#(suzume and midori)

[thenxghtwemxt]

@bourgeoning | Suzume and Midori, Within Japan's Private Veranda

Forgiveness is meant to be warm, like an embrace or a touch of a hand. But its only ever been cold in these last few months. Except, perhaps, with Kazu. The advisor's young and energetic son who, unlike everyone else at Japan's court, had taken to her. Maybe because she was like a child herself. She's halfway through a conversation about monkeys when she sees Suzume lingering, just off the corner of her eyes. "So long as you do not steal anything from an animal you can't outrun... You should be fine." Midori assuages with a small laugh, rounding off the topic of stolen bananas from the grand breakfast. "Look, child." A term of endearment that always made Kazu laugh. "It's your mother."

[kstaki]

Honestly…I expect to cry a lot today but I didn’t cry too much. Although surprised surprised who able to hold back their tears 😭 well the cast. (I still cry a bit at certain scene)

Anyway I probably ramble first (although I think people might have watch it live so it better you watch it instead I just say stuff that stand out for me)

The last show was just full of surprises I swear.

First show was just asking questions to four of them then they have a little story Kamejin, Desnarak and Gerojim. Song: Kaguragi Himeno & Jeramie.

Anyway Gerojim & Kuroda were the aide for Osaka they appear for 18 & 19 (first & third show)

Second show were the aide AND IT WAS AMAZING I LOVE IT.

Especially when they were handing over the OhgerCalibur to their Kings (I CRIED IT WAS BEAUTIFUL) I want to see again…for the story. Best version for the story.

They were also ask questions & they each have their turns to say thanks to their Kings. Duga short of tease Racules but ultimately turns to Gira. Then Racules & Kaguragi were fighting against who Suzume will choose. Then Suzume tease it to be Kaguragi who thought he won only to add in Racules. (He fell to the ground flat in defeat but accepted both of them) But the moment each Aide & Suzume say their thanks ahhhh it tearful.

The extra was a scene where they were trying to decide the position for the seating for the submit. It was hilarious because all of them but Gerojim & Kuroda were fighting on it. (Both of them save the day by quietly choosing the position)

Song: Rita Yanma Gira

Also for Iko Marina & Boshimar to be in audience in second show ahhhhh. (I was sitting nearby Boshimar so could see him) Racules call out to him at the end while Rita did for Iko Marina. Then when she was leaving I managed to wave at her since she took the exit where I was. Ahhh she had a Moffun with her that she use to wave back to us heh. Even saw Matsumoto up close when he was in the hallway not sure why but he was escorted by the staff.

Third show was the best

ANYWAY GIRA FIRST BROKE WHEN HE HAD TO SAY HIS LAST LINE FOR THE STORY! He cried first or choke up.

While Jeramie was doing his narration to end the story usually the King plus Racules step aside to do like a game almost like Janken it cute…

They were sort of comforting Gira though Rita & Racules stand out. Since Rita sort of roughly grab his shoulder and gave squeeze? I think while Racules just pat his head.

Act 2 start they did their usual dance then add in their suit actors and then went down stage to walk around to greet everyone. Later the rest of them appear out from one entrances to greet everyone. Himeno & Rita did a heart!

They had like some question asked. The cast had to watch themselves they had to refer themselves as character not themselves 😂 then Gira did his Midori screen again 😂

The concert was all their songs so each took turn to perform.

Also the best part I love it.

They had message from their Suit actors ( their partner in the show) then Producer Omori-San! Who I swear use a lot of King-Ohger references even say since he left Toei he couldn’t be there so this was message instead.

Thennnn they had extra guests appearance namely Minato-Sensei & Kamihoriuchi-San who gave flower to Jeramie. Along with the aides and Suzume gave flowers to their respective Kings. Kanzaki-San(Kuroda-San actor (not voice)) was there to give to Kaguragi while Suzume gave to Racules. (Kanzaki-San apparently did bear hug to Kaguragi)

They were all wearing the black FLT shirt.

Perfect.

So while they were giving their final message only Racules, Jeramie (especially), Kaguragi, Himeno & Gira (a bit) were having issue trying to say it. Yanma & Rita were too professional…

So yeah.

Honestly I don’t know what to feel I should be sad it really end but I don’t know what to feel…maybe because I still got some more Kingohger stuff to go to?

Oh some sides notes five carefully selected performances from Shizuoka to Fukuoka will be released exclusively on TTFC (I think Fukuoka one would be Rittan one hopefully)

Then if I remember correctly 20th tmr onward Racules & Suzume’s costume will appear at the exhibition? (I went earlier and it was really just too small the last part was jam packed since there a video that people want to watch might say about it later?)

[beezonia]

So I’ve decided on roles for the parent persona au!

—-

Phantom Thieves -

Midori Akechi - Goro’s mom - The Fool

Chiziru Sakamoto - Ryuji’s mom - The Empress

Asahi Kurusu - Akira’s dad - The Chariot

Asuna Yamamoto - Akira’s mom - The Moon

Satomi Takamaki - Ann’s mom - The Lovers

Kieran “Kei” Inoshita - Ann’s dad - The Emperor

Kiyoko Okumura - Haru’s mom - The Hermit

Suzume Kitigawa - Yusuke’s mom - The Fortune

Osamu Nijima - Makoto’s dad - The Magician

——-

Confidants -

Sojiro - Temperance

Wakaba - Death

Iwai - Strength

Sadayo - Heirophant

Iyo Hamasaki - Makoto’s mom - The Judgement

Naoki Tachibana - Yusuke’s dad - The Devil

——

That’s it for now! I’m still working on a few (including Midori’s velvet room attendant!)

[kirric-the-fan]

Summary of my four OC cure teams:

Some of these are more developed than others:

(Note: characters shown as Civilian name/ modern primary cure name or version/past or varient cure versions)

Precure Royale:

Kyua Chiyoko/ Cure Signet/Super/Sleepy/Support/Shasshin (Cure Royale in Jikan Jinx alt) (chameleon cure- can change cure theme). Princess of the Heart kingdom sent forward in time to avoid harassment by the prince of another kingdom and unfortunate prophecy. Which doesn't really work. Has to figure out what she really wants to do with her life and her legacy.

Takeshi Tara/ Cure Steady/Steadfast. Precure of loyalty. Rock and moss themed. Big hearted, absolute sweetheart, hugger. Strong even for a precure, and reliable in a fight (she's...steady- gettit?). Can and often does trip over her own feet when the stakes are lower though. Older self is very protective of the younger cures, and would be a serial adopter on sight if the rest of the team didn't constantly act as impulse control.

Kagami/ Cure Shadow/Surface. The serious one. The intelligent and perceptive one too. The plotter and the planner and the spy when she needs to be, but she often has to work from behind the scenes to make things happen. The up front battles aren't her forte. Strongly associated with mirrors. Has met Blue before and refers to him as 'pretty boy', thought that's usually prefaced with the words 'Outta my mirror'.

Atsuko/Hita/ Cure Sunfire/Sunrise- Fairy cure. Fire bird. Ends sentences with Hitsu in fairy form. Had her fairy fire taken by Shadow for a little while in the modern day, trapping her in human form until it was released. Looks sophisticated, is michievous as hell.

Suzume/ Cure Swift/Smartish. Music/birds/movement gal. Magic with flute if she's being delicate, sousaphone if she is not. Often ends up in cahoots with Sunfire. Percieved as the smart one, but she's more book-smart.

Toupe – fairy. Red squirrel hairdresser and part-time magical wig. The rest of Chiyoko's court disappeared on route, so it fell to Toupe to try and look after the princess in the modern world.

Percivalance- fairy. Obnoxious. Bossy. Old-school. Doesn’t get on with Toupe.

Prince Kobara- Humanoid villain. Trying to get control of the ancient magic of the Heart Kingdom via Chiyoko.

Cure Queen/Queen Kyua- past ruler of the Heart Kingdom. Can see future possibilities and make prophecies. Was the one who sent Chiyoko forward in time to save her and give her the chance to live freely.

Wilding- plant creature and apparent bbeg that has taken over the ruins of the Heart Kingdom.

Series summary: Sailor Moon type past kingdom rebirth of protectors, except Prince Kobara. Prince tries to woo Chiyoko, and win the power of her kingdom, but Chiyoko is just interested in being a normal girl, and protecting the town from Wilding and that danger. Pre-modern cures (early 80’s), and a prequel to Precure Memories.

Precure Memories:

Suzuki Midori/ Cure Memory (prefers to be known as Suzuki). Green trees + memories themed cure. Grew up an orphan, Suzuki has always been a lonely kid, often spending hours entertaining herself climbing the statue in the local park. At the same time chance seems to shine kindly on her to transfer to a better school, she accidently discovers a fragment of the sapphire clock in an accident, and ends up chasing through three new allies and a transformation to get it back. Cure Memory works with Kokoro, Fumiko and Kirami to collect the missing pieces. Doesn't like using her name, as her mother only gave her her surname before her birth, and there was no clue about her father. Talks to Steady's statue a lot and makes flower crowns etc.

Fumiko/ Cure Reverie: Blue/white, knight and writing themed cure. Hardworking kid, teacher's pet, and oldest of a big family in a small flat, she often watched Suzuki roaming the park with curiosity. When Suzuki transfers to her school, she finally gets the oppourtunity to meet her for good, and quickly gets swept up in the precure stuff.

Kirami/ Cure Express: Black/gold mechanics and gears themed cure. Lives with her parents in their clock/watch repair shop, and likes making mechincal creatures as a hobby. Considered as the disruptive kid at school, and often does her own thing even if it disrupts others. Butts head with Fumiko a lot, but the two come to understand each other a lot more. Gets on with Suzuki because she seemed to be the first person to see Kirami beyond her troublesome aspects and accepts her wholly.

Kazumi/ Cure Serene: Older (1y) sister type friend of Suzuki's who lost contact being in different parts of the care system. Works hard as a competative judo athlete to maintain her scholarship and help her sister. Gets easily frustrated and has anger issues at the start. Mellows out. Older cure. Bell/sand white/gold cure

Tchaikovsky (Chuchuski) Taylor / Cure Connect: Student council president, and seems a bit stand-offish but helps. Rival turned close friend of Kazumi. Is actually responsible for Suzuki's transfer, wanting to help cheer Kazumi up. Sun/sea/shore themed cure- connections, horizons etc. Nets and sails. Mixed blue/white/yellow cure. Year older than Suzuki & co.

Kokoro- fairy stuck in a cat body. Guide to the memory cures. Looking to recover and rebuild the Sapphire clock.

Kibou- nv fairy. Green broccoli bunny. Doesn't appear to do much, but manages to win an entire judo competition in a body swap incident with the cures. Likes napping in the trophy.

Minako- Kazumi’s ill little sister and close friend of Suzuki. Makes herself an alter-ego called Cure Joy.

Headmaster- School headmaster and owner of Kokoro. Helps the cures where he can

Hoshino Yuki/Cure Comet/Slip- Alien from a water planet. Saved Hare the comet fairy and became cure comet to protect him and her planet. Captured by Chaos by blackmail and is working for him. One of the main bbeg generals. Knew Cure Flower.

Hare- Yuki’s comet fairy partner

Kao-san, Chaos- BBEG

Series summary: Years after the last fight of the Cure Royales, the people of Kurogawa have all but forgotten about the precure. After an accident with a strange gem she found in part of Steady’s statue, the only sign of the Royale's left in town, Suzuki finds herself inside a swirl of time and fighting against new villains determined to get revenge on the precure. The Memory cures must seek and reassemble the parts of the Sapphire Clock and uncover the events of the past before the villains can get their hands on a powerful weapon- one rumored to be strong enough to destroy hope itself.

Big Band Precure:

“One! Two! Three! Four! Big-Band Pre-cure!” (Big Band Cures play in their own transformations and use music or music themes for all their attacks)

Setsuko/Fret/Cure Tune/Crescendo Tune- Guitar attacks. Lion (from Aoi’s crystal animal) guitar pick. Pocket extendable guitar neck to become guitar to strum. Good with all guitar-like instruments. Big fan of Wild Azure.

Toshiko/Fury/Cure Rock- Drum attacks. Tambourine bracelet (Bracelet turns to tambourine and/or drum to drumkit, and sometimes other percussion). Pen and pencil drumsticks.

Tsuyomi/Forte/Cure Classic(al)- Fan to piano attacks (The fan has a piano key pattern on and separates to make the keyboard, with the side slats becoming the stand). Princely outfit with a hidden techno-light-up element.

Shiori/Fandango/Cure Pop- Headphones mic dj deck and voice attacks. Compact halves to headphones or microphone. Clashes a bit with Tune over who has lead vocals. Eventually learns to harmonise, and earns Tunes’ approval to sing lead. Best dancer of the squad. Very good with technical skills and runs the school radio station. Often comes across as bossy/forceful in her views.

Timbre: Fairy from the song kingdom hiding out on Earth. Blue fairy with a quaver quiff. Uses her limited amounts of power to help the big band cures, and needs to rest in between. Turns into a keyless music box when asleep. The cures later learn they have to sing the right note to unlock the music box and wake her up again.

Discord- BBEG

Aoi/Cure Gelato/Cure Concert as stuck/ mentor (Adult). Travelled to Kanon town to investigate the diapperance of the Suite cures, only to get stuck there when Ballad attacked. Helps mentor the Big Band cures, overcoming her own uncertainties an insecurities at the same time.

Ako/Cure Muse: Turns up partway through, and is the only Suite member to escape the corruption from Discord. Ends up sheltering as roomates with Aoi, and the two could not be less similar. Eventually learn to understand each other more and they become an unlikely but cohesive double-act. As apparently serious and pragmatic as ever. Chips in with set-building while she is stuck in Kanon Town.

Banshee, Howler and Screech (Ellen/Siren, Hummy and Noise respectively.) (As corrupted bbeg generals)

Axe and Aux: Starter villain generals created by Ballad. Later recouped to power up other generals.

Ballad/Discord- BBEG. Jealous Prince of the song kingdom (Jealous of Major Land and its music). Released the discord to allow him to overcome the songstresses of Major land. Is after the last fairy tone to release the full power of Discord from where it is trapped beneath the Grand Staff, the manifested power of music itself.

Spotlight, Cam-cam, and Shoot: Song Kingdom fairies who work behind the scenes to make Ballad look good. Staging.

The Duet of Despair- Melody and Rhythm turned dark by the corruption of the fairy tones and their tone clefs.

Series summary: Aoi comes to Kanon town to investigate the apparent disappearance of the Suite team. She discovers a new enemy, Discord, and a powerful dissonance that weakens her transformation and traps her within the town, only to be saved by a new precure. Aoi has to uncover the identities of the new Big Band Precure and help train them to take down Discord, and save the Suite team. (Later on Discord causes a time travel break which allows Aoi to go back and find out what happened, only to learn that the corruption of the fairy tones was corrupting the treble clefs, and Gelato is forced to become the one that seals the team away to be saved in the future.)

All Animals Precure:

(Detail in linked post)

Ame/Cure Kindness: Doesn’t have magic attacks or finishers. Protective from impact in serious situations-but not sure if luck or actual magic going on as seems happen in human form too (faint heart imprint leftover outline after). Tough cure. FW-type monster judo. Stronk. Can understand all animals if needed. Can whistle to summon a friendly tiger Tora. Sometimes the tiger appears anyway to help while she’s transformed. She keeps having to take it back. Used as a mount. (Red, ringmaster like outfit. But more Rose bride anthy but with less skirt more coattails)(and red hair)

Minato/Cure Splash (Aquatic themed)(Raincoat top and hat/jellyfish bell skirt/mermaid)

Sayako/Cure Silky (Insect themed)(Silky dress, spider/catepillar vibes/mature/sophisticated dress)

Haruna/Cure Canter (Quadraped themed)(Horse girl x 100)(young adult cure)

Chizuru/Cure Chirp (Avian themed)(Carnival outfit)

Ferren- Ferret-type scout from healing garden. Nothing to do with Tarte or the sweets kingdom despite looking nearly identical.

Sukeru- Pangolin type lead bbeg

Tora: They think this is a magical tiger, but they're not sure if it's just a tiger that Cure Kindness happened to save and has now just...bonded with her. Ongoing bit where Kindness keeps having to return the tiger to increasingly alarmed zoo staff, often just carrying it back and handing it over like it's nothing. The zookeepers disagree.

Big hearted animal-lover Ame seems to fall into the life of her dreams after her dad gets a big promotion allowing them all to move to the zoo where he works. There she runs into Ferren, a scout from the Healing Garden searching for an escaped criminal, Sukeru, with a hatred for humans. Stepping in to protect Ferren from the monsters, Ame becomes a precure, and starts on her journey to protect all animals from the dark magic of Sukeru. (Ends up fighting past cures-turned-animal monsters)

(More detail here:)

[bourgeoning]

SHUT THE DOOR , HAVE A SEAT : THE INTERROGATION OF SUZUME SŌ .

before her departure from kyoto , when  suzume  said  she  hoped  for  a  fruitful  investigation  ,  she  supposed  an  interrogation  would  be  in  order  .  to  actually  be  doing  something  now ,  it  almost  makes  up  for  their  arrival  ,  and  the  grand "  celebration  of  life  "  as  she's  heard  some  call  it  .  but  the  pulsing  in  her  temples  ,  a  tension  headache  just  on  the  horizon  ,  leaves  her  with  a  dearth  in  her  heart  for  forgiveness  .  even  less  than  usual  . she's silent as she enters the room and sits , taking in her counterpart in the form of the mughal royal advisor ariyan , before shifting attention to the interrogator across from her . @theopulenthq

hello  ,  can  you  please  tell  me  your  name  ,  country  ,  &  what  role  you  provide  your  court  ?

she  almost  retorts  ,  pointing  out  that  she  had  been  called  here  by  name  and  title  .  but  observing  her  inquisitor  ,  she  swallows  back  the  caustic  words  on  the  tip  of  her  tongue  .  she  still  wordlessly  stares  him  down  ,  though  .  "  lady  suzume  sō  —  advisor  to  his  majesty  ,  the  emperor  of  japan  .  "  the  imperial  surname  ,  as  usual  ,  is  absent  from  her  introduction  .

and  who  do  you  believe  to  be  your  closest  allies  ,  either  nations  or  individuals  ?  do  you  trust  your  allies  ?

