[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Disguise

 

Genre: Slice of Life
Words: 4069
B/D: Picking up the Mira/Alte storyline earlier, this story explores Mira's attempt to infiltrate the Suguri household and gather information.

There was exactly one thing Mira had learned about disguise over the many long years since they had sat (on two separate posteriors at the time) in ninja class throwing paper shuriken at each other when the instructor wasn’t looking, and it was that all the cosmetics and meticulously planned silhouette distortion in the world sometimes failed to compare to a suitably large novelty moustache.

(In point of fact, the ninja instructor was looking, always, and they were given marks at the end of the year for accuracy, stealth, and solidness of construction. Being a ninja was not about running with your arms held backwards or shooting fire out of your fingertips. It was about hitting people when they weren’t looking, preferably with a weapon they didn’t think you had and in places they’d rather not be hit.)

Back to the novelty moustache, they’d found, through long, dangerous and at times unethical human experimentation that the worse the quality of the moustache, the better it worked. This was because the moustache was not actually a moustache, and was actually a gun. They had tried to explain this to Alte many times and failed, because Alte had a pretty good idea of what a gun was and disagreed with the idea of acquiring one from Groucho’s Joke Shoppe.

The moustache was a gun not in the sense that it fired bullets, but in the sense that it was a distraction. If you held out a gun when you spoke to somebody, they looked at the gun. The gun was interesting. The gun was dangerous. The gun would happily devour all their attention as if it had a black hole at the end of the muzzle, and next to none would be left for your face or how you dressed. The moustache did the same thing. People didn’t see the face behind the moustache; they saw the moustache. They didn’t really worry about the kind of person you were, because they already knew: you were the kind of person who had a horrendous moustache, and they perceived everything about you based on that fact.

Of course, it was a very brave person who walked up to Suguri’s household with a gun, whether that gun was a moustache or not. There wasn’t much public information about the state of the guardian’s arsenal, but what was known was that she had been kicked out of several fairground shooting ranges for failing to miss. From prior experience, Mira could also confirm that Sora was also not particularly good at missing, and, furthermore, liked to turn up about two feet from wherever you planned to dodge to when you weren’t looking (usually with something very pointy in her hand).

But, they reminded themselves, this was a mission of diplomacy. There was no reason why anybody should have to fight. They adjusted their trenchcoat (yellow, beaten, salvaged from an animatronic theme park attraction several years prior), seized their briefcase (full of forks, spoons, and suspiciously sharpened steak knives in case of emergency) and knocked on the door.

The hope had been that Hime – historically friendly to passing salesmen – would be the one to answer, but the door swung open to reveal none other than Sora, who was still in her pajamas and had not yet had chance to figure out what she was doing with her eyebrows today. After what seemed like a moment of considered thought (which Mira very kindly did not interrupt by speaking), she raised one of them, and then, thinking of the effort required to keep it there, lowered it again. Her mouth opened in what Mira would later describe as an upside-down triangle, although the debate about which side of a triangle was the top would remain unresolved for years.

“Good morning!” Mira said kindly. The kindness came chiefly from the fact that it was 2pm. “You, young lady, look like the kind of girl who’s in the market for a set of hand finished, stainless steel knives, forks, and fork-adjacent accessories, am I right?”

They realised as soon as the words had left their mouth that they had broken the number one rule of door to door salesmen: never ask a question where ‘no’ is a legitimate answer. Fortunately, while they examined this tiny, trivial mistake in their script, Sora was mentally rummaging through the cutlery drawer and finding herself displeased at what she found. Her favourite fork had recently been wounded in battle; two of the tines had snapped off in a freak washing accident, and now it was just a miniature spear with a swoop at the top.

“Maybe,” the blonde answered, wary yet honest. “But I don’t want to make decisions right now. I stayed up all night watching documentaries, so my head is fuzzy.”

This did not fit with the rumours of Sora’s character that Mira had heard. Hearsay went that she was abnormally fond of sleep, and not the type to delve too deeply into the secrets of education, lest they consume her. “Oh, was it anything interesting?”

“Mm. The first one was about a special kind of frog. It’s very small, but very poisonous.” She paused. “But they only live in the rainforest, which is good. I was worried the ducks would find one and eat it by accident.”

It wasn’t a topic Mira had been expecting, but they were pleased to hear it. Toxicology was something they had a passing knowledge of, as were frogs; their village had a long mythic history of them. A shared subject could be an easier way into a longer, more informationally nutritional conversation. “Oh, I see! Do you like frogs? They’re quite beautiful, in ou- my opinion.”

“They’re okay,” Sora replied, a little dismissively. “I think their skin is a bit too shiny. It makes them look like cake decorations.”

They allowed time for this to sink in. They’d heard a lot of things over their life – goodness knew, they’d had time. This sentiment, however, they found particularly novel. Who would make a cake decoration that looked like a frog? Were most cake decorations not matte and made of icing or sugar, rather than shiny? The questions had rapidly multiplied, and yet Sora stayed staunchly silent, apparently having decided that she had explained enough.

