A LITTLE TOUCH OF ROSE - EPISODE 21

???? Rosita’s viewpoint ????

I furiously tossed him over my shoulder and slammed his back on the table so hard I heard something crack. He hollered with absolute agony, music to my ear.

“I will not repeat it again, where the fuck is Nathaniel Hawk!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I swear,” he cried, “please, believe me,” I was furious, really furious. I found out that the man trying to ruin my Hezzy had an accomplish. It’s not like I didn’t know. How then would a man who lives in Japan be able to get shit on someone living in Australia? What I didn’t expect was who the informant was. Fucking Nathaniel Hawk, my father’s trusted business associate.

“It’s like you don’t like how nice to you I am,” I pushed myself off the table and walked over to his tied up daughter. His wife screamed with horror as she saw me pull out the rose hilt dagger from my calf.

“Please, don’t hurt my daughter, please,” she cried.

“No offence, sunshine, you died because your daddy made the wrong decisions in life,” I said sardonically. I yanked her up to kneel by her hair as they screamed and begged.

“Please, don’t, I am sworn to omertà, please,”

“wrong answer,” I pressed the dagger into her throat and ran the blade along it with a deep slash. Their screams increased, annoying me more. I dropped her dead body and walked to the second daughter.

“Again, where is Nathaniel?”

“If I tell you, he’ll kill my entire family,” the man cried.

“And what am I doing? Worshipping them? Tell me or they die. If you tell me, I’ll protect them,”

“I…”

“Honey, please, tell her, tell her,” his wife cried, “please,”

“The truth is I don’t know, I don’t. The only person who knows is his brother, Noah Hawk. I’m not sure if my info is correct, but I heard he is in Japan, hiding with his brother.”

“And where is his brother?”

“I don’t know,” he sobbed.

“You are useless,” I stepped away from the daughter with a scowl. “I would have spared you all, but then, you are all not as innocent as you pretend to be. Plus, I am not in my most merciful state…” I quickly dropped to my knees, pulling my guns out of my hip belt. The bullet flew over me, would have shot my head. I quickly turned the gun to his son who shot it and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him right between the eyes.

I didn’t waste more time, I stood up, cocked the other gun and shot all four of them dead. Head shot as always. “Piece of shit,” I spat. “Romi, I need the location of the biggest fight club in Tokyo, the time and date for the next one. Then search if Arata Takamori is there. It’s time to pay an old debtor a visit.”

_______________

I walked straight to the man boosting his own ego as the crowd chanted his name. I pushed people out of my way, even used my palm to push their faces.

“Who else here is strong enough to challenge Muscle Cobra?!” He shouted. I climbed into the ring, causing everyone to shout. The man smirked at me, before his eyes ran over my body. He couldn’t see my face, no one can. And the gold suit with the rose crest didn’t remind him of who he was dealing with.

“So little girl, wanna get hurt?”

“I need information, and in exchange for the information, I will forget your debt and spare your life.” I said briskly.

“Huh?”

“Nathaniel Hawk, where is he?”

He stared at me with shock. “What?”

“I know you will know where he is because you once used to be his servant and you still have connections to know. Tell me, Arata Takamori, and I promise not to kill you.”

He laughed, a mocking laugh that made everyone join. When he was done, he grinned. “I’m going to enjoy breaking your bones and then fucking your dead body in the present of everyone,”

“Challenge accepted,” I smirked.

“Name?” The register guy asked.

“Altansarnai,” most of the people were just watcher, they didn’t know. But the ones who did gasped as their eyes widened. Arata’s were the biggest.

“Ready to fight in ten seconds,” I nodded at the guy.

Arata quickly held a normal stance, loose and relaxed, but I could see his hands shaking. I smirked with satisfaction to know that he was afraid of me. Immediately the bell went off, I saw his left shoulder tense and muscles harden, meaning he was going to throw a punch. I stepped to the side, letting the wind of his attack graze past me. I grabbed his wrist, yanked him forward and kneed him hard in the stomach. He gasped from the force of my attack and staggered back while panting.