"  japan's  allies  ,  of  course  .  "  she  could  mention  others  :  her  betrothed  and  their  family  ,  and  how  both  hold  importance  to  japan's  development  whenever  they  tie  the  knot  (  …  if  they  tie  the  knot  )  .  the  friends  she  maintains  from  the  qing  family  ,  in  spite  of  her  disdain  for  the  empire  as  a  whole  .  but  she  remains  vague  ;  lying  by  omission  ,  the  only  sort  she  can  tolerate  .  "  having  a  critical  eye  is  important  when  it  comes  to  politicking  ,  so  it's  natural  to  be  skeptical  .  but  our  allies  have  proven  trustworthy  .  "  most  of  them  ,  anyway  .

ah  ,  yes  ,  i  see  …  how  about  your  enemies  ,  then  .  who  do  you  not  align  yourself  with  ,  and  why  ?

"  the  morally  bankrupt  ,  "  she  answers  without  hesitation  .  a  truth  ,  but  with  one  exception  .  she  and  midori  toe  a  line  now  ,  between  amity  and  rivalry  .  when  asked  to  elaborate  ,  she  shakes  her  head  ,  staring  her  interrogator  down  until  he  moves  on  .

interesting  .  do  you  have  a  personal  vendetta  against  any  of  the  courts  ,  or  even  individuals  ,  here  ?

"  only  the  people  responsible  for  taking  the  late  emperor  and  empress  from  us  .  "  but  truth  be  told  ,  she  is  nothing  without  her  grudges  :  toward  the  emperor  of  qing  for  breaking  promises  ,  toward  her  fellow  officials  for  using  underhanded  tactics  ,  and  so  many  others  .  they  make  suzume  who  she  is  .  but  to  be  truthful  would  be  her  undoing  ,  and  she  doubts  many  would  answer  truthfully  either  —  unless  they're  daft  ,  or  trying  to  point  a  finger  at  someone  on  purpose  .

what  are  your  thoughts  on  the  mysterious  deaths  in  so  many  royal  families  ?

"  devastating  .  "  she  keeps  her  expression  neutral  ,  save  for  a  moment  when  her  lip  quivers  .  as  she  presses  her  lips  together  ,  her  jaw  tightens  .  "  whoever  is  responsible  ,  they  are  deplorable  .  "  she  finally  says  .  her  interviewer  winces  ,  as  if  she's  spitting  venom  .

how  do  you  feel  about  the  system  of  monarchy  as  a  whole  ?

"  it's  the  way  of  things  .  "  for  over  a  thousand  years  ,  in  the  case  of  japan  .  a system that , in spite of its flaws , has held her island home together for centuries . "  but  some  have  grown  complacent  .  sovereigns  who  forget  that  their  duty  isn't  merely  to  lord  over  others  .  "

so  ,  what  would  be  your  best  theory  as  to  what  is  going  on  ,  then  ?

she  sniffs  indignantly  .  "  until  i  have  more  information  ,  i  don't  think  it's  wise  to  build  a  theory  .  "  and if  their  hosts  have  a  theory  of  their  own  ,  she  assumes  they  wouldn't  share  it  .  "  will  we  be  given  a  report  of  your  findings  ?  "  the  advisor  in  front  of  her  shifts  uneasily  in  his  seat  under  her  gaze  ,  clearing  his  throat  after  a  prolonged  silence  .

thank  you  for  your  time  .  is  there  anything  else  you'd  like  to  add  ,  anything  else  that  would  be  useful  to  the  investigation  ?

"  no  .  "  she  rises  from  her  seat  ,  offering  a  bow  ,  before  turning  heel  to  leave  .

[crossau-vicinityverse]

Vicinity: Akademi: Chapter 3

Rating: M

Canons: Yandere Simulator, Zatch Bell, Persona, School Days, Pokemon and Magical Girl Raising Project.

Summary: After the passing of his late wife, a retired NPA agent moved his family to a town called Vicinity. Suzume Mizuno and her adoptive siblings, Serena Homura and Takeshi Kaneyama enrolled in Akademi high school. As Suzume, Serena, and Takeshi joined the after school clubs and gets familiar with the surrounds of their new high school, soon they become exposed to the school’s dark past and the existence of an underground anti-bullying group, established by an anonymous student, after a bullying incident in the previous school year. Meanwhile, outside of Akademi high school, an underground crime organization with a coined name rose from its “ashes”.

Chapter Summary: Sora encountered Suzume in the morning while walking to school. Ayato meets up with a classmate named Makoto Itou. Umeji and his friends decided to ditch school while still thinking about ways to recruit Kaneyama into their gang. Midori and Serena hang out. Serena recalls a bad memory from her middle school days and meets Musume Ronshaku and her gang from a glimpse, while Midori warns Serena about Musume's father. Kaneyama spends time with his new friends. Otome Katou notices Suzume while Osana speaks to Otome. Makoto reunites with his old friends in his school's bathroom, but it isn't a pretty reunion. A group of criminals is ambushed by the police, and the results are deadly. Suzume overhears a phone conversation between Sora and his father. Ayato, Roka, and Kano face off with their former bullies during lunchtime off campus.

Crossover AU: Akademiverse (Vicinityverse's Third Storyline)

TW/CW: This chapter contains bullying and mentions of sexual harassment in a flashback. An attempted choking scene and a mention of dismemberment.

Chapters: 🌸 AO3 🌸 FF.Net 🌸 DeviantArt 🌸 Wattpad

[ramblesinshamblesgreenbus]

Chapter VI - London

Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

- T.S. Eliot, "Ash-Wednesday"

"You want to what?"

In retrospect, there were a few things Aleksandr could have said that would have surprised her more. 'Midori, this entire time, I've been a double agent for the CIA'. 'Midori, I want to join the French Foreign Legion'. 'Midori, I actually really fucking hate dogs'. But this. Now. Aleksandr was still looking up at her expectantly from his chivalrous pose on the sitting room floor. Midori didn't even have socks on. Surely a basic precondition of receiving a defector from an enemy power was that you ought to be wearing socks at the time.

"I want to defect. To you. To Britain. Whatever." Aleksandr dipped his head and kissed the back of Midori's hand. "I'm done. With everything you know that I do and that we politely don't talk about. I don't want there to be anything we don't talk about, ever again."

"But… Aleksandr…"

A slight frown creased his forehead. "I thought you'd be happy."

Midori squeezed his hands back, then, and pulled him up from the floor to sit on the sofa. "I am happy, Aleksandr, I am, but it's just… it's very sudden. I didn't expect this."

"Not yet, you mean?" Aleksandr's eyebrows twitched in amusement. "Because you haven't yet found the perfect novel to persuade me to hand in my party membership card and join the Fabian Society instead?"

Midori felt her face heat. "I just thought… with enough time, you might…"

"My opinions haven't changed that much. If there's a book out there somewhere to persuade me that the royal family shouldn't be taken out and shot for the advancement of socialism in this country, well, I don't think I'd want to read it." He grinned and Midori tried not to flinch. "But it doesn't matter. I don't want to defect because I've decided I love the King and it turns out every problem in the world can be solved by democracy. It's because of you. You're more important to me than anything else. I'm only sorry it's taken me so long to realise it."

Midori's heart swooped high and dropped again just as suddenly. Aleksandr was still smiling delightedly, thumbs running over the backs of her hands, and half of Midori wanted to kiss him breathless for this dramatic declaration of love. The other half shrank back, afraid. How could she possibly be enough, after everything Aleksandr had been through, to throw away his entire life for? And how could she let Aleksandr do this now, when she might not even be in England anymore by the end of the year?

"So what do I need to do? Should I talk to your employers? Does Suzume have a politician friend I could go to?" Aleksandr looked away contemplatively towards the window. "Or maybe I should make myself more valuable, first. There is a lot of information I could get for them about our agents in Britain, and more things, besides. The more I can give them, the easier this will be."

"You probably also shouldn't be living here, either, when you do it," Midori ventured.

Aleksandr's face drooped. "You're right," he sighed. "It would cause far too much trouble for you if they knew that we… it will probably be a while before things die down enough that I can be your lodger again and not raise too many eyebrows. But it'll be worth it, won't it? I don't mind waiting a few months, even another year or two, if it means getting to have my whole life with you." He let go of Midori's hand to stroke her face, and she closed her eyes and leaned into the touch.

"It's a shame I can't just marry you," she said. "That would make this all a lot easier."

Aleksandr laughed. "You, marry me? Would that mean that you’d make me wear the dress?"

"I think you'd look quite fetching in white lace."

"You're right. I could ask Ambassador Zarubin to give me away. Let's invite both governments. A true marriage of Heaven and Hell - but which is which?" Aleksandr's other hand came up to frame Midori's face and he kissed her with a smile on his lips. "I don't care if some priest or registrar wants to hear me make promises to you or not. I'll make them anyway. Anything you want."

"I just want to know that you're sure," Midori said. "I know you don't feel the way you used to, but trust me, Aleksandr, betraying your country isn't a small thing. It's permanent. Once you do this, there's no going back."

"I'm sure about you," Aleksandr said, and Midori's heart flipped over in her chest again. "One of these days, maybe I'll have you read some Marx, Midori. Countries don't matter. How is it anything but an accident that I was born in Russia and you in Japan? A different set of circumstances and maybe you would be Swedish and I would be Rhodesian, or you would be Colombian and I would be Filipino, or - or anything! What matters is… well, what matters is the international solidarity of the proletariat in revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie, if we're talking about Marx." He put a finger to his lips briefly, as if putting a pin in that thought. "But what mattered to you, more than your country, was that the world not be engulfed in fascism. And what matters to me, the only thing that matters to me, is you. Being with you. Living with you and loving you and never having to leave you. Never one day going out and not coming home again, and you not even knowing why."

She really ought to tell Aleksandr about her possible reassignment right now, but the words wouldn't come, not with him looking at her so tenderly, hand still stroking her face. She didn't want to be the one to shatter this moment. Instead, she turned her head and kissed the heel of Aleksandr's hand. "Okay," she said. "But I think we need to do this slowly and carefully. There was an NKVD agent who tried to defect to MI6 just after the end of the war, in Istanbul, and he… disappeared."

"Oh, Volkov? That was probably because we have several agents in MI6 and the Foreign Office." The total calm in Aleksandr's tone was incredible; Midori couldn't help but feel a sudden flush of panic.

"What, amongst the typists? The cleaning staff?"

"A little higher up than that," Aleksandr said with a smirk. "You know, if I can find out their real names, I think that would be worth a lot. The man in Buckingham Palace, too."

Midori studied his face, more than a little incredulous. He didn't seem to be joking. If he wasn't, and there really were Soviet spies working at high levels of the British government, the implications were frightening, but information like that would surely guarantee that Aleksandr would be granted asylum. Maybe Midori could just say no to Korea and no to Hong Kong and somehow not have it seem suspicious and, within a year or two, they would be able to embark on a real future together.

It would be a future of carefully guarding against arrest, living quietly and circumspectly, a future that could be swiftly curtailed when the next war came, like so many had in London before, but it would also be a future of falling asleep in Aleksandr's arms every night and watching his ash-blond hair turn truly grey, of sharing the paper and arguing over dinner and having the kind of comfortable, ordinary stability that most of society thought people like them completely incapable of.

"We could get a dog," she said stupidly, the tail end of a train of thought that she hadn't vocalised, but Aleksandr beamed with that adorable, heart-shaped smile.

"We could get five dogs," he said, in a manner that suggested that this was something he'd given a lot of thought to. Perhaps he'd already chosen some names. Midori couldn't help but smile back, and then Aleksandr was kissing her again and they were both laughing into it as Midori climbed into his lap, loosening his hair and running her fingers through it.

"We'll get as many dogs as you want," she said. "I promise."

"Swear?" Aleksandr giggled, whilst rocking her back and forth.

*

The embassy library was open and Mrs Tredyakovskaya greeted him with a smile, but it was cooler than usual, slipping off her face as soon as Aleksandr began to look away. He pretended to browse the collection of English translations of Stalin's writings and watched out of the corner of his eye as she fussed about behind her desk, as if hers was a very real and serious job and not a role she had largely created for herself after her husband's posting here.

In truth, he was buying himself a little breathing time before heading upstairs to make his pickup in Mishin's office. If he was out - and he often was, given that Mishin was as much of an administrator of student and travel visas as Aleksandr was a teacher - then it would be an excellent opportunity to search through his files for anything worth copying. Discovering solid evidence of the real identities of Hicks, Tony, Homer and Stanley would need to be his priority, as he'd discussed with Midori, but there were surely many other things that MI6 and the British government would love to lay their hands on that Aleksandr could gain access to here.

Paranoia crept up his spine on thin, insectoid legs as Aleksandr eventually ducked out of the library and made his way through the corridors. Was this how Midori had felt all the time in Berlin, like a tiny animal stealing through a predator's den? He felt as though his treacherous intent was written all over his face for everyone to see. Any moment now, a soldier or a diplomat or the tea lady would leap out of a door and point an accusatory finger, because the way he was climbing the stairs or holding his hat made it clear that he was hell-bent on undermining the Soviet Union at the behest of his British lover.

Midori would never have asked this of him, but there were many things Midori would never ask but that Aleksandr would do readily and whole-heartedly for her if the need arose. He felt as if he discovered more of them every day.

Mishin's first floor office was unlocked, but empty. Aleksandr slipped inside, picking up the slim envelope from the man's out-tray marked with an 'A' for 'Alyosha' and surveying the rest of the room. It would be best today to simply check the various cabinets and file boxes for the location of more sensitive bits of information, and wait for another occasion to sift through them. Somewhere in London, there was surely a shop that would sell him a microdot camera and film, or perhaps he could ask Midori if she had some way of obtaining one. He began with the boxes furthest from the door, alert for the slightest sound of anyone coming along the corridor, let alone Mishin himself returning.

The problem was that an awful lot of the paperwork in the little room was related to the issuing of visas. In the wake of the Allied victory and the almost simultaneous election in Britain of an at least nominally socialist government, there had been a great swell of feeling towards strengthening ties between Britain and the USSR, with an accompanying upswing in travel from the former to the latter even as both countries struggled to begin rebuilding themselves. Consequently, there was a lot of useless paper that Mishin seemed to be averse to getting rid of. Probably made it easier to hide things. That bastard.

Aleksandr flicked through box after box of dull applications and supporting documents before moving on to a filing cabinet. At the back of the bottom drawer, he found something at last. There was a dossier on an agent codenamed Liszt whom he was vaguely aware of, who had smuggled decrypted German transmissions out of the secretive British codebreaking headquarters during the war - his real name was Carlisle, but there was little on his post-war activity and he seemed to have shrunk into a small fish. Behind that was exactly what Aleksandr had been looking for - a thick folder with a small, faded photograph clipped to the inside of a smiling, blond young man with a cleft chin. Homer. He was currently stationed in Egypt for the British foreign service, second in rank only to the ambassador. Aleksandr had known for a while that it was largely thanks to Homer's prior service in Washington that the Soviet Union had as much information as it did about the United States' nuclear armoury, but now he knew the man's face and, more importantly, his name. Donald Maclean.

For a moment, he contemplated slipping the folder into an envelope and walking out of the embassy right now, cycling straight across the city to Whitehall with it tucked under his waistcoat and taking it to the Foreign Office. This dossier would be more than enough for Maclean to be dragged home from Cairo for questioning, and maybe he would give up the other three himself. But, as Aleksandr was thumbing through the file, skipping past photographs of Maclean's wife and children, he heard footsteps coming down the corridor. He shoved the file back into its place in the drawer, kicked the filing cabinet closed, and had just managed to compose himself as the door opened and Mishin stepped in.

"Oh," he said, pushing the door closed behind him. "Hello, Alyosha."

Aleksandr looked up from studying the contents of the envelope he was supposed to be there to pick up. "Good afternoon," he said, warmly. Mishin didn't return his smile.

"Did you need something?" he asked tersely, pushing past Aleksandr, to his desk. Aleksandr resisted the temptation to glance at the filing cabinet he had so recently been rifling through, to check if he'd closed it properly or not. If he hadn't, looking at it would only draw Mishin's attention.

"Oh, no, just making my pickup. I hope you are keeping well, comrade."

Mishin grunted, looked at Aleksandr, and then looked pointedly at the door. Aleksandr's smile faded. Last time they'd actually spoken he'd been quite friendly, enthusing about his favourite Fadeyev novel and his two young sons. But apparently the disfavour of Leningrad now ran very deep indeed. He nodded a goodbye and left.

On his way home, he stopped off at the Café Daquise for a cup of coffee, and to actually look through his envelope. It was mostly the usual instructions and matters to pass on to his agents, but there was a smaller envelope at the very bottom, with the address completely blacked out, but a Soviet stamp and postmark in the corner. He ripped it open with a fingernail and sat back in his chair from surprise when he recognised the handwriting.

Dear Shura,

It has been too long; I hope you are keeping well. I have thought often this last year of our many conversations about my mother, but I wonder if you recall the time we spoke of my father? These days, I think of him more and more. Perhaps it is time for me to finally follow the path he would have wanted for me, before I am too old. By the time this reaches you I may have moved, so don't look for me here. Will send on my new address when I can.

Your comrade, and loving Grandfather

Aleksandr glanced around the almost-empty café before reading the letter again. He had exchanged a couple of very stilted letters with Weisberg after the end of the war, but it had been quite obvious that the old man had no interest in maintaining contact with his former agent, and certainly they were not on the kind of terms where he would write affectionate letters signed off as though his codename was their actual relationship. And why would he talk about changing address, and about his relatives? When they had worked together, any reference to Weisberg's mother had of course meant the Soviet Union, but his father… he had mentioned once, and quite memorably, that his actual father had been a rabbi.

Suddenly, all the strange pieces of the letter fell into place. Weisberg must be going to Israel, and was an honourable enough man to have written to Aleksandr, and probably others amongst his former colleagues, to warn him in advance. The timing, only a few weeks after Aleksandr had been questioned about the Naumovs, was abysmal, but at least he could have a stern denunciation of Weisberg prepared in advance, should he need it. And who was Aleksandr to fault another man for defecting, for following his heart instead of his duty, for once?

