Speak in the language of cats here. 3p3

Mission 3: A Memory of Snow p3

Yuki put Anna in an old Soviet-era car and drove far away from the facility in the suburbs of Irkutsk.

Passing the western edge of the massive Lake Baikal, the old Zhiguli car headed towards the border of Russia and Mongolia.

“Did you know? Most of the creatures that live in Lake Baikal are endemic species not found anywhere else in the world. There are even seals, despite it being freshwater. It’s a remnant from the old days when it was connected to the Arctic Ocean. Just like the creatures of the Galapagos Islands.”

“Wait, Yuki.”

Anna’s calm voice interrupted Yuki’s tour-guide-like words.

“Where are we going? And I haven’t heard the outline of this mission yet.”

“Ahaha. I guess I can’t just brush you off, can I?”

Yuki laughed unrepentantly and stepped on the brake. The car came to a stop in the middle of the Siberian steppe.

And then, she took a deep breath.

“Our destination is Japan. The arrangements are already in place to fly to Vladivostok in the Far East via Mongolia and enter the country illegally on a deep-sea fishing boat. I’ve also arranged for a collaborator who will provide us with false identities and a life after we arrive in Japan—in other words, the ‘mission’ was a complete lie. We’re going to elope, hand in hand.”

The moment Yuki finished speaking, she felt the hard, cold touch of iron pressed against her temple.

A Makarov automatic pistol was gripped in Anna’s right hand. There was no hesitation in the dark blue eyes that held the muzzle to her.

“That’s a betrayal of the Domik. Turn back now, Yuki.”

Yuki’s smile vanished. But there was no fear or panic in the light of her pale sky-blue eyes.

“Are you going to shoot me? Anya.”

“That depends on your answer, Yuki. What are you thinking? It’s impossible to escape from the Domik in the first place…”

Yuki turned her head towards the questioning Anna. The muzzle of the Makarov that had been at her temple now pressed shallowly into Yuki’s forehead.

“It is possible. I discovered that it’s possible, Anya.”

Yuki answered in a quiet, yet utterly serious voice.

And she took out a folded report from the inner pocket of her jacket. With a glance, she prompted Anna, who took it in her hand.

Anna unfolded the report and read its contents. It wasn’t long before a look of surprise appeared on her beautiful face.

“A cat allergy suppresses the activation of the virus…?”

Her stunned reaction was so exactly as expected that Yuki almost burst out laughing. It was the same way she had been surprised when she learned this fact.

“See? It sounds like some kind of joke, doesn’t it? But it’s true. That old French doctor is a cat owner with a cat allergy. He takes precautions on a daily basis, but occasionally a cat gets into his workplace and he has an allergic reaction. At that time, an allergen derived from cats called Fel d 1 was mixed into the component data. It was a very irregular phenomenon, so it took a long time to notice.”

With the muzzle still pressed against her forehead, Yuki continued speaking in a single breath.

“Hey, Anya. What do you think a slave who learns they can remove their own collar would do? Do you think everyone would remove it without hesitation? …I don’t think so. The ability to do something and the choice to do it or not are two different things, aren’t they? There are probably people who need their collars.”

Anna’s eyes and Yuki’s eyes stared at each other, with the barrel of the gun between them.

“To do it, or not to do it—I was thrown into that conflict for the first time in my life. It was painful, and I was anxious. Even now, my legs won’t stop trembling… Choosing something of your own free will is something that tests your resolve so strongly.”

“…”

“That’s why, Anya. I entrusted my fate to you. It’s a bit cowardly, though.”

“…What do you mean, Yuki?”

Yuki glanced at the cat, which was sticking its head out of the basket in the back seat.

“If you weren’t allergic to cats, I would have forgotten everything and retightened the collar of fate. By now, you and I would probably be chatting in that online game as usual.”

“…But I was.”

To Anna’s hesitant reply, Yuki gave a loving smile.

“About 20% of humanity is said to have a cat allergy. That’s one in five people. It’s not that many, but it’s not a rare probability either… It was just right for betting my trivial lingering attachments and cowardly decision. And I drew the one-in-five winning ticket.”

