Chapter Text
Tsumiki had taken to operating on the outskirts of the city.
She has a fancy little compound that Enoshima had helped her set up. And by that, of course, she means convinced Souda to rig with enough weapons and explosives to ward off even the bravest of folk. The kind of gates with big ol’ barb wire and electricity, that you could feel the buzz of the thing when you got too close.
Coming into it today, she’d wondered if it was meant to keep people out, or keep Tsumiki in. Not that it was needed. Tsumiki had always been entirely loyal to her. Always obeyed and preached her word like a gospel, an absolute truth. Even Mioda, so enthralled by Enoshima’s words and style, had sometimes had the galls to question her truth. Not that she would have ever said as such. Not that it had ever mattered . They were on top of the world, with her. They were the world, with her.
It had been an old hospital. Mioda had never liked those places. Not even in a despair sort of way. There was just something real damn creepy about the way her heels echoed in the halls, unhelped by the response of drills and screams Tsumiki’s hospital specifically had always held. Something real skin crawling about the buzz of LED, the sheer emptiness of the building, the beeping of machinery and computers.
Tsumiki’s curled up loosely in the passengers seat, now. Close enough that she could touch her, if she wanted. Her head rests on the window, close enough that each breath out leaves a little bit of fog against the glass. She looks sort of like she did in highschool like this. A real soft face to her, gentle like, despite the still drying blood on her cheeks and gloves.
There was no way of knowing that she’d been screeching at her, less than an hour ago. Cursing her out in strings of vitriol and whispers, that Mioda had to drag her out of that shitty little compound before Future foundation had gotten to her. That the bruises on her cheeks and wrist, the bite marks covering her arms, was all entirely Tsumiki’s fault.
She looks sort of.. Innocent like this. It’s been a real long time since she’s considered Tsumiki innocent , of all things.
She travels down the coast for a while. The road is covered in crashed cars and spare parts in some spots, but they’re easy enough to maneuver around when you’re use to it. Other parts have been cleaned around by Future Foundation (One of the few good things they did, in her opinion. Some things aren’t worth the despair. Some things are just inconvenient, you know?)
Mioda knows her way into the city like the back of her hand. Makes her way in when the nights become a little too quiet, and she had enough backed up and recorded on her tracks that she could get away with disappearing for a day or two. Her schedule had always been packed tight, but Ultimate Despair didn’t need to know all the connections she kept. They didn’t need to know what she did in her spare time.
There’s a payphone off to the side of the road. She respects the style of it, bright green, in the middle of nowhere, hidden away next to an old broken in bus stop and oddly clean vending machine. When she parks the car to investigate, she discovers the phone is still online. A lot of small things like that are. It’s never been her forte, exactly, more Souda’s thing then her own. But supposedly, it’s easier to let some things rot away on their own then it is to destory the wides of anything that stands in their path.
That the vending machine is very much not alive, so she spends time hitting the glass with a really big rock so that she can break into it and fetch the remaining bags of chips and crackers.
The rock is really big. The sound of breaking glass, somehow, does not wake up Tsumiki.
(She does look tired. She loses herself in those experiments, in Mioda’s opinion.)
She’s chewing on some old Kitkats when Pekoyama finally picks up. Mochi flavored.
(Like, the kind of old that it sticks weirdly to the roof of her mouth, and tastes almost stale, and the chocolate has melted to the wrapping paper.
It’s gross. But thats despair, baby!)
“How did you get this number.”
“Woah, here there! It’s just Ibuki,” She laughs, but surprises herself with the nerves that sit under the tone of it.
“That question still stands,” But it has far less venom to it, this time.
“Yeah- I have my ways,” Souda had always been a rather loose lipped kind of drunk, and he always knew what their newest private line was. Never remembered what he said, when she got him drunk enough. It was easy to get information out of him, when she needed it, “I won’t take up too much of your time. I need help.”