He realised that he should probably begin to work on similar letters himself; to a few colleagues, to Issy and his mother, to Katia, if she was still free. It would be difficult to find a way to couch his message in terms innocuous enough to fool the censors, but he owed it to them to do it, and it would be the closest he would be able to come to wishing anyone goodbye.

Aleksandr finished his coffee, left a few coins on the table, and headed back out to where he'd locked up his bicycle. He'd known this wouldn't be a path without its sorrows when he'd chosen it, but the reward that awaited him was worth every single one of them. He stood up in the pedals and pressed hard for home.

*

Midori remembered thinking, a year into hers and Aleksandr's sporadic and clandestine affair in Berlin, that they had reached some kind of pinnacle of intimacy, of interpersonal connection; it seemed frankly absurd to look back on, as Aleksandr led her teasingly up the stairs to their bedroom. They had been building up to this all day, from an all-too lingering goodbye kiss as she'd left for work to flirting and grabbing at each other as they made dinner, and now Aleksandr was taking off her glasses for her and unbuttoning her dress and kissing her neck just a little too softly to bruise.

There was something vast and impossibly beautiful about spending all day dreaming of the man she would come home to, about making love to him greedily and ferociously at night and waking in his arms the next morning, about sharing every small and mundane thing in their lives. There were fewer secrets between them every day, and soon, soon there would be none at all.

"You don't need to be so careful," she murmured, as Aleksandr began to slowly toy with her bra straps. "Clothes just came off ration, after all."

"You won't mind?" When Midori shook her head, Aleksandr grinned wolfishly and gave her a searing kiss as he grabbed both sides of her dress and pulled hard, buttons popping off and skittering away across the floor as he pushed it back off Midori's shoulders. She wanted Aleksandr to tear her open, to be laid completely bare to him at last, wanted to be the mending of one another's broken places and the promise that nothing would ever hurt them again. Her hands tangled in his hair, stroking and tugging, and then she was backed up against the bed and she dropped them lower to grab hold of the back of Aleksandr's shirt and pull hard as she let herself fall backwards.

For a second, Aleksandr only looked down at her with wide eyes, his shirt torn clean up the back to the collar, but then he was scrabbling to pull it off completely, clambering up onto the bed himself. Their hips were moving against each other entirely involuntarily as they kissed, open-mouthed and hungry, and Aleksandr groaned delightedly as Midori rolled them over, hands against his shoulders to pin him to the mattress.

"Midori," he gasped between kisses, "Midori. I love you."

They said it almost every day now, easy as anything, but she'd never get tired of hearing it. "Tell me in Russian?" she whispered, kissing along the edge of Aleksandr's ear.

"Я тебя люблю," Aleksandr said at once, his voice dropping half an octave.

Midori pressed her nose into his hair. "Ich liebe dich."

"Je t'aime, je t'aime à la folie."

"Ti amo."

"This game isn't fair," Aleksandr said with an audible pout. "You speak more languages than I do."

Midori paused, and sat up a little. She could say saranghae, too, or scour her memory for whatever the phrase should be in Cantonese, but that would require far too much explanation. "Then I'll tell you another way," she murmured, stroking Aleksandr's cheek. "What would you like? What do you need?"

Aleksandr shifted his legs a little further apart and rocked his hips up against Midori's, a satisfied little smile appearing on his face when Midori cursed and bit her lip. "I can't wait to be yours," he said, "only yours, no-one else's ever again. And you’d be mine, all mine, for evermore. Won't you show me what it'll be like?" He propped himself up on one elbow and leaned up to whisper in Midori's ear. "Remember the very first time, in Berlin? Won't you do what you did that night, and ride me so hard it changes my entire life?"

Midori definitely remembered that Aleksandr had been much shyer and more reticent that night than the man now panting and grinning up at her like the cat that got the cream. It was quite mind-bendingly arousing to see the distance they'd travelled together written all over his face, to feel in her own heated, prickling skin just how much Aleksandr had changed her too, had led her out of her neatly controlled and partitioned life into this continent-sprawling, fate-defying love affair.

She would do the same thing, she realised, as she took his face in her hands and kissed him. If their circumstances were reversed, if she thought they had as much of a chance at happiness together in Moscow as they did in London, she would pack away all her opinions and take a briefcase of state secrets to the Soviets, for Aleksandr. Wars and borders and politics all faded away to nothing next to this. She'd been selfless before, told Aleksandr to let her go and stay behind to fight, but she didn't think she could ever do that again.

"It changed my life, too," she said, and unbuttoned Aleksandr's trousers.

She wouldn't remember, afterwards, which one of them pulled away to fish the condoms out of the bedside table drawer, how they got from her pinning Aleksandr to the bed to her head hitting the headboard while Aleksandr thrust into her, but she would never forget the way the lamplight reflected warm in his frozen blue eyes, the way he tipped his head back until his hair spilled past his shoulders like molten silver.

"There's nothing besides you," she whispered in a hoarse voice as Aleksandr lowered himself slowly, "fuck, Aleksandr, nothing, only you, I love you so much, I can't -" and then Aleksandr was kissing her forehead and her eyes and her lips and murmuring her name over and over like a prayer, a blessing, pressing his hand against Midori's chest, over her breast, over her thundering heart.

It was slow and then it wasn't slow at all, something igniting the tinder of all the softly-spoken words between them and licking up into a blaze, and they were kissing with mouths open to muffle any noise, Midori’s hands pulling at his hair while his fingers dug into her hips so hard it would surely bruise, and it felt all at once like her mind had left the atmosphere and yet her body had never been so alive and real. When they tumbled forward together, he slipped out, to which Midori huffed and drew him back in again, her heel settling at the small of Aleksandr's back.

This was her future, tangled up with Aleksandr, every part of her life taken over and turned inside out. She wanted nothing else.

It took a while before either of them was recovered enough to make it next door to the bathroom for a glass of water each and a damp flannel. Midori curled her body into Aleksandr's, head resting on his shoulder, while Aleksandr's hand traced idle patterns on her back.

"I need to tell you something," she said, eventually. "I'll be away for the last two weeks of the month. I'm going down to Hampshire. It's for work, so I can't say – well, I mean, I don't really know what it'll involve, but - "

"It's okay," Aleksandr said sleepily, his hand still moving back and forth. "You don't have to tell me. I'm still a dastardly foreign agent for now, after all. But I'll miss you."

Midori already knew she was a terrible person but, at that moment, she felt it very keenly. "We can talk more about it in the morning."

"Mmm," Aleksandr said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Whatever you want, darling."

If only it was as simple as what she wanted.

*

The summer sun beat down warmly on Aleksandr's back as he walked home, a little paper bag from the grocer tucked under his arm. Midori had been away for four days and it was profoundly odd to have the flat all to himself, to eat and sleep and wake all alone. He supposed he would need to get used to it, if they would be apart for a little while when he made his defection official, but he certainly didn't have to like it. Still, the solitude gave him plenty of scope to sort out the various bits of information he had managed to smuggle out of the embassy so far.

He was building up quite the picture of Maclean and his colleague, Burgess, whom he had known as Svarog's notoriously volatile agent, Hicks. Two young men of a very comfortable background, recruited for their ideological passion, but now probably coasting along more on fear than anything else. In any other circumstance, Aleksandr might have been sympathetic. But, for all unmasking Hicks and Homer would probably be enough, he had stumbled upon tantalising hints about Stanley, the man whom MI6 would doubtless consider the biggest prize, as he was one of their own officers. He was coming through London soon on his way from Istanbul to Washington, and it was entirely possible that Aleksandr would get to actually meet him and, even if he didn't, it was an opportunity like no other.

There were still twinges of guilt in his heart from time to time, to be working against his comrades, to be planning to do to these men in particular what he had spent so many years terrified of happening to himself or to Midori in Germany. He had no idea how much their bourgeois background would be able to shield them from going to the gallows for treason, or if the British might seek to either leave them unawares to be manipulated or actively turn them to work back against Moscow. But it was worth any amount of guilt or self-recrimination. He had been giving and giving of himself his entire life, getting only scraps and stones in return, and it was finally time to be selfish.

Something gleamed at the edge of his vision and caught his eye, and he stopped and turned to find himself standing in front of a pawn brokers. In its window display, in between a stately wood-cased radio and a sleek violin, was a small display of jewellery, in the top corner of which were two plain gold bands side by side. Wedding rings. They were almost alike enough to be a pair, although, as he leaned closer to the window, he could see that one had a tiny, delicate inscription on the inside.

Marriage was for normal people, an institution of arcane rules and expectations almost as peculiar as the notion of wanting to perpetually attach oneself to a member of the opposite sex in the first place. But a ring didn't have to be a chain, nor did it comprise a burden; a ring could be a promise, just like a letter or a scarf or a book, a charm worn close against the skin. It could be a gift before he had to move out of the flat, for both of them to remember the future they were heading towards.

*

He could feel both rings in the inside pocket of his jacket later that afternoon, as he leaned on the railing around the tiny rooftop balcony and smoked a cigarette. The chimney pots of Pimlico were spread out around him, strewn about with chattering starlings. Midori would be home again in ten days, and then they could do as they had all through last summer, come up here wearing his shirts in the evenings, to drink and smoke and talk about nothing in particular. Aleksandr had lived in four of the world's great cities now, and it was always the smallest details that he found himself holding the most dear; the cry of seagulls in Leningrad, snow in the bare winter trees of Berlin, watching distant traffic cross the bridges over the Moskva from his Moscow flat, and here, the disorderly rooftops of London, where dark birds fluttered to and fro under the ever-present smell of coal fires.

Once his cigarette had burned down to its end, he took a small notepad and pen out of his pocket, balancing them on the railing to begin drafting a letter. It would probably be the last he would ever send as Major Aleksandr Rostislavovich Sobolevski, officer of the MGB and decorated hero of the Great Patriotic War, and he needed to make every word count.

Dear Itzick,

I am sorry, my soul, for it has been so long since I last wrote. I hope you are well, and have made a good start in your career in the air force; I'm sure your mother must be very proud; I feel myself almost bursting with it as times. I am doing as well as always.

He wondered what love had Isidor grown for Katia. Were they still starry-eyed, scrapped-kneed children, playing tag through their lives like they used to all throughout the neighbourhood? Or did he think sunlight braided itself among her tresses, did he kiss her hand and felt forgiveness far greater than any deity could offer, just washing over him? How many times did he swear he’d break his back, just for her to break a smile? Would he understand if Aleksandr said that nothing was the same as always, that his entire world had grown vast beyond imagining and he would do anything to keep running towards its endless boundaries for the rest of his life?

I know that you understand well the constraints of the kind of work that we both do, and why I may not be able to write again for a while after this. I also know you have a strong and patriotic heart that will bear you through the worst of times and lead you to the right decisions, just like your mother. Please give her my love, not before keeping most of it for yourself, my son. Sequester it in the depths of the little heart that would lull me to sleep whenever you would climb in bed with me. I beg of you, don’t let it escape, not even if you ever learn to hate me. Remember that you are grown up now, and far too old to disrespect Yelena. Remember that you are grown up now, but never too old to be my baby.

It might be a little too subtle, but if he tried to be clearer, then the letter would definitely never reach Isidor and the whole point of writing it would be lost. He still didn't know the details of what had happened between his parents in 1936, but one of the well-known and little-spoken facts of Leningrad was that Lev Zakharov was in the gulag and Yelena Sobolevskaya had sent him there. Aleksandr figured that her son must have inherited that same capacity for cold-bloodedness, should the need arise. But Isidor wasn’t Yelena’s. The boy was his. Swallowing his sobs, he willed his hand to keep on moving along the paper, clumsily spreading tarry ink, only to have it diluted by tears.

The war changed so many things for all of us, didn't it? It made you a man, Issy, and it made me an old, sentimental geezer. I hope you won't be too angry, now or in the future, to hear that I am proud of you, too. I brag about my little boy to whoever makes the mistake of lending me their ear, have I told you that? I can feel you surpassing me, growing past the borders of my love. You find them constraining, I’m sure; I’ve only ever wished for them to be shielding you, my treasure, my son, my better self. You'll leave us all in the dust one day. Remember when you were little and I use to carry you around on my shoulders? We’d draw janky stars into the ether, and then I would get on my tiptoes, stretch my arms into the sky, pin little asteroids among the clouds. You would clap your small, sticky hands, pale like wax, and then you’d glue them to my cheeks, forcing me to smile as wide as you. Now all I ask of you is to think of me when you look down from the skies.

Your comrade, your admirer, your papa,

Maj. ARS

*

She hadn't lingered as long over lunch with Aleksandr as she often did, and it wasn't even two o'clock yet when she walked back into the old building on Broadway where MI6 pretended not to exist. Midori was checking her pigeon-hole on the fourth floor when she felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Mrs Sugden, Carlisle's long-serving and thoroughly terrifying secretary, standing behind her.

"The Director needs to see you, Takamori."

"What, right now?"

"No, in two hours, once you've had a brandy, a foot massage and a nice sit down." She rolled her eyes at Midori. "Of course right now."

Carlisle didn't offer Midori a cigarette when she entered the office, only paused in his pacing long enough to gesture for her to sit down and slide a thin folder across the desk to her. It was stamped in bright red across the centre with the words 'Top Secret'. Midori looked up and pushed her glasses up her nose.

"Sir, what - "

"You need to read it, Takamori."

The document on the top was a carbon-copy of a letter bearing the letterhead of the US embassy. It was filled with acronyms Midori didn't recognise and a lot of scientific terminology that she couldn't follow, but the final paragraph was more than clear enough.

Should the recommended meteorological flights prove inconclusive, your assistance in the realm of human intelligence is also sought. Projected test sites include previously discussed locations in Siberia, the Arctic Circle, and the Kazakh steppe. No indication has yet been gained from our agents as to the number of devices which may have been tested, or whether others have been built. The Soviet capacity clearly far outstrips our prior estimations, and decisions must be taken at once to curb the further development of their nuclear program.

"The planes will be flying again tomorrow night to try and detect whatever it is they can detect in the atmosphere, we haven't actually picked it up yet," Carlisle said as Midori stared dumbly at the piece of paper in front of her. "But we can be realistic men here… realistic people, I meant. The Soviets have the bomb. They've built one and bloody set it off somewhere, while we were all sat here happily imagining that they might come close to it sometime in '53 or '54."

Midori swallowed hard. The only thing she could think of was Nagasaki in the summertime, the thick, damp heat and endless cicada song, sunlight glittering in the waters of the bay, and the lone, gleaming aircraft that had dropped the city's doom out of the sky. She really, really wished she'd been offered that cigarette. "Why are you showing this to me, sir?" she managed to croak at last, an accusatory shudder.

"Because we've dragged our feet more than enough about Seoul. I'm sure you're a long way from fluent in the language yet, but I had an excellent report from your time at Beaulieu, and frankly, we don't have any more time to waste. We need you out there, defending British interests in the far east." Carlisle leaned forward, palms flat on the surface of the desk. "War in Korea now means we're looking at the world's first nuclear conflict. God only knows what the capacity of the Soviet weapon is, or how many others they have; all we know is what Hitler didn't, that the Russians can be crippled and starving and half frozen to death and they'll still fight like rabid animals, obstinate vermin that don’t know when to fucking drop dead already. The Americans can't just bomb Moscow and get them to kowtow, unlike… well." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Cigarette, Takamori?"

Midori politely ignored the end of Carlisle's train of thought, and accepted a cigarette and a light. She turned over the American document and found underneath it a note addressed to herself. It was sketchy and rather superfluous in its praise of her last five years' service, but very firm in its emphasis that she was needed in Seoul. At the foot of the paper, the note was signed in green ink, with nothing but the letter 'C'.

"I'm sure you'll be tempted to show off your first green ink, but don't go waving that around," Carlisle said. "The chief doesn't normally comment directly on ops to officers, so let that be a demonstration of our seriousness."

"Is it - is it only me, sir, that will be in Korea? I won't have any colleagues around?"

"We've an established operation out there, and you'll have ostensible colleagues in the Consul-General's office, of course. But no other officers, once you've been briefed in the field. Unless you know a lot of Oxford men of the right sort of family who can blend into a Seoul crowd around here?"

Midori leaned back in her chair and suppressed a sigh. Of course it came down to that, in the end. For all she had a surname as Japanese as the rest of her, for all Suzume wasn't even that immediate of a relative, through her and Lawrence, she had been brought under the auspices of the Sutherland family and the appearance of gentry, a guise that could mask any number of sins and made implicit one's obligation to monarch and empire both. And of course her superiors imagined she wouldn't be painfully obviously Japanese in Korea, if they'd already mentally blended her into some ancient English family. Idiot British scum.

She held her cigarette between her lips and looked through the remaining documents in the folder; a few notes on Sir Vyvyan Holt, the new Consul-General to the Republic of Korea, some reports from the existing intelligence network about the activities of Soviet and Chinese agents in the country, and details and even some photographs of the Korean contacts who'd supplied the information. Carlisle cleared his throat again as Midori was reading the notes on a bored-looking young military officer named Major Lee.

"I can see when a woman's getting cold feet, Takamori; if it's any consolation, I doubt this will be a long assignment for you. Holt is… well, he's a lot of things, but he's not an idiot. He'll evacuate British diplomats if - when there's a declaration of war."

For a moment, Midori wondered, as she had before from time to time, if this could be a blessing in disguise. If she was on the other side of the world when Aleksandr defected, then there would be very little to link them, little to cast suspicion on Midori for fraternising with a known enemy agent. They wouldn't be able to live together again for some time regardless. But it was the difference between living like they had in their time together in Berlin, sneaking around and seeing each other infrequently, and living almost as they had in their years of total separation. All the diplomatic protections in the world couldn't guarantee that Midori would come home safely, and if the Soviets were as keen on civilian air raids as the Nazis…

If London met its end in a nuclear blast, she wanted to be there with Aleksandr when it happened, wanted to be holding him close when the air raid sirens sounded again after these few fragile years of silence. They had sat together in parks and shabby hotel rooms in Berlin and altered the course of the war, of human history, but, while history was far out of either of their hands now, they could still have each other.

Carlisle continued as if Midori wasn't having an existential crisis right in front of him. "Depending on our meteorological findings, we will likely be seeing an official announcement from President Truman about the Soviet bomb before the end of September. We'd like you to be at least in place in Seoul before that, so you've got the next few days to get your affairs in order and then we'll be flying you out on the fifteenth. You'll stopover in Delhi to run a quick errand there, too, I'll have Madge bring you the file over. We'll speak again on Monday." He smiled and winked. "What was your old codename, Takamori? Seems like the Nightingale flies for the empire again."

