Love and the Russian Winter: Act 4.5
Ludmilla's days at her new home usually a bit boring. Some language studying, some cooking, leaving messages to her friends across a huge time zone difference, maybe she'd go out to buy some local ingredients if she was feeling confident she could say what she meant.
When her daughter and her three friends landed on the floor of her living room from nowhere, bloodied and bruised, she did a double take and screamed. The whole house went on alert, the shutters on the windows closed, the scuffle of the muscles grabbing their weapons and vests to form up and escort her to the panic room. While the other Bratva guards froze up seeing Alyona lying face up in a broken and bleeding heap, the lieutenant in charge of the girl's security spoke up:
[In Russian]
"[Desya! Take Ludmilla and stitch up the girls in the panic room!]" he says as he approaches Archie, seeing the boy is less hurt, or at least seems able to move.
{In english}
"{I can move... Alyona'll be out for a while but she's gotta still be breathin'...}
A thin but tall man with sharp features puts gloved hand to Alyona's neck: "She's breathing! Assemble a stretcher and get her to safety! Both of them are losing blood fast!]"
Archie raises himself up to his feet: He'd had his ass kicked but this was nearing his limit: "{What did he say?!}" he demands
"[Alyona and Renka will be fine, but we need to get to safety!]" Ludmilla says as she strips the satin cover of her couch off and starts tying it to some curtain bars.
The boy nods, helping carry the girls down with the houses Desya the Doctor while Ludmilla had two guards tail her while another stood in front. Alyona had always said most of her father's muscle was ex-military and it showed. The panic room was nestled in the basement, a largely unused space except by the guards given it was had a bar, billiards table, dart board, and all the trappings of a men's lounge. The panic room is opened with 2 keys and a code lock and looked as armored as a bank vault while being only a little smaller, with a full compliment of survival supplies inside.
Ludmilla can't bear to see Renka and Alyona getting stitched up, and Archie wavers on if he should be watching this either.
Hell, why is he even here? He's gonna get expelled for being Alyona's muscle and make a bunch of trouble for his mom and cushy life. He didn't owe Alyona anything since he was the person people saw as a bully. She just spoke English and wanted to be friends when he had nobody willing to approach him.
He was used to getting the shit kicked out of him, and he knew Renka got beat on because of a bad rep, but Alyona was the kind of strange the Japanese liked. She could be kind, charismatic, enthralling to just watch her pretend she isn't a fucked up little monster like he knew her. She never got hurt, hell she never even did hard labor if she could get away with it. She'd threaten someone's entire academic record right after talking about cartoons with someone like an excited kid.
It was too much seeing her get a blood transfusion and getting hooked up to some machine which breathed for her. The doctor was spinning 3 different plates trying to test Renka's blood type, keep Alyona breathing, and keep both from bleeding out.
The panic room at least had another room, a surprisingly large bathroom that he saw himself too while Alyona's mother cried her eyeballs out on the other side of the wall. He stares at the ceiling and can't get the question off of his mind:
Why did he still care about what happened to her?
Desya sits near the beds he operated on the girls in, trying to hide a grim look. Ludmilla was clearly ready for bad news while desperately hoping for good news. Renka had awoken a few minutes ago and refused pain medication while had already gone through 2 glasses of water. Archie was more concerned with Alyona, who still lied down with her golden blonde hair braided to rest on her right shoulder. Her eyes were closed as the machine breathed for her.
("Japanese")
"{Alyona is alive, but in a Coma. Usually that requires some kind of head trauma but...}" Desya says before trails off.
"What happened" Ludmilla asks desperately.
Their is an awkward silence and a look between Archie and Renka. Alyona never gave them instructions on how much to tell her mother about their activities.
"...The little gang war happening out there, some girl went after Alyona and got lucky" Archie says.
"We were ambushed near the school, and Alyona pushed herself as far as she could..." Renka says
Ludmilla is too withdrawn to say anything, or even look at anyone: "So close... so close..." she mutters as she fails to muster up more tears.
Renka sits up, Desya trying to get her not risk popping her stitches: "I can fix Alyona... I just need a car to get me home so I can grab some things"
"Miss, Alyona needs a hospital, not homeopathy" Desya says in frustration.
"No amount of scientific medicine will save her. You will be witness to her withering and dying in a hospital bed with no way to communicate her pain to anyone" Renka says defiantly
"{Fuck this}" Archie says as he stand up and grabs a man twice his age by the collar and lifts him up
"{Get us a car or were taking one: and if Alyona gets shoved in a hospital you get to tell her father you made the call which killed her}" Archie says in slow english, making sure the doctor understood him.
