Fandom: NOIR
Pairing: Gen
Author on LJ: ijemanja
Author’s Website: Unknown
Why this must be read:

We’re benefiting from some lucky timing with this rec: ijemanja started posting her Noir fics just days before I got the go ahead to begin posting recs at Crack Van.

This fic takes a look at the series’ four principal characters (Mireille, Kirika, Chloe, and Altena) in the years set before the series. We are allowed a glimpse of an important moment of each of these women’s lives--a moment that informs the characters that are slowly explored in the series itself.

Guns are heavy - no one can hold such a stance indefinitely.

That's another thing her uncle always says, but now he is silent. He is letting her make the choice, she knows. But this isn't a choice for her - at least, it doesn't feel like one.

This man will die by her hands, or another's - her uncle's probably, if she lets her hands drop. There is no negotiation to be made, no clemency to be granted, not by her or anyone. It almost doesn't matter what he's done, at this point. And everyone dies in the end, anyway. That isn't a choice, either, but a matter for fate to decide.

She lets the unrest in her mind subside, she lets the weight on her shoulders dissipate to nothing. She lets the decision fly out of her hands, and the man falls from his chair onto the grass.

It was a choice, after all, she realises.

ijemanja

Outside, the streets of Paris go by in a blur of colour and sounds. Buildings and people and traffic - it's the middle of the day, but it doesn't feel like it.

Kirika yawns and rests her head against the window of the taxi.

'Jetlag, huh?' Mireille says.

Is this jetlag? She doesn't know - she has no frame of reference by which to judge.

Is she used to flying? Has she ever flown before at all?

It's been months. She still hasn't quite got the hang of asking herself endless questions, and coming up with nothing.