Two Days Later
Emiko eavesdropped to hear her Aunt Akari, telling her she was a duty, and that her sister Aguri needed to come pick her up. She said it in the other room from Emiko. So far, she was pretending nicely for the camera. Nagisa had even showed up to help the lie yesterday more.
So why would her Aunt Akari talk bad about her in the other room? Okay, who's trying to trick me?
Yeah, someone was definitely playing games with her.
Emiko didn't know Korosensei that well, so it could have been him saying that stuff about duty that day she left. Lola too, she was all about duty, it made sense with her. But, her Aunt Akari calling her a duty behind her back? Whoever is trying to trick me, doesn't know me.
Her Aunt Akari had always treated her like family, she wasn't a burden. Emiko chewed on her fingernail. She kept listening to the words in the next room, like she was eavesdropping. She was supposed to 'accidentally' hear this. Why?
"That's pretty rough."
Emiko looked toward the window and saw, uh? Not Aguri, the lady that pretended to not be her mother. She looked like her, but it wasn't her. It was Chou Chou. She played along though, the dumber of a kid she was, the better. "Who are you?"
"You know I'm not Aguri? Good job. I am Chou Chou." She hopped into the room. "I was a student of your father. He left me behind, just like he did with you. He could have saved my human form, and he didn't. He kept quiet, and changed everything after I suffered."
Okay, so she is the one messing with me, just to get even with him? Really? She was just a pawn for some lady to get some stupid revenge? Chou Chou wasn't even dead, and she had shells to look human, so what was her problem? "You're weird. I'd rather be my octopus form anyday over being human. I just can't be because it's dangerous."
"Does your Aunt Akari let you use that form? You should be able to in your own home," Chou Chou said. "That's not respectful if you aren't. She barely even takes you out of here, even when human, right?"
"Right." What was Chou Chou getting at?
"If you come with me, I'll give you time to be whatever you want between. We'll go to great big cities, and nice big urban areas. You'll get to be whatever and whoever you want to be. I'll give you everything you are missing here."
Emiko listened for the faked hating sounds in the other room again. She didn't hear it anymore. It was Chou Chou. Okay, maybe Nagisa and Aunt Akari were right. Maybe Korosensei . . . maybe Luna was fine this whole time. This meanie has been tricking me up and down. I've been getting in trouble because of her!
Emiko got in trouble all the time, but someone putting her in trouble on purpose was unforgivable. She plastered a smile on her face. Oh, she is going to pay for that. "I want to grow up to become the first octopussy actress!"
Chou Chou took her hand with a smile. "Then let's go, just me and you."
Yeah. Let's! Emiko was going to bring her down, once and for all.
First Stop
Their first stop was a restaurant. Emiko was allowed to order whatever she wanted, so she made sure she ordered one of everything. As they ate, she watched Chou Chou pardon herself to the bathroom.
That's when Emiko realized her first mistake. It was probably just instinct. She pretended not to notice, and looked back to see Chou Chou correct herself. No lady goes to the bathroom with guys waiting in line, and then switches to the ladies line more than a minute later. You aren't female. You are a boy. You don't like Luna still, but you aren't Chou Chou? Who the heck was she with then?
She slinked her way into the bathroom. No one was on the outside of any stalls. She moved around the only stall that seemed to have someone in it. She turned into an octopus and moved over it. She didn't care about embarrassment, she cared about knowing- Luna? No, it wasn't Luna, he was gone. From what Nagisa had told her, there was only one other that had used Luna's appearance.
She moved out, flipped back to human, and darted right back to the table and started chomping down on food. Oh great, just great, Emiko. You've done some gnarly things before, but this one takes the whole cake! Oh, you idiot.
You are with Yanagisawa.
Two Days Later . . .
"Where did you get that?"
Emiko gestured to the right of her. "From the ice cream place." She licked her ice cream again. Emiko always wanted to be a great actress, but doing it in a life or death situation with someone like this person? It wasn't fun.
No payment, no spotlight, and the price for a good job was to keep on living. Still, her lessons were really paying off. They had to. She wasn't with her Aunt Akari or Nagisa, and she wasn't under the protection of apparently, her dad, either. Not her mom Aguri either. She was on her own.
No one really knows how awesome it is to be protected underneath an assassin until it was gone.
