The Unceasing Path

Ch 1: 無間道 - The Unceasing Path - wherein Triad gangsters Ami and Makoto find themselves facing off against each other in a gunfight that neither wants to win...

An Au in the grand tradition of Hong Kong Cinematography...sort of.

Ami cursed. The clink of metal on the bloody marble floor gave away her position as she reloaded her twin Beretta 92FS pistols.

And then she smiled.

The remains of a broken mirror had already revealed just how hopeless the situation was. She stood alone against the world. There was no backup. Her crew was gone. All lost in a freak grenade incident just minutes ago. Ami didn't mourn their loss. She ignored the empty hole in her heart where her oathbound sisters used to be. They were human trash anyways - every one a ruthless criminal who's departure made the world a better place. Never mind Usagi's bright smile, or Minako's fierce loyalty or Naru's open acceptance, or Michiru's ...

Fuck it, never mind all of them.

Ami focused instead on the 6 armed gangsters on the other side of the bar. If these gangsters didn't kill her now, then surely Big Boss Luna would later for the abject failure tonight turned out to be. Nobody fails the Yuet To Tong this badly and walks away alive. There was no point in hiding anymore.

Years of lies and deceit would all come to an end today. At least she got to see her Makoto one last time.

On the other side of the once-opulent wedding hall, Inspector Detective Kino Makoto also cursed. She didn't want to do this. Even so, she moved on autopilot, sweeping the hall with her sawed off Remington 870 shotgun.

Makoto had spent so long pretending to be a red pole triad leader that it no longer required conscious thought.

6 members of the Hung Fa Boys stood at her back, expecting their "commander" to lead them into battle against the hated enemy. They had already scored a great victory tonight. The top generals of the Yuet To Tong lay where they fell. Setsuna, Saori, Hotaru...they were all gone. There was only one left to hunt down.

The one who was her partner, her lover, and her best friend.

Mizuno Ami of the Yuet To Tong, or Mizuno Ami of the HKPD anti-gang unit. It didn't matter who she was, Ami was dead either way. Outnumbered 6 to 1, there was no way anyone could get out of this alive. Makoto tried desperately to think of another way, but came up with nothing. There was no stopping this madness.

Curse the day they met. Curse the day Inspector General Chiba, that dirty bastard, called them into his office and asked them to go undercover.

The big tough streetwise bruiser with the dangerous reputation, and the small quiet shadow who got things done, no questions asked - they were as opposite as any two cops could get, yet they were both perfect for this fucked up operation.

They were also perfect for each other. Today would have been so much easier without knowing Ami as personally as she did.

Too late for regrets now.

Still, Makoto found a reason to smile, an unconscious parallel of the expression on her partner's face.

A flash of blue had caught her attention among the debris - Ami's reflection in the glass. She held a gun in one hand, and a bottle of booze in the other. Those were important details, but it was her eyes that Makoto would remember forever.

Even in the midst of all this violence, Ami was happy to see her.

A bottle of tequila flew over the bar. It hung in midair, a final agonizing moment before destruction.

One second, it existed. Glass and liquid. A drink to celebrate or solace for the wounded soul. In the next, it had transformed. An unstoppable orange fireball consuming everything in its path.

And in the space between, Ami vaulted over over the counter-top and opened fire. Her first shot exploded through the tequila bottle, her second through some masked goon's heart.

Left, right, left, right, recoil, fire. The pattern was more familiar to her now than the beating of her own heart.

Enemies scattered before the hail of gunfire she rained down upon them. She hit the ground hard. Ami had the breath knocked out of her, but she still rolled up to her feet and kept firing. It wasn't her mission, or love, or justice that kept her going. It was simply momentum.

No. That was a lie, there was one thing driving her actions now: Makoto.

Everything relied on her testimony. Makoto had to live. She had to escape, even if Ami had to kill every last person in the room to make that happen.

Well, so far, so good.

Ami gasped. Damn fool that she was, she stopped to think during a gunfight. Some unseen giant struck her in the left shoulder and again in the back as she reeled under the force of the first shot.

No matter. She still had the strength to whip her gun up and return fire. Ami turned her flailing spin into a twirl that put her assailant directly in her gunsights. Ami recognized her opponent then - she was the one they all called "Flame Sniper". Feared by law enforcement and triads alike, her dark deeds were as horrific as they were legendary. There was a certain sense of satisfaction seeing the light dim from that monster's amethyst eyes as her bullets struck home.