"Miss Rodionova, call someone and get this beast off of me!" Desya demands
Ludmilla either doesn't hear him, or choose not to act as she sits besides Alyona's bed and adjusts her covers.
"She's not saying we can't, or telling you to move her anywhere" Renka says
"So sit and stay like a good dog" she adds before Archie helps her stand and walk. Every step out of the basement is plodding and pained for the two.
"{What are you two doing? The panic room is supposed to be sealed!}" a guard says as he steps in their way.
"{Alyona's mum says we can take a driver and get somethin' important from Renka's place, otherwise she's dead}"
"{She's... but...}" the guard stammers, shocked Archie is standing up to him.
"{Yeah, and the longer you hold us up the worse its gonna be}" he says as Renka catches her breath. The two are quickly helped into a navy blue sedan and driven to Renka's home.
Saint Petersburg, Lower District, 1996
Alyona steps into an old industrial depot, left to the elemants after the Belovezha Accords left untold millions of people without a purpose in life. She was pulled from her fancy private school by her father for this, still dressed in its cutesy and overly expensive uniform. Just 3 weeks ago, she was rescued from 3 kidnappers who pulled her teeth out and put out cigarettes on her belly. She didn't go anywhere without an escort, even the girls at school following her to the bathroom. Her dental implants still felt weird in her mouth as she held her fathers hand on the way inside the dirty industrial building.
A man was strapped to a chair, blindfolded and gagged while stripped of everything but his underwear. He was already bruised and beaten, but Alyona knew better than to offer someone who crossed her father pity as the two approached the victim of the day.
Taras undoes the man's blindfold and his gag: "You remembered hearing something on one of the kidnappers phones, correct Alyonushka?"
She nods: "Make the bitch suffer so he knows we mean business" Alyona says, her voice tinged with fury.
"Please don't do this sir I'll-" the victim before getting kicked down onto the cold concrete floor by Taras.
"Say it or I find my drill" Tarts threatens as he places a foot on the victims bare chest.
"...Make... Make the bitch suffer... so he... knows we mean business" the victims repeats, all of the resistance beaten or frozen out of him.
Alyona's expression further darkens: He was trying to hide it but he ordered torture, and probably her kidnapping. She digs her nails into her palm and settles herself into a scary, toothy smile.
"Its a shame your not worth much without your organization" Alyona says as she looks down on the man.
"All of your suffering will be in vain"
Alyona knew how this memory ended. The man is forced to play Russian roulette, getting shocked by a car battery whenever he wins, shooting himself on the third pull of the trigger.
But the scene freezes.
She freezes. Her voice returns, more matured.
She feels a skeletal, almost ghostly hand on her shoulder: "And you enjoyed inflicting all of this on him. Your own wounds weren't painful enough, so your sick, childish mind made a game for him to play where he loses no matter what"
"I see all that can see me, but when I stare back I leave a mark on those who deserve death"
Alyona shivers, trying to compose herself as her body won't move: "He was an animal, I just... I just did what was expected of me"
"Evil deeds do not absolve themselves in the eyes of the gods" the figure says as he lets Alyona see him, a skeletal figure wrapped in the robes of a budhist monk.
"Your suffering will be great, and none of your money will buy you out of it"
Alyona manages to will herself to move, trying to manifest her idolon form in desperation: "I have strength left! Just because the Student council and their delinquent buddies outnumbered me doesn't mean I won't come back for revenge!"
The spirit laughs mockingly as her power never comes, not even the small holdout pistol manifests in her hands as she backs away from him slowly.
"I am Fushihara, 4th of Nuhariyon's Demons. You can die struggling in agony, or you can let death take you peacefully, it is the last choice you will make"
Alyona see's the seen from her memories melt away, and pulses of pain start from the back of her clavicle down to her feet, and up to her head. Her heart races in the fear felt by an animal forced to fight or flee. She falls over, trying to summon up some small amount of power after she had already shredded her soul into fine ribbons fighting Momo. She manages to raise an arm, and grips onto beaten up Nagant revolver, half loaded. Her arms shake as she tries to steady herself against something physical. She closes her eyes, trying to control her breathing.
She is in her room, backed up against a wall of anime posters, books on Japanese history and language workbooks at her feet. She can feel her heart slowing down, but it steadies her as Fushihara approaches her. She could make a choice: to give in, to suffer and damn her killer, or to stand up for something she cared about.