Emiko knew that she had to survive and keep lying in order for everyone to be okay. Her captor was pretending to be Chou Chou, someone that had hated Luna. It wasn't the first time Emiko heard the name. Yanagisawa was pretending to be her, to care for her, to make her hate her father, and to make her grow up hating him.
That was one of the biggest things they did. They would go out to a place Emiko wanted, eat whatever she wanted, and did whatever she wanted. When they did, 'Chou Chou' would bring up how she'd never get this with anyone else, and how unfair it all was to her.
They would talk a long time about how unfair Luna had been, how many people he killed, and even how he killed them. Each time they did that, Emiko remembered what her Aunt Akari said to her.
Her Aunt Akari's words. Her words held greater influence over Emiko. The more Yanagisawa tried to shame Luna, the tighter she hung onto that, while still acting like she was considering Luna dangerous and scary.
She sort of felt it from the big lug, and now it made sense why he didn't like her so much when she was being bad. Emiko reminded him of himself.
That was pretty tough, few could change Emiko's mind about something. Nagisa had helped her fears too. He told her so many cool stories about Luna. He even told her a lot of things her Aunt Akari didn't want to talk about, like exactly how he saved her life.
Yeah, that would have helped to know right away. Luna saved a lot of people too! So?
Korosensei and Aguri were two idiots who were always thinking about a good time or death. That's what Emiko picked up. They thought life was short and they just wanted to live it how they could. That made sense.
Emiko could see that, they weren't really human. Still, they should have told her! Maybe she wouldn't have been tricked so bad and ended up there. Then again, Emiko was the goddess of trouble. She might have still ended up there.
Anyhow. Now, it'd be really good to be anywhere but there where Yanagisawa was pretending to hold her trust as Chou Chou (who was probably the one who was frozen).
Emiko licked her ice cream again as 'Chou Chou' looked at her. "What's wrong, Shooey?" She even gave him a nickname, to let him think she was falling for his trick.
"Don't go that far and that fast," 'Chou Chou' complained. "Someone might see you. You travel with me across distances, not on your own! If someone catches you, they will kill you. You don't want to die, do you?"
"I don't know." Emiko shrugged. "I don't think so." 'Chou Chou' didn't look happy. She just licked her ice cream. "Sorry, Shooey, I just wanted some quick ice cream. I wasn't thinking."
"Yeah." A little rough. "Just be careful of doing that. Don't do it again."
Emiko would have to risk it though. She was far away from everyone, with no way to signal to anyone where she had gone. She'd seen on the tv that she was the missing child of Akari and Nagisa, so she wasn't allowed to have her pink hair. She had to pick any other color but pink so she was now red.
She had to be found, without being found. She had to make Yanagisawa trust her, without actually trusting him. If he found out she knew he wasn't Chou Chou, he might get more desperate.
He knew where New Sanctuary was at too, so even when she did get help, she couldn't bail. Everyone would be in danger because of her.
All she could do was leave messages, and hope that one day Luna and the rest could figure out the rest. For now, as long as he believed he was creating his 'future revenge' against Luna? He seemed to be fine. She was apparently part of his plan.
When he lost her for good, things would turn bad.
One Week Later . . .
Koro waited a ways away from his town. It made sense that Nagisa would be the one to eventually find and track him. It was a proud time to be sure, look how far Nagisa had come since being a student!
Yet, it wasn't fun. He would probably even be coming with Emiko. I wonder if she's figured it out? If she did, then this isn't going to be pleasant. I don't know what rejection from your parents is like, but I know rejection. This is going to hurt. He stayed still and waited until he saw Nagisa's car. It'd be best if he asked to talk privately, but even then, she might be able to hear. After all, she wasn't human. She was definitely not human.
He watched as Nagisa got out of his vehicle, but he didn't see anyone else with him. Well, that made it easier. "Nagisa."
"You're human?"
"Only so many of these shells, I gotta be careful," Koro admitted.
"Oh. I came alone," Nagisa said to him. "I'm sorry, Korosensei. I've got some bad news. I couldn't bring your daughter back."
"She's still scared, huh? It's fine, I'm an assassin, it's natural for a little kid to be scared," he said. "It's better that way. I need to talk to you about Emiko."
"I'm sorry!" Nagisa's good heart suddenly busted into the conversation. "I am really sorry. I wasn't real fond of the part I had to play, and I just took some time away, but then Kayano called."
Koro stopped talking, sensing that this wasn't going to go the way he planned. "What is it?"
