DNcember 29 - Ancestral Night art by @fugitivehues & writing by @keikotwins
Side branches were no match! She had the blood of a thief running in her veins and more training than any of them could have dreamt of behind her! She only needed that first-hand experience to become whole as instructor of future Phantom Thief Dark.
Her costume felt light, the fabric shimmered just enough and didn’t rustle, allowing her to remain entirely silent. She had given it so many of her evenings and it was perfect: feminine and sleek, even a bit daring compared to her usual style.
Excitement was building up in her body as she jumped to a window and crouched on the border to unlock it. A beautiful thief, bathing in moonlight, fascinating like a cat’s eye… She regretted not being able to experience the noisy crowd and agitated police she had heard about, but that would come soon enough.
With a sharp noise, the window gave up and the security device bent under a well-placed rock. Easy. Abandoning the hard part of her infiltration, Emiko jumped inside the building. She had warned the owner of the mansion that one of his ancient ceramics would be taken that night, and he had apparently not taken the message seriously. Warning while avoiding a commotion were their goals anyway. The rest would be a piece of cake: she could easily avoid an old couple, if they had bothered staying awake at all!
She had however not expected the presence that awaited her at the end of the corridor. The office she was aiming at remained lit at this advanced hour, and a young woman sat in an armchair, her light hair falling on her graceful shoulders. Whoever she was, she didn’t belong to this household, and yet, she held the pottery on her knees, obviously waiting.
But Emiko’s objective wasn’t to converse with residents. Holding her breath, she jumped on top of the heavy bookcase and crawled to approach the guardian from the side. The spray was ready. Made by her father, could put anyone to sleep in a few seconds, a beloved family classic. The woman’s eyes remained unfocussed. Emiko could approach her, if she was fast enough-
She wasn’t. As her arm was raising, a sharp hand grabbed it. Stopped, a few centimetres away from her target, she froze. The woman’s eyes turned to her, emotionless, her other hand still holding the bowl.
“Good evening,” Emiko tried, hiding the pain that was spreading in her wrist under a polite smile.
“I wondered who could have an interest in this old thing. Of course it would be a Niwa.”
Emiko’s smile tensed. A Hikari. Who else? She had never thought she’d meet the current generation, with her activities remaining a secret. Reaching out to this person in particular… The old couple had unusual reactions. Or maybe she had invited herself. That would have made two unwanted guests in one night.
The Hikari glanced at the bottle Emiko still held the wrong way and the fingers dug deeper. So, so rude. So, so full of hatred. Her face looked delicate, almost fragile, a feeling enhanced by her frail neck, and yet her hands held like iron, pressing nerves and flesh, numbing fingers. A dangerous, two-faced snake.
“My apologies, miss, but I do need to borrow this.”
Refusing to hurt a woman had always been an ancient principle, and members of the Niwa family mastered the subtle art of pushing people out of their way; Emiko swiftly grabbed the pottery as her father’s bottle was falling on the ground. The Hikari looked down, surprised, and the distraction was enough for her opponent to free herself.
Glass shattered under her heel and she ran away, holding her breath and the target. Whatever would happen to the Hikari didn’t matter to her – in the worst-case scenario, she’d fall asleep uncomfortably against a desk, anyway –, but for a brief moment, her ancestors’ struggles, Dark’s struggles, had felt closer than ever.
