her bed and tried to shut the cordless alarm clock off.

Tried being the operative word.

She pushed the button, hit the clock with her hand, picked up the clock and hit it against the end table and shook the clock so hard she swore she could hear something loose rattling within the plastic dome.
The alarm clock would not shut off.

The woman?s eyes began to twitch and a slight frown rested on her pale pink lips. The woman crossed her arms over her chest as she glared at the clock. The woman stopped glaring at the clock and looked at the red wall across from her bed. She looked back from the wall to the small black clock as a small smirk started to form on her pale face.

There was only one solution; the woman took the offending clock off her night stand and threw it across the room. The young woman eagerly waited for the sound of the clock crunching against the wall. And she was not disappointed. Not even two seconds later after she threw the clock she heard the sickening sound of plastic breaking against the wall and the annoying beeping of the clock slowly coming to an end.
The room was finally silent and still.

Shino ?The Blade? Reii smirked. She pulled on her black sweat soaked hair with bronze and red streaks and pushed it away from her face then cradled her chin in her arms. Her fierce dark crimson eyes, that were so dark that they almost looked brown, darted about her room. Red and black was the theme of the room, but she barely even paying attention to any of the high priced items that her eyes skimmed over.

Blade carefully untangled her legs from her red satin sheets and made her way across the large oval room. She stopped at a wall that was to the right of her bed; unlike the red walls in her room, this wall was black with a golden dragon inked on it.

She tapped the wall on the side twice and watched as the black wall began to slide open and moved to the sides of the red wall. Light filled the red room and polished the walls with a light gleam. Behind the wall hid a bay window with a small nook.

The small nook, which was more like a room, was decorated in red and gold. In the front it had pillows of every size, from small cylinder pillows to overly large pillows of gold, aureate, prussian red, chinese red, and scarlet. A small clear tea table trimmed with gold stood in the middle. Towards the back, a four-step staircase led to the large window and its beautiful view of the city below. Blade stepped over the pillows in the front and tea table in the middle of the room and climbed the staircase to look out the window? to look out the window at CyberCity, 3014.

She looked at CyberTokyo, Japan, sometimes nicknamed Neo Tokyo or CyberCity. Skyscrapers, large hologram ads, and gaudy neon signs rubbed shoulders with the old shops of the 20th and 21st century. The cities? winding, narrow streets and air was full of hover cars and other hover vehicles.

Blade rested her forehead on the cool glass and dazed out the window and looked at the great city. She left the real world through the window of her room and went to her own safe haven in the corner of her mind, where she was safe from the enigma of her dreams. She stayed that way with her forehead against the window, steady misted crimson eyes looking out somewhere past the window, her left hand against the window, and her body stiff. How long she stayed that way, she did not know but when the phone rang she snapped out of her trance. The phone rang once more and Blade hesitantly left the secret room.

She climbed down the staircase stepped over the arrangement of pillows and the chabudai. She went back to the front of the black screen and tapped them twice on the side and they began to close over her sanctuary. She crossed the room and picked up her "new age" cordless black contessa phone.

"Hello." Blade answered the phone with a sleep- induced voice.

" Hello to you too, Blade. I see you finally decided to get up." The person on the other end of phone voice?s was cheerful and light.

"Hello Cyrien. What do you want now?" Blade said to her life long friend.

" I gasp at the thought that you think that I, Kimura Cyrien, just called because I want something!" came the shocked voice of Cyrien over the phone.

Blade rolled her eyes and snorted.

" No, really what do you want?"

"Nothing! Stop being paranoid or else you?ll turn into Chie, which if I may remind you, is not a very pretty sight." Blade smiled at the thought of her becoming like the obsessive-compulsive paranoid perfectionist known as her elder sister, Chie.

"Don?t talk about Chie like that."

"You know you agree with me."

"Even though I may agree, she?s family.? Blade sighed. "Unfortunately. So why did you call me?"

"Because, I wanted to know if you are still going to the Kizu party." Blade made herself more comfortable by sitting on her bed.

Blade frowned at the thought of going to another Kizu company parties. They always had the same people, with the same stuck attitudes, with the same gossip. They were so boring, but Blade knew she had to go, she did not have the luxury of missing a Kizu company function.

Kizu was a secret corporation under the alias of a research facility, in actuality it was a society of assassins. Only the absolutely rich could afford to hire employees of an organization ran by one of the most powerful businessmen in the world.