She can practically hear Pekoyama biting her lip. Now, to call Pekoyama kind would be a lie. She wasn’t exactly kind, wasn’t exactly harsh. The type who didn’t speak until spoken to, didn’t act unless forced to. Real blunt sort of woman, with a sharp stare and a nonexistent presence. Even back in highschool. Even before.. This.
She hears her sigh , of all things.
“What did you do?”
“Ibuki did- I did, nothing ,” She’s quick to defend herself, but Pekoyama continues.
“I told you to be careful with the stunt’s you pull. I can’t help now, Mioda-,”
“But I didn’t do anything ,” Her voice teeters into a little bit of a whine near the end of that, something she scrambles to quickly correct. Serious, she thinks. This is serious. She’s not begging the woman to come help move her equipment on an impulse. She’s not attempting to drag her away from Kuzuryuu or anything. She just- “Future Foundation knows , Peko-chan”
Pekoyama goes quiet.
“They know my name. They know- Tsumiki’s name too. They know our faces, Peko-chan,” She thumbs at the cord of the phone, “I had to leave my recording studio. All my tracks and recording stuff! It’s all gone now. And- I barely got to Tsumiki in time. But they know who we are now,”
Pekoyama releases her breath, “.. You too?” the words are thoughtful, torn apart from the previously scolding tone she’d had moments before hand.
She nods at the phone, before realizing that Pekoyama cannot, in fact, see her doing that, “Yes yes yes.”
“Hm,” Pekoyama
“You don’t think we got ratted out?” She was not against stabbing one of her classmates, exactly, if they were the snitch. Not against doing far worse things. She has sleeves of tattoo’s up her arms and legs, each proving another kill to her name. In the spirit of things, of course. In the meaning of them, “You don’t think Servant and -”
“I do not,” Pekoyama tells her, and it forces the tension out of her shoulders near immediately, “They would not.”
The answer is firm. She doesn’t push.
“I don’t know what to do,” She admits, “I need your help,”
“.... What do you think I can do?”
“I don’t know , that’s the point ,” Mioda wants to pull her hair out. Her voice raises, like it tends to when she’s passionate. She’s never been good at keeping quiet. Never been good at all, “You’re the Yakuza, aren’t you? Help me ,”
“Okay. Calm down,” The response is surprisingly immediate. She stops on the order, not to follow it, but because she wants an answer sooner. Wants an answer immediately. She hears nothing, which she knows is Pekoyama’s Very Important Thinking Time (Kamukura was the same was, always went real quiet when he was thinking really hard, shot her the nastiest looks when she got too loud)
“Change your appearance. Don’t go by the same name. Don’t stay in one place for too long unless you have to. I can’t help you beyond that. Use common sense. Please. You have survived this long. You will be fine,” She jots the points down like notes in her head, ignores the insult, “Keep a low profile. And Mioda?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t call this line again,” Mioda opens her mouth to speak, but Pekoyama catches her before she can, “I’m serious. We’re.. Waiting. This out. I.. won’t say too much,” Won’t. Not can’t. She’s not under an order to do this. She’s not forbidden. Mioda can respect as much, respects it more then the orders Pekoyama takes, won’t push that, “We have Souda.”
“I’m so sorry,” She says, with no sympathy to her.
“He’s very… loud,” Pekoyama sighs, “But I will live. Do not try to find him. Don’t try and find us. Stay on the road until you find somewhere safe. Keep close to eachother, and trust no one that you meet.”
Mioda looks over to the car, where Tsumiki is still snoozing. She thinks back to earlier, how desperate Tsumiki had been to stay. Looks down that those bitemarks, some still bleeding and broken.
She doesn't know if trust is the word she'd use to describe this, at that moment. She doesn't think she has to mention that, exactly, “Sounds like a sad kinda life to live,” She tells Pekoyama, blankly.
“Well. Yes. But that is our fate, isn’t it?”
Unsympathetic. Stoic. The kitkats, she notes, have melted in her hands.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