What bloody fucking empire? Midori wanted to yell. She stood up, stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray, and shook Carlisle by the hand, digging her nails into his skin before he jerked backwards, concerned. She headed back to her own office, with the top secret dossier in hand. She had to find some way out of this.

*

Meeting Midori for lunch in Westminster meant he'd had a fair slog back to Lewisham in order to teach his Friday afternoon class, but it was always worth it, and certainly made it easier to be hanging around waiting to meet Popovich rather than heading home to start dinner. It was starting to drizzle slightly as Aleksandr lit a cigarette, and he ducked further into the shelter provided by the looming bulk of Southwark Cathedral. Popovich always seemed to want to meet or make his drops at churches. Maybe it was the name.

Aleksandr recognised his footsteps as he approached so didn't turn around, but dropped his half-smoked cigarette in surprise when, instead of his usual cheery greeting, Popovich enveloped him in a warm, brotherly embrace.

"It is so good to see you, comrade!" Popovich exclaimed, stepping back only to clasp Aleksandr's shoulders. "I have just come from the embassy and have the most tremendous news. But please, not here, let's walk."

He kept one hand on Aleksandr's elbow as he led him away, back out onto the main road and towards the bridge. What on earth could have got him so excited? Maybe Popovich, whom he could well imagine never quite grasping the facts of life, had heard that his wife was pregnant or something. A Soviet wonder, comrade, for I have thought long and hard about off’ring her a bairn, and our great Stalin just planted my seed into her womb. Aleksandr could think of few other things that would get him so worked up. He tried to chase away the thoughts and conceal his smirk, suddenly clouded by a much greater mystery: what had he been doing at the embassy, anyway? The whole point of Aleksandr's role was to obscure the link between the ambassador's business and their intelligence gathering.

They ended up walking along a narrow, gravelled path alongside the river and underneath the bridge, where, as soon as they were immersed in the shadows, Popovich hugged him again and began speaking in Russian. "I am so glad to be the one who gets to tell you this, Alyosha. We have done it! A great triumph for socialism! Just over a week ago, we tested our first atom bomb!"

The words sank into Aleksandr's mind like bullets into treacle, their hot velocity slowed suddenly to an agonising crawl. Popovich was still embracing him - if this went on much longer, Aleksandr would begin to question his intentions - and the noise of the road still rattled and roared over their heads. Nothing had changed. And yet everything had changed, apparently, without anyone noticing at all.

"Isn't it wonderful, comrade?" Popovich asked, and before Aleksandr could examine the sudden rush of sarcasm in his tone, Popovich had snatched his arms away and Aleksandr felt them replaced by the unmistakeable shape of a pistol pressed up against the side of his ribcage. His heart stopped and started again, stuttering like a siren.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Svarog?" he snapped, trying to sound more authoritative than he felt. In the darkness under the bridge, he could only see the light glinting off Popovich's teeth as he sneered.

"I haven't actually just come from the embassy, Alyosha; I was there this morning at about the same time you were. I watched you leave. I followed you to a café in Westminster, and then I followed the woman you spent such a long time over lunch with." He laughed like a bad cinema villain. "Do MI6 really think anyone believes that building is there to sell fire extinguishers? I mean, I'm sure you'd know the answer to that, given that you're working for them."

Aleksandr's blood was running ice cold, sweat seeping off him everywhere as his skin prickled. Why didn't he carry his gun more often? Why had he so blithely assumed Popovich couldn't be a threat to him? "I am most certainly not a British agent," he said emphatically, given that it was technically true.

"Oh, of course, so you have no idea who that woman works for and were just meeting because she is your lover or something." Aleksandr couldn't help a sharp intake of breath and Popovich shifted the angle of his pistol. "She isn't, is she? I've heard the rumours about you, but you always seemed normal enough and I didn't want to believe it. With those unwashed, brain-rotted Nipponese whores?"

"Svarog, whatever it is you think you saw -"

"Don't bullshit me. I know you think I'm a fool, so I've been playing one as best I can these past two years. I've seen the way you act when anything happens that's remotely in favour of the Soviet Union. I know you've been visiting the embassy and hanging around a lot more since what happened in February, with all your lying friends back in Leningrad. Maybe you haven't become the King's new lapdog just yet, but you have a treacherous heart."

Aleksandr had to find some way to get hold of the gun. If he could distract Popovich just enough, he could grab some gravel from the path, throw it into his face, and might then be able to wrestle the weapon out of his hand. "You call me treacherous, but I'm not the one speaking about the deadliest weapon in history as if it were some kind of superstitious idol to be worshipped."

"Are you ever going to stop believing that I'm an idiot?" Popovich hissed. "This isn't just about the bomb, Alyosha. This isn't even just about the Soviet Union. I'm sure you'd love to have your British masters running the world again, but even they have to know it's not going to be them now. It's America that's going to run around the globe, snatching up other countries as prizes and imposing their capitalism on people struggling for freedom, and until now there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Japan was one of the most powerful nations on the planet and now it's a glorified colony, because the Americans had the bomb and nobody else did. That won't - that can't happen now. We are the world's other great power, and we'll build up an atomic arsenal to rival anything they can create. America will never drop the bomb on another country ever again, as long as they know that we could do the same to them." He turned his head slightly to look towards the dark river, shadows playing over his face. "It's not just a Soviet weapon. It's the weapon of every wretched and oppressed man, woman and child on this earth."

It was impassioned and more than a little persuasive, but it was also exactly the distraction Aleksandr had needed. He dropped into a crouch, seized a handful of gravel, and shoved it into Popovich's face. Popovich howled at the grit being forced into his eyes, but instead of loosening his grip, his other hand whipped up to brace the stock of the pistol and he fired blindly, the bullet whizzing over Aleksandr's shoulder.

"You're a dead man, Sobolevski!" he shouted, water streaming from his screwed-shut eyes as he fired another round, the bullet lodging itself into the mortar of the bridge arch. "We'll find you, wherever you run! The British can't protect you!" Aleksandr hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as he tried to assess the possibility of seizing the gun now, but Popovich shot again and gravel spat up centimetres from his foot. He'd underestimated the man completely. Aleksandr stared at his former agent for a moment more, and then turned and ran.

*

Midori was pacing back and forth across the living room when she heard the front door slam, and she knew that something was horribly wrong the moment Aleksandr walked into the room with his coat and hat still on and his face flushed red.

"Oh, Midori," he gasped, and wrapped his arms around her tight; Midori squeezed him hard in return. "Midori, my Midori, the most awful thing… I've been found out, one of my agents tailed me today and I didn't even notice him, he saw us meet and he followed you back to work too and then met me later today and fuck, Midori, my country has built the bomb, I don't, I can't -"

"Shh," Midori said, stroking Aleksandr's back and trying not to let the rush of panic overwhelm her, "shh, Aleksandr, are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"No, though not for want of trying. He didn't start firing until after I threw gravel in his face, so he wasn't the best shot. But I couldn't get the gun off him, so he's still alive and reporting back to our superiors right now. They still think I live in Deptford so it might take a while, but they'll find me, Midori, if your people can protect me we need to go, now, but I don't -"

"I'm going to Korea," Midori blurted out, more loudly than she'd intended to. Aleksandr stopped talking at once, and leaned back a little from their embrace.

"What?"

"I'm - I mean, I'm being assigned there, by MI6, as a field officer. Next week. They know about the Soviet bomb test, and they think there's going to be a war in Korea within the next few years." Something tasted bitter on her tongue. "I'm needed to defend imperial interests out there, apparently."

Aleksandr frowned. "This seems terribly sudden. And you don't even speak Korean." He swallowed audibly and added, "Do you?"

Midori's stomach dropped hard and she looked away from Aleksandr's face. "Jogeumman," she said to the floor. "A little bit. I've… my boss told me it was a possibility, back in January. They wanted to send me overseas, either to Seoul or Hong Kong, so I've been studying Korean and Cantonese. And that's why I was away for two weeks back in May, to learn proper field techniques. I wanted to tell you, but you've been so happy and it had been so long since I'd heard anything, I thought they might have changed their minds, and I just wanted to make things easier for you to defect, and -"

Aleksandr cut her off with a single finger against her lips, before kissing her very softly. Then he sighed. "I wish you had told me sooner," he said quietly, and Midori willed the floor to hurry up and swallow her. "But if it keeps you safe - "

"How is going to a country on the brink of war safe?" she yelled, forcing away the enormous weight of shame enough to look back up into Aleksandr's face. "I'm not leaving you again. Especially not if you've been found out. And not for the sake of the British fucking empire."

Aleksandr's agitation was starting to show again as he took his hat off and ran a hand over his hair. "Midori, Sva - no, fuck his stupid codename. Captain Popovich knows your face, he knows where you work, and he might not know your name, but how many Japanese women are there working for MI6? And he's the direct contact for our two highest placed agents in this country, there's no way he won't have them root you out. Korea might not be safe, but from there you could flee to Japan if you had to. You could go home."

"No. My home is with you. You’re my only home."

The look that Aleksandr gave her was a hopeless mix of desperation and adoration. "I can't let you get hurt because of me," he said.

"Do you think it won't hurt me to be hiding on the other side of the world and not knowing if you're even still alive?" Midori pulled him back into a tight embrace, pressing her face against Aleksandr's shoulder. "I thought I could live without you once, and I was wrong. I told you: I'm not leaving you again."

Aleksandr let out another sigh, hot against Midori's ear. "Then what do we do? Do we both leave the country? Where could we go?"

"I don't know," Midori said, "but I think I do know who can help."

*

She'd been happy enough to be able to get hold of Suzume at the London house that she didn't really think about what she'd meant when she said she'd have to bring 'company'; now, sitting on the sofa with Aleksandr and being examined like a zoo exhibit by her, Lawrence and Niran, she wished she'd asked her aunt to clarify.

"Well, this is exciting," Niran said, as if they were all on some delightful day out. "Nice to see you again, Aleksandr, how have you been?"

"Oh, um, fine," Aleksandr said, faintly. He was looking daggers at Midori, who was doing her best to do the same to Suzume, who was pretending not to see either of them.

"So," Niran continued airily, "I'm going to assume that the reason we're all hanging about in Midori's sitting room on a Friday evening, instead of being out somewhere having a good time, has something to do with you all being spies."

Everyone in the room turned to look at him, and he casually reached into his jacket pocket and took out a cigarette. "Was I not supposed to know?" he asked innocently, lighting it and then gesturing to each of them in turn. "I mean, Professor, I've read everything you've ever published on cryptanalysis; I know what you were doing during the war. Mrs S, well, either you know a lot of people with really weird names and you somehow bribed your way into membership of the Special Forces Club, or you were definitely a spy at some point. Midori, you're fluent in German and you used to live in Berlin, and now you live in London and have a job you're always really vague about. You're incredibly obvious. As for you - " and everyone else turned with Niran as he pointed at Aleksandr " – well, I don't know, you’re a slippery little weasel, so maybe you are just a teacher. But it would seem a bit incongruous, with all this lot." He paused long enough to blow a smoke ring across the room. "Took me so long to learn to do the rings, they make it look so easy in - …Why are you all so surprised? Good gracious, it's as if you've forgotten I was in the Thai resistance."

Midori didn't know where else to look, so she looked very determinedly at her own hands in her lap. For several more seconds, no-one else spoke at all. Then, Aleksandr chuckled.

"You're right," he said. "We're all spies here, apparently. I'm a Soviet intelligence officer; a Major in the MGB. I've been in London since 1947 to supervise a wide group of agents handling intelligence sources in Britain."

Suzume's head snapped around. "Midori, did you know about this? About who he really was?" Her tone was suddenly very hard and cold. Midori started to nod, but her aunt cut her off with a wave of her hand. "Wait. In Berlin you had a Soviet contact, another intelligence agent working undercover. It wasn't… he's not…"

Midori reached over to take Aleksandr's hand and looked up, meeting her eyes. "Yes. That's how we first met. We've known each other since 1940."

Lawrence looked shocked, Niran, completely delighted. Suzume stared at her flatly for a moment before putting a despairing hand to her forehead. "Did you even try to not have a life directly out of some ridiculous novel? What's next, are you going to tell me you go around at night in a mask and a cape avenging the helpless? Did you escape from an island prison and are even now plotting your revenge against someone? Let's just get this all out into the open."

"I feel like I should add that I have been planning to defect," Aleksandr said. Suzume sat down hard into an armchair.

"Oh, good. Well done, Midori, it took nine years, but you fucked a communist into defecting. Congratulations. They should move you to counter-intelligence."

Midori's face was burning, but she cleared her throat to speak. "Look, I didn't invite you here so we could all share our deepest, darkest secrets. We need your help, aunt Suzume. Aleksandr and I have to leave the country. As soon as possible."

Suzume opened her mouth again, but Aleksandr squeezed Midori's hand and took over talking. "There is a group of four men, all currently in very influential positions in the British government, who have been acting as Soviet agents since they were recruited out of Cambridge in the 1930s. I have spent the last few months trying to piece together information that confirms their real identities and their activities on behalf of the Soviet Union. But I don't have all four of them yet, and a colleague has discovered what I've been doing. These are the same men who engineered the death of Konstantin Volkov in Istanbul. And my colleague knows I'm linked to Midori, too."

He ran his thumb soothingly over Midori's knuckles before getting up from the sofa and going over to the bookshelves, pulling out the collection of large dictionaries and taking an envelope from behind them. He shuffled a side table around to empty the envelope's contents onto and everyone gathered around it, including Niran, who was apparently now unofficially inducted into the British intelligence services by virtue of being in the room.

"These two they could arrest right now, I think. Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess." Midori's stomach took a nasty dive at the first name and she stood up too, pushing in between Niran and Aleksandr to look at the documents spread out on the table.

"Burgess?" Larry said, turning over a piece of paper. "Surely not. I met him at the club once or twice. Charming fellow, but he's Tory to the bone."

"You don't look too well, Midori," Niran said, helpfully. Midori elbowed him hard, but, when Suzume raised a pointed eyebrow at her, she sighed.

"I, um, think I might have met Maclean once. At the Boat Race. He was a communist then, at least."

"You've met him?" Aleksandr said curiously, and anyone who believed in a merciful God was clearly disproven by the fact that the floor continued to refuse to swallow Midori up.

"We… spent some time together. There was a lot of Pimms involved. And champagne. And whisky."

"Midori," Aleksandr said, and he sounded strangely impressed if anything. Suzume reached down and started gathering the documents back up into their envelope.

"Great, okay, so now we all know that Cambridge is full of communists and Midori has a type." Her tone became harder again and Midori glanced up to see that she was looking Aleksandr directly in the eyes. "You said there were four men. What do you know about the other two?"

"One of them, I only know that he works in Buckingham Palace. His codename is Tony, but that's not of any real use. The other… I was never able to get anything solid. He came through London recently, but all I could find out was his name. Kim Philby."

The name was oddly familiar to Midori, although she couldn't place it, but Suzume had suddenly gone very pale, and she and Lawrence shared a glance. "Are you absolutely certain?" she asked.

"Obviously, you have no solid reason to believe me," Aleksandr said. "But yes, I am. Philby is a Soviet agent."

"Christ, he's tipped as a future chief of the service," Larry said, weakly.

"You must know this isn't going to do much without you to back it up," Suzume said, looking intently at Aleksandr again. "I'll make sure it gets to the right people, but what am I supposed to say? 'Remember my niece who had the George Cross and five years' service in MI6 until she mysteriously disappeared recently? Well, she fled the country with her lover who was in Soviet intelligence, but they gave me this before they left'. I might as well say I got it from Father Christmas."

Aleksandr slid an arm around Midori's waist; it was a possessive gesture, but a comforting one. "Frankly, I don't give a damn if it does any good at all. I gathered this information for Midori's sake, to make sure I would be valuable to your government. I showed it to you so you would know how very serious our situation is right now. What you do with it after we're gone is none of my concern." Then he tightened his grip and used a tone of voice Midori had only heard from him a few times before, the cool voice of a soldier, a killer. "Assuming, of course, that you do intend to help us."

Suzume looked like she had something just as steely to say in response, but Larry broke in for her. "Midori is family," he said, smoothly. "Of course we'll help you. If this is…" and his gaze dropped to Midori's face, searching. "If this is what she wants."

"I don't want to leave London," Midori said, "but I can't leave Aleksandr. Not again."

Niran made a muffled squeaking noise and then suddenly he was hugging Midori - and Aleksandr, too, by virtue of his refusal to let Midori go. "I can't believe you've been having this incredibly dramatic life for years and you didn't even tell me," he muttered into Midori's jacket. "I thought you were such a bore, I felt ashamed to call you my best friend. If you don't write to me, I am going to hunt you down and talk about Gödel numbers to everyone you care about."

Midori couldn't help a little laugh. "I don't even know where we're going, or how or when. But I'll try."

"Assuming I can get hold of the right person, I think we can sort out the where." When Midori slipped out of Niran's embrace to look at her, Suzume was regarding her with an expression of exasperated fondness, with what almost seemed like a touch of admiration. "Since I'm sure we'll be getting saddled with the eventual bill, I'm going to use your telephone to place some international calls, Midori."

Aleksandr kept his arm around Midori as they sat back down on the sofa, Niran squeezing in on Midori's other side and Larry taking the armchair, looking thoroughly wrung out already. It was getting on for eight in the evening now and Midori wondered if she ought to offer everyone something to eat. Not that they had a great deal in the kitchen. Out in the hall, Suzume was holding a series of conversations in French, presumably with various different exchange operators, but Midori had it half tuned out. Aleksandr was stroking her side, leaning his weight ever so slightly against Midori's shoulder, and Midori remembered the dusty backstage of the theatre in Berlin where she'd slept fitfully with her head in Aleksandr's lap, where Dobroslav and his colleagues had shown them such kindness. She knew, thanks to Suzume, that Dobroslav had survived the war, but Midori had never thought to try and contact him again. She wished she had. Wherever Dobroslav's home country was, it was probably behind the Soviet line now, and harder to reach out to by the day.