Shino Erebus.

He was Blade?s father, Blade?s boss, and the one who held all of the Kizu?s puppet strings.

"Cyrien not only am I family, but I'm also an employee. I have to go."

" I guess Cyrius and I will go just to give you some moral support. Should we pick you up?"

" Yea, come in about a hour and a half."

"Alright, see ya then. "

"Bye." Sitting on her bed Blade looked around her room.

?Knowing Cyrius and Cyrien they won?t be here for at least two hours? now I have a half an hour to kill.?

Blade opened the draw of her side table and pulled out a magazine with "moving" pictures and flopped onto her bed. ?If I have a half a hour might as well enjoy it.? Blade laid on her bed and flipped through the pages lazily waiting for the right time to start getting ready.


Blade looked in the mirror as she put the finishing touches on her outfit. She swept her bronze and red streaked black hair into a coil bun and let some of the tendrils in the front of her hair stay loose. She put two ruby red butterfly jeweled clips on the sides of her hair. The only makeup on her face was a dark ruby red lipstick, she had been taught that Shino women did not wear abundant amounts of makeup.

She brushed imaginary lint off her dress. The dress tied around her neck in two thick straps and left most of her back bare, giving those who looked a peek at her dragon tattoo. The upper torso of the crimson dress was a satin that dipped down dangerously low in a scoop neck collar while the rest of the dress was a plush velvet that flowed to ground.

She went into the jewelry box on her dresser and pulled out a pair of small silver hoop earrings, a red ribbon with a diamond-cut ruby hanging of it, and picked up a small tie up evening purse off her dresser. Blade tied the ribbon around her like a choker and just as she put in the last earring in her ear the doorbell rang.

Blade looked at her newly replaced clock, it was seven o?clock, and Cyrius and Cyrien were just on time. They were exactly thirty minutes late. Blade picked up a pair of crimson high-heeled shoes off the ground and picked up her purse then exited her room. She walked down the hallway, passing two guestrooms and a workroom on her way to the spiral staircase. As she walked down the staircase she heard the doorbell ring again and she rolled her eyes in annoyance. She walked through her den and stopped at a sunken entryway.

Blade took off her house slippers and put them to the side before she replaced them with her high heels. She found her a key card in her small purse before she pulled a black trench coat from the coat-closet. The doorbell rang once again but this time Blade chose to ignore it. Blade shrugged on her trench coat and opened the door to see a short red-haired woman wearing a black dress with a black pea coat over it staring at her.

"It took you long enough!" the short woman yelled. Blade ignored the woman and stepped out of her apartment.

The woman said nothing as she watched Blade swiped her key card in the slot and her door locked.

Blade raised an eyebrow at Cyrien. "You?re late and you come up here to yell at me for not running for the door? Cyrien do you really think that makes any sense??

Cyrien showed her maturity by sticking her tongue out at Blade and then proceeded in dragging the taller woman down the hallway. Cyrien pushed Blade into a clear glass elevator that before she entered the elevator herself. Cyrien pushed the button labeled ?L? and watched as the doors closed.

"It was not my fault, Cyrius forgot to pick up his tuxedo at the shop and had to get it."

"Excuses, excuses." Blade said as the elevator reached the ground, Cyrien glared at her before they both walked out of the elevator. The two got out of the corridor of the building where the elevators were located then they walked to the lobby. They walked past the electronic front desk with a human shaped robot dressed up as security guard sitting behind it.

"Bye C.E.R." Blade and Cyrien chorused and the robot waved and gave a robotic good-bye to both of them.

As they exited the building the harsh wind and flurry of white oblate spheres surrounded them. Both ladies pulled their jackets tight and began to walk through the crowded street of CyberTokyo towards a sleek blue Siey?s hover car. The car doors lifted upward and the woman climbed into the car, Cyrien sat in the passenger seat in the front and Blade sat in a seat in the back.

A man with a wild mop of red hair male turned around to look at Blade. "Hello Blade."

?Looking handsome, Cyrius.?

A wild smile appeared on Cyrius? lips and he opened his mouth to say something but his sister interrupted him.

"Okay, now that you have boosted his already inflated ego, Blade, I think we can start our trip to the function."

Cyrius rolled his cinnamon eyes. "You always ruin our fun."