“W-well…. That’s an interesting perspective,” they said, when it became apparent that she had no particular intention of speaking until she got a response.

Instead of replying directly, Sora started to tell them about the other documentaries she’d watched, usually followed by an opinion both mysterious and deadpan. For twenty minutes, they listened to her ramble (insomuch as somebody who spoke as slowly and briefly as she did could be said to) about the mass production of cola cans, the reproduction methods of sharks, and the possibility of being able to kill somebody with small change if you dropped it from a high enough building. She was about to start telling them about the history of dogs and what kinds of work they did, when there was a clatter from the house.

“Oh, good timing. Hime’s in the kitchen, so she can tell you what cutlery we need. Come in,” Sora said, turning and padding away down the hall.

Mira breathed deeply, adjusted their hat and moustache, and followed. Infiltration successful. They hadn’t expected it to be quite so easy. Listening to Sora’s documentary diary had been a little exhausting, perhaps, but it was a small price to pay. After all, it had only taken twenty minutes. According to her sources, Hime often kept salesmen talking for up to an hour, and then sent them on their way without them ever seeing the inside of the house.

They swept their eyes around the living room as they went through, looking for anything of obvious interest. They didn’t notice anything, besides that the room was an odd combination of very clean, and very disorganised. The furniture seemed to have been moved recently, because it was all arranged haphazardly without much rhyme or reason. The one obviously functional placement was a small igloo comprised of blankets and a bean bag, sitting directly in front of the television.

“Hime. We have a salesperson,” Sora announced as she entered the kitchen.

With a brief motion, Mira respectfully touched the crown of their hat, careful not to make any sudden moves. Sora was an entirely unknown quantity, but Hime wasn’t much less mysterious; rumour had it she’d arrived on a spaceship, but been born on planet Earth. She was also… unpredictable. Enough to be dangerous in her own right.

“Oh, my. Well, this is a treat. Usually, you just say ‘we don’t want any’ and chase them away,” Hime said, with a bright but somewhat exasperated smile. “That… certainly is a moustache you have there. Goodness.”

Internally, Mira breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed their secret weapon was doing its job. Hime seemed unable to maintain eye contact, instead looking directly at the fluffy fake moustache when she spoke. Still… there was something that made them uneasy about things. Perhaps something they’d forgotten.

“This time’s different,” Sora replied. “I don’t really know if we want any, so I came to ask.”

“What are they selling?”

“Cutlery.”

Hime – who prior to that moment had been spreading butter on her toast with the back of a spoon, since the knives seemed to have unionised and gone on strike – considered this. “Ye-es, well… It isn’t that we don’t have cutlery, of course. I just don’t know exactly where it is right now. But we can certainly take a look at what you’ve got.”

She patted the dining table. At her insistence, Mira put the briefcase down, opened the clasps, and showed off the collection of slightly tarnished silverware that she’d collected from various thrift shops in preparation for this mission. Sora gave a soft, appreciative ‘ooh’, although it seemed to be her way of being polite; rather than actually looking at the things she was ooh-ing over, she was actually rummaging around in the pantry.

“Would you like a cookie?” she asked, brandishing a cookie jar that seemed far too cutesy to be owned by anybody above the age of six. The surface seemed to be comprised mostly of stickers.

Mira thought quickly. How likely was it that the cookies were drugged or poisoned? It was an outside chance, probably, but it was always worth considering. After all, Sora now knew the ways of the small toxic frogs that looked like cake decorations. Perhaps she’d put that knowledge into practice.

“You don’t have to say yes. She’s just looking for an excuse to raid the cookie jar,” Hime said, turning over a fork and looking at her reflection on the back side.

“I don’t need an excuse,” Sora sniffed. “I bought these cookies with my own allowance.”

“Yes, but if they’re in the cookie jar, then they’re a community resource–”

“It’s my cookie jar, too. Sham gave it to me,” Sora said, looking at her adopted sister critically. “I don’t mind that you sneak cookies from it, but you can’t tell me not to eat my own cookies from my own cookie jar.”

“I do not sneak cookies from you, I’ll have you know.”

“Do too. Suguri keeps complaining about it. You leave crumbs in bed.”

The atmosphere was becoming quite chilly, and Mira accepted the cookie offered to them as emergency rations in case a glorious sisterly war was to break out with them at ground zero. But Hime, upon taking three cookies for herself, decided that a ceasefire was in order, at least until she had inspected the merchandise.

“So, tell me about yourself. What brings you to the area?” Hime asked brightly as she picked up a knife ad looked appraisingly at the edge.

Mira had an answer prepared for this. Hime was notorious for her ability to empathise, sympathise, and generally milk personal details out of unsuspecting strangers. She was easy to talk to, partly because she enjoyed talking so much. For a lesser operative, there was a not insignificant chance they could be rumbled by Hime extracting their life story piecemeal and then connecting the dots. A cover was necessary.

