A Butterfly Under the Sunken Moon

2|Escaping the Sun's Grasp

Kochō got up the next day and sent Kanao on her way to school. Thereafter she left for work with a spring in her step; today she would be giving Muzan her two weeks' notice.

Once she had entered the building, she was met with Kibutsuji's glare as he had seen the nature of the piece of paper she was holding in her hand. Shinobu on the other hand, greeted him with her usual smile, "Good morning, Kibutsuji." She hated addressing him formally but she couldn't just go and stoop to his level. When he next spoke, he addressed her casually, "Good morning, little miss Shinobu."

This irritated her to no end. "Actually, I have something to discuss with you, Kibutsuji," she said with a genuine smile as she strode to his office. The policewoman could feel his glare and that elevated her mood to even greater heights.

Kochō sat in one of the chairs while she waited for him to sit behind his desk. He fixed her with a glare as soon as he sat and said, "Are you sure you want to do this? You know you'll have to keep quiet." His menacing eyes locked with her playful ones as she elegantly placed the paper on his desk, "I quit, effective two weeks from now."

She had chosen two weeks as the time limit not because she was being nice but because it lined up perfectly with her paycheck. Shinobu kind of hoped he noticed that, just to annoy him a bit more. She walked to her desk and sat down with a contented sigh as she started to file the reports.

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Two weeks later she was free and wandering the streets once again, not because she was sad. No, it was because she was searching for a certain gang. That's why she was heading to the apartment where a corrupt official was staying; she had deduced that this was probably the mob's next target. As former police officer she used her last two weeks to gather information on the subject by eavesdropping on her colleague's conversations about the mob and listening in on her boss' phone calls with the target.

He wasn't a very important connection to Muzan but he needed to make sure that Kyogai wouldn't spill anything to the Sunken Moons. That's why the police captain had demonstrated earlier that if the businessman did talk in order to live, that Kibutsuji would come around to make him regret that decision.

Shinobu was waiting in the alleyway next to the apartment for a member of that gang to arrive. That's when she saw a very tall man with white hair and a muscular build coming her way. The girl with the butterfly pin decided to speak up first: "Yoo-hoo! Over here! I was wondering, are you part of the Chinbotsu Shita Tsuki? I'm looking to join", she said as she let her expression fall back to an angry one, "You seem to do a far better job than the police anyway."

The man looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "A flamboyant offer indeed, how about you help me take down this man then?" he said, "To prove your intentions and to see if you'd actually be useful." Shinobu smiled again and nodded before following the man. Neither of them trusted the other enough to actually exchange names so they just referred to each other as 'Butterfly' and 'Quartz'.

In order to enter the apartment, he took a lock-pick out of one of his many pockets with a flourish. The man was discreet for a gangster. The Sunken Moons didn't seem to operate by using fear to keep their profession quiet, in fact barely anyone even knew they existed.

They took the elevator up to the highest floor and then walked up the stairs to the penthouse, while they were walking, she decided to ask: "Do you need him alive?" The response came quickly: "Alive, try not to damage him too much either, that wouldn't be flamboyant, little Butterfly." He seemed an odd man to her.

Before long they were standing in front of the door to the penthouse. Shinobu waited for him to take initiative and she was very surprised again when all he did was ring the doorbell.

When it opened the man was met with a gun pressed to his forehead. "One move and you're dead!" Kyogai yelled, obviously afraid. However, he didn't appear to have seen Shinobu standing behind the snow-haired man, this was a critical mistake. The petite woman slipped a tranquilizer out of her coat pocket and jammed it into the man's neck as she swatted the gun off aim, allowing Quartz to disarm the official.

The former medic had mixed this poison herself and as such it worked almost instantly. The black-haired man sagged to the floor as the taller man looked at her, somewhat surprised by her competence. "Flamboyantly executed, Butterfly," he said, addressing her a bit more formally than he had done before. He picked up the man and easily slung him over his shoulder. "I consider you worthy of getting a proper interview, so follow me if you're flamboyantly serious about this," he said.

Her sister had always warned her about the dangers of getting into a car with a stranger but here the young woman was doing just that. Quartz had stuffed the man into the trunk, Shinobu was sitting in the back seat and the silver-haired giant was behind the wheel. They seemed to be heading to the red-light district, or something like it as it operated lawfully but a lot of unscrupulous things still happened there.

Kochō was getting a bit nervous but kept quiet; she wasn't about to let this wolf smell her fear. She examined the estate they seemed to be heading to: it looked like it came straight from the Taishō era. It seemed to be the biggest compound in the area and honestly, it was beautiful. The cherry blossoms were flowering and the garden was superbly designed. Everything looked to be in perfect condition without feeling too new or modern. It was a perfect Zen paradise, not a pebble was out of place.

It consisted of multiple buildings, all slightly raised off the ground with wooden bridges connecting everything. All that was surrounded by traditional Japanese gardens. Shinobu was stunned, she couldn't help but whisper: "Amazing."

The man laughed, "It's flamboyant indeed!" He parked the car elsewhere so the beauty of the Taishō era paradise wouldn't be marred by the ugliness of modern cars. She didn't think the estate even had a garage. Thereafter they walked inside after removing their shoes and waited after Quartz sent someone to fetch the higher-ups. 

"The Butterfly made her way into the night."

"But even so she could still feel the Sun's rays on her wings, weighing her down, always."

"Shall she continue to burn from the inside out? "

"Or will she let the cool Moon soothe her aching heart?"