" Excuse me for not wanting to ruin my new dress and the car with my vomit. Now can you please just drive? The Kamakura may just be less than an hour away, but we have to go through a lot of traffic and you know the party is at eight thirty. Once we get there, you two can disappear into one of the many rooms and finish what you started in here."

Cyrius silently started the engines, but not before he glared at his younger sister, and the car lifted into the air, joining the hundreds that were already floating in the sky.



Kamakura was a coastal town in Kanagawa prefecture, south of CyberTokyo. Kamakura became the political center of Japan, when Minamoto Yoritomo chose the city as the seat of his new military government in 1192. The Kamakura government continued to rule Japan for over a century, first under the Minamoto shogun and then under the Hojo regents. Kamakura lost its political power in the14th century, however in 22nd century Kamakura rose once again and had its borders expanded. Kamakura became the place where the socialites of Japan live.

Which was why Shino Erebus had his mansion built in Kamakura.

Erebus spared no expense, he had the greatest architects and designers flown into Japan to build his mansion. The result of the four long years of work was a property that valued even more than the Emperor?s Place, and was rightly dubbed the name Ambrosian.

Surrounded by four-foot-thick walls that are thirty-three feet high, the two hundred and fifty acre estate included a main garden that was six hundreds, along with many separate gardens inside and outside of the house. It had six kitchens, ten armories, baths large enough to be considered pools, a large collection of rare jewels, valuable swords, Persian carpets, paintings dating back to Van Gogh?s time period, and art worth more than some people made in a lifetime.

There was a large marble courtyard, two indoor pools, one grand outdoor pool, ten fountains, and an on-site auditorium that could seat two hundred people. To accommodate his guest, Erebus made sure that Ambrosian had six full-time chefs, two hundred bedrooms, two hundred ten bathrooms, one hundred eighty fireplaces, eight staircases, and ten elevators.

The real pride and joy of Ambrosian was the hundred forty-foot-long, sixty eight-foot-wide and fifty-foot-high ballroom named Amaterasu.

It was eight thirty-two when Cyrien and Cyrius had finally reached Ambrosian and entered the large mansion with Blade trailing behind them.

Cyrien and Cyrius had already been announced and had made their way into Amaterasu. Blade was walking towards the large double doors that led to Amaterasu when a willowy woman called out Blade?s name, her voice barely raising above a whisper. The cultured and refined voice only could belong to one person, a person who's calm voice that never raised even in anger, a person who had the ability to show her annoyance and disgust with a mere twinge of a voice, a person Blade had known for most of her recollected life.

Blade turned around to face her older sister, Shino ?Ice? Chie. Chie?s wintry light brown eyes froze Blade in her place with a simple glare. She sashayed towards her younger sister with a trail of frost following her with each step and her refined high collar black dress only made Chie look even icier than usually. Chie stopped when she stood in front of Blade, looking down to study the younger woman?s face, but it was blank, like she had been trained to ever since she was a teen.

"Chie."

Curt and short hello's were they way of the Shino family. To others it lacked warmth and love, but to Shinos and those who understood them, it showed respect and control. And of course that was what the Shinos honored, power and respect, warmth and love were not high priority on their list.

"Reii."

"Do you have something to tell me? If not then I-"

"You are late,? Chie let out a soft snort, a "ladylike? snort? if there was such a thing. "I do not know why anyone bothers to try and invite you to any event. You always appear late and you know this is not acceptable in the Shino family."

"I am sorry Chie, now if you will excuse me." Blade turned towards the grand double doors preparing to walk away, when one of Chie's swift hands grabbed her right arm. Chie?s hands were about just as warm as her personality? which could give the Antarctic a run for it?s money.

"I did not excuse you. That dress of yours is disgraceful, something so trashy looks like it should be worn Kimura, not by you. It is inappropriate for any Shino female member to wear such trash in public, or do you not remember The Shino Rules of Honor?"

Blade pulled her arm out of the older woman's grasp. "I regret having to tell you this, but Cyrius is not a cross dresser. But, if I were you, I would be careful around Stheno. She or, maybe even he, has always made me wonder." Blade turned around and kept walking towards the doors. "See you in Amaterasu, sister.?

A man opened the door for Blade and she glided through the doorway with a smile painted on her face. A smile that had been practiced and perfected for eleven years, no one in the room knew the difference between a real smile and an artificial one. After all, it was all the same to them.
Another man announced her name and the crowd below turned their attention to her. She floated down the grand staircase with natural ease, after all Shino women did not just walk, they glided, sashayed, floated, slunk, waltzed, pranced, strutted, sauntered, and swaggered, as it was said in the Shino Rules of Honor.

