Breaktime

"You know, I knew that Ozawa city had a pretty high Russo-Japanese population, but I've never actually had any Russo-Japanese friends before." Daisuko squints at the setting sun as she drives, trying to ignore the overwhelmingly tense air.

"You still don't." Valeriya stares out the front seat's window, her swords nestled between her legs.

"Well, actually, now that you mention it, I don't have many friends, period." She laughs heartily. It's an infectious laugh but everyone else seems immune.

Tough crowd.

Daisuko nods, affirming the spirit's super-duper helpful comment.

"I'm a little Russian myself on my mother's side. Like… maybe about one-eighth Russian. I was raised Japanese, though."

"..."

"How about you all?"

"Full Russian." Klara says. It shows in her eyes and hair. "I was raised in Russia but I was transferred to Japan."

"Transferred by?"

"The ICMG."

"Ooh, you worked with the ICMG?"

Klara nods.

"Doing what?"

Klara closes her eyes, remembering that fateful day. "I used to be a part of the Tokyo Department."

"Really?"

"At the time, everyone looked up to The Lady of Tokyo. Me included. Then we were betrayed."

"What happened?"

"She started running experiments on civilians. We were powerless. Everyone gave up their lives but I got off easy. All I had taken from me was my humanity. But in the end, she wasn't satisfied and ended up running experiments on civilians anyway." Klara bites her lip. "I ended up becoming a mercenary out of sheer spite. The very opposite of what an Inspector-Commissioner should be."

"I see…" Daisuko gets the overwhelming sensation that it's best to move on from this topic as fast as possible. "And what about you, Iko?"

"Three quarters-Russian. My father was Russian, my mother was half Russian, half Japanese."

"I see. Could you say something in Russian? Like, how to say hello?"

"When greeting a friend, we say 'Privyet'. To greet a stranger, we say 'Zdravstvuyte.'"

"Zdrah-svooy-tee?"

"Good try."

"Very nice." Daisuko mouths the word a few more times. "Anyway, what's your story?"

"There's really not much to say. I was raised pretty normally. I went to school. I worked as a party clown for a while. Then things got rough and I had to resort to mercenary work to survive."

"Party clown?"

"There's no greater reward than making children smile." Iko's face breaks into a full-blown grin as the memories come back to her. If she closes her eyes, she can still hear their laughter. "But that was once-upon-a-time."

"Why the jump to mercenary work?"

"It's lucrative, I had the connections, I had the abilities."

"How'd you get your hands on Jutsu?"

Iko swivels her head to look at Klara.

"Ah, I see."

"They were supposed to only be for parties…"

"Really?"

"Party poppers are essentially miniature hand cannons. If I amp up the explosives and replace the confetti with ball bearings, I end up with something like a shotgun but several magnitudes stronger."

"That's a very liberal definition of a 'party popper.' How anyone thought it was a good idea to let you near children is beyond me."

"Maybe so." Iko returns to staring out the window, the corners of her mouth now slightly upturned.

"How about you, friend?" Daisuko turns to Valeriya. "What's your story?"

"What makes you think I'll tell you?"

"Er, I kind of assumed that you would, like, get with the program." Daisuko laughs to fill the silence.

"Hmph." Valeriya crosses her arms. "All you need to know is my other name, 'Calamity Jet.'"

"..."

"The stories are true." Jet smirks. "All of them."

"Um… What stories?"

The veins on Valeriya's forehead bulge comically as her temper flares.

"You know what? Whatever." Valeriya crosses her arms.

"It's nice to have dreams."

"It was a reality. Once."

"Mm." Daisuko pulls the car to a stop at the drive-through of a WcDonald's. "What do you all want for dinner?"

"Black coffee, please–" Klara doesn't get to finish that sentence.

"No need to be so modest." Daisuko flashes some green in their faces to make sure they're on the same page. "I'm paying for all this. So, what do you all want to order?"

"...That." Klara points at the kid's meal.

"I'm sorry, the what?"

"Th-the kid's meal, please." Klara jabs her finger at the kid's meal again.

"Which one?"

"The…" Klara sighs. "The Sparkle-Sparkle, Shining-Shining, Super-Duper Meal… please."

"With or without the toy?"

"...With."

Daisuko snickers to herself before turning to Iko. She seems hesitant, but the eagerness in Daisuko's eyes breaks down the last of her reservations.

"I'll take the Half-Pounder if that's fine."

"Do you want a drink and fries with that?"

"Yes."

"Alrighty."

So that's a kid's meal for Klara, Half-pound burger for Iko, and for Valeriya…

"I'll take the twenty-four piece chicken nuggets. And tell them to give me one of every sauce. You'll cover it if the sauce costs extra, right?"

"Yep yep."

"You know, I remember when I was little and I hated eating fast food. But weirdly enough, I've grown to like eating it every once in a while in my old age." Daisuko takes small nibbles out of her burger as she drives. "It works sort of like a palate cleanser for me. Reminds me of what good food is supposed to taste like."

"I assume you were born wealthy?" Iko picks at her french fries. After devouring the whole burger in less than five minutes, she's left with the fries and drink to entertain her for the ride.

"Yeah. Silver spoon in the mouth and everything. Why?"

"This is like fine dining to me. When I was younger, papa used to bring home takeout hamburgers on the last sunday of every month. Even now, I still think of it as a treat."

"That reminds me of a story." Klara fidgets with the toy that came with the meal. She turns the little key that makes it walk almost obsessively. She hasn't touched her food. "I remember when I was young, maybe around thirty or so years ago–"

"Damn, and here I was thinking I was old."

"How old are you?" Klara squints at Daisuko.

"I'm twenty one."

"I'm Forty-six." Klara says without missing a beat.

"Thirty-three… I think." Iko picks up another fry before dropping it into her mouth.

"Thirty four." Valeriya corrects while she bites into a stack of two chicken nuggets. "We were born ten years apart."

"So…" Daisuko makes some quick calculations in her head. "That makes you forty-four, Valeriya?"

She winces. "Unfortunately."

"I feel like I'm in a museum with all these fossils around me." Daisuko takes another bite from her meal.

"Mm… anyway, where was I?" Klara taps her temple, jogging the cogs in her head. Maybe literally. "Ah yes. So this happened when I was young and I had just been assigned to Japan. After the first month, I decided to visit my mother back home in Russia. And I remember bragging to her that I had bought a special something from an esteemed toymaker. I had never seen this toymaker but I assumed he must be esteemed if he was creating toys for a multi-million dollar corporation like WcDonalds." She pauses. "Some of you may be ahead of me. So I brought out the kids' meal toy and she immediately slapped me across the face."

Daisuko laughs heartily from all the way in her stomach. Iko's heard this story a hundred times before but it gets her all the same every time she hears it. Even Valeriya can't help but smile a little at the mental image of a little Klara showing her mother this toy with her chest puffed out.

"In my defense, we did not have WcDonald's restaurants in glorious mother Russia back then."

Valeriya closes the empty chicken nugget box back up before tossing it out the window. "I never met her but I suppose step-mother must have been rather cruel to hit you like that."

"She very much was." Klara says it casually. "Ah well, with age comes perspective. It's a pity that only after her death did I realize that she had her own demons to face."

"Still, that doesn't excuse what she did to you." Valeriya wipes her fingers and mouth on the tissue napkins.

"Maybe not. But I made the choice to forgive her a long time ago."

Everyone is silent for the rest of the car ride.