“Is that all you’ve got?” I taunted. He grunted and foolishly launched himself at me. For someone who had years of experience, he was sure making foolish decisions. But again, the fear of Altansarnai was enough to ruffle up one’s thought.

I lowered my body and sprung up with one quick movement, meeting his mid air and colliding with his heavy body. My force was stronger, pushed him backward so his back slammed on the ring floor hard. I got off him to his surprise and smirked again, I was enjoying it. The man stood up, cracked his neck and took a strong defensive stand. I set myself down like I was going to race…

One… Two… Three…

I ran towards him. He ran forward too to meet me and block whatever he thought I had in mind. But just at the last minute, I dropped to my knees, sliding under between his legs and using my elbows to knock his knees. His face smacked on the floor, along with a thud from his body. I quickly jumped onto his back, grabbed his hands and pinned them behind him.

“Now, you ready to talk or do I need to kill you?”

“Fuck you!”

“Hope you’d say that,” I dragged his hands further, snapping his shoulder bones and twisting his wrists wrongly, “speak,”

“Never!” He screamed. I pressed my knee to the centre of his spine, then pulled him so his body would bend. A loud scream left his mouth from the pain of being bent wrongly. I added more pressure, causing his hands to pop out of position more. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you,” he cried.

“I’m listening,”

“I heard the two brothers are living at a shrine in Suginami, Noah’s wife’s grandmother’s old forgotten shrine. I don’t know where it is, I only heard it’s something called Blessed. Please, don’t kill me,”

I smirked evilly, “from the start, I did promise not to kill you,” he panted but I could hear the relief in his breathing, “but I didn’t promise I won’t do this,” I lifted my knee up, bent his body further and slammed it down on his spine. The crowd went wild with cheers, screaming my name over and over again. I dropped his unconscious body roughly, stood up straight and sighed with satisfaction.

I walked over to his partner who was trembling with fear, practically on his knees. “You see that?” I tilt my head, “send the message to Nathaniel Hawk, tell him that Altansarnai is coming for him.” The chants got louder.

Altansarnai!

Altansarnai!

Altansarnai!

Altansarnai!

I jumped down from the ring and walked to the exit, people made way for me while still chanting my name. Once I was away from the crowd, I activated my stealth suit.

“Romi…”

“Way ahead of you. There is no choice shrine like that in Tokyo, or in Japan, I did a good search. So instead, I did a quick run on Noah’s wife’s biography, traced her grandmother and found it. The shrine is in North Korea. Should I give you the exact location?”

“No, forward it to dad and send him to get Night Crawler to do the job or Alpha Team K1,”

“Anything else?”

“Activate the bomb, blow this place to the ground along with all it information,” oh yes, I planted a bomb before walking in. My presence here ends with them. I felt bad, I didn’t want to do it. But before I became Rosita, daughter of Yvonne, I was Altansarnai, daughter of White Death.

This, is who I am.

_______________

Saturday, I went to work early because I didn’t feel like seeing anyone. The pool party was the coming Friday because the girls had idols work to handle. So, they wouldn’t be in school along with the guys for the next week. I had few more days to go before they force me to wear something I would never wear.

“Whoa, turn that thing on,” one of my coworker said with a gasp. The other with the remote quickly turned it on.

“The bombing might have been a rival, but the effect caused an earthquake that spread one mile away from the building. Due to the isolation of the underground fight club, not many building within that mile was seriously affected. Few were injured, but not many casualties. However, the club itself was destroyed to it foundation. Present death record is twenty three thousand bodies, and the search for more still goes on…”

“My dad said that it wasn’t a rival bombing,” the remote girl said as she stared at the television, “he said they think it might have been the world-wide criminal they are looking for,” I kept my eyes on her.

“Who?”

“Some assassin called Altan… Something, I can’t pronounce the name. You know my father is an agent. He said this criminal have been active for nine to ten years, they are not sure, but she was known nine years ago but identified as a female six years ago and her name was figured out at five. According to father, the American military government and security intelligence thinks she’s associated to White Death, another dangerous assassin they haven’t been able to catch. While the Australian’s believe that she might be his daughter. Their killing method and style is similar,”

Note, change it.