"Merde, alors," Suzume swore, loudly, and she heard her start to dial again. This time, she didn't seem to need to wait as long, and after only a single brisk conversation with an operator, she began, in very business-like French. "Lutz. It's Coryphée. Yes, well, I'm quite surprised to be able to get hold of you in your hotel room at this time on a Friday. No, be quiet. You're retired when I say you're retired, and no sooner. Don't think I won't call your mother!" Her footsteps sounded on the floorboards as she paced. "Listen, it's very useful that you're in Paris - I need you to help some friends of mine. A friend of yours too, actually, because I'm sure you remember Nightingale. Well, if you want to know what she's done, you can ask her yourself. Can I give her this number, or - ? It should be some time tomorrow afternoon, I should think, Sunday morning at the very latest. Wonderful. Well, if I'm ever in Geneva, you can call that favour in. Okay. Goodnight."

There was a moment's pause, and then Suzume reappeared at the door to the sitting room, walking over to hand Midori a piece of paper with a telephone number written on it. "You remember Lutz, I take it? If you can make it to Paris, this is the number for the Hotel Chopin, where he's staying. He's agreed to accompany you into Switzerland, and his family can help you with your documentation once you get there. It's probably the closest you'll get to being safe in a country without leaving Europe."

"And it's not illegal in Switzerland," Niran added quietly. Midori turned to look at him, confused, and he gulped, gaze averted, while his cheeks reddened furiously. "Being homosexual. I mean, I doubt they throw you a parade or anything, but you can't be imprisoned for it. Not like here. So maybe I’ll… maybe I’ll come visit you someday?" He squeezed Midori's arm and she thought of every night out they'd spent together, of the deep, dark undercurrent of fear that ran beneath all of his smiles and his bravado.

"I’ll keep a room ready, just for you," she said hopefully, and Niran nodded.

"Good girl."

Midori looked around the room again, at her home of five years, at the people who had been her constant through all of them, until her gaze settled on Aleksandr. "I suppose we'd better pack."

*

All along the train carriage, the doors were slamming closed, and then there was a whistle from the guard on the platform, an answering one from the engine, and they were away. Aleksandr pressed his face to the compartment window, looking back along the long, dark platform to where the weak lights of the station concourse gleamed. This was the last he would see of London, probably for the rest of his life. On the seat across from him, Midori had a timetable booklet unfolded in her lap and a sheet of paper sitting next to it with the very rough travel itinerary that they had worked out. This was the last train out of Victoria Station, which would take them down to Dover, and, early in the morning, they would take a ferry across the English Channel to Calais. From Calais, they would need to find a train on to Paris, where Midori and Suzume's mysterious Swiss friend would be meeting them. From Paris, they would head to Switzerland, and an entirely new life.

When they woke that morning, they had lingered in bed a little too long and talked about maybe going to the cinema at the weekend, or finding somewhere interesting to go out to dinner. And now the flat, that soft, warm bed, all the comfortable accoutrements of a place that had been their shared home for a year, were gone forever. They had three suitcases between them, filled with clothes and a few books, two lives condensed down to the smallest amount of space possible.

"I can hear you blaming yourself, Aleksandr," Midori said, not looking up from her lap. "This isn't your fault. I didn't spot your agent tailing me, either."

"Can't a man self-recriminate in peace around here?" he grumbled, and Midori laughed.

"I know I'm going to feel sad about this in the future. Probably very soon. But right now… aren't you a little bit excited? To be doing this together. That whatever happens now, we'll be together, with nothing standing between us anymore." She slid her feet over to rest between Aleksandr's and smiled at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Aleksandr caught sight of the Thames glimmering with the silver of the moon and the gold of gas light as they crossed over it. In the inside pocket of his jacket, centimetres from his heart, he could feel the shape of the pair of rings he had bought in anticipation of their being separated.

The weight of everything that had happened to them both in the last day was huge, but somehow those three syllables could bear all of it. Together. He had decided months ago that it was the only thing that mattered, and Midori agreed with him. Aleksandr nudged at Midori's leg with the toe of his shoe and smiled back.

Steam from the engine streamed past the window, obscuring the flicker of lights as they travelled south and east through the city and the buildings grew further apart. Midori had folded the itinerary back into her coat pocket and was now checking over both of their passports and counting through the cash that they'd pooled. Suzume had yelled at her until she accepted a handful of notes from her and Larry, and Midori had, for some reason, had a small amount of French francs stashed away, which should tide them over in Calais until they could find somewhere to change their money.

Aleksandr let her reassure herself with double-checking, half his attention still on the dark English suburbs rolling past the window. He'd lived in London for nearly two years but barely left the city itself, and this was probably his last chance to see anything of the country. Somewhere behind them, his former comrades would be making plans, Popovich no doubt setting his agents in search of a Japanese woman in the intelligence services, but he and Midori were slipping away into the night together, out of the clutches of history, at last.

The thought had first come to him the day he decided to defect, and here was the reality. They had lived their lives as synecdoches, lonely people bearing whole nations on their backs, but now all that was left to carry were a few suitcases of their belongings and the dream they shared between them. Moonlight flickered against the window as the train passed under an arbour of trees.

*

It was several hours and many tiny, dark rural stations later when the train pulled into Dover in the small hours of the morning. They alighted with their suitcases and wandered out of the station into the town. It seemed even more war-ravaged than London, the husks of buildings still dotted amongst the whole ones and the moon picking out the shape of a hulking castle on a hill to the north, like some time-worn sentinel. Down at the docks, they found an all-night café and spent the rest of the night smoking and drinking awful coffee and watching the boats in the harbour slowly rise on the tide.

Midori kept a very tight lid on it, but Aleksandr could feel the agitation radiating off her as they bought their ferry tickets and headed for the small queue for passport control.

"Do you need another cigarette?" he asked quietly.

"I need us to be on the fucking boat already," Midori said out of the side of her mouth. "This is an island, Aleksandr. There's only so many ways to get off it."

"Well, if we fuck this up, let's steal a dinghy and row for it."

Midori snorted with nervous laughter and Aleksandr patted her on the back, then stepped forward to present the fake Polish passport under which he'd entered the country in 1947. The gentleman in the booth barely gave it a glance before waving him on into the waiting area.

Once they'd stowed their luggage, Midori tugged at the elbow of Aleksandr's coat sleeve and led him out from the passenger lounge and onto the deck of the ferry. There were only a few other foot passengers, and a handful more going by car, and no-one else seemed to want to brave either the early morning wind or the steam already starting to pour from the ship's stacks, so they had the outside entirely to themselves.

They ended up standing at the stern railing, looking back over the slowly awakening town, Midori sheltering her lighter with a hand so they could both dip their cigarettes into the flame. Aleksandr exhaled smoke with a sigh as the ferry gave out an almighty groan and began to pull away from the dock. He could feel the exhaustion of a long day and a night without sleep beginning to creep up on him, but for now, the cool air kept it at bay.

"I'm going to miss it," Midori said, leaning forward onto the railing and taking a slow, contemplative drag. "I didn't ever really want to be British. I just wanted to do what was right, and they wanted far too much from me because of it. But I'm going to miss it, all the same."

"Yeah," Aleksandr said. There was something about the way the morning light and shadow played across Midori's face that made his heart ache and, as he leaned down on the railing beside her, he felt the rings shift in his jacket pocket again and thought suddenly of the inscription that ran around the inside of one of them. Yes. This was the time. As the ferry drew further away from land, he could see the famous white cliffs stretching away in either direction, the rising sun painting them in all the colours of fire. There was a flock of gulls following in the wake of the ship and, at any other time, their high, wheeling calls might have reminded him of Leningrad. But this was a moment all of its own.

When they'd both finished their cigarettes, Midori stood up and started to move away from the railing, but Aleksandr caught her by the arm.

"Wait, Midori," he said. "A few months ago, when we were thinking that I would have to move out of the flat for a while, I bought something for you to have as a memento when we did. For both of us to have, actually. So I think it's time to give it to you now."

Midori frowned curiously as Aleksandr unbuttoned his coat and then reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. The almost-pair of rings were warm where they'd sat against his body for hours. He took Midori's hand and pressed one into her palm, and Midori looked down at it, then back up into Aleksandr's face, with eyes so wide and dark and beautiful that he knew he could get lost in them and never, ever want to be found.

"It's got an inscription," Midori said quietly, picking up the ring very carefully.

"Yes, it came like that when I bought it." He had wondered since, from time to time, about the original owner of the ring, about the circumstances that had led to it being in that pawn shop window on the day that Aleksandr would pass by. Fate was something Aleksandr preferred to defy than follow, but it had been briefly kind to him.

Midori held the ring up, the English coastline framed inside it as she read aloud, "'Tomorrow, when the world is free'. It's from that song."

"Well, the setting seemed appropriate."

Midori looked at him again, deep and serious, and then she stepped in and made the gap between them almost too close for a public space. "Aleksandr, if this is a question… the answer is yes. Yes, every day. For the rest of my life."

Aleksandr felt his heart lift on the sea wind and soar up and up, into the sky on wide, unbroken wings. "I - it was a question," he said, "but it was my answer, too. Not just to ask if you would. But to say that I do." He held his own ring close against his palm and reached out to take Midori's from her, then took hold of her right hand and slid the ring into its rightful place on her finger. "I do," he said again. "For every tomorrow. Until the world ends."

He could see the emotion welling over in Midori's eyes as she copied Aleksandr's actions, taking the ring from his hand and sliding it onto his finger. It was a little tight, and might need adjusting, but the subtle weight of it against his skin was the best thing he had ever felt in his life. Midori squeezed his hand slightly before letting go.

"As I understand it," Aleksandr said, "at this point we're supposed to kiss."

Midori smiled, and turned back towards the great cliffs of Dover growing smaller and smaller behind them. She took her hat off, the wind immediately whipping through her hair, and raised her right hand against the horizon. The sunlight flashed on the metal of her ring.

"Let's go to the bow. Kiss me when we can see France."

*

The trouble with making a romantic escape under the cover of darkness was that, eventually, the lack of sleep would catch up with you, and do it hard. Midori felt groggy and more than a little nauseous as she dragged herself and two of their suitcases down onto the platform at the Paris Gare du Nord. It was just past noon and, hours after their meagre breakfast in Calais, she was ravenously hungry, but she wasn't sure she would actually be able to keep down anything she ate.

"Oh, God," Aleksandr said behind her, sounding as terrible as Midori felt. "I think I might have forgotten how to speak French."

Midori could sympathise. Even after speaking little besides English for five years, she knew she could still switch to Japanese or German at the drop of a hat, but while she could more-or-less understand the rapid conversations that had surrounded them since they had disembarked the ferry at Calais, summoning the right vocabulary from her own mind and getting it out of her mouth was another thing entirely. Changing countries was not a good thing to do when sleep-deprived.

"We need to find a telephone," she said as they came off the platform and onto the concourse. There were sooty-feathered pigeons flitting amongst the crowds, tinny announcements of arrivals and departures ringing to the metal rafters overhead. They were carried along aimlessly in the throng of other travellers until they neared the ticket office, and Aleksandr patted her shoulder and pointed to a row of wooden phone booths.

"So who is this Mr Lutz, anyway?" Aleksandr asked, as Midori rooted in her pockets for enough centimes.

"I think the better question is who isn't he. When I met him during the war, he was a spy and a people-smuggler, but apparently that was just a side gig to being a figure skater and now a two-time Olympic silver medallist. His father is a Swiss diplomat who used to work for the League of Nations, so I think he has some fingers in that pie, too."

"And here I am, all red-eyed and unshaven," Aleksandr said sadly, as Midori slipped into the booth and pushed some coins into the slot before dialling the number Suzume had given her.

"Bonjour," she said to the receptionist at Raphaël's hotel, "ah, je voudrais parler avec Monsieur Salzner. Votre client? Je m'appelle Mademoiselle Rossignol." Why did French have to have so many complicated 'r' sounds? It should stop having them until Midori had had some sleep, or at least another few cups of coffee. She drummed her fingers on the shelf inside the booth as the receptionist took her time connecting them.

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle Rossignol," came an old familiar voice at last. "Ça fait longtemps, eh?"

"Raphaël, you speak English, don't you? Oder... wir können Deutsch sprechen?"

"English is… bearable. I take it you've arrived in Paris, then."

"Yes, we're at the Gare du Nord."

"'We'?" Raphaël sounded surprised. "I didn't realise this was going to be a ménage. How exciting. Well, if you're too tired to speak French then I suppose I had better come and get you. Wait for me at the entrance to the metro."

*

Raphaël hardly seemed any older at all when he came up the stairs into the main station, wearing the same glasses with gold-wrought frames and tailored grey wool coat as he had years before, in Switzerland. He seized Midori by the shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks, and then turned to Aleksandr.

"You can have a kiss, too, if you like, but I think we should at least be introduced first."

Aleksandr tipped his hat. "Aleksandr Sobolevski. You must be Mr Lutz."

"Raphaël, please. I loathe that codename. You do a double jump once and nobody wants to talk about anything else ever again. And Aleksandr, hmm?" He turned back towards Midori. "So this is the lucky gentleman you were always talking about in your sleep." Midori blushed, but Aleksandr's eyes sparkled with delight.

"So I'll ask you what I asked Coryphée," Raphaël said. "What on earth did you do now, Miss Takamori? Last I heard, you were practically the toast of London, but now you're fleeing the country?"

"It's my fault," Aleksandr cut in swiftly. "I'm being pursued by my former MGB colleagues for treason against the Soviet Union, and they know Midori's identity too, so it was no longer safe for either of us to remain in Britain."

Raphaël looked at him for a long moment as if anticipating a punchline, then looked back at Midori, who sighed.

"He's not joking."

"Well," Raphaël said, with only the slightest roll of his eyes, "my skills were mostly geared for evading Germans, but I think I can handle Russians, too. I've reserved a room for you at the Chopin - don't worry, they'll pretend not to notice you're sharing – so, once you've dropped off your luggage and freshened up, we can see about making you both look a little different. My ice exhibition is over, but I've still got some business in Paris for the next few days, so you'll need to blend in."

*

It was a few hours and a lot of coffee later that Midori found herself seated in the window of a Parisian barbershop, watching as Raphaël and the moustachioed barber held an animated conversation about Aleksandr's hair. Midori's was shoulder length, so there wasn't much she was willing to do to change it beyond styling it differently, but Aleksandr's long hair, even tied back in its usual bun and hidden under his hat, was something any Soviet agents in France would surely know to look out for. It would be strange to see him with short hair again, like he'd had when they met for the very first time and Midori had thought him only another Nazi to be avoided as much as possible.

"Midori."

She blinked at the sound of her name, and got up from the seat by the window to come over to where Aleksandr was beckoning her from the barber's chair. Raphaël and the barber continued, apparently unheeding, as Midori crouched down next to him. Aleksandr smiled.

"When I've actually had some sleep I'll probably remember properly, but… there's a story about a man who had unnatural strength because his hair was long, but his lover cut it off and he became an ordinary man again. Do you know it?"

"I've never heard of it."

"Mmm. Maybe it was a novel you haven't read. But, anyway, I was just thinking about it. It must have been a relief. To let go of a burden like that, for someone you love. When I was a young man, I thought there wasn't anything I could aspire to more than making my mark on history - it was why I left university to enlist in the army, why I leapt at the chance to join the intelligence service. Now I know there's much bigger things to aim for." He pressed his hand to Midori's face, warm skin with a hint of metal. "Thank you for that. For everything."

Before Midori could respond, the barber was shooing her and Raphaël both away, reaching for his comb and a pair of scissors. Aleksandr turned to face the mirror in front of him and closed his eyes, and his silvery-blond hair began to fall to the floor piece by piece.

*

They passed three days in Paris in relative peace. French came to them both more easily with rest, aided by the fact that most people refused to speak to them in any other language. The weekend slid into Monday and neither MI6 officers nor Soviet agents came to drag them back across the Channel. They walked along the Seine, took shelter from the weather in covered streets, steadfastly ignored the newspapers and, at night, Midori ran her hands through Aleksandr's freshly-cut hair and kissed him absolutely everywhere. In the hazy light of the evenings, tinged with the cold of the oncoming autumn, it seemed as if the city existed in another world entirely.

It was an illusion that couldn't last.

"If you keep touching it so much, it'll start to fall out," Aleksandr said, but still tilted his head into Midori's hand. His hair was cropped short all the way around the back and sides and left longer on the top in a way clearly intended to be styled up into a coif, but that allowed it to fall forward loosely into his eyes. They were lingering in bed late into their fourth morning in Paris, the pull of hunger not yet strong enough to draw them out of the cosy warmth of one another's embrace.

"It's not me that's doing that," Midori said with a smile. "Don't you think it's getting a little thinner on its own?"

"How dare you." Aleksandr's face crumpled melodramatically. "I've never been so insulted. I think you should apologise at once. Thoroughly. Get out of bed. Stop speaking to me until I deem your apologies worthy of a response."

With a giggle, Midori leaned in to press a soft kiss to Aleksandr's throat, just below his jaw. "Just how thoroughly are we talking? Me apologising, I mean."

Before Aleksandr could respond there was a knock at the door, and they both groaned.

"Ignore it," Midori said, but the knock came again, more insistently, and Aleksandr clambered out of bed with a sigh, pulling on a pair of trousers before ambling over to the door. As soon as he opened it, Raphaël pushed his way inside, fully dressed and with his face dark and troubled.

"I'm sorry to disturb your lovely morning, lady and gentleman," he said in clipped, strained French, as Midori sat up and pulled the sheets and blankets up around her chest, "but there are some distinctly shifty looking men in the lobby. Speaking in Russian."

*

"Is there another way out of the hotel?" Aleksandr asked, slotting bullets into the magazine of his pistol as he sat in a hard chair by the door. Midori was still frantically packing up their things, only half-dressed. The Hotel Chopin was tucked into a corner of one of Paris's many covered shopping streets, which had seemed quaint and romantic when they arrived and now seemed like the worst idea ever.

"I imagine there's a staff entrance, but I've no idea where," Raphaël said. He was leaning against the wall in a manner that looked extremely nonchalant, but Aleksandr could see the hints of tension in his body, athlete's muscles coiled and ready to spring. "I suppose we could corner a maid or a bellboy and ask, but then we'd probably have to explain that their lobby is full of Soviet agents and I have a feeling that might cause a scene."