With that, Yuki slowly closed her eyes.

“So, you couldn’t go back… and you had no choice?”

“Hmm. I’m happy that I drew this result.”

The muzzle pressed against Yuki’s forehead trembled slightly.

“Because I wanted to go to Japan with you, Anya. There was no point in going if it wasn’t the two of us. And we’ll live together and have a cat.”

“——”

Yuki said no more.

Only a dry, cold wind blew across the plain as sunset approached. The desolate nature and the tiny, rusty Zhiguli car, like a matchbox. The lives of the two of them continued to sway silently within it.

Eventually, how much time had passed?

The muzzle of the Makarov slowly moved away from Yuki’s forehead.

“You’re not going to shoot, Anya?”

“There’s no way I could shoot you, Yuki… You probably knew that all along, didn’t you? It was all part of your calculations.”

Anna bit her lip in frustration and muttered sulkily.

“That’s not true. I thought I had raised you to be able to shoot without hesitation in a situation like this.”

“What did you say?”

“It’s called mind control. That was my job from the Domik. Though… it seems it wasn’t enough for you, Anya. Haha, maybe it’s because we got too close teaching you Japanese.”

With a self-deprecating tone, Yuki opened her closed eyes. The pale blue eyes under her glasses and Anna’s dark, almost black, sapphire eyes reflected each other.

“So, Anya. You don’t have to come with me. There’s nothing binding you.”

At those softly spoken words, Anna showed a sign of taking a sharp breath, as if caught off guard.

“That is your own choice, unrelated to my influence. You don’t have to go to Japan, you can go back to that Detskaya. You’re free, Anya.”

“Free…”

The word she had once dismissed as a meaningless fantasy. Anna repeated it, as if savoring it.

A long silence followed.

Sometime during it, the sun outside the car window was about to set below the Siberian horizon. The profiles of the two of them, staring at each other, were also sinking into black silhouettes in the twilight.

—Eventually.

“You take care of the cat we’ll have in Japan, Yuki.”

Yuki peered at Anna’s face as she spoke softly.

“I still don’t like cats.”

“So…”

“If I’m with you, I want to go to Japan too. If you’re not there, I won’t go back to the Domik. I don’t understand freedom, but that’s my honest feeling.”

Anna’s words, like a clumsy confession.

Hearing it all in one breath, Yuki’s face lit up with a smile full of happiness.

“Thank you… I don’t really know what freedom is either. But I think it’s inseparable from choice, isn’t it? Success isn’t guaranteed, and if you fail, you get a bad result. But I think the accumulation of those successes and failures is what truly makes us who we are as people.”

“I don’t really understand what you’re saying… I’m not as smart as you, Yuki.”

“In short, it’s doing what you want to do and not doing what you don’t want to do… it sounds very simple, but it’s difficult to be thorough about it. And it’s cats who do it naturally, as if they’re breathing. Because they don’t lie to themselves.”

Yuki narrowed her eyes and looked at the cat, which had started to scratch the back seat.

Then she opened a can of oil-free tuna and gave it to the little tyrant who was demanding food. The cat devoured the flakes of tuna with ferocious intensity. The unique chewing sound of kafu-kafu began to echo in the car.

“Maybe we’re drawn to cats because we have a yearning for the freedom they express with their whole bodies, not with logic… maybe that’s what my father saw beyond the cat.”

Her father’s heart, still shrouded in mystery. Yuki pondered the reason why he had kept a cat by his side.

And then, their escape resumed.

The Zhiguli driven by Yuki continued to run through the night, and stopped before dawn when it ran out of gas.

“Somehow it held out this far… phew.”

Yuki got out of the car and stretched, looking at the coniferous forest spreading out before her. Beyond the thick, cloudy sky, a faint, milky-white, weak morning sun was visible.

“There’s a small private airfield on the other side of this forest where I’ve arranged for an escape plane. If we can just cross the Mongolian border in one go, it’ll be too late for the Domik to send pursuers.”

