Title: Koneko

Summary: Oren Ishii knows many things.

Warning & Disclaimer: Violence. All characters belong to Quentin Tarrantino.

Notes: Many thanks to Flidget for providing information on kimono components.

Well, she was just seventeen,
You know what I mean,
And the way she looked
was way beyond compare

The Beatles, I Saw Her Standing There

O-Ren Ishii knows many things, and one of things she knows best is how to run a mafia.

O-Ren specifically picks out the members of the Crazy 88 because she likes to know what she's getting in an underground yakuza member, and to control the quality. She knows that her operations are no good if she doesn't know the material she has to work with. She knows she must have perfect mastery and knowledge of the sword, and therefore she will have no less over weapons made of human flesh. Also, it is good exercise. It burns calories to shatter someone's spine with one blow from her foot or hand, almost as many as the effort of performing swordplay in a full-length formal kimono.

Regardless, there are times she must go away on business and leave recruitment to Sofi or someone else. And while she would never allow inferior quality working for her, there are times when not all the qualifications she would ideally look for are met. O-Ren knows she must require many things.

One thing she requires in someone working under her is the ability to continue functioning with no decrease in quality despite intense alcoholic consumption. That inhibitions ought to remain (if it is profitable, if not, O-Ren is willing to be convinced otherwise) is simply assumed. Another thing O-Ren knows to require is that her underlings be unafraid to die, yet not excessively foolhardy.

Occasionally these qualities combine for humorous results, as currently, one of the more recent members of the Crazy 88 is attempting to flirt with Gogo Yubari.

O-Ren knows the outcome of this. O-Ren watches without watching, already knowing that Sofi is writing down potential new recruits in her appointment book and that Gogo herself has nothing in her hands. Gogo, unlike O-Ren, likes improvisation and spontaneity, and O-Ren knows that this is just as pure an art as the planning she herself prefers. She approves.

Before O-Ren, Gogo, and Sofi entered the restaurant for a late meal, the Crazy 88 had already been occupying it for the past hour. Many are playing drinking games now, they pose questions and make wagers. The group containing the young man who is making eyes at Gogo, has been trying to assign various animals to each other for reasons of personality, habits, and looks. They sling animal names back and forth, trying to make each more dangerous than the last. The young man's grin increases as Gogo takes a few steps towards him, head tilted curiously to make out his words over the din.

O-Ren thinks briefly of Bill, of the last time she was surrounded by those who doubled as snakes. She thinks of Black Mamba who is now the Bride. It does not hold her interest long. She has had her fill of inward consideration over whether personal affront or slight was present in what each of her assassin coworkers were called.

Regardless, she waits to hear what the young man will say to Gogo, because she wants to know if anyone else understands. She doubts it; she knows more about dangerous animals than these men and women ever will.

Neko, the man says, neko. He points to Gogo. Koneko. He puts his hands up on either side of his head and attempts to make ears, twitching his nose and laughing. Koneko, ne? Ne?

Gogo eyes him curiously, and stabs him in the throat with a spoon.

Fortunately, he falls backwards rather than forwards, and two yakuza members move closer to fill the gap. No need to give any more attention to the man twitching and bleeding out on the floor. Gogo does good work, she must have gotten his larynx on the follow-through jerk upwards, and so the noise of his death does not even compete well with the restaurant's music. The body is gone by the time they serve the next course.

O-Ren takes no notice of the entire affair, except to give Gogo a mildly reproving glance; the soup has not been served yet, she will need that spoon later.

Later that evening, O-Ren is undressing in her room. Gogo sits cross-legged on the bed without a stitch of clothing, her gaze turned inwards. O-Ren knows that she can never completely know what Go-Go is thinking, but she can tell preoccupation when she sees it, and this is not the type that usually precedes Gogo's sudden eruption to violence.

She pauses, turns her face half-towards her body-guard. "Gogo?"

"Mistress," Gogo says. Her voice is strangely uncertain. "Was it an insult?"

O-Ren knows what Gogo is referring to. She unties a part of her obi belt and considers.

It is difficult to imagine Gogo as any specific animal, since so much of her is wild to begin with. And yet, O-Ren can understand the dead man's mistake. Gogo does possess some of the same qualities as a feral cat. Cat-like, she is capable of purring in a lap one moment and savagely biting a hand (or leg, or throat, or any body part that happens to be closest) the next. Cat-like, her eyes are always unreadable, peering, looking out from under her thick bangs. Cat-like, she has grace and enjoys killing for the sake of killing, making a game of the entire process-- playing, really. And cat-like, she brings home dripping pieces of her hunts and leaves these trophies proudly on O-Ren's floor.

O-Ren does not mind the carpet bills.

But O-Ren knows a good taxidermist, the same one who preserved Boss Tanaka's head for O-Ren, and she gives Gogo his name, and teaches Gogo about the art of presentation. One day, O-Ren opens her door to find the head of the taxidermist sitting on a platter, artfully wreathed with orchids, fern fronds, and a single cherry flavored lollipop.

She tells Sofi to cancel her appointments for the day. O-Ren takes Gogo out and they pick out a steel-bladed mace together. O-Ren knows just what Gogo likes.

She considers the question and the questions that are linked to it as she removes her socks. Gogo's hands fold demurely together on her lap as she sits, and O-Ren thinks of how she has seen Gogo's hands bloom knives like a velvet cat-paw sprouts claws. Both of them pad softly after danger, stalking danger, being danger. The comparison is not entirely unapt, although the young man who made it would surely draw no comfort from that fact.

But cats have a reputation for being fickle as to who they choose to follow and who they return to. Their stories are of walking by themselves. No one would ever call a cat loyal as they follow their paths in life.

And O-Ren knows that there is no one more loyal to her than Gogo.

"He was not truly insulting you," O-Ren replies. Her juban drops to the floor. "But you were right to do what you did."

And Go-Go is all smiles again, quicksilver in motion as she twists out of languor and dives through bedsheets to her Mistress. O-Ren sees the white puddle of her juban from the corner of her eye as they fall backwards in the sheets. Her momentary thought is an association with butterflies. Then, Go-Go's mouth is between her legs, sweeter than all the candy Gogo uses for her schoolgirl persona props, sharper than any sword edge. The dark smoothness of her hair, the youth-silk-softness of her skin, the pale blue rivers of veins underneath, pumping life life life for all that Gogo takes it away.

Gogo's sharp little nails biting into O-Ren's thighs, Gogo's smooth black hair brushing rough silk over O-Ren's thighs, Gogo's rough little tongue licking up skin an inch at a time, white little teeth go nibble nibble nibble all too knowing of what they do.

O-Ren arches against the sheets, thinking of the different ways Gogo will giggle when she comes and when she is making someone else come and the giggle that thrums against O-Ren as she pushes higher, inch by giggle by inch by giggle until everything falls down.

Gogo knows just what O-Ren likes too.

Later, Gogo is stomach-down and lolling in the sheets and O-Ren is removing the kumihimo cords and the obi-age from the bedposts from where they were previously being used for holding things other than kimono folds. She observes the smooth lines of Gogo's back and pictures the entrance of a sudden intruder (unlikely as it is) and the exact way the muscles would move as Gogo would leap for him (or her).

Maybe cat-like. It is not an insult. But O-Ren knows better. O-Ren knows exactly what Gogo is, and why she chose her as bodyguard.

There is no animal more dangerous than a seventeen year old girl.