"Because going down there ourselves and getting into a shootout wouldn't cause a scene at all."

"Who's getting into a shootout, Monsieur Soldier?" Raphaël raised his eyebrows. "Do you know how many people I walked right under the noses of the Gestapo and out of Germany, without ever firing a shot?"

"So your plan is that we just walk past them?" Aleksandr turned around in an attempt to share an incredulous glance with Midori, but she was busy putting on her tights.

"Surely you know as well as I do that, in our business, there's no substitute for sheer bravado. I'll go down and check us all out, then I'll come back up to get you and we all walk out as if nothing at all is the matter and we're all meant to be here. Then we very calmly proceed to the Gare de l'Est and very calmly buy some tickets and very, very calmly get the fuck out of here and onto the next train heading for Geneva."

"And what if they very calmly follow us?"

"If there was ever a transport network built for losing a tail, it's the Paris metro." He stood up from the wall and came over to pat Aleksandr on the shoulder. "The biggest obstacle right now is any of us losing our cool. Have a little faith in me, please. If I got Mademoiselle Takamori there out of Nazi Germany, I think I can get us all out of France."

Aleksandr turned around again to look at Midori, who was now dressed in everything but her jacket and was loading the chambers of her own revolver. She glanced up, eyes serious behind her glasses. "I trust him, Aleksandr. Raphaël knows what he's doing."

Aleksandr sighed. "Okay."

"There we go, sport." Raphaël patted Aleksandr on the shoulder again and then straightened his jacket as he made for the door. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes. Think happy thoughts, people."

Once he was gone, Aleksandr holstered his pistol and went around to where Midori was sitting on the bed, and kissed the top of her head. "By this evening, we'll be in Switzerland," he said, as encouragingly as he could. "The start of our new life."

Midori tipped her head back and Aleksandr kissed her properly this time, gentle and slow. "I'm nervous, too, Aleksandr," she said after, "but I did do this once before." She stood up and slipped her revolver into its shoulder holster before putting on her jacket and patting the spot where the gun sat, hidden. "There's plenty that I'm prepared to do again, for you." She reached for Aleksandr's right hand and brought it to her lips, kissing his knuckle just over the ring. Aleksandr felt warmth blossom in his chest, despite the heavy tension in the room.

The door banged open and they both jumped, but it was only Raphaël, this time wearing his coat and hat and carrying a suitcase of his own. "Ready to go?" he asked. "Since I made the clearly grievous error of not bringing a weapon on a routine business trip, you two take one suitcase each and keep your shooting hands free. Not that you'll need them, because we're going to be absolutely fine, but… well, you know." He picked up the largest of Midori and Aleksandr's three cases and gestured for them to follow suit.

He led them down the staircase in single file, Aleksandr bringing up the rear. Even before they descended the last flight into the lobby, Aleksandr could hear two hushed voices speaking in Russian; he caught the word 'Japanese' and leaned forward to whisper in Midori's ear.

"Pull your hat down low. Don't let them see your face."

The lobby was small, only a few feet between the staircase and the front door. They were so close. Aleksandr kept his eyes firmly trained on Midori's back, resisting the horrible urge to turn and look at the two men seated opposite the reception desk. Raphaël was at the door. A little further and they'd be safely away. Just a little further -

"Sobolevski!" barked a voice behind him. "Oстановись, вероломная собака!"

"Time to go!" Raphaël yelled, and kicked the hotel door open, careering out into the passageway, Midori hot on his heels. Aleksandr pulled his gun out of its holster as he followed behind them, glancing back over his shoulder. The morning crowd was giving them a little cover, but in the distance he could still see two dark-coated men in pursuit, shoving through groups of shoppers who recoiled at the sight of two armed and angry-looking men in their midst.

They burst out onto a back street and Raphaël immediately started jostling the door handles of parked cars. "No time for the fucking metro," he said, "let's just hope that some idiot - thank fuck." He yanked open the driver-side and rear passenger doors of a sleek little vehicle, threw the suitcases into the back, and then produced what looked like a very complicated folding knife from his coat pocket. "Think you can give me some cover while I get the engine going?" he asked, already slipping into the drivers' seat.

"I've got you," Aleksandr said, stowing his own suitcase away before crouching down on the pavement facing back the way they'd come, cocking his pistol. "Get in the car, Midori."

"Are you joking?" Midori had gone around to the other side of the car after shoving her suitcase into the back, but apparently only to use it for cover, her revolver in both hands as she leaned over the roof. Before Aleksandr could argue, there was a great clatter and their two pursuers emerged onto the street too, looking around frantically. Aleksandr saw their faces change as the two men spotted them but, a split second later, he heard the crack of a gun firing and one of the mens' hats soared clean off his head. Both of them ducked back into the passage.

"You're supposed to aim lower than that," Aleksandr called, trying not to sound too impressed, then ducked instinctively as a bullet whistled over the top of the car. He aimed towards the passage entrance and, when one of the Russian agents re-emerged, he fired once, twice, and was rewarded with a muffled cry of pain.

"If I wanted critique, I'd have asked for it!" Midori replied tersely.

A bullet whizzed into the tyre of the next car along and it started to slowly bleed air, hissing loudly. Any minute now, they were sure to start to hear sirens in the distance, and if there was one thing that would make this situation infinitely worse, it would be the police getting involved. He saw movement at the entranceway and shot again, but it was a feint, and before he could get another shot off, one of the men stepped out properly and fired, and this time he heard Midori yelp with pain and drop down behind the car.

In that moment, it seemed to Aleksandr like everything in the world slowed to a crawl. He felt his muscles suddenly flood with energy, time unspooling around him as he stood up in a single fluid motion and fired. Once, the man staggered backwards. Twice, he dropped to his knees, something red and wet spilling out onto the pavement. Three times, and then there was a sudden roaring in his ears as the car behind him spluttered into life. Reality burst back in with a cold flush of exhaustion and the sound of Raphaël yelling his name, and he stumbled into the back seat and then they were pulling away from the kerb. Midori was in the front seat, clutching her left arm, and Raphaël was hunched over the wheel.

"Midori," Aleksandr cried, leaning forward, "Midori, did he hurt you, is it bad, darling, sweet Mi - "

"I'm fine," she said, sounding distinctly not fine. "I think the bullet only grazed me. It just really fucking hurts."

"Yes, well, it's supposed to," Aleksandr said stupidly, and Midori glared at him over the seat. "Here," he said more helpfully, pulling a clean handkerchief from his trouser pocket, "you need to put pressure on it, and keep it elevated. When we can stop somewhere, we'll use my tie as a tourniquet."

"I don't suppose either of you brought a map?" Raphaël asked pleasantly, making an extremely hard right turn that almost had Aleksandr tumbling on top of all their luggage.

"Are you telling me you don't know where we're going?" Midori hissed.

"What do I look like, a Frenchman? Only idiots drive in Paris."

"Can't you just follow the street signs?" Aleksandr asked desperately.

"Oh. Yes, good idea." Raphaël glanced back over his shoulder with a slightly mad grin. "You should consider doing this for a living, Monsieur Sobolevski."

*

They ditched the car in a back street near the Gare de l'Est, Aleksandr's now completely blood-soaked handkerchief abandoned in the front seat. Midori had a shallow wound that ran horizontally just above her elbow, the blood and the bullet damage both wrecking her expensive coat and jacket, but it didn't look deep enough to need stitches and, once Raphaël had cleaned it out with brandy from his hip flask, they managed to jury-rig a tourniquet and dressing out of handkerchiefs and ties.

"You don't need to fuss over me," Midori said, as they waited in a secluded corner with the suitcases while Raphaël went to buy their tickets. "I told you, I'm fine."

"Who here has been shot before? That's right, me and not you. We should see about getting you a hot cup of tea once we're on the train, it's good for shock and you lost quite a bit of blood, you need your fluids." Aleksandr took Midori's right hand and squeezed it, running his thumb over the gold ring. "Let me fuss a little. It's my job now - the only one I've still got."

Midori looked down at the floor, and then up again into Aleksandr's eyes. "You killed him. The man who shot me."

"I did." He'd got his share of kills during the Battle of Berlin, and a few more on the long way home to Russia, but he'd never had quite this same visceral sense of the rightness of his actions, even when the men he was killing were Nazis. It was, he supposed, the difference between killing for one's country, and killing for one's love.

"Good." There was no equivocation in Midori's face, a little too pale but beautiful as ever. Aleksandr wanted terribly to kiss her. He would do it again, would run down all the strange and twisting corridors of his life over and over, gladly, just to be standing here with the woman he loved, on the brink of something almost like freedom. He glanced around them and was leaning in to go ahead and kiss her anyway, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Now, don't be alarmed, my amorous friends," Raphaël said, handing out their tickets, "but there is the tiniest chance that I may have overheard another group of gentlemen speaking in Russian near the ticket office."

"The vaguer you make it, the more alarming it is," Midori said grumpily. Being shot really did not agree with her. But Raphaël only gave her a winning smile and started to pick up the suitcases.

"It's that kind of optimistic spirit that will surely get us safely out of here, Mademoiselle Midori. Come along, now, international departures are this way."

Aleksandr couldn't help glancing around as they made their way across the wide open station concourse. There was, of course, no-one with a giant sign over his head that said 'MGB agent' but, after everything that had already happened to them that morning, almost everyone looked potentially dangerous to him. Any overcoat could be concealing a gun, any hat pulled low could be hiding the intent to kill. Midori's coat sleeve still gaped open messily over her gunshot wound, and it was sure to draw the eye of anyone who glanced their way.

"All passengers for Dijon and Geneva, train now boarding at platform twenty-four," called a station guard ahead of them. "Platform twenty-four for the 11:05 service to Geneva via Dijon!" Raphaël made a smooth turn towards the platform in question.

"Sobolevski!"

He tensed up, still walking forward. The station was crowded. Surely they wouldn't - couldn't - do anything here. Aleksandr could see two uniformed police officers further down the concourse, batons at their belts.

"Sobolevski! Oстановись!"

He didn't turn around. He didn't look back. He was done, completely and utterly done, with obeying their orders. Raphaël was at the head of the platform now, their south-eastward-bound train curving down the track towards the bright sunlight at the far end of the station. Aleksandr could hear the sounds of a scuffle behind him, sharp words in French. He kept walking. Raphaël stopped by one of the open carriage doors and stepped up into it, glancing back over their heads and smiling.

"I think your friends have found themselves in a spot of trouble, Monsieur Sobolevski."

Midori's eyes flashed with something bright and amused as she followed Raphaël onto the train, but Aleksandr didn't give a single backwards glance before pulling the carriage door closed behind him with a heavy slam.

They were going home.

[friendshipmelody]

Oc character ages so far.

Yukari Suzume-45

Akira Suzume-23

Anh Luu-44

Midori-54 ( 26 )

Thomas Jackson-24

Jack Morris-50

Nationalities

Yukari and Akira-Japanese

Anh-Vietnamese

Midori, Thomas, and Jack-American

Sexuality

Yukari and Akira-Bisexual

Anh and Midori-Homosexual

Thomas and Jack-Heterosexual

Relationships

Yukari and Akira-Mother and Son.

Yukari and Jack-Ex lovers.

Midori and Anh-Lovers.

Yukari and Anh-Childhood friends.

Anh and Akira-Brother figure.

Akira and Thomas-best friends.

Thomas and Anh-reluctant acquaintances.

Jack and Akira-Father and son.

[numahachi]

Do you think Yuuko's mom and/or Obaba might be the landlady from that Helvetica Standard 4koma with the tengu?

Absolutely yes I mean just look at these hopeless bird gamblers

[devoti]

𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧

ꗃ 𓂃 . 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆

jojo's bizarre adventure ☆

sonny boy

mashle: magic and muscles

ranking of kings ☆

akudama drive

durarara!!

link click ☆

zom 100: bucket list of the dead

id: invaded

ꗃ 𓂃 . 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐖𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑

haikyuu ☆

yuri on ice

sk8 to infinity ☆

life lessons with uramichi-oniisan ☆

kakegurui ☆

one punch man ☆

toilet-bound hanako-kun

gakuen babysitters

kotaro lives alone ☆

blue period ☆

stars align ☆

ryman's club

black clover ☆

those snow white notes ☆

mireuko-chan ☆

ya boy kongming

darwin's game

tomodachi game

classroom of the elite

noragami

hunter x hunter ☆

dr stone

spy x family ☆

chainsaw man ☆

case study of vanitas

my hero academia

blue lock

dorohedoro ☆

trigun stampede ☆

the great pretender ☆

demon slayer ☆

vinland saga ☆

hell's paradise ☆

my star

made in abyss ☆

gangsta ☆

golden kamuy ☆

jujutsu kaisen ☆

undead murder farce

bungo stray dogs ☆

sousou no frieren ☆

to your eternity ☆

heavenly delusion ☆

the apothecary diaries ☆

ꗃ 𓂃 . 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

kazetsuyo ☆ blast on tempest ☆ mononoke ☆ cencoroll ☆ akudama drive ☆ vivy ☆ sing a bit of harmony ☆ takt op destiny ☆ hellsing ☆ puella magi madoka magica ☆ burn the witch ☆ in this corner of the world ☆ from the new world ☆ princess mononoke ☆ children who chase lost voices ☆ weathering with you ☆ voices of a distant star ☆ kamiari month ☆ ponyo ☆ tokyo 24th ward ☆ karakuri circus ☆ please take my brother away ☆ afterstory

ꗃ 𓂃 . 𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐃

one piece (ep19)

gintama (ep2)

bleach

serial experiments lain

boogiepop and others

psycho pass

ꗃ 𓂃 . 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐃

the disastrous life of saiki. k ☆

erased ☆

paranoia agent ☆

inuyashiki : last hero ☆

terror in resonance

colorful ☆

grave of the fireflies ☆

howl's moving castle ☆

spirited away ☆

my neighbour totoro ☆

assassination classroom ☆

life is hard for an otaku ☆

cowboy bebop

death parade ☆

samurai champloo ☆

the saga of tanya the evil

the way of the house-husband

devilman crybaby

death note ☆

the millionaire detective balance : unlimited ☆

91 days ☆

moriarty the patriot ☆

midori

paprika ☆

dororo ☆

wonder egg priority ☆

asobi asobase ☆

summer ghost ☆

monster ☆

free! ☆

children of the sea ☆

bubble

your name ☆

summer time rendering ☆

mob psycho 100 ☆

perfect blue ☆

lupin III ☆

buddy daddies ☆

sol levante

odd taxi ☆

babylon ☆

suzume no tojimari

haven't you heard? i'm sakamoto-kun

steins; gate ☆

blue literature

attack on titan ☆

migi and dali ☆

rainbow

cyberpunk edgerunners ☆

the boy and the heron ☆

neon genesis evangelion

click here to go to my manga reading list

[archival-account]

ENAMORED WITH THE SPARROW  | Makoto Tachibana AU/FF

CHARACTER: SUZUME ASAHINA

Suzume Asahina is a timid omega who prefers downtime spent with her books or walking on unknown mountain trails. She particularly doesn’t want to be involved into anything in the pack but her older cousins, Mitsune and Midori, often makes her tag along so that she won’t be alienated from her packmates (even though they happen to bully her a lot). 

She isn’t weak but she isn’t strong, either. She’s meek and she often seeks peace instead of quarrel amongst her undignified peers.

Though belonging to the lowest hierarchy in her pack, the Shadowstone, she just happened to be a potential mate - no, the most potential mate to a certain alpha of an allied pack, the Moondove, Makoto Tachibana.

