Ninja Girl

Nick grunted with exertion as he tried to pull himself up the window ledge after Anya. The struggle was all to no avail. He simply did not have the strength.

“Wait for me!” he called for a second time, as she seemed to have ignored him the first time.

She appeared in the window, sticking her head through and seeing him hanging there, helpless. She sighed and reached out a hand. He took it, and she pulled him through the window. Once through, they lowered him about as far as they could with Nick hanging onto her with one hand and the window sill with the other.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he responded as airily as he could manage. She let go, and he dropped the twelve or so feet down to the hard concrete below.

Anya was only milliseconds behind him. Even the hard sudden stop of the fall failed to slow her any. She hit the ground, doubled up to absorb the impact, and then immediately started walking again.

Nick instead hit the ground and then collapsed onto it. As Anya started walking away – almost running, really – he was forced to scramble to his feet in an effort to keep up with her.

Once he had caught up to her Anya pointed ahead of herself and said, “This way, right?”

“Right,” Nick agreed, nodding his head. “If I remember correctly, we can follow the bay and it should take us around the outside of the warehouse district to the street we’re looking for. Then we just need to find the right address.”

“Good.” Anya picked up her pace.

“I still don’t understand what the hurry is,” Nick continued as he rushed to keep up with her.

“And I still say you should just stay behind,” Anya replied venomously. It was true. She had taken off the very moment Nick had given her the address he had found. “We’re going right now?” He had asked in surprise, to which her only response before disappearing out the window had been, “No, you can stay. I’ll go.”

“Fat chance,” Nick was saying in response to this second dismissal. He paused for a brief second, waiting for Anya’s usual response. Something along the lines of, “Chances cannot be fat, Nick,” but it seemed she wasn’t biting. He continued, “Like I’m gonna let you just walk into danger by yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Look, I know that’s your favorite catchphrase or whatever, but you can’t just say that whenever. Obviously, it does matter. Clearly this means something to you.”

Anya did not respond.

Nick let out a sigh. “Look, can’t you at least tell me what has you so worked up? What does this… ‘kuroba’ mean to you?”

She said nothing aloud, but something in her expression changed. Nick glanced at her and noticed she was biting her lower lip. When she noticed him watching her she covered her face with her mask.

“It… it can mean a lot of things,” she finally answered. Her voice was so soft now Nick could barely hear it over the sound of his own breathing. “In English it would translate to something like…” she paused, and her brow furrowed. She seemed to be having greater difficulty with the difference between translating and not translating. “Something like ‘black wing.’”

“Well, that’s foreboding,” Nick muttered. He walked on for a minute or two, giving her the chance to give any other explanations. When none were forthcoming, he continued. “What about this Project Eurydice?”

Anya shook her head and shrugged. “I’m not sure. As I understand, project names can be just about anything. They don’t necessarily have to mean something. If it is important, I would have to assume that it is a reference.”

“Oh,” said Nick, nodding his head as if he understood. Then he added, “To what?”

Anya shot him a look of surprise and almost seemed to stumble for a second. After a moment she replied, “To the myth.”

“What myth?”

“Are you serious? This is more your history than it is mine.”

“Is it?”

“It’s an old Greek myth. Orpheus and Eurydice.” Nick continued to meet her gaze with only a blank expression. “Really?”

Nick shrugged, beginning to feel somewhat ashamed. “I don’t think we covered that in World History 101.”

Anya simply shook her head in disbelief.

“Care to enlighten me?” Nick prompted.

Anya shook her head and walked on, but after a moment she seemed to change her mind. “I don’t remember it exactly, but the story goes something like this:

“Once, there was a man named Orpheus. He was a musician. But he wasn’t just any musician. He could sing and play the lute so beautifully that even the gods themselves were enchanted. He travelled around the world playing his lute for one and all, bringing beauty into the world. This continued until one day he met a young woman, Eurydice. The two immediately fell passionately in love.”

“And then she died tragically,” added Nick.

“You do know this story then?”

Nick shook his head. “No. But isn’t that the way these myths always end? The hero’s vanity causes the one thing he loves in all the world to die, and he is left broken and alone.”

“Well, that’s not quite the case here. Eurydice did fall ill and die, and Orpheus was left alone, but his tale did not end there. He was so devastated by her loss than he could no longer bring himself to play his lute. One of the gods who had loved his music took pity on him. While the god could not bring Eurydice back himself, he was able to show Orpheus the way into the underworld, where he could go to Hades and beg the king of the underworld to release her spirit.

