Operation 007 (SpyxFamily)

Ch. 17: Part Two

"I'm. . . an assassin?" She repeated carefully. She wasn't sure how she would deal with this, if he took it badly.

Yuri blinked once. Twice. Three times. "What?" He said again.

Yor wasn't sure if he could actually hear her. She continued, anyway.

"It's why I was able to track Anya to the lab. And. . . may have killed some people along the way." She eluded to the dead lab agents warily, watching for a reaction, but he had yet to give one.

Yuri blinked, once. Twice. Three times. "What?

Was this real? Was he dreaming? Did he hear her right? Was he in a parallel universe? Did she say she was an assassin? Were his ears plugged?

'Assassin. . .

Assassin. . .

Assassin. . .'

What did that word mean again?

"Yuri. . .?" Yor prodded, a glance to Loid who turned his palms up, elbows resting on his knees.

But Yuri didn't hear her. He was in a fog, comprised of the words spoken by Yor, trying to put them in the right order. Why couldn't he understand? Why was this concept so hard to grasp? Yor and assassin. These two words just didn't connect.

"Are you sure?" He asked, dazedly. His tongue slow and thick.

"Pretty sure. . . " She replied, brows furrowing.

"Hmm." Yuri nodded, sagely. Sat quiet for a moment. She said it was true, so it must be. Tried to connect the words again. Failed.

"Are you sure?" He asked again.

"Yuri . .?" Yor asked, concerned that he couldn't seem to process.

He was looking at her as if he was rethinking everything he knew. His thoughts piled up like jammed traffic. He didn't know how to sort through them.

To Yuri, it was like looking at a bunch of words, scrambled, and pinned all over a wall. A mess of notes, memories, and disorganized thoughts, that someone had come and haphazardly rearranged with no rhyme or reason. He looked at a word on the wall, unable to find the other that was supposed to connect to it. And another. And another. There was no sense to it. A mockery of his usually focused mind. A muddle of things he couldn't seem to comprehend for the life of him.

One word stood out to him that he would always recognize, keeping him tethered.

Yor. His sister. Forever holding fast to the centre in big letters. A circle of bare wall around it, as it's resplendence kept everything else at bay. Bright and beautiful, eternally reminding him why he wished to make the world safer. Her name had come undone from the words associated with her. Scattered across the wall in his brain-dead state. It was a travesty that he couldn't seem to remember what had been there. His mind, clogged and inoperable, the words so packed onto each other, they were hard to discern.

Sweet.

He grasped for the word when he saw it, connecting it to her name on the wall. Knowing it when he saw it.

Kind.

Recognized it, the word filling his childhood. Hard-working and loving, he uncovered. Warm and brilliant, he found next. Reliable and steadfast. Strong and capable. Sister. Mother. Wife. Civil servant. Amazing cook. The centre of his world. The epitome of human kind.

Absolutely and unequivocally perfect.

Her name drew him back together. Things he knew of her, things he wanted for her, things that described her essence and her being. The wall naturally forming around her name, Yuri, on the precipice of regaining clarity. A word lingering on the edges he had ignored.

Assassin.

He knew this word. It stuck to the wall mocking him. He didn't know what it was doing here. It didn't belong. But he was compelled to take it. Compelled to find a spot surrounding Yor's name and place it there.

Assassin.

And Yor.

Yor and assassin. Yor was an assassin. His sister was an assassin. His sister was an assassin. His sister was an assassin. His sister was an assassin. His sister was an assassin?

His sister.

Was an assassin.

This woman he knew all his life.

Was an assassin.

The word plunged him back into semi-awareness, words suddenly finding their place again. His wall fixed itself into what it was before with one modification.

His sister was an assassin.

The new word affiliated with her was strange and foreign. A concept that looked out of place next to her other attributes.

'Does this make sense?' He thought. 'When did this happen? How did this happen?' Looked at the wall again.

Assassin.

He thought he knew everything about her. . .but. . did he not? The thought there were things he didn't know was a crushing notion.

But also exciting.

He thought he'd known of every wonderful, exquisite, facet of her person. The thought there was more to learn, more to see he had not yet experienced, thrilling and saddening and astounding at the same time. He prided himself as the one who knew her best. He was afraid that wasn't the case anymore.

Assassin.

It sat snugly among the other words, but there was room for it. He thought he'd filled it to it's limits but there was still room. There'd always be more room for her. Room for the assassin.

Assassin.

Assassin.

"Assassin. . . ." He mumbled, finally capable of discussing this with her. "You're an assassin." He said.

Yor nodded, brow furrowed, Yuri noticing her tightly clasped hands.

"When?" Yuri asked quietly, adjusting to this development.

"When our parents died."

'When our parents died.' Yuri repeated to himself. 'When our parents died.'

The blood when she came home after work. Her hands calloused and rough. Her immense fortitude and perseverance. The late hours. The odd hours. She had been killing to provide for him.

Killing so they'd survive.

He couldn't imagine taking on all that responsibility at such a young age. Yor, his saving grace and inspiration. The life they led so full, because of her. Yuri, teared up thinking about it. His face warmed from the emotion choking him.

He loved her so much.

"Siiis." He cried, taking her hand, his forehead resting on her shoulder. "YOU WORKED SO HARD TO TAKE CARE OF ME!!" He bawled.

"Yuri. ." Yor started to cry, too, a hand on the back of his head that turned into a hug as his tears soaked into her neck. They took a couple minutes to themselves, while Loid stepped into the hallway to give them some privacy. He heard Yuri's dramatic sobbing as Loid paused in front of a door.