DISCLAIMER: A small fanfic sprung from the movie Kill Bill 1, and I would assume Quentin Tarantino and Co owns all in regards to that. Certainly not I, but then again I doubt anyone thought I did anyway.
WARNING: This story has violence though not that graphic, but anyone familiar with the movie Kill Bill 1 won't find it particularly surprising. In fact this is pretty mild by comparison, but still. Homosexual content also, naturally, or I wouldn't be writing this.
Incidentally, when I wrote this I misunderstood Sophie's role in Bill's group and assumed she was a Viper as well.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Sophie
By Carola "Ryûchan" Eriksson
My name is Sophie.
I've used many over the years, codenames, aliases... perhaps it would surprise some to find out that Sophie is in fact the name my mother gave me, all those years ago. But no matter.
My mother.
My mother was a Japanese prostitute, and very young when she gave birth to me, while my father was a French small-time criminal temporarily in the land of the rising sun, just there long enough to spawn an offspring and was never heard of since. Through them I entered this life an unwanted bastard of a prostitute, and worse, a halfling, only half Japanese, making sure my life would in no way follow any easy path.
Growing up in the world of prostitutes taught me to disconnect from my emotions while very young, and I would have become a prostitute myself at a very tender age had not something unforeseen occurred the first time I was to be presented to a customer.
Yes, I'm sure it was quite a surprise... I was always perfectly agreeable on the surface, somehow acquiring a modicum of good manners despite my glaring lack of role models at that point in my life. So the insane, brutal and downright animalistic slaughter I brought upon the men that tried to take me must have been... most startling.
I was fortunate though.
The men I killed were in service of a particularly twisted Yakuza boss, and when I was brought before him to be killed for my crimes, his master assassin was present. And he found in me the pupil he had been looking for.
I would come to call him my father, for the twelve years I was with him.
So began my schooling, and indeed he taught me so much. My father was a strict teacher and I a slavish student, and we both thrived from that arrangement. He taught me to never feel shame that I am only half-Japanese, and for that alone I would ever feel grateful.
But mostly he taught me to be an assassin. One of the best.
Still the one creature that has had the largest impact on my life was another.
It was only fate's hand that prevented us from crossing blades while no more than children. I was barely thirteen at the time but already one of my Yakuza boss' best assassins, and she must have been nine... had I not been away, cutting the throat of one of my master's enemies, I would have ended up having to go after her that night she tricked her way into his bedroom in order to avenge the murder of her parents.
We were both children still, but oh so deadly, and with an innate skill for bloodletting that put us above those that fell to our blades. But were I was without emotions, she was fuelled by her hate.
O-Ren Ishii.
The years passed by and I grew up. She became legendary in our field, and I heard of her constantly though I had never met her in person at that time. It struck me odd that she would not use codenames nor an alias, but by then her own name was one to strike fear into the hearts of men anywhere, even if it was just a whisper in the dark.
My father died, and I no longer had a master nor owed any creature my allegiance. For a time I worked for the highest bidder, and it was a life that suited me.
Then I met Bill.
Oh I know that most of the Vipers in his service are his lovers, seduced man and women alike by the nefarious charm Bill can summon to all but hypnotize when he wants to, but not I. Never I, and I never truly considered why.
No man had ever touched me in that manner and survived, it was the one thing that would trigger the release of my inner beast, that thing that was locked away with my emotions, and Bill knew better than to try to provoke that. He flattered and flirted, but never past my boundaries, ironically winning more loyalty from me that way.
I became one of his Vipers, and had once more a master to whom I owed allegiance, and I adapted to that. What was more, I had if not partners or allies then at least equals in the other Vipers. Although the others socialized with one another, some of them even becoming friends from what I could understand, I kept apart. Alone.
Solitary.
Then I finally met her. O-Ren Ishii.
Standing on a rooftop, dressed all in blood-red leather, shoulder length hair tossed negligently aside as she tilted her head to one side assessing our opponents with a cool, dispassionate gaze.
I would in time come to realize just how deceptive this calm, unemotional mask of hers is, much as my polite smile is for me. At that particular moment I was too stricken with her beauty to notice much else.
She has tiny freckles on her nose, I thought as I distractedly disembowelled one man and threw a throwing dart into the brain of another. She moves so gracefully, I admired as she split a man in two with one smooth, economical move with her katana.
The first words she spoke to me were to say that my form was sloppy. In years to come, that would become a joke with us, always spoken by her with a perfectly straight face, and never failing to bring a smile to mine.
We worked together after that encounter on the rooftop, always ending up paired together for missions where I before had nearly always fought alone. I thought it was Bill's idea.
It would take me years before I found out it was by her specific request.
O-Ren was as sociable as I, and as such the other Vipers did not know quite how to handle it when we both appeared in what passed for social functions for creatures such as us. The truth was that I was willing to endure the company of the others for a chance to see her, though it took me some time before I realised why. Years, even.
Another rooftop, again surrounded by opponents, but this time with both of us in black and back to back.
I took a kodachi blade into my left shoulder for her, inadvertently throwing her off-balance as I did so. The perfect mask cracked just a little, and she gasped and turned towards me, leaving herself wide open for a man with a katana in his hands.
I saw red... literally.
The beast inside me came roaring out, and I screamed I know not what as I spun around and showered us both in a fountain of red blood. When I came back to my senses we were the only two alive on that roof, and I was on my knees in front of her, wide-eyed and shaking violently.
She stared at me with those large black eyes, looking slightly unsettled, and neither of us spoke for what felt like a long moment.
Her voice shook when she asked me why.
Mine did not, though hoarse from screaming, when I answered that I love her.
Up until that moment I had not realized it myself, but I did and still do. And the beast in me will not allow anything to harm her, though I know she possesses the superior skills of us two.
She grabbed me by the front of my clothes roughly and pulled me up as if she was going to throw me over the edge of the roof. I offered no resistance.
Our first kiss carried a trace of the coppery taste of blood, and it was the first of many.
We became lovers, my beautiful snow maiden and I... and in time, partners though neither of us carry something so commonplace as a ring to signify our union.
We have stood together in dark times, in struggles and suffering, and we have also stood together in moments of triumph. She achieved her goal to take control over the Yakuza eventually, became their ultimate leader, and I am so proud of her.
We even found a child, a young girl to raise as our own. She reminds us both of our past, and shares our affinity for blood and carnage, it seems sometimes we were truly given a daughter without having to go through the troublesome process of birthing and diapers and all those other things I have a vague notion is the usual way of things. And our GoGo will be loyal to the last breath, I am sure of that.
For our daughter's first birthday with us, O-Ren gave her a short blade forged by a master. GoGo carries it with her wherever she goes, she even sleeps with it clutched to her chest like I suppose other children not of our dark world might clutch a toy for comfort, much like O-Ren carries the ancient lacquered blade I gave her for our wedding ceremony wherever she goes. This is my beautiful family, and I know that in this life they will always be beside me... always together, united. Nothing can part my O-Ren and I.
I know also that when the day comes that we leave this soiled world they, my beloved and my child, will stand beside me in hell.
And we will walk that world together as well.
The End