When she reached the bottom of the staircase a crowd of people approached her. She politely greeted as many as she could before she excused herself to find her parents. Her search for her parents was not a very hard or long one. Blade simply looked for an overly large crowd circling two people and there were her parents, in the middle of the crowd. Blade, careful to avoid the dance floor or anyone who looked like they wanted her to join them on the dance floor, and made her way through the crowd to her parents.

"Papa, mother."

A tall man with long salt and pepper hair tied back into a low aristocratic ponytail was the first to acknowledge her. His intense brown carmine eyes meet hers and his lips slightly curled over a neatly trimmed beard that matched the color of his hair. The crowd began to dismember and filter into the rest of the party as they saw the youngest Shino daughter started to talk to her parents.

"Blade." The man outstretched his black tuxedo clad arm, made out of the finest material? not that Shino Erebus would have it any other way? and Blade felt herself being swept into a hug.

"Papa, I am sorry that I am late."

Shino Erebus smiled down at his daughter, still holding her in his embrace,. "It is okay Blade but I nee-"

"Reii." A short woman with raven hair called out to Blade.

Light brown eyes similar to those of Chie glowered at Blade from under manicured raven bangs.

"Mother."

Shino Osiris looked at her younger daughter with her sprite like face devoid of any emotion. "You are dressed inappropriately."

"Nothing is wrong with my dress, mother, I am wearing one of the two colors allowed. Right papa?"

Erebus gave his daughter's dress a cursory glance before he said anything. "It looks perfectly fine to me."

"It is too revealing to me."

Erebus pinned Osiris with a dark look that spoke volumes. "She is wearing red and I think there is nothing wrong with the dress, let's keep it at that Osiris."

Osiris backed away from her husband, putting space between them. "As you wish Erebus. I am going to go talk to the rest of the guest, so if you'll excuse me."

Without waiting for an answer Osiris swiftly glided past Blade and Erebus with her head held high and her long maroon dress trailing behind her. Erebus made a sound of disapproval and shook his head as he watched with guarded eyes as his wife walk off into another crowd before he returned his attention to Blade.

?And how is everything in Tokyo?"

"Good as usual."

"Tomorrow come by Kizu. There has been an interesting special request."

"Really? How interesting is it?."

"20,000,000 ? interesting."

"Well, that is very interesting. I'll be at Kizu around twelve then." Blade kissed stood on the tip of her toes to kiss her father on the cheek. "Now if you'll excuse me papa, I must mingle. After all it is mandated in The Shino Rules of Honor." Blade caught her father's ghost smile on his lips as she turned away to socialize with the guest.

It was not long before a fiery red haired man swept her onto the dance floor without asking and Blade was not surprised at all. Cyrius never did have any manners when it came to those things. While her body stayed in the physical world swaying to the music with Cyrius, Blade?s mind drifted into another world focused on the 20,000,000 ?, and who was so important enough to attain such a high price on their head.


Wearing a freshly pressed black skirt suit straight off of Pourri Lavyenice's line, Blade entered Kizu. It was located just outside of CyberTokyo, while the front of the building seemed like a research facility, once someone went through the secret entrance that looked like a elevator, they were greeted by two large pillars with the inspirational words ?Kill or be killed? written above them.

The building was extremely guarded with the highest security. Guards walked around making sure no authorized persons got past the entrance, hidden security cameras scanned people?s retinas as they passed by them, plus, two guards watched over the entrance and memorized every last person?s face, name, and data. Even if someone was able to get past the guards, the entrance scanned for ID and then it scanned the person, making sure all the data on the person height, anatomy, and any other data collected matched. And even after that you had to present your ID to computer and walk through another door that scanned you once more.

Blade was sure that her father had extra security cameras installed inside of Kizu, for his on precautions and it always made her feel as if she were being watched. Paranoia seemed ran in her family, prime example being Chie. Blade finished the last level of security checkouts inside of Kizu and began to walk through the blood red hallway of Kizu that was filled with employees all issued to wear black suits.