Anna also opened the car door and stepped out into the sub-zero air. Her breath plumed in a white cloud.

“You really don’t miss a thing, Yuki. You really did have it all calculated, didn’t you?”

“Hahaha, you’re still saying that.”

Yuki patted Anna’s small, sulking head through the hood of her winter coat.

Anna still looked unconvinced, but when Yuki stared at her, she looked away, troubled. Her cheeks were colored like apples, from the cold and for another reason.

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Yeah.”

Putting the cat inside her coat, Yuki started walking towards the forest.

Anna followed, taking her first step.

The next moment, a burning heat ran across her cheek.

“—Yuki?”

In Anna’s vision, which she had turned to her side, a large spray of black water erupted from Yuki’s chest.

Blood, appearing black in the dim light of dawn, scattered from Yuki’s shot body.

Thump—Before the dry gunshot echoed in the frozen sky, Anna quickly dropped to the ground. In the trees ahead, the iron muzzle of a gun sharply reflected the light.

Yuki’s plan had failed. The Domik‘s pursuit team had already figured out their escape route and had sent soldiers ahead to lie in wait at the airfield.

“See… I told you it wasn’t calculated, didn’t I…?”

Yuki, who had collapsed on her back, smiled faintly with pale lips.

“Don’t talk, Yuki. Press on the artery yourself to stop the bleeding. I’ll take care of them.”

Without a change in her expression, Anna guided Yuki’s hand to the wound.

Then she gripped the handle of her Makarov and stood up without a sound.

***

Anna annihilated the twelve-man pursuit team in four minutes.

After slitting the last man’s carotid artery with a crescent-shaped karambit knife, she immediately left the forest and ran back to Yuki.

The moment she saw her, she knew that Yuki couldn’t be saved. The amount of blood that had flowed out was too great, spreading out beneath her body like a wine-colored bed.

Crouching beside her, Anna just looked down at the deathly pallor spreading across Yuki’s face.

“…Why is it?”

Anna murmured, as if bewildered.

“I’m not sad—even though you’re my friend, Yuki.”

As her words suggested, there were no tears in Anna’s eyes. Her expression remained unchanged. It was as dry as the blood of Yuki that had splattered on her cheeks.

“In movies, novels, and games, people cry at times like this. Why can’t I feel sad when my friend is dying…?”

Yuki listened intently to Anna’s anxious words, under her labored, dying breaths.

Eventually, her trembling, cold hand gently squeezed Anna’s. With a gentle force, as if to soothe her anxiety.

“I’m sorry, Anya…”

“Eh…?”

Being apologized to by a dying person, Anna looked even more bewildered.

“It’s not your fault… I’m the one who, over a long time, made you that way… a ruthless killer machine that has cut itself off from joy and sorrow… so, it’s only natural that you can’t cry…”

“…”

“But… I’m sure, it’ll be okay…”

As if to encourage Anna, Yuki squeezed her hand. But it was only a slight tremor of her fingertips.

“Because, Anya… you couldn’t shoot me, could you…? Mind control isn’t absolute… I’m sure you can get your emotions back. I want you to live your life, laughing and crying all the time—”

With a sound like a clogged pump, Yuki coughed up a large amount of blood that had flowed back from her lungs. The shadow of death that was encroaching on her pale face grew even darker.

“The cat…”

Yuki’s eyes lost their focus, and the light faded from them.

As if wringing out the last drop of her remaining life, Yuki let out a voice as weak as a winter wind from her lips.

“The cat, will, surely… help you, get back, what you’ve lost… I’m sure—”

Finally, Yuki’s breathing stopped. At Anna’s feet, her body had in that instant turned into a mass of protein and calcium from which life had evaporated.

Placing a hand over the sky-blue eyes that no longer saw anything, Anna lowered the curtain of her eyelids.

It was then that she felt a cold temperature on her cheek.

Falling from the thick, cloudy sky were snowflakes.

As if to mourn the death of the girl who bore that name, they fell silently, fluttering down.

As if in place of the tears that Anna could not shed, the snow continued to fall without end.

***