[missmyloko]

What’s In a Book? Part 29

While going through my collection I managed to find a few books that have yet to be featured on here yet. I decided to go with this one as, upon further review, I noticed that it actually contained a wealth of information that I had previously ignored ^^;

Image of book’s cover courtesy of myself. Hana Akari: Showa Meigiren (はなあかり: 昭和名妓連) - Brilliant Flowers: The Showa Period’s Finest Geisha by Kobunshi Katsura (桂小文枝) (ISBN Unknown). Date of Publication: 1988 Language: Japanese and English (Some Essays and Names Only) Format: Hardcover Availability: Can be found up for auction on a fairly regular basis Price: Anywhere from $30 - $80 Errors: 0 This book is interesting, and that’s putting it mildly. Basically, it provides us with some of the best raw data for its time: The names of the most prominent geisha in each district of each city across all of Japan. It is a literal who’s who guide to the karyukai across the country in the late 1980s and is illuminating both in small essays that can be found at the front and back of the book explaining various schools and styles, but especially because it provides us with images, most in full color, of these amazing women.  The book overall is divided into regions which are then broken down further from there. The regions, cities, and districts of each named geisha are: Part 1: Hokkaido (北海道) Set 1: Asahikawa (旭川) - Kofune (小舟) Set 2: Sapporo (札幌) - Onobu (お信), Itoko (い登子), Izumi (いづみ), and Charako (茶良子) Set 3: Otaru (小樽) - Komomo (小桃), Mametarō (豆太郎), Kiku (㐂久), and Gorō (吾朗) Set 4: Muroran (室蘭) - Chonko (﹅子) Set 5: Hakodate (函館) - Nantoki (喃登希) and Kohide (小ひで)  Part 2: Tohoku (東北) Set 1: Morioka (盛岡) - Tsutamaru (都多丸)   Set 2: Hanamaki (花巻) - Kimiko (君子) and Keiko (桂子) Set 3: Aomori (青森) - Chame (茶目) Set 4: Yamagata (山形) - Kochō (小蝶) and Kinta (金太)   Set 5: Akita (秋田) - Chiyogiku (千代菊) Set 6: Obara (小原) - Ikkyū (一休), Aki (秋), and Kogiku (小菊) Set 7: Fukushima (福島) - Sakura (さくら) and Hidemi (秀美) Part 3: Kanto (関東) Set 1: Takasaki (高崎) - Kiyoko (清子) Set 2: Kusatsu (草津) - Sankoma (三駒) and Harumi (春美)   Set 3: Sarugakyo (猿ヶ京) - Kikutaro (菊太郎), Koshizu (小静) Set 4: Minakami (水上) - Yutaka (ゆたか) Set 5: Oyama (大山) - Kunika (くに香) Set 6: Tokyo (東京) - Fumie (冨美江) and Wakaryū (若龍) Set 7: Yugawara (湯河原) - Okame (お加目), Matsue (松栄), and Taeko (多恵子) Part 4: Chubu (中部) Set 1: Niigata (新潟) - Chiyogiku (千代菊) Set 2: Takada (高田) - Kazuko (加津子) Set 3: Shibata (新発田) - Renko (れん子) Set 4: Kamidayamadatogura (上山田戸倉) - Senryū (泉竜), Suzuyakko (鈴奴), Saizō (才三), and Utamaru (歌丸) Set 5: Kamisuwa (上諏訪) - Chiyomaru (千代丸) Set 6: Isawa (石和) - Miki (美樹) and Koyakko (小奴) Set 7: Kōfu (甲府) - Misako (美佐子), Kimika (君香), and Hisayo (久代) Set 8: Inuyama (犬山) - Misako (みさ子) Set 9: Hamamatsu (浜松) - Gonza (権三), Ichitarō (市太郎), Otomi (乙美), Koman (小萬), Eiko (栄子), Hatsutarō (初太郎), Tsuruchiyo (鶴千代), Yasuyo (泰世), Sakura (佐久良), Sachiko (幸子), Toshie (利枝), Komomo (小百々), Momoko (百々子), Fumiya (二三弥), Mitsugiku (光菊), Azuma (吾妻), Akiko (明子), and Ichiha (市羽) Set 10: Kanazawa Higashi/East (金沢東) - Koman (小まん) Set 11: Kanazawa Kazuemachi (金沢主計町) - Hitoha (一葉) and Kyōko (京子) Set 12: Kanazawa Nishi/West (金沢西) - Mineko (峯子), Sachiyo (幸代), and Marichiyo (まり千代) Set 13: Fukui (福井) - Makiko (真㐂子) and Yurako (由良子) Set 14: Yuzawa (湯沢) - Katsumaru (勝丸) and Hiromi (弘美) Set 15: Nagoya (名古屋) - Fukuchiyo (福千代), Takako (敬子), Tsuruko (つる子), Mitsuyo (光代), Kiku (喜久), Emiya (英美弥), Sanchō (三長), Satoyo (里代), Mitsu (未津), Ayako (あや子), Kinmaru (金丸), Naoe (直枝), Fukuwaka (福若), Hisae (比三枝), Mako (間子), Yasuko (康子), Toshino (とし乃), Koie (鯉恵), Mariko (まり子), Katsuko (かつ子), Maiko (舞子), Kingyo (金漁), Hideka (秀佳), Chiyoe (千代江), and Motoko (素子) Part 5: Kinki (近畿) Set 1: Osaka (大阪) Part A: Osaka Minami (大阪南) - Yukiharu (雪春), Kikutsuru (菊つる), Kikue (菊恵), Rikimaru (力丸), Kinko (きん子), Yukiji (ゆき路), Kōjirō (廣二郎), Yoshiko (よし子), Terugiku (照菊), Midori (美登利), Hankō (はん幸), Kazumi (かず美), Yukie (ゆき恵), Yūka (勇花), Suzuka (鈴佳), Masako (まさ子), Fukuemi (福笑), Masachiyo (政千代), Kikufumi (菊二三), and Yūko (祐子). Part B: Osaka Horie (大阪堀江) - Temari (てまり) Part C: Osaka Shinmachi (大阪新町) - Hatsuko (はつ子) and Tamao (玉緒) Part D: Osaka Kitashinchi (大阪北新地) - Komaka (駒香), Umesada (梅さだ), Umetomi (梅十三), Suzume (寿々女), and Umemitsu (梅充). Set 2: Kyoto (京都) Part A: Gion Kobu (祇園甲部) - Komame (小まめ), Hisae (久栄), Katsuyū (かつ勇), Haruyū (春勇), Miyokazu (美代一), Fukusono (フク園), Satoharu (里���), Yoshigiku (義㐂久), Kōsono (晃園), Teruha (照葉), Mamekō (まめ晃), Fukuyū (福勇), Kanoko (かの子), Machiko (真知子), Kumiko (玖見子), Kohana (子花), Takayū (孝友), Teruchiyo (照千代), Takeha (竹葉), Nakako (奈加子), Mameyū (まめ勇), Sonoko (その子), Tomichiyo (斗美千代), Yoshimame (芳豆), Kofumi (小富美), Kanoju (かの寿), Mamechiyo (豆千代), Katsufuku (かつ福), Mameji (豆爾), Toyochiyo (豊千代), Katsuji (佳つ二), Ichigiku (市季久), Mamezuru (まめ鶴), Koman (小萬), Michiko (道子), Miyokichi (美与吉), Aika (愛香), Teruyo (照代), Fumichiyo (富美千代), Kikuharu (菊春), Masuko (ます子), Momoko (桃子), Kosode (小袖), Chōji (長治), Tomigiku (冨菊), Komasu (小ます), Emiji (恵美二), Dan-e (だん栄), Koyū (小ゆう), Yukiryō (幸良), Hanachiyo (花千代), Miyuki (美ゆき), Masaru (勝), Kanoji (かの次), Hiromi (廣美), Kotomi (小とみ), and Ainosuke (愛之介). Part B: Pontocho (先斗町) - Miyofuku (美代福), Hisakō (久幸), Raiha (来葉), Momiha (もみ葉), Ichiko (市子), Shinatomi (シナ富), Mameharu (豆治), Hisafumi (久富美), Ichisen (市扇), Mameyuki (豆幸), Umeyū (梅佑), Ichitoyo (市豊), Mameshizu (豆志津), Ichisono (市園), Mamechiyo (豆千代), Hisaroku (久ろく), Ichimitsu (市光), Momizuru (もみ鶴), Hide-e (英江), Tomizuru (富鶴), Emiju (笑寿), Fudeya (フデ哉), Miyosaku (ミヨ作), Ichihiro (市宏), and Shinateru (シナ照). Part C: Gion Higashi (祇園東) - Toyoji (豊治), Fumie (章栄), Chika (ちか), Tsurukazu (つる和), Tsunekazu (つね和), Tsunehisa (つね久), Masuko (ます子), Toyohisa (豊寿), and Masako (満佐子). Part D: Miyagawa Cho (宮川町) - Wakaharu (若晴). Kanae (叶恵), Fumichō (富美蝶), Mikiryū (三木竜), Wakachika (若千加), Fukukazu (ふく和), Toshiyū (敏祐), Suzuchiyo (鈴千代), Hinachō (雛蝶), Chikayoshi (千賀俊), Mieko (美恵子), Fukusome (冨久染), Tane-e (種栄), and Tanekazu (たね和). Part E: Kamishichiken (上七軒) - Tei (てい), Emi (恵美), Katsukiyo (勝㐂代), Tamafuku (玉福), Fukuzuru (福鶴), Hisazuru (久鶴), Tsuruzō (鶴三), Hisawaka (久若), Tamaryō (玉龍), Shimeyo (〆代), Katsumaru (勝丸), Naoko (尚子), Kokimi (小㐂美), and Kohan (小はん). Set 3: Nara (奈良) - Suzumi (須寿美) Set 4: Genrō (彦桹) - Kikuyū (菊勇) and Masaya (政弥). Set 5: Otsu (大津) - Omasa (おまさ) Set 6: Kinosaki (城崎) - Tomiyū (富勇) and Kanoko (佳乃子) Set 7: Wakayama (和歌山) - Kikuchiyo (菊千代) Set 8: Shirahama (白浜) - Tsutagiku (蔦菊) Set 9: Osaka Imasato (大阪今里) - Koito (小糸) and Kichihide (吉秀) Set 10: Imasato (今里) - Kichitama (吉玉) Set 11: Kyoto Shimabara (京都島原) - Hana Ōgi Tayū (花扇太夫) Part 6: Chūgoku (中国) and Shikoku (四国) Set 1: Tamatsukuri (玉造) - Naoko (尚子), Yae (八重), and Kishi (貴志). Set 2: Okayama (岡山) - Yakko (奴) and Chizu (知寿) Set 3: Takamatsu (高松) - Hamachiyo (浜千代) Set 4: Matsuyama (松山) - Ippei (一平) Set 5: Tokushima (徳島) - Fukuyo (福代) and Akiyo (明代) Set 6: Kochi (高知) - Kimiryū (君龍) and Sadamaru (貞丸) Part 7: Kyushu (九州) Set 1: Hakata (博多) - Mieko (美恵子) Set 2: Kurume (久留米) - Okiyo (お清) Set 3: Ureshino (嬉野) - Hisamatsu (久松), Komatsu (小松), Koshin (小新), Hisaryū (久竜), and Marikō (まり幸). Set 4: Isao (武雄) - Fumiya (文弥) Set 5: Beppu (別府) - Mitsugiku (光菊), Fujikatsu (ふじ勝), Umesono (梅園), and Tomiko (富子) Set 6: Kumamoto (熊本) - Ayako (あや子) Set 7: Kagoshima (鹿児島) - Aimaru (愛丸) The only areas that I noted are missing are some of the hot springs towns. I’m not too sure why they were skipped over, but it’s possible that the author did not have any connections to them. The most informative part that I admit I skipped initially is the small print under each geisha’s name: their natori specialty, natori teachers, and natori names. This means that we can trace back what schools were the main specialty of each region going back decades. Since this is invaluable for anyone studying geisha over time, I’ll write in what schools were followed, but I will keep names a secret. Districts are as follows: Part 1: Hokkaido (北海道) Set 1 Asahikawa (旭川) - Kineya (杵屋) Set 2: Sapporo (札幌) - Wakayagi (若柳) for dance and Tadeko (蓼胡) for song Set 3: Otaru (小樽) - Fujima (藤間) for dance and Tadeko (蓼胡), Kineya (杵屋), Kiyomoto (清元), Shunnichi (春日), and Tokiwazu (常磐津) for song. Set 4: Muroran (室蘭) - None Given Set 5: Hakodate (函館) - Tanaka (田中) for dance and Matsunaga (松永) for song. Part 2: Tohoku (東北) Set 1: Morioka (盛岡) - Tokiwazu (常磐津) for song. Set 2: Hanamaki (花巻) - Wakayagi (若柳) for dance and Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 3: Aomori (青森) - None Given. Set 4: Yamagata (山形) - Fujima (藤間) for dance.    Set 5: Akita (秋田) - None Given.  Set 6: Obara (小原) - None Given Set 7: Fukushima (福島) - None Given. Part 3: Kanto (関東) Set 1: Takasaki (高崎) - Hanayagi (花柳) for dance and Okayasu (岡安) for song. Set 2: Kusatsu (草津) -  Hanayagi (花柳) for dance.    Set 3: Sarugakyo (猿ヶ京) - Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 4: Minakami (水上) - Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 5: Oyama (大山) - Kineya (杵屋) Set 6: Tokyo (東京) - Taguchiko (田口湖) for dance and Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 7: Yugawara (湯河原) - Tanaka (田中) and Fujima (藤間) for dance and Tokiwazu (常磐津), Kineya (杵屋), and Tadeai (蓼相) for song. Part 4: Chubu (中部) Set 1: Niigata (新潟) - None Given. Set 2: Takada (高田) - None Given. Set 3: Shibata (新発田) - Okayasu (岡安) for song. Set 4: Kamidayamadatogura (上山田戸倉) - Bandō (坂東) for dance and Tōsha (藤舎), Shunnichi (春日), Kineya (杵屋), and Kiyomoto (清元) for song. Set 5: Kamisuwa (上諏訪) - Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 6: Isawa (石和) - Hanayagi (花柳) for dance and Mochizuki (望月) for song. Set 7: Kōfu (甲府) - Hanayagi (花柳) for dance and Kiyomoto (清元), Okayasu (岡安), and Nagami (長巳) for song. Set 8: Inuyama (犬山) - Nishikawa (西川) for dance and Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 9: Hamamatsu (浜松) - Fujima (藤間) and Fukuwara (福原) for dance and Kiyomoto (清元), Yoshimura (芳村), Shunnichi (春日), Nishikiharu (錦春), and Tokiwazu (常磐津) for song.    Set 10: Kanazawa East (金沢東) - Kamizaki (神崎) for dance. Set 11: Kanazawa Kazuemachi (金沢主計町) - Fujima (藤間) for dance and Kineya (杵屋) and Mochizuki (望月) for song. Set 12: Kanazawa Nishi/West (金沢西) - Nishikawa (西川) for dance and Tōsha (藤舎), Okayasu (岡安), and Kashida (堅田) for song. Set 13: Fukui (福井) - Fujima (藤間) for dance and Utazawa (哥沢) for song. Set 14: Yuzawa (湯沢) - None Given. Set 15: Nagoya (名古屋) - Nishikawa (西川) for dance and Kiyomoto (清元), Tokiwazu (常磐津), Sumida (住田), Kineya (杵屋), Kishizawa (岸沢), Shunnichi (春日), and Fujimatsu (ふじ松) for song. Part 5: Kinki (近畿) Set 1: Osaka (大阪) Part A: Osaka Minami (大阪南) - Onoe (尾上), Fujima (藤間), Bandō (坂東), and Hanayagi (花柳) for dance and Kiyomoto (清元), Kondo (今藤), Mochizuki (望月) and Tokiwazu (常磐津) for song. Part B: Osaka Horie (大阪堀江) - Nishikawa (西川) for dance. Part C: Osaka Shinmachi (大阪新町) - Nishikawa (西川) for dance and Kineya (杵屋), Shunnichi (春日), and Ogie (荻江) for song. Part D: Osaka Kitashinchi (大阪北新地) - Nishikawa (西川) and Hanayagi (花柳) for dance and Kineya (杵屋), Tamura (田村), Uji (宇治), Tokiwazu (常磐津), Tagawa (田川), Kiyomoto (清元), and Yoshimura (吉村) for song.  Set 2: Kyoto (京都) Part A: Gion Kobu (祇園甲部) - Inoue (井上) for dance. Part B: Pontocho (先斗町) - Onoe (尾上), Nishikawa (西川), and Wakayagi (若柳) for dance and Tōsha (藤舎), Kondo (今藤), Nakamura (中村), Ogie (荻江), Bungo (豊後), Kineya (杵屋), and Tokiwazu (常磐津) for song. Part C: Gion Higashi (祇園東) - Fujima (藤間) for dance and Tokiwazu (常磐津), Yanagi (柳), Nakamura (中村), Kineya (杵屋), and Tōsha (藤舎) for song. Part D: Miyagawa Cho (宮川町) - Umemoto (楳茂都), Wakayagi (若柳), and Rokugō (六鄕) for dance and Kondo (今藤), Bungo (豊後), Kiyomoto (清元), Yanagi (柳),  Yamakishi (山岸), Utazawa (哥沢), Tadeko (蓼胡), and Umeya (梅屋) for song.    Part E: Kamishichiken (上七軒) - Hanayagi (花柳) for dance and Tokiwazu (常磐津), Shunnichi (春日), Toyomoto (豊本), Kiyomoto (清元), Tōsha (藤舎), and Kiyoyuki (清之) for song. Set 3: Nara (奈良) - Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 4: Hikone (彦桹) - None Given. Set 5: Otsu (大津) - Yanagi (柳) for song. Set 6: Kinosaki (城崎) - Wakayagi (若柳) and Onoe (尾上) for dance. Set 7: Wakayama (和歌山) - Onoe (尾上) for dance. Set 8: Shirahama (白浜) - Okayasu (岡安) for song. Set 9: Osaka Imasato (大阪今里) - Kineya (杵屋), Shunnichi (春日), and Kiyomoto (清元) for song.     Set 10: Imasato (今里) - None Given. Set 11: Kyoto Shimabara (京都島原) - None Given. Part 6: Chūgoku (中国) and Shikoku (四国) Set 1: Tamatsukuri (玉造) - Fujima (藤間) for dance and Kineya (杵屋) for song. Set 2: Okayama (岡山) - Onishi (小西) for dance. Set 3: Takamatsu (高松) - Kiyomoto (清元) for song. Set 4: Matsuyama (松山) - Kiyomoto (清元) and Tamura (田村) for song. Set 5: Tokushima (徳島) - Yoshitō (芳膛) for dance and Kiyomoto (清元) and Tamura (田村) for song. Set 6: Kochi (高知) - Kiyomoto (清元) and Tamura (田村) for song. Part 7: Kyushu (九州) Set 1: Hakata (博多) - Kondo (今藤), Shunnichi (春日), and Kashida (堅田) for song.   Set 2: Kurume (久留米) - Tokiwazu and Shunnichi (春日) for song. Set 3: Ureshino (嬉野) - Hanayagi (花柳) and Fujima (藤間) for dance and Matsunaga (松永) and Tagoto (田毎) for song.   Set 4: Isao (武雄) - Fujima (藤間) for dance. Set 5: Beppu (別府) - Tokiwazu (常磐津), Kiyomoto (清元), and Hisago (瓢) for song. Set 6: Kumamoto (熊本) - Hanayagi (花柳) for dance and Kondo (今藤) for song. Set 7: Kagoshima (鹿児島) - Kineya (杵屋) and Tagoto (田毎) for song. The reason why this book has no ISBN is because it was self published. The original cover price was ¥30,000, which is almost $300 USD. This price was likely set due to the vast amount of research done, including acquiring the many photographs, and printing costs. This price was also likely due to it being targeted at serious karyukai connoisseurs as that price in the 1980s would have been much higher now due to inflation. Nowadays you don’t have to pay as much for this book as most Japanese sellers see it as outdated and it can be found quite regularly on Japanese retail sites, such as Yahoo Japan Auctions or Rakuten.   The only “errors: that I could find were some spelling issues, but that’s because they’re using the Japanese way of writing Romaji and not the Hepburn System. So, I’m not counting them as errors, but rather just making note of them to anyone who purchases this book. Rating: ✪✪✪✪ (out of 5)

[beezonia]

Some fun parent persona tidbits!