“Dad said she has never killed in Japan before, but she recently started and it’s sending everyone into chaos. She’s like a ghost, an uncatchable spirit…”

“I’m sure she must have been captured once,” another said certainly. I almost snorted.

“No,” remote shook her head, “according to what father knows, the British and American military have had close encounters of catching her, three times even nailed a bullet in her, but she managed to escape all the time,”

Those times were the most terrifying of my life. It happened between four to five years ago, after they figured out my name. I wasn’t being careful, fell into their traps eight times, got shot three. It was a good thing my suit was built to encase blood in case of a bullet wound, or they would have tracked me down through my blood. The last time, dad was the one who saved me. Then I went silent for six months, retrained and upgraded Romi to a higher intelligence. I recreated my suit to withstand bullets and any laser or electric weapons. In that six months, I worked so hard to strengthen myself and make sure there wasn’t a repeat of the past. And since then, there haven’t been.

“Why is she suddenly in Japan?” One asked fearfully, “is she planning to wipe us out?”

“No,” remote girl laughed, “dad thinks she is here to kill some specific people. They have been trying to connect the link to the people she has killed so far, but none seems to connect or have anything that may point to who hired her or who she is. I mean, why blow the fight club of someone you have nothing to do with? They were all blown to bits and dad said they might get nothing even if they fix it.”

“See, told you I was right for you to work with no killing connection,” Romi said smugly. I nodded in agreement. I stood up from the changing room and walked back to the counter.

“I’m leaving now,” I smiled at my replacement which name I didn’t know. She nodded. I flung my backpack over my shoulder and walked to the doors. “Romi, Is there anyone else on the list?”

“Just two, but one is leaving tomorrow. According to the file I hacked into, his private jet would be leaving Japan to an unnamed location at 20:00 hour,”

“Then I better give him a wonderful surprise tonight, a upgrade to his jet. After this one, I’ll stop and keep low, make the government think I’ve left. The last one would probably run, but he can go.”

“And your father?”

“I’ll figure out something later to tell him, so he would let me stay,” I slipped into my car and shut the door, “for now, I need to get back to the penthouse, change and plant the control chip on that person’s jet. So tomorrow, we’ll take him for a nice long ride of no return. Do you have the location of the jet?”

“No. The jet location is marked at too many different places, you can’t check them all,”

“I don’t have to,” I started the car, stepped on the gas and zoomed off.

Once back at the penthouse which took a while to get since it was in another city, I dropped my bag, took off my jacket and walked to the IT room. Romi activated the entire room system for me.

“Show me the locations,” the screen turned blue before a map appeared on the screen, with many red dots. “Zoom out,” she zoomed out, “now run a scan at each location for chemical properties,” a yellow scan ran through the map. After two minutes, it picked out most of them. “Now, delete them,” I was left with ten locations. I leaned back on the chair in thought.

The man in question was smart and a genius as well, and just like me, he had a signature mark. I dealt with roses, gold, bombs, because I loved them. He loves fire, gas, nitro.

“Romi, scan the location for extra heat signature and solar powered nitro or nitromethane powered jets,” she scanned the map again and isolated two. Smart. He had the same in both places. The problem now was which one was he going to use?

I spun my chair around as I thought about it. There was a possibility that he knew I would search for that exact thing, knew I would try to attack either of those two. Sometimes you have to think outside the box, outsmart your enemies.

“Romi, do you still have access to the blueprint of his house?”

“Yes.” She used her computer voice.

“Search if the house is surrounded by water,”

“It is situated on an island nearly encase with water, so yes,” I smirked and chuckled darkly, “the jet was a diversion, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Romi, it was. Do a scan and see if there is any hollow space below the house,”

“Already did, there is.”

“Does it lead out to the ocean?”

“It leads to the river surrounding it which connects to the ocean so yes, it does.” I jumped to my feet with excitement.