“So Orpheus went, and begged at the feet of Hades. Hades made a deal with Orpheus: if Orpheus could play a song so beautiful that it moved even his black heart, he would agree to let Eurydice leave his domain and return to the realm of the living.

“Orpheus played his song, and it was every bit as beautiful as needed. Hades agreed to release Eurydice, but he warned Orpheus that the way out of the underworld was not a simple journey for a soul. He told Orpheus that he had to turn around, leave the way he had come, and not look back. Eurydice would follow him, but if he turned back before they had both exited the underworld then he would lose her forever.

“Orpheus did his best to trust Hades. He made the perilous climb back out of the underworld, trying to believe that Eurydice truly was following him. Occasionally he thought he heard her footfalls behind him, or that he caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. Finally, just before the exit, he could bare it no longer and turned to look. As promised, she was there behind him, but he caught only the briefest glimpse of her before she vanished into nothingness.”

“That’s such a sad story.”

“What?”

“What? You don’t think it’s sad? He did all that work for her, only to lose her again? They can’t be together even after all of that?”

“The point isn’t whether or not they get together, Nick.”

“It’s not?”

“No. The point is, it’s a story about trying to bring a person back from the dead.”

Nick stumbled a little and came to a stop. “Wait, wait a minute. Woah. So what you’re telling me is, you think this Operation Eurydice is trying to bring someone back from the dead?”

“Not just someone.” Anya’s voice was dark and distant. She had kept walking, and Nick was forced to break into a jog to keep up with her.

“Kuroba,” Nick said, nodding. “So you do know what that means. Or, rather, who.”

“Yes,” Anya replied, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I know exactly what it means.”

Nick grabbed her by the arm to stop her. She tried to pull away so he grabbed on with his other hand as well and held on tight.

“What?” She demanded, finally turning to him. “What do you want Nick?”

“I don’t think we should do this.”

“Then go home!” She tugged her arm free and started walking again. “I can do this on my own,” she called over her shoulder.

Nick hurried to catch up with her again. “Okay, let me rephrase. I’m not sure you should do this. You can’t just go flying off the handle like this and running in there half-cocked.”

“I didn’t understand a single thing you just said.”

“I’m… I’m trying to say you’re too emotional. You’re clearly way too close to this. On a personal level. I don’t know what’s going on here but you’re clearly in no condition to be infiltrating anything. I mean, it’s not even dark out yet. What kind of lighting is this for trying to sneak in somewhere?”

“I’m not planning on sneaking in.”

“What? Seriously? Then what is the plan?”

Anya spun around very suddenly to look at Nick, forcing him to come to a skidding halt.

“Look,” she said, eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, her voice dripping with venom, “I didn’t ask you to come. If you have a problem with this, you can just leave now. I don’t care. Just stop bothering me. I’m doing this. I don’t care what you think. Either leave, or shut up and stay out of my way.”

With that, she spun on her heel and continued walking. Nick stared at her back for a long moment, mouth agape. No matter what she said, he was not willing to let her go alone. Especially not right now. He hurried on after her. For a while they walked on in silence.

“It’s around here,” Nick said several minutes later. They rounded a corner and suddenly all the buildings came to an end. One large warehouse stood before them, then beyond it stretched a big, empty stretch of concrete overlooking the bay. To their left the street carried on for a ways and was spotted here and there on either side by a few other buildings.

“This is it, isn’t it?” said Anya, pointing to the building before them.

“Yes,” was all Nick could really manage to say.

Anya wasted no time. She ran up to the building and then along its side, clearly not caring if she was spotted or not. She came to a door and stopped. With one deft movement she drew her kunai and jammed it under the door handle, just as she had on the roof of the Teller Communications building. A few seconds later there was the horrible grinding sound of the metal giving way and the door knob popped off.

This time, however, she caught the knob with her free hand, yanked open the door, and caught the inside knob just before it hit the ground. She then disappeared into the building’s dark interior.

Despite what Nick had been thinking about her not caring about stealth, she had managed to get the door open and get inside with hardly a sound. Nick found himself having to choke back a whistle of appreciation at seeing her move. Instead, he settled for a whispered, “Wow,” and followed along behind her.