——-

Midori and Asuna (goro & akira’s moms) have this weird rivalry thing going on

Midori and Kieran (Ann’s dad) are in the same homeroom together along with Takuto and Iwai

Kiyoko and Osamu (Haru’s mom and Makoto’s dad) are also in the same homeroom but it’s 3-B instead of A like Midori

So third years are:

Midori (Goro’s mom)

Kieran (Ann’s dad)

Kiyoko (Haru’s mom)

Osamu (Makoto’s dad)

2nd years are:

Chiziru (Ryuji’s mom)

Satomi (Ann’s mom)

Asahi (Akira’s dad)

Asuna (Akira’s mom)

Suzume (Yusuke’s mom)

——-

Suzume goes to Kosei, she’s known for her art there

Her boyfriend at the time also goes there but he’s into photography more

Satomi is quite popular at shujin because she’s slowly starting with her acting career (small villainess roles btw)

Kieran is Japanese/American

Iyo (Makoto’s mother) is Japanese/Irish

Osamu is an honour student, it takes him a lot of effort to keep both his grades and social life intact

Asahi and Asuna are actually childhood friends

Chiziru is extremely bendy

Kiyoko is actually one of the shyest of the group but one of the more violent ones when it comes to protecting her friends

———-

[daydreamiist-a]

Updated Face Claims!

Main:

Suzume Yosano

Fantasy:

Leonardo de Vinci (FGO)

Childhood:

Koharu Shiina (Hachimitsu ni Hatsukoi)

Real Life FC:

Emily Rudd

Genderbent:

Takamine Midori

[aithne]

(Illume) Tomika's letters, 8/30/1583 - 8/31/1583: The City of the Sun

8/30/1583 City of the Sun...somewhere in the ocean east of Tokyo

Dearest Yukiko,

Well. It's been a day.

We began by sending Suzume off to land. I overheard Reiko asking a Sparrow hengenyokai bout why they were calling Tadaki Lord; it turns out that the possessor of the Staff of Seasons is the leader of the hengenyokai. Strange. Very, very strange, these people.

My husband was scrying as he usually does; this morning's choices were General Kenichi, who was barricaded in what appeared to be the imperial palace, a riot of some sort raging outside, and Hideyoshi, who was sitting at a large table with an odd symbol carved in it, the character for coven. Covenant. We were looking at the members of the Covenant, it seemed.

They were speaking of having found the City of the Sun, which was located high in the mountains near Kofu. A quick look at a map revealed that Kofu is somewhat near Mt. Fuji, about thirty-five miles inland. We could sail down the coast a little bit and then fly, with us in the mirror, to Kofu, there to look for this place.

After all, if the Covenant was interested in this city, it was worth at least a look.

On the way south, the librarian said that he had talked to Suzume and that the rods, for the most part, simply add to one's strength when implanted in the arms and legs. Reiko tilted her head and asked, "I suppose you'd like them put in, wouldn't you?"

"Ah, yes. Will you?"

She shrugged. "If you want. Did she say if there were any bad things that happen to one when they're implanted?"

The librarian coughed. "Ah, she said the only side effect was that one's sex drive is...increased."

The kitsune raised an eyebrow. "Really. Interesting. Well, if you want, have a seat. Actually, on second thought, could you get someone to tie you down? This is going to hurt, and I'd rather you not accidentally kill me."

Disturbing little thing, she is. Though I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be that fearless.

Four hours later, we dropped anchor, and we all piled into the mirror and Panda rode Gryphon, and we set off for Kofu.

We set down a little ways off from some ruins. There appeared to have been about twenty people come through here recently, and to the side of their trail the trail of what appeared to be five very large snakes. Gryphon tracked the snakes back to where the trail appeared, and triggered a stone that parted a thicket and led down a tunnel into the earth.

The place was dark and smelled terrible, like a slaughterhouse. We decided to retreat when Gryphon noted that something down here was hissing something about, "Humanssssssss..."

Funitsu remained behind, and scouted some more. He came back up and said that what was down there was a kind of monster known as hannya. They are terrible things--half snake, half human, very ugly, and all spellcasters. Just what we needed, let me tell you.

We tracked the humans and the hannya forward. We came across the site of a battle, where two humans had gone over a cliff and a hannya was beheaded. We kept walking, and came to the site of another battle...strangely enough, identical to the scene of the first one. Panda walked ahead of us with her illusion-combating orb, and discovered that there was a shimmering gate ahead of us. Walking through it sent people back to about a twenty-minute walk back. We found that on the other side of the gate was a gate to the city of the sun--we could see the city about an hour and a half's walk away.

We were getting ready to go when Reiko said, "Hunh. That's interesting." There was a control stone set in the tumbled stones, that, when turned, changed the destination of the door. One, as noted before, went to the city of the sun. One opened on empty air. One opened in the Hannya lair. And one, oddly enough, opened in a place that strongly resembled the Imperial palace.

We set it to empty air; after discussing it, we decided to walk to the city of the sun.

The city was blasted and ruined; only three structures had survived, including the gate that the door in the air had linked to. There was an odd golden onion-shaped dome, that Tadaki said was called a "minaret", and there was a low stone building that looked out of place among the other buildings, as if it had been built by different hands. The tracks of the humans we were following split up here, the majority of them going to the minaret, other going to the stone building, and a few just wandering around the city.

Panda said, when I mentioned that it must have been a huge fireball that had taken the city, "What do you mean? Nothing's burned. It looks like there are people who live here, even."

Startled, we all concentrated. If we looked hard enough, we could see the real city under the illusion, buildings whole. The moment our concentration lapsed, however, the illusion snapped back into place.

What we could see with watering eyes was that there was a tower ahead of us. We could see that it hand symbols signifying day, twilight, and night on the sides. We all looked at each other, shrugged, and headed towards it.

We came across a poor samurai who had evidently been frightened to death, and as we were discussing this, Tadaki took the opportunity to fly into a window of a nearby building. He came out in human form with a man with him, who he introduced as a Rat hengenyokai. The Rat told us that there were many hengenyokai living in the city, under the noses of the hannya; they were hiding, because they didn't want the samurai to discover them.

The dead samurai was killed by a hannya poison that causes fear. He said that the tower we were heading towards was sealed somehow, and none knew what was inside. The other two buildings were both traps, risks without rewards.

We thanked the Rat and continued.

Getting into the tower was easy enough; there were three indentations, one for each of our orbs, and a long thin slot for Tadaki's staff, the Staff of Seasons. Before we did this, however, we discussed going to kill the hannya, as we didn't want them to sneak up behind us if we were involved with the tower.

Tadaki, at this point, remembered a very peculiar piece of demon lore; hannya are deathly afraid of violets. If one is holding a violet they will not attack, and they will not enter a building that has violets in bloom by the door. It is a strange weakness, but one we exploited, picking violets and the going back to the tower.

when we activated the tower, it said in a low, grating voice, "Lord Tadaki, do you wish me to drain to orbs?" After recovering from his startlement, Tadaki said, "Ah, no."

"Do you wish me to lower the tower, then, or do you wish to climb the stairs into the magical assistance room?"

Tadaki coughed. "Ah. Stairs, please?" A door opened and we retrieved the orbs and Tadaki's staff and climbed.

The room at the to of the stairs came alive as Tadaki walked into it. Within, there were a number of softly glowing crystals, a flat vertical surface that might have been a mirror of some sort, and a chair rising out of the floor. Tadaki asked what the chair was for, and the tower replied, "To control where the city goes. There are seventeen samurai wandering the city. What do you wish done with them? I can exterminate them. One has a fragment of the twilight spirit in it."

Tadaki agreed. The body of a general appeared before us, who after some puzzling we identified as General Yori. The tower then said, "There is a human woman here who has been here some time. She did not come with the samurai. Shall she be exterminated, too?"

"Bring her here."

Oddly enough, the woman who then appeared was familiar, though it took me a moment to place her. It was Minaku, the librarian's foster mother, who we had seen in the scrying orb.

But instead of greeting the librarian, she turned to my husband, crying, "My gods, brother! I thought I would never see you again!" She flung herself on him, wrapping her arms around his neck, nearly weeping. It was Tsutsako, Funitsu's younger half-sister--but in the body of Minaku.

To make an exceedingly long story short, Minaku, her life growing shorter by the hour, had convinced Arenro to switch her soul with Tsutsako. Winter had saved the girl in the old woman's body, and transported her here, to the City of the Sun, where he had hidden her away.

We discovered that the tower was originally for splitting the three spirits into the seventy-five vessels, and had been modifed by Winter and Akechi some years ago to take those spirits and disperse them into the land. The city was mobile, and could go where Tadaki directed it. We transferred the city to the nearly-deserted island that the hengenyokai have been using as a base camp, and then flew back to the Benevolent, in need of information that only the old truth-telling monk that has been traveling with us all the time would have.

Panda shaped her question most carefully. She asked, "Who are the people currently in Japan who can return Soshi Tsutsako and Minaku to their own bodies?"

The answer was a short list:

Arenro Edi-lo Lao-tzu Midori

Arenro was obviously out. Lao-tzu was a Chinese tattoo magic inscriber, hiding in Aomori from the council. Midori was a member of the Covenant, the compromised member of it, as a matter of fact.

And when Funitsu scried on Edi-lo, we were startled to see a tiny woman, hanging in chains, who looked so much like Reiko that they might be twins. The kitsune's voice was small and colorless. "That's my mother. They're holding her in Tokyo, I know."

I had never really thought about Reiko having a mother, but since we have met her father, it stands to reason that she has a mother, as well. Funitsu asked her when she had last seen her, and the kitsune shrugged. "I do not remember her. I don't think she raised me."

We decided that since Edi-lo and Minaku were close together, we could kill two birds with one raid on the Imperial Palace. So tonight, we plan, and tomorrow we storm the castle, so to speak.

I do believe I am looking forward to this.

With much affection, Tomika

8/31/1583 the Benevolent, anchored somewhere outside of Tokyo

We decided to take the sneaky way into the Imperial Palace, with Panda invisible and flying and with the rest of us in the mirror. Shiro was to stir up a distraction outside the palace walls, and Tadaki was positively gleeful about something the had planned. We went into the mirror and knew nothing for a time; when we were called out, Panda said, "We have a situation on our hands."

She had gotten into the cells below the palace easily enough, but before us was a green mist hanging in the hallway, covering it. A guard had gone through with no harm done., but Panda didn't want to chance going through herself. Whatever it was, it was a creature, somehow alive. (In retrospect, it was probably a gaki, a creature that lives by absorbing th magic of others.)

Gryphon went to talk to it, and then came back with it following him like a puppy on his heels. He des make the most unlikely friends, does the gryphon. He said, "It wants to fly free, let me lead it through the mirror to Skyhome!" and he did so. Obstacle one, done.

Down we went, encountering a guard who Haku captured with no trouble. We took his keys and continued, finding ourselves sin a long row of cells. We went through, freeing prisoners as we went, and at the end of the row was a cell with eight beautiful women in it, each chained to the wall.

One of the women looked very much like Reiko. Panda stepped into the cell and said, "Edi-lo? We're with your daughter. We've come to rescue you all."

The woman's head snapped up, her eyes wide. "My daughter? Reiko is still alive?"

Reiko waved, and said, "Ah, yes, I am."

Before we released them, Funitsu held a small marble to each of them, explaining that he had been given a bag of what amounted to kitsune half-souls--the good parts of the fox spirits that the Scorpion clan had removed hundreds of years ago in their quest for the perfect assassin. Making them whole accomplished, we unchained them and told them to follow us.

They did what seems to come naturally for kitsune, each trying to attach themselves to a member of the retinue. Reiko warned them about the Thrykreen, Panda got between Nibori and the kitsune who looked like she wanted to latch onto him, and Reiko's mother attached herself to the librarian, who looked not at all unhappy about this fact.

Haku did the strangest thing--he fed the eight a little bit of his life force. I had no idea he could do that! At the very least, the foxes looked a little less hungry after he was done. Jeron looked like he was about to say something, but he and Reiko glanced at each other and he thought better of whatever he was about to say.

We made our way through the nearly-deserted palace. There was a huge roar and screams from outside, and Tadaki grinned. "There is a creature called a Terrasque, that is basically an armored appetite. There is currently one wandering around Tokyo, eating everything in its path."

We expressed dismay at this, and he shrugged. "It's a transformed rat. It'll revert in twelve hours. But I've always wanted my own Terrasque, ever since I first heard of them, and, well, since I had the opportunity..."

I was impressed, and suspicious. The Sparrow shares my specialty, and I know I am not capable of the spell he described. Perhaps it's something to do with his staff, or his orb.

As we went along, the kitsune took care of any guards we encountered. We would pause and let them go first, and they used their magic to enthrall the guards, feeding themselves and distracting the guards. We were heading towards a room where we suspected we would find Minaku.

And find her we did. All of the kitsune other than Reiko (of course) and Edi-lo decided to leave us at this point, and made their way through the palace away from us. Reiko gave her mother an Invisibility to Enemies, a very useful spell that the kitsune uses all the time, and the rest of us pre-cast what we thought we would need.

There was a door, one that only those of Scorpion blood could walk through. The librarian and Funitsu did so, and then I saw the magic on the door power down, and the rest of us poured in.

Within were Minaku and two generals--Kenshin, who we had met before, and Katashi, who we had not. The battle was very confused for a few minutes, with Minaku giving a good account of herself and Kenshin hitting two of our party with a sword that caused paralysis. (Gryphon and the librarian were the victims of this one; while Reiko could fix Gryphon, she didn't have another of those spells to get the librarian back on his feet.) Haku was deflecting Minaku's throwing stars, taking the occasional one in the chest.

The back wall of the room was a paper screen, which Funitsu sliced through to try and see what surprises were hiding behind it.

A surprise, all right.

Arenro stood behind that screen.

Things had suddenly become a bit more dire.

Arenro tried to cast a few spells, but Tadaki managed to interrupt him every time. (As we learned later, it was good that he did this; it seems that Tadaki has acquired the ability to do a limited bit of mind-reading, and those were very nasty spells indeed he was trying to cast.) What seemed like forever but was only a few seconds later, Haku managed to get Minaku in a lock and he and Panda hustled away through a door in reality that Funitsu had just opened with his wakizashi.

Reiko was trying to pull the librarian towards the door, but he was quite obviously too heavy for her; Jeron stepped in and told her that he'd bring him. The kitsune left, her mother in tow, and then I took the opportunity to depart, myself. Through the door we went, and into, oddly enough, the mirror--Panda was holding the mirror just on the other side of the doorway.

We were followed by both of the generals, and the fracas resumed. Funitsu and, finally, Tadaki came through, the mirror closed and Panda was away. We took care of the generals easily enough, taking them down and true sourcing them.

Afterwards, my husband said, "The oddest thing happened right before I left. Hideyoshi stepped out from a reality door, just behind Arenro. I wonder how he knew where the fight was happening?"

"Actually, it's stranger than that." Tadaki was going through the pockets of the unconscious Minaku, looking for weapons or anything shiny, as he does. "Arenro was right on my heels as I left, and he would have made it through the door before it closed, and he would have been in the mirror with us. But Hideyoshi, right behind him, grabbed his collar and pulled him back."

My personal opinion is that Hideyoshi may well be dead at this point. I somewhat hope not; he would be an invaluable ally, especially if he truly is rethinking his allegiance. However, not very many people seem to have survived Arenro's anger.

We'll see, won't we?

We returned to the Benevolent and Shrike, and Edi-lo agreed to break the permanancy on the mind-swap spell. It took her a few hours, but she accomplished it, landing each spirit in the correct body. The librarian is still thinking about what to do with Minaku, and we're probably going to send Tsutsako along with this letter to you in Skyhome, after she and my husband finish catching up.

Reiko and her mother, I last saw sitting near each other, the shaman at least seemingly at a loss for words. The more I see those two side by side, the less they resemble each other to me. Together, they are indeed quite alike physically. But it is impossible to mistake one for the other. I can't really explain why, only to say that Reiko's eyes are very different. Though Reiko looks much like her mother I think her soul takes far more after her father, though I don't think the kitsune would count it a kindness were I to tell her that.

Yet Edi-lo has sorrow of her own, grief weighing her movements, making them graceful and slow. They linger near each other, not speaking, and Jeron watches them both.

As for my part, I am more than glad that Funitsu's sister has returned to him. Oddly enough, I find myself happy for his sake, not my own. I think I will leave things lie as they are for the moment; if his affections turn towards me, so be it. If they do not...well, I at least have gotten to see the world, and have had many more adventures than I would have otherwise, had I stayed as I was with my mind controlled by the dark spirit, creating shadows out of living souls. I have perhaps made some difference in this struggle, and I find that if I am perhaps not happy, I at least am content with my lot.

Time begins to move faster, my Lady. Be well, be strong, and we will stand fast against what approaches.

With greatest affection, Tomika

Quotes:

"I feel like Bjork, with all of the Olympic athletes under my dress." --Laura

"Basically, we're all geeks and someone shouted toy." --Ray, about why we went to the city of the sun.

"What's the difference between a minaret and a majorette?" --Bryan

"Chaos is good!" "Well, yeah, I know that!" --Reiko and Funitsu

"You're going to dress me up, Haku? I'm a married woman." --Panda

"I cast Summon Godzilla!" --Bryan

"You grabbed her snatch? I thought you grabbed her arms!" "How do you think I got the advantage?" --Haku and Panda

[oc-chaos]

Most of them are Danganronpa OCs, but I do have some that aren't for anything and I have some for my own BanG Dream band

Danganronpa ones are mostly moved to @danganronpa-two-sided-hope and @danganronpa-the-flipside

Very old OCs moved to @bonnie-and-friends (Old versions might be very cringey and confusing)

The rest are still being worked on

Characters

BanG Dream Band (Will be named later)

Naomi Midori: Guitarist

Mizuki Sakura: Bassist

Mitsuko Suzume: Drummer

Shizuko Kiyomi: Keyboardist

Caroline's Protector (Game I'm working on)

Mei

Caroline Fubuki

Lillian Fubuki

Grace Goodham

Darel Fubuki

Delilah Fubuki

Mr. Charleston

Other OCs (The Danganronpa ones might be added to a second fan game one day)

Yasu Yori: Ultimate Scammer

Scrapped Danganronpa OCs (Their names are just mashups of things since I couldn't think of any names at the time)

Maki Yoshiko: Ultimate Hacker (Can shapeshift into a blue werewolf)

Chika Chiaki: Ultimate Psycho

Maya Makoto: Ultimate Devil

Nao Mioda: Ultimate Goddess

Kyokiri Naegoo: Ultimate Hologram

Nagisa ???: Ultimate Liar

Aquaris Ninja: Ultimate Healer