“I have to make him think I fell for it,” I said as I typed on the keyboard, “do we still have the android? When last was it checked?”

“Two weeks ago,”

“I’m activating it,” I said as I turned on the power button.

AWK07 power on in ten minutes.

“The android would set the chips in the submarines under the house, you will control it as usual…”

“I get to go on a mission today? Rosita, have I ever told you I love you?”

“Yes, a lot and as much as I do,” I laughed.

“But, me leaving means you will have to plant the chips in the jets without me, would you be alright?”

“Romi, I’m not dependent on you, you know I’ll be fine. You just make my job so much easier. Either way, I will be fine and I want you to assure me that you will too,”

“I’m an intelligent life, I feel no pain.”

“Yes, but that android body costed me a fortune,” I chuckled. She chuckled too.

“Very well, Altansarnai, may the winner get to ask something from the loser,”

I rolled my eyes, “not a competition, Romi,”

“First to return safely gets to ask the loser for something,” she repeated.

“What do you want?” I asked suspiciously.

“If I win, you agree to tell your father that you want to stay back because you have agreed to let Zedekiah Grimshaw win your heart, but want it to flow naturally and with time…”

“Seriously, that’s a good excuse,” I laughed.

“Fine, then you will agree to really try to give him a shot,”

“What! Romi!”

She laughed, “afraid of the bet, Roe Roe,” she teased.

I sneered playfully. “Oh, you are so on.”

“And if you win, what would you ask of me?”

“You are going to download and review all the series of Junior Robots and how to be a proper computer assistant,” I smirked. Romi groaned. The books were dumb books written by a idiot great great grandfather hired to make a training code for our androids one time they were finding it difficult to learn. You know, back when technology wasn’t that impressive. So he had to start from the basic, but the fool went to write a book.

“You have got to be kidding me, I have to rewrite the whole thing and republish it? Including correcting the errors?”

“And you can’t cheat by using any fast print code or corrections, you have to study every line, every words chapter by chapter.”

“Okay, I’ll win anyways,”

“Challenge accepted.”

_______________

What was I thinking challenging a computer!

I lost! I freaking lost!!!

I should have used my head, I should have used my damn head. I stayed back at the house until Sunday afternoon, brooding over my failure and what I would have to do. Romi was enjoying herself, she enjoyed laughing and reading me tips on how to open my mind and heart to a guy, what to say at the right time, how to react, what to do and not to do, and even pickup lines. Then she read me different sex styles, explained the positions and how effective it would be. But when it got to the part on how to seduce my enemy, I turned her off temporarily.

I sighed heavily as I kicked off my shoes at the door, dusted my feet before walking inside. “Mom, I’m back,” I said tiredly. I sighed as I walked into the living room, only to freeze at what I saw. I rubbed my eyes to make sure the exhaustion wasn’t getting to me.

But it was real!

“What the goddamn hell!!!”

“Shhh,” mom shushed, “he’s sleeping,” she whispered. My jaw dropped as my eyes widened. On the floor sleeping soundly with his head on my mother’s laps was Zedekiah. He curled himself up into mom, making him look like an adorable baby. Mom was stroking his hair as she crooned softly for him while Bloom scrubbed his feet, giving him a pedicure.

Someone closed my mouth. I turned to look at Reece who was smiling warmly. “Neesan, you shouldn’t be this surprise, he does this every time he comes here, although this is the first time he actually came into our house.”

“Neesan, isn’t he cute?” Bloom whispered and squealed softly. Mom removed some loose hair from his face and tucked it behind his ear.

“Your boyfriend is so dreamy,” mom cooed. I blinked continuously, not even sure what to say or do.

Sakura, yes, Sakura!

“Where is Sakura?”

“She isn’t back from work,” Reece replied as he walked towards his room. I told mom I was working overnight most Saturday, as the only excuse for staying at the penthouse. “Neesan,” he gestured for me to follow him.

I quietly stepped around the chairs and followed him to his room. Reece sat on his bed and patted the space beside him. I walked over and sat down too. “Neesan, do you know why mom is so nice to Zedekiah?”