Lesson painfully learned however. She was too exposed here. Ami spotted a broken pillar that offered some promise of safety. She dove towards it, firing her pistols as she sailed sideways through the air. Time slowed. Hours passed between one muzzle flash and the next. Her target jerked about, a marionettes dancing for some insane puppetmaster. Ami tried not to notice how small her last victim seemed to be.

Damn the Hung Fa Boys for using children as foot soldiers.

She landed some meters short of cover. Fortunately, the tiles were slick with blood and dust. Ami was glad of that as she pushed off into a desperate glide. She careened across the floor, firing between the debris. Another pair of criminals fell in her wake.

Finally, things were going her way.

Her slide put her behind the broken pillar at last. Ami leaned against it, making herself as small as possible as she fought to catch her breath. It didn't help. The crunch of boots indicated that the enemy was approaching. A trickle of sweat ran down her cheek and fell off the side of her jaw. Or was it a tear?

Ami didn't know. There was only a certain sense of peace knowing that she would probably be dead before it hit the ground.

Makoto opened her mouth and ordered her people to action.

"DUCK!"

Not that anyone needed that specific instruction in light of the fireball blowing straight at them. It was chaos all around. She too was running and firing. She had to. That was her duty.

Her crew fell all around her. She knew they were bad people, but still couldn't suppress a surge of sympathy.

They might be bad people, but they were her people. Then she thought of all the misery they had inflicted on the city together. Drugs, human trafficking, corruption.

Fuck them. They deserved this.

Makoto got over her small flash of weakness. She was the only one who knew how deep organized crime had its tentacles in the upper echelons of the city's power base. She knew the identity of the mysterious Dragon-head of the Hung Fa Boys and she alone could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the man who started it all, Inspector General Chiba, was as dirty as they came.

That meant that survival was the order of the day. Her survival. Not Ami's.

Ami would understand. Hell, this whole crazy wedding hall extraction plan was Ami's idea. It all went pear-shaped, but she couldn't let her partner down. Not now, not after everything they'd been through. She had to survive.

Makoto steeled her resolve. Her shotgun roared with each pump. The shot sprayed indiscriminately. Furniture and drywall turned into shrapnel under the sheer destructive force of her weapon. Maybe a little sick to say, but Makoto had never felt so alive. Bullets flew all around. One shot by close enough to leave a searing kiss on her cheek. Regardless of all that, Makoto felt strangely safe. She knew sure as stone that none of those bullets had her name on them.

Where the hell was Ami anyways? Makoto squinted through the smoke.

There she was. Poetry in motion.

Makoto watched Ami slide between debris and reach the relative safety of a broken pillar. She smiled with grim pride as she 2 gangsters fall to the ground around her.

Doing the impossible. That's her girl. The odds just went from 6-to-1 to 2-to-1; and the one had no idea of how much danger she was in.

They might just get out of this alive afterall.

White smoke wafted through the room. Bits of broken glass and drywall fell amid the destruction. For the first time, Ami considered the possibility of tomorrow.

No, it was too soon for that. Ami pushed that thought aside. The more important question was just how many bullets she had left. A quick check revealed the answer: not nearly enough.

Lucky she thought ahead. The cooing of doves reminded Ami of secret ammo stash she had smuggled in earlier in the day. Clips in the cages - salvation was near at hand. If only she could get there alive.

Footsteps crunched up to where she was sitting. Makoto and the last standing member of the Hung Fa Boys approached. Ami couldn't see the face behind the mask, but she knew the voice when the woman spoke.

"Drop the gun." Haruka, that poor sweet innocent fool, walked right up and pointed her gun straight at Ami's head. "Surrender and we'll go easy on you."

Ami didn't have the energy to stand, but she found the will to raise her guns. One pointed at Makoto, the other poked right into Haruka's crotch.

Haruka's eyes bulged.

"You wouldn't!"

"I would." Ami replied coldly "Ever heard of Mutually Assured Destruction?"

They froze in that position for what could have been forever. A cliched movie tableau played out in blood and steel.

The standoff broke in one blast of a shotgun.

Ami opened her eyes, as surprised to be alive as she was to see Haurka lying face down at her feet.

Makoto had fired into the unsuspecting back of her "crew mate".

"Mako! I can't believe you did that!"

Makoto shrugged like it was just another day at the office.

"It wasn't a fair fight to begin with. Besides, you're one to talk. You shot me."

"It's just a graze. You'll live" Ami's gruff reply was met with a grin. The warm smile on Mako's face pushed back the cold that was already settling into bones. Ami knew she didn't have much time left but for Mako, she could keep going a bit longer "Help me up."