"She disappeared, and even though she always has the ability to get away, Kayano swears she never does that unless it's real important. She knows better. Plus, with the way she came back all scared and confused." Nagisa bowed his head. "Emiko's been missing a week. I've been trying to find you to let you know."
"Not a single word?" Koro asked. "Has anyone tracked her at all? She'd be moving fast."
"Nothing. I even called Karasuma, I had to take the risk," Nagisa said. "Nothing has shown up that fast anywhere. We think . . . that someone took her."
Chou Chou! But, why would she bother taking her? She moved her there, why take her?
"I'm looking wherever I can. She is dropping signals," Nagisa told him.
Signals? "How?"
Nagisa pulled out an envelope with pictures. "She's making great big happy faces. Nothing that we can see from space, but big enough that we can track them."
Karasuma was helping. Probably because of his weakness for Emiko. He looked through the photos. "Great big smiles. Nothing at the locations?"
"No. They are just random locations," Nagisa said. "I think she's trying to just lay down something so someone can get her."
Made sense.
"I am getting closer. These aren't gigantic gaps across the Earth. They tend to be pretty close together." Nagisa pulled out a map and put it on his vehicle's hood. "She started here, and then moved here, and to here. She's definitely going southwest."
Koro looked at the map carefully. Plotting faces when she can get away with it. These are the route. If she was here, then there, then . . . He was thinking about everything around the area. It wasn't a specialty area that he visited often, but ahead would be a great area. Metropolis. Amusement park. "Check here." He circled an area with a spare pen. "This is a huge area, plus it'd be great for kids. An amusement park. Everything. If her captor is really Chou Chou and she's trying to build trust, she'll want to take her to fun places she'd never get to go."
"Right." Nagisa looked at the area. "What about you?"
"I need to stay. You need to get her. Then?" Should he? "You should keep her."
"What?"
"She's really hooked on her Aunt Akari," he said. "She's better off there."
"No she isn't, she belongs with her family," Nagisa said. "If I get her back, I'll bring her back. You don't know what you are saying. You can't just leave her like that."
"Aguri thinks she's better off with Kayano," he said softer. "I don't watch either one, Aguri does."
"But you are her dad! Whether you asked for it or not, you are!" Nagisa yelled at him.
Oh, Nagisa. He gave him too much credit.
"Aguri could be going through her own trials right now, becoming a mom to someone like Emiko probably isn't easy," Nagisa reasoned with him. "Completely cutting off isn't right. Especially when she's missing right now. Why are you even bothering bringing this up? She's missing!"
"She's with Chou Chou," Koro said. "Chou Chou doesn't want to hurt anyone. She's mad at me for letting her down. Emiko's probably having the time of her life, but she still wants to get back home."
Nagisa didn't look pleased or convinced.
"She was a good student that I let down," Koro told him. "She took her to Akari to get to me. This is the same thing." He had to have a real conversation with Chou Chou.
"Fine." Nagisa crossed his arms. "If you want to leave Emiko behind, then you need to tell her. Work it out with her, because she already knows the truth. Kayano's been trying to fix the 'lie she was told', but it wasn't a lie. You're her dad, and a past famous assassin."
Right. If Emiko knew, then he didn't get a choice. He had to tell her. "I'll wait in the city. Got an extra phone?" Nagisa handed one to him, ready for it. "I'll head out soon. Let me know when you get the next report."
"I hope everything turns out as fine as you say," Nagisa said before he got back in his vehicle.
Koro waved at him as he left.
Koro went back home after his talk with Nagisa. He could leave the town for a little while. It was getting to really be something now. Looked like a real town. "Hello, Aguri."
Aguri smiled at him. "Hi."
He wouldn't change his smile. He moved closer to her and cuddled up on her side, ready to shed the human shell, but knowing he only had so much of those.
Aguri hadn't changed to her octopus form in days either. "Any news?"
"Yep. I need to leave, probably a few days. Maybe a day. Just depends," he said casually. "I need to fetch Emiko and talk to her. She already knows the truth, Aguri."
"Is it karma?" Aguri asked. "Because of all the bad things, is that what this is?"
"If it was, it'd be against me, not you." Koro said. "I'll be back soon." She nodded.
"Etsuko." Aguri wanted to tell him something. "I'll tell you later."
They'd been with Etsuko the whole time, she wasn't even old enough to argue, what did Aguri want to say against her? Not my decision. "I'll be looking forward to it."