“Because she’s mom?”

“Because she knows he is the son of your father’s best friend,” my breath hitched as a gasp left my mouth.

“She hoped to find out information about me from him,”

“But she never knew how to ask him without rising suspicion. I don’t think mom have ever worked up the courage to ask him or ever ask him directly, but somehow, she finds a way to collect information from his mouth anytime they meet. Mom genuinely loves him as a son, but she also uses him to get the slightest info of you.”

“Oh,” I murmured, “that’s enlightening,”

“Neesan, you need to tell her, you need to let them all know that you are the daughter she is so worried about. I admit that since you came here, she worries less, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t worry. Your birthday is close, and soon she would fall into depression again, even if you are here. Neesan, please, tell her,” he pleaded.

“I will, but not yet,” I sighed, “not yet,” I murmured.

“Whatever you do, just don’t let her be sad again, please,”

I won’t, I promised I won’t.

But not yet.

______________

I yawned as I walked out to the kitchen. I had spent my time locked up in my room when I woke up from my nap. I turned Romi on and she paid me back by sending the email to dad, a email that confessed my undying love for Zedekiah and how I want to win his heart over. I almost shot myself when dad called and was talking happily, thanking me for listening to him and then preparing my wedding plans.

“Dad! I said I want to try, T-R-Y, try!” I had shouted. Then he snorted and said he saw the email and already forwarded it to Hezekiah, Zed’s father. They concluded that they would start saving up the wedding funds and starting the mansion construction for where we would stay after the wedding. They even fixed a date!

I couldn’t scream too loud because of where I was, so I pleaded and cried that they don’t do all the plans or tell Zelda about it or Zed would hear it and I would never live to hear the end of it. When they didn’t listen, I threatened to renounce my emotions (even though I don’t have one. But since there was no point in arguing, I used it against them) and returning home. So they promised to put the wedding plans on hold but the fund and mansion construction remains. Then I tried to convince them that we didn’t need it since they both had huge houses, high teched one. At first they argued about privacy, but then dad used his command to tell me to shut up and then revealed that they may or may not have already built the house for us.

At the end, they promised to keep it a secret from Zelda and the twin’s father. I didn’t mind them telling their mother, she was the only normal woman in my life since mom herself is insane. It was the best I could get. I was given a long time to make our relationship stronger. When the call ended, I threatened to destroy Romi which she only laughed to and taunted me. Then finally, we worked on the submarines which she had control of, and killed the enemy.

Victory and an unfortunate turn of event.

Back to my kitchen walk, I froze when I saw mom feeding Zedekiah as they talked and laughed. I watched them quietly, the joy they were both feeling. It was nice to see mom smile, to know she had always and will forever care about me. But that moment, she and him, it got my blood boiling.

Mom is mine!

Why do I have to share her with him!

“Oh, Zed, how’s your father?” She asked calmly, that got my attention.

“He’s fine, in Tokyo presently,” mom nodded and rolled her eyes nervously.

“Hope his friends and family are fine? How’s that cousin of yours? Still insane?”

“And will die insane,”

Mom nodded. “And the witch?” She asked with a nervous laugh. Zed froze for a second. Before, he didn’t know she was my mother so I knew his smart head already figured out why she was so close to him.

He offered her a tight smile, “she’s fine. The last time I checked, dad said she would be coming to Japan to visit my mother,”

I am?

Mom almost flew out of her seat, but she controlled herself. She gulped loudly and nodded. “I would have loved to see her, see the witch that makes my son very angry but yet he loves her,” she winked at him. Zed rolled his eyes with a scowl.

“Trust me, she is closer than you could ever imagine. But if seeing her would make you happy, then I guess I can find a way to make you two meet,”

“Really?” Mom asked with too much excitement. Zed nodded and turned his attention to me, he knew I was there.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind seeing you for once. I’ve been bragging about you a lot,” mom was trying hard to contain her excitement. She quickly packed the plates, patted his head and hurried pass me without any form of acknowledgement.

“What have you done?” I growled.

“What you should have done from the beginning.”