Makoto did so. As soon as she was on her feet, Ami staggered towards the bird cages. There was only one path available to her.

Makoto called after her in confusion.

"Hey! Where are you going? There's still one more. Chiba's on his way. He won't rest until we're dead. Let's get out of here while we can!"

"I know." Ami spoke with more conviction than confidence. "Go on ahead. I'll hold him here."

"But..."

Ami continued walking, pushing past the damning lethargy spreading throughout her limbs.

"Past this point, we need your testimony. You have all the evidence, so go!"

"Ami, you're not going to... "

"I won't die."

"That's a promise?"

"Yes. Now go."

'Don't waste my death.' Ami left the last part unsaid. Makoto seemed unconvinced, but turned to go as Ami directed.

"Wait!" Ami couldn't help herself. She didn't want her last words to her partner to be a lie. "Makoto, I love you."

Makoto ran over and kissed her. Ami closed her eyes and allowed this one last indulgence.

Big mistake. They had wasted too much time already.

The enemy was here, sooner than expected. A masked man walked in through the main door. He opened fire indiscriminately.

Ami tackled Makoto to the ground.

She had made plenty of mistakes in her life. Paved with pride and good intentions, her path to hell was set long ago. She always seemed to hurt the ones she loved, but if she could do just this one thing right, maybe it all would have been worth it in the end.

Ami raised her gun, it's weight a familiar old friend in her hands. Today might be the last time she would use this. Better make it count.

She pulled the trigger.

Shots rang out. Makoto was too surprised to resist as Ami shoved her to the ground. Her ears rang, deafened by the blast of Ami's gun firing right over her head

Everything happened all at once. Pinned down as she was, Makoto could do nothing but watch.

In the distance, she saw Inspector General Chiba clutch his face and sink to the ground. Casings fell all around, a rain of the tumbling bronze sparkling in her peripheral vision.

Ami grunted and stiffened above her. A splash of red clouded Makoto's vision.

Slowly, inevitably, she slumped to the side. The gun she held finally dipped down, revolving once through nerveless fingers on its way to the ground.

"Ami! No!"

Makoto knew she shouted the words out loud, but she never heard them.

Strangely, the only thing she heard was the flutter of wings. The doves. Poor things must have been part of the decoration for the wedding that was scheduled to occur here. Instead, they bore witness to this bloodbath. Somehow, in the chaos, they found their freedom.

They took off in a flurry of white feathers. Makoto watched them soar up through the broken skylight into the heavens.

"...and so, thanks to Ami's heroic bloodshed, Makoto was able to get away with the evidence that proved that Inspector General Chiba was secretly working with organized crime. Using that, she was finally able to take down the heads of both triad gangs, Big Boss Luna of the Yuet To Tong and Dragon-head of the Hung Fa Boys who turned out to be ummm...Artemis! The city became a much safer place and Makoto eventually becomes the next Inspector General and she-lives-happily-ever-after. The end." Ami wrapped her long winded tale in the traditional manner. "Anyways, that's what you all missed when you went to the snack bar. I told you there was a reason I had to shoot your fiance in the face! He was a dirty cop! Sorry about your engagement photos tomorrow Usagi-chan... and sorry about the bullet in the head there Mamoru-san."

Ami looked around at her audience. Usagi looked slightly traumatized and the others were staring at her with wide open mouths.

Ooops, maybe she overdid it a little, but that was fair. She did almost snatch victory from the jaws of defeat today. That was pretty epic, even by her own high standards.

Mamoru rolled his eyes, and then winced. The bruise his forehead was starting to swell.

"No, no. Really, it's my fault. What was I thinking? Playing paintball the day before we have our engagement shoot. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?"

Makoto spoke up, confused by that comment.

"Well, lots of things! I mean, you should know. You just got a pretty nice shiner on your face there pretty-boy."

"Mako, love. Hush. It's ok. I think he was being sarcastic."

"Oh right. That makes sense."

Mamoru sighed.

"This is going to look great in the wedding album. I knew I should have got a helmet that fit better."

Ami nodded sympathetically "Sorry! I really didn't mean to shoot your face off!" She handed him another ice pack. Mamoru pressed it sourly to the bump in the middle of his forehead "I got carried away. I'll take it easy next time."

"No need. You're on my team next round. I want The God of Paintball on my side."

Ami secretly savoured the new nickname as Michiru piped in.