She presses the barrel of the antique revolver onto Fushihara's chest, the skeleton smugly looking at her as if to dare her to pull the trigger.
"Om Mani Padme Hum" he says as Alyona desperately tries to get herself to pull the trigger, her finger refusing to move as the skeleton starts to strangle her.
Click
Click
A bandage marked with Kanji wrestles Fushihara's hand off of her neck and binds it to his shoulder, then his other hand is bound
"What?! How is this-"
BOOM
The skeleton is forced back as he's dragged into a dark hole in the floor by the marked bandages, kicking and screaming as much as he can as Alyona feels her heart rate sinking faster. She sits down and leans on the wall, for a nice nap.....
Alyona feels her body again, slowly opening her eyes. She's in the mansions safe room. Watching over her isn't her guards or even her doctor, but her mother and Tovarichi.
She looks at her mother and takes a deep breath, earning a tight and tearful hug from her. Alyona returns it even in the diminished physical state she's in.
"[Your friends... Your friends were right, your alive because of that seal... I... I'm sorry for... for...]"
"[I am the one who should be apologizing]" Alyona says after clearing a lump in her throat. She lets her mother cling to her for a long time, trying and failing to resist crying herself
Eventually, Alyona sits up and looks at her Tovarichi: Renka was at her back, making sure the bandage seal on Alyona's back was secure while Archie kept an eye on her doctor and watched the door to keep anyone else out.
"Thank you, both of you but..."
"You show me kindness when most see fit to spit on me and cast me out as a witch they have no right to burn yet: In victory and defeat, I will stand by you" Renka says solemnly.
"....Can't put it that nicely but I'd rather be around you than not. So yeah, whatever comes I'll do what I can for you Boss" Archie says in a gruff tone
"But your all accomplices in everything I did, our records will be permanently marked even if we all went to our motherland and Renka went back to China. I convinced you to do all of this, so why aren't you angry with me now that its fallen apart?" Alyona asks.
"Because it was never about the money, or even the power, for me anyways" Archie says, turning to face the bedbound Russian.
"People look at me and they see a monster and run, you saw a monster and gave him a job. Where I come from, you don't waste anything you can save: doesn't matter if its a loaf of bread, a sack of coins, or a job"
"...Alyona we'll... we'll figure something out..." Ludmilla says in a tragically desperate tone.
"We'll have to confront father about all of... this... and he'll be very mad I wasted so much of his money" Alyona says with a horrified look.
"...I'll have to go back home, we won't be able to set up a proper power base to protect ourselves again with out getting deported and risking hurting the main operation..."
Ludmilla shushes her daughter: "We will figure something out!"
Both seem to crash back down to misery as they look away from each other.
"If I may, Alyona-chan" Renka says
"We can bargain"
"With what? Our good deeds and a pile of cash the school won't take?" Archie says
"The Death Mark research, it holds secrets the Student council might not have. We have lost, but the surrender is not signed yet"
"Yeah and why don't show them all the ledgers too? Sure they'll love knowing how neck deep we were in bribing their entire staff" Archie jokes.
"...But they'll just take it and leave us to be deported like animals" Alyona says, caught between crying and screaming.
"How do you know that?" Ludmilla asks
"They have not lied to us once, they have not betrayed, and they've... they've given us more of a chance than anyone else in Japan was willing to offer"
"...And we lose nothing by attempting to bargain: if they are to punish us severely, then showing our penitence may show that we can still be of use if nothing else" Renka says in serious tone.
Alyona digs her nails into hands, taking deep and shaky breaths. She could imagine her father's advice would be the opposite: find Okomoto's loved ones and hold them hostage until everything is dropped, make the Student council's lives miserable until they give fighting, break bones and ruin lives until they stop fighting back. He was a successful man with hundreds of men following his every word: she was a teenage girl with a small gang.
"...I'll do it" she says weakly
"Tomorrow, I will admit to everything offer our research, and all the proof did not find of your schemes. No more smuggling, no more dealing, and no more protection rackets. If... if were lucky, they will allow us to stay on very harsh conditions. We are negotiating which fingers we want lopped off, not if they will be cut off at all.
It felt wrong, weak, and humiliating to agree to it. Her father would scold her for even the thought, but he wasn't here right now. She didn't want to live his life: she had her dream right in front of her, and only one real way to save it and keep the people who she had made friends with safe. She had almost died, but it was only almost. A seed of an idea was planted in her: that her dream didn't require utter dominance over those around her.