Blades of Autumn

[NixOlympica]

Blades of Autumn

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The cell doors opened and four men in facemasks entered Hanako's cell.

Here we go again... She lost the count of how many times this scene has repeated but it never got any easier. Harder. Not that she would admit it to her captors.

Sasaki Hanako, the now presumably former Shurei-kan of Gen'an Chrysanthemum, was slouched next to a wall. Her face was, for a lack of a better, word mangled. Spotted with bruises, some dark blue, some fresh, some old. Her hair was cut short. She looked like sh*t. She felt like sh*t. Maybe this time they would finally go too far and kill her. Hanako knew she should not think that way but it has been months since the KSP has captured her. She lost track of how many months exactly. She hoped it has not been years. Time has lost a meaning very soon.

Her capture was the usual case of really piss-poor luck combined with some bad intel. She had a lingering suspicion there might have been a mole involved but she had no way to know. In the end, all that mattered was that she flew straight into a KSP patrol that was conveniently just waiting for her. She lost two sisters quickly, their ships exploding in a fiery ball of fire. She had no such luck and her engine was disabled. That memory reinforced her feeling it was no ordinary patrol but rather an ambush. That and the pilots were really damn good.

She was extracted from her ship, the Blades of Autumn and stashed in a cargohold of fighter. Then transported somewhere. Few hours later when her pod opened the sight of 5 rifles pointing at her welcomed her. She sighed and pulled her arms up. "Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a twist, I surrender" she said cheerfully. That would not last. Her hope was that they would not be able to identify her, she would feed them some bogus name and sob story and get tried as a low-level GC sympathizer. With luck receiving low sentence, maybe hope for some blanket clemency or at worst, serve a few years.

Hanako was yanked from her pod and her palm was forced to a device one of the guards had with them. It flashed red. "I forgot my police badge in my drawe-". Before she finished her sentence butt of a rifle hit her ribs. "Shut the hell up." She arched and coughed before hearing. "Haul her to room C47 and notify Oversight. We've got a big one here."

Fu*k.

The room smelled like disinfectant. Two way mirrors at all walls, cameras and a simple table with two chairs. One with a slot for handcuffs. That was her place. She was placed into her seat in no gentle manner and then the figures left the room. It probably took hours before the door slid open again and a masked man entered the room. What surprised Hanako is that he walked in with a cane.

"Nice of you to join me, mister...?" she paused questioningly. "I thought my date has stood me up."

The man ignored her quipping and sat in front of her, taking out a screen out of his bag and placing it in front of himself so only he could see it. After a moment of silence, his eyes met her and he said

"Name?"

"Anata Okāsan. Yours?" she raised her eyebrow

The man just kept staring at her and repeated his question in a flat voice. "Name?"

"I already told you, it's Anata Ok-". And then the first blow hit and the cane shattered her cheekbones.

Weeks passed and the interrogation continued. She fairly quickly realized they already knew who she was. So after a while she gave up the first notch in the neverending battle of resisting torture and told them her name. It was a slippery slope and she knew that. That night she was allowed to sleep without being interrupted by blaring music. Some questions were meaningless and of no apparent value. Her mother's maiden name. The date of birth of her father. And in between, questions of real importance were vowed in. What is the location of the fabled Kinkaku-ji station? What is the command structure of the the Gen'an Chrysanthemums. What was her dog's name? Where did she study? How many nuclear devices does Gen'an posses. What was the population of planet New Tokyo? True answers meant small rewards, lies and silence meant more beating. And thus the cycle continued. The same cold eyes, the same cold voice. Days after days. She was regularly moved. Sometimes interrogated on a ship, sometimes on a base, sometimes on what she presumed was a planet. From the manners her captors handled her, the ominous professionalism, she was in the hands of the Kempeitai. Her guards never uttered a word in front of her, never hit her unless motioned to do so. Cold professionalism. That meant she was in serious trouble.

In the last weeks she kept goading them on. Spitting on her captors, biting them, at one occasion even doing a less savory act. She was restrained, gagged and transported. Her hope of them ending her suffering by an accident was in nonexistent.

Hanako's mind snapped to the presence when the guards picked up. She was too tired to resist. She needed to preserve her strength for the interrogation itself. Wasting it along the way was an exercise in futility and stupidity. The now fragile looking Chrysanthemum was placed in a chair, handcuffed to it and after a while her personal interrogator entered the room.

He casually sat down, took out the screen out of his bag and asked:

"How many ships dock daily at Kinkaku-ji?"

"Fewer than in your mothe-" she said, her voice just slightly above a whisper. The hit made her bite her lip and blood drops stained the floor.

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