8: Sailor Zra
I don't remember how frightened I was upon seeing all the blood, and the warning we had received. Maybe I fainted. Maybe I screamed. I don't remember. My reaction wasn't that important, maybe.
I do remember when Dyka threw me to the floor, shouted at me to calm down, and then called the security forces of the neighborhood. I remember because I hit my head on the side of one of the seats in the main lower level room. But that’s all I remember up until the police came, and they sat us down at the table.
-Well, well. I was rubbing my head as the policeman - a robotic dwarf - looked the evidence over. -This is a pretty sight. The labs will figure out what’s going on here when we connect with them. Whoever did this, they went all out, with blood and this.....rapier.
-Rape-er?
-A Vika sword.
Dyka said that. When she said it, her voice was low, and she seemed angry. Which, I thought, seemed to be what she always was, angry. But I digress.
-As I suspected. The policeman nodded as if he had been certain of it. -A threat, to be sure, from some backwards crazy type.
-Can you find out who?
-Once the lab connects, they'll be able to scan the sword. The policeman examined the bloodied crescent dangling from the sword hilt. -The results will come back instantaneously. The crime labs over on Portille have databases on 95 percent of the known universe, Vika galaxies included!
-Nice....
As I nodded and smiled at the policeman's boasting of the perfection of the system, I was shaking inside. Someone was threatening us. And it was only the first day. Someone knew we were hiding the spawn of mold in our house. As to who it was, I hoped they were brought to justice and thrown in prison forever, to make an example of them! I hated being frightened, and if they wished to kill someone, I would have gladly thrown Tsukinousagi right in their path as I ran.
-Hmm....... the policeman turned the blood-scribbled paper over and gave a gasp of delight. -Hmm! Well, look at this. You see this, sailor girls? Get over here!
We both went over to see what the policeman had found. As carefully as he could, he put on a pair of glasses, flipped open a tiny razor ripped open the paper by its seams.
While such a thing may seem impossible to humans - as sheets of paper are very thin - it is not at all impossible to do. In our galaxies, some people leave clues to crimes in holes and other places that are no thicker than a piece of paper. Therefore, our police have the know-how to cleanly slice objects as small as a molecule without doing enormous amounts of harm to even the basic structure of the evidence being brought forth.
-And....there we are!
As the threat paper split open, another piece of paper fell out of it. I quickly picked it up off the floor and recognized it as a newspaper holocard.
-Huh? I looked it over. It was an article, with a picture of a room. -Body Found In Hotel Identified....As Sailor.
-Let me see that!
The policeman quickly took the paper from me. He looked it over several times, and slapped his head.
-Ooooh! Of course! He looked at me, then at Dyka. -Sailor Zra!
-
Now, knowing that some of your kind will wonder, I shall explain who Sailor Zra is....or was.
Sailor Zra was a soldier from another civilized country, who was well-known for constantly being in and out of trouble with the law, both the Seemarin and civilian law. She was always constantly causing trouble, and was considered a rebel to the civilized worlds, even though she had been raised in a similar fashion as I had been. We had both been brought to a school to train is for our lives as sailors, taken from our parents when we were young so we could know and fulfill our duties in the future. But Zra had none of it. She had always been trouble. She was even exiled from her galaxy for some time for her conducts.
According to the article, however, which I read sometime after this, Zra had gone through a very strange change in the past year or so. After being chased off of her home planet, she had wandered around, perhaps in the Vika galaxies, and when she returned, she became very strange. She would walk on the streets, begging for money, dressed in black. She would wear a black hood, and wander the streets with a sign that said -Save the Messiah-. She seemed to babble to many people, her rantings of death and destruction ignored by most. Finally, however, her people simply grew tired of her pessimistic rantings, and finally did something about it.
-After the storm, there is no rainbow! She screamed when she was finally sent away. -After the storm, there is no rainbow! You fools! All of you are fools! The end of our ways is among us! We must save the messiah! You must not let them strike! They will strike! THEY WILL STRIKE! SHE IS COMING!
And so she was taken, and placed under perpetual observation for paranoid insanity. I heard some bits of what she did there. She drew pictures of figures of strange unknown figures, which she claimed were sailors. One figure, it was said, she kept re-drawing even with her own blood, after they took away what they could from her. And after she finished, she would smear more blood on it, and she would write under it -She will kill me.-
But it was not She, her phantom She, who killed her. She died by her own hand, it was decided, for she had poison in her body. They found her dead, drool still hanging over the floor.
-
-I'm not sure what message these people are trying to send. The policeman mused. -Zra was crazy! Why would they sent you an article about a psychopathic fool? Unless....
I gave a gulp. I didn't want to know.
-....Well, this certainly puts a new light on that fool's suicide..... At that moment, the policeman checked his wrist. -Ah! The lab link is up! Scanning the blood now.
The policeman pointed his wrist at the sword, and a chip hidden there opened to reveal a laser. The laser moved all over the sword, and the paper, and the blood. Normally, the procedure took no time, yet for some reason, it didn't go as quickly as we wanted.
-.......Hmmmmmmm........ The policeman frowned. -Let....let me try that again.
He repeated it again, this time for longer. I held myself, wondering what was taking them so long to identify and throw whomever did this to us in jail. When he finally stopped, however, I saw a look of confusion on his face. Or perhaps, it was worry, though it looked like confusion. But I digress.
-I..... He looked at us. -This is odd.
-What is?
-The....the files.... The policeman's voice cracked. -They....they show no matching identification!
There was an awkward silence at this as he deactivated the chip. It was not expected at all, and I for one began to fear even more.
-No....no match! I cried. -How is that possible!
-Well..... The policeman looked embarrassed as he picked up all of the criminal items. -I need to take this back to the office. We'll figure this all out there. Until this is concluded, and we can get definite results, have a good day to you, Seema-ships.
With that, he gave a bow and left. Not even the comfort of him bestowing a title - Seema-ship - upon me was enough to quell my fears.
-Dyka.... I was frightened. -What did that mean?
-.....Impossible. Dyka's face darkened. -I would have thought that....
-....that what?
-......Nothing. Before I could protest, Dyka waved me away. -Come. The girl will not come home tonight. You can have your room.
All thoughts of my fear were momentarily forgotten as I almost leaped with joy at this. Tsukinousagi was sick! I would have my own room! Zra's death was pushed aside, for the moment. Worry over who put the sword in was chased away. So quick was it gone that, only a small time later, as I lay in my bed for the first time, I thought it was probably just a cruel prank that would be exposed, and it would be laughed at and forgotten.
But I was wrong; that was really only the beginning. Never did anyone dream that the black hood of fear which Zra had pulled over her face to preach was the beginning of something far darker than anything that any of us has imagined. So desperate had Zra been, yet her cries were heard by no one she could see. And she must have died believing no one cared about what she had tried to say.
However, there were those who heard her, and it would not be the last time the black hood would be donned. There was a shadow of chaos now, small, but it would begin to unfold quickly, making even the day unsafe. That night, though, I had a sound sleep.