Blade was walking down a fairly empty hallway when she accidentally bumped into a woman with olive skin dark brown hair and green mint colored eyes. Blade and the woman bent down to pick up her papers that were scattered across the ground when they bumped into each other. Blade by nature apologized and the woman opened her mouth to say it was no problem but when she saw whom she was speaking to her kind demeanor changed.

"Figures it would be you, Reii, to bumped into people so rudely."

Blade gave Stheno Euryale an unfazed look. Not at all bothered by the frigid green eyes glaring at her or they way she spat out her name as if were poison. For as long as she could remember Blade knew that Euryale never liked her.

When they were younger it was because Blade was too energetic for her tranquil taste, which was why she became best of friends with Chie. When they got older it was because even though Euryale practiced and mastered judo, karate, fencing, jiu-jitsu, and all of the fighting techniques ever invented in mankind's history, yet Blade was able to best her at everything without even trying.

And that bothered her.

Really bothered her.

But, what really got Euryale ranting was the fact that Blade was a High Heart, the highest rank out the four assassin prestige levels in Kizu. Meanwhile she was a High Diamond, the third highest rank. Both females stood up from the ground, eyes locked on each other, as they brushed off imaginary dirt off their skirts. While Blade smirked as Euryale glared at her. "And only you can make up the stupidest excuses to be mad at me."

Euryale glared? if it was possible? harder at Blade. Blade held out the documents that she had picked up from the ground and Eurydale quickly snatched them from her outstretched hand. "Well, while you, Reii, may have time to linger around the hallway, I have important places to go."

Blade watched in amusement as Eurydale went off in a huff down the hallway.

"One day we are going to pull that stick out of her ass. Although we both know how hard of a job that's going to be considering how tightly stuck it is up there." A voice rumbled in her ear.

She wrinkled her nose at the thought. "And there will also be a problem with finding someone to pull the stick out of there. After all who would really want to go on that excavating mission?" She turned around to face a beaming Cyrius wearing a black work suit.

She smiled back at him and they began to walk down the hallway. Blade could tell by the eager expression on his face, and in his eyes, that he wanted something and he would eventually give into his inner demons and ask her, "So are you going to take the 20,000,000 ? mission or not? "

Blade stayed silent.

"C'mon just tell me. We have a pool going, and I put down yes. And let me tell you it's a pretty big pool." Another thing to add to Cyrius' list of qualities, or lack thereof, next to no manners when asking a girl to dance was lack of tactfulness. Cyrius was never one to beat around the bush, he said things as he saw it, which could be endearing at times, but could also get into trouble with females, like his sister.

"Word travels fast around Kizu, eh?"

"Very, especially when it is that much money." Blade rolled her eyes but kept silent. "Fine, play the silent card. So what time is the briefing?"

"Twelve."

"Then you know you have a minute to get to the conference room, right?"

"Why of course- A MINUTE!" Blade dark eyes widened in shock and her pink lips were slightly agape. "Sorry I've got to run, talk to you after the meeting." Blade could hear Cyrius' guffaws follow her down the hallway in full sprint. Blade did not stop running until she reached the part of the building where the walls were black, signifying that it was the higher-ranking officials' side.

When Blade reached a pair of glass double doors with gold handles and trimmings, she knew she reached her destination. Blade took a deep breath before she opened the door and stepped into the room.

A long glass rectangular table tinted a dark gray sat in the middle of the large room of black and red. Expensive painting decorated the wall while only the best marble was chosen to line the floor; after all it was Shino Erebus who had the conference room built. At the table four people sat, including Erebus, looking at Blade expectantly. Blade looked at the clock and realized it was eleven fifty-nine, Cyrius' had lied to her. The nine other people at the table were retired assassins of Kizu, who worked as high ranked officers, and some of the best intelligence agents.

"Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon to you too Miss. Shino, please take a seat." A thin woman of forty greeted her. Blade took a seat in one of the empty gray plump chairs eager to know what her mission was.

"We have asked you here for a very special mission that will not only include the final payment of 20,000,000 ?, but it was also include extra expenses." Said an old man with a horrible toupee.

"And that would be?"

The woman, who had greeted her, gestured to a screen in front of the room. On the screen was a picture of a man in his mid twenties with short unruly black hair. His dark gray eyes looked eerily into to hidden camera that took the picture and Blade knew she had seen that hair and eyes somewhere before. There was just something that wasn't clicking right away in her mind.

"This is Moriou Seiji."

?Click.?

Blade finally got it.


Hold onto your dreams...