"All's well that ends well then! This just makes for a better tomorrow. Mamoru-san, I'm sure your photographer can edit that bruise away easily, if not, I'll help you with makeup. I've got some foundation that would do wonders for your skintone by the way. " Michiru's giggle seemed to sum up the issue neatly. "Well, I know I had fun watching all that. Competing with your full strength isn't a bad thing is it Ami-chan?"

Everyone had a good-natured laugh over Ami's well-hidden competitive streak. Ami spluttered, trying to apologize again without actually apologizing.

Setsuna took pity and began reading the scorecard as a distraction.

"Well...let's see. It looks like the Mamoru's team won with Makoto being the last person standing... although Ami had the most points with 6 kills – Umino, Motoki, Kobyashi, Rei, Chibiusa, and Mamoru. Mamoru is in second with one kill - Ami." Setsuna scratched her head as she continued reading. "How do we score friendly fire? If that counts as points, then Usagi is first with 7 points after the paint bomb incident that got myself, Naru, Michiru, Minako, Saori and Hotaru. Oh! And Makoto gets one for shooting Haruka in the back."

Haruka spun around to face Makoto.

"It was you?! Mako-chan! Not fair! You working with Ami the whole time?"

All eyes turned to Makoto as she turned a bright shade of red.

"Actually no. My finger slipped. That was an accident."

"I'd wondered about that too." Ami smiled softly "I think I like my version of the story better."

"That wasn't a story you melodramatic dipshit!" Minako called out from where she was helping clean paint out of Rei's hair. "That was a rip-off of every John Woo movie ever! You really couldn't resist the doves at the end ne?"

Rei chimed in with her opinion.

"Honestly, I'm more surprised you are so comfortable talking about your self in 3rd person like that. Doesn't that feel kind of weird?"

"Ami rolled her eyes at Rei's criticism." Ami countered, now fully settled into her role as a hardboiled paintball gangster, "The nuances of good story telling were clearly lost on the literal-minded miko, especially after how hard she got pwned by that smoke grenade trick. Besides Ami had always found it easier to talk about herself indirectly – perhaps a consequence of having grown up with a deep affection for the written word?"

"Ok, ok, I get it. Smart ass. Just wait til the next round. You've just gone and put a hard target on your back."

Ami stuck out her tongue, Rei returned the gesture. The friendly trash talking was interrupted by a loud wail crashing into Ami's arms.

"BWAAAAHHHHHH! Ohmigods! That was so saaaaaad! Poor Ami-chan!" Usagi continued sniffling. "and Mako-chan...so tragic! WAAAAHHHH"

"Um...HELLO!" Mamoru waved his arms in a futile attempt at getting some attention. "I got shot in the face!"

Usagi ignored him as she bawled on Ami's shoulder. Ami patted her friend on the head with a light smirk.

"Well, goes to show, never underestimate the power of a good story. I'm glad there are no hard feelings. Now then, who's ready for round 2?"

A.N.

Translation notes (from Cantonese):

Yuet To Tong - "Moon Rabbit Society"
Hung Fa Boys - "Red Flower" Boys

Disclaimer: Always wear proper protection when playing paintball. This includes making sure your equipment fits properly!

Also, no shooting people , or threatening to shoot people in the crotch with a paintball gun (or any gun). That would HURT. Ami was just bluffing with Haruka, but still. Bad Ami! Health and Safety First!

Anyways...

A.N. Some days, you get good, reasonable story prompts from your beta reader. Other days, they say random **** like "Ami and Mako have an epic John Woo style showdown".

Well, now that that idea is firmly lodged in my head... Cue the doves and the classical music (I recommend Mozart - Lacromisa). Balambfish, this one's for you!

I guess we could call this whole thing a tribute to the films of John Woo and Hong Kong cinematography in general. Seriously, this exact combination of slow motion gunfights, triads, convoluted under cover police plots, and symbolic pigeon/doves happens ALOT. I love it. The whole genre is called "Heroic Bloodshed" if anyone wants to wikipeida for more information.

Thank you for reading! Hope you all enjoyed this genre mashup as much as I enjoyed writing it. Even when writing out of universe, I can't seem to keep Ami and Mako apart :P. Reviews/PM always appreciated.

Cheers,

-Drifter

2018-03-16 - Well...this one shot turned out to not be a one shot afterall. Please hit the "next chapter" button for...you guessed it, the next chapter.

Up next:

ch 2: 香港製造 Made in Hong Kong - wherein the story begins again.