“Just business, ma’am. This isn’t a job where you get to stay in the same place all the time. People only need so much cutlery, after all. Eventually, everybody’s got enough, so you go a little further afield.”

“I see. Where are you from, by the way? I can’t quite place your accent, but I don’t believe it’s from around here.”

“You know, I thought the same thing about you. I’ve been to a lot of places, but I’ve never heard an accent quite like yours.”

“She’s a space alien,” Sora volunteered.

“Oh, only when it’s convenient. Most of the time, I was born on Earth,” Hime giggled.

This roughly tallied with the information Mira had received, but they took care to look unsure of whether it was a joke or not. “And, um, your friend here? Is she a space alien too?” they asked, jerking a thumb at Sora.

“No, she’s just spaced out. A space cadet, you might say,” Hime murmured. “I don’t suppose you have anything with a monogram? Just to remind us of who we are if we forget during dinner.”

The conversation turned towards business. Hime, apparently, needed many knicks and knacks for the successful running of a household; although she often told Suguri what to get, Suguri would bring back strange approximations that didn’t quite seem to fit the bill, often without even really meaning to. They had tried adjusting her hair antenna in case there was a weird signal blocking her cognitive function, but all it did was give her a headache.

Sora’s capacity as an errand girl was higher, but she usually returned late and vaguely confused, having run into some strange, unforeseen but entirely mundane circumstance that demanded her attention. Once, she’d waited at a crossing for an hour because a herd of sheep were making their way across, apparently forgetting she could fly. Another time she’d managed to get hired at a local cafe by accident. There was always something, and Sora was always curious enough to indulge it.

After half-emptying Mira’s briefcase of knives and forks, and dropping several extremely heavy hints that there would be further business to be had if some kitchen scissors could be procured, Hime happily concluded the sale.

“Usually I would sit down and chat with you a little longer,” she said, handing over the money, “but it seems Sora’s already slowed your route down quite a bit. Perhaps next time, hm?”

“Ah, yes…”

Sora put down her cookie jar, a little regretfully. She knew that when she returned, there would be at least three less cookies in the jar, and three more in Hime’s belly. Nevertheless, she stood up. “I’ll show you out.”

Mira wondered if they should make some excuse to carry on the conversation and pump for more info. After all, it seemed like Sora and Hime were dragging them along at their speed. But then again, what information were they even looking for? It wasn’t worth outstaying their welcome and potentially souring further missions. Better to get out now, while the getting was good.

“Well, thank you very much for your business,” they said as they stepped out. “It was very nice to meet you. Sora, was it?”

They brushed the crown of their hat again theatrically, and Sora nodded.

“It was nice to see you again,” she said.

Mira was a fusion of two people, but they only had one heart. Somebody should have told it that, because it had started to beat twice as fast. Still, it might just have been a mistake. Sora didn’t seem particularly confident with the way she used the language. It could be smoothed over. It had to be.

“Ahaha. We’ve not met before, I’m afraid. This is the first time I’ve been to this area on my rounds–”

Sora looked at them with eyes that were still large and sleepy and green, but nowhere near as oblivious as Mira remembered them being. It was, perhaps, the first time she’d held their gaze properly in the whole conversation.

“I have that exact same moustache,” she said slowly. “It came free with one of my joke books.”

The pieces clicked swiftly into place. That was the feeling they’d had earlier. Hime had immediately started staring at the moustache, but Sora had completely ignored it – because she knew, from the start, that it was a fake. And Mira, so confident that the moustache would distract her, hadn’t paid attention to where she was looking, what she was noticing –

“Aha. Haha. You got us,” they said, defeated. “If you knew from the start, you could have said, you know?”

“I didn’t want it to be awkward,” was Sora’s reply. She at least didn’t seem angry. “You probably have a reason to be in disguise and everything. I was keeping an eye on you anyway, so I knew it’d be fine.”

How embarrassing. A ninja spying mission when the ninja is the one being spied on. Reflexively, Mira pulled the brim of their hat lower to cover their eyes. “You, uh, like joke books, then?”

“Mm. That one had a lot of good puns, so I enjoyed it.”

In Mira’s professional opinion, the puns were about as good as the moustache packaged with them – they certainly had merit, but really not in the way originally intended. But they kept that to themselves. Instead, they decided to tackle the elephant in the room. “You were okay with us being there? We didn’t exactly get along when we first met.”

“That was then,” Sora said, shaking her head. “There’s no reason to fight any more if you aren’t causing trouble. Besides, Suguri won’t let me. She says I’m retired.”

Mira sighed theatrically. “Retired, huh? Wish we could say the same.”

“Being a salesperson is a tough job,” Sora nodded. “But good luck. You can stop by if you’re in the area and you need a snack.”

“We’re not – aha. Well, we’ll be back eventually, we suppose. Your friend gave us quite a shopping list.”

That was it. There was no heartfelt declaration of friendship; they’d been on opposite sides during the war, and even now, they’d come into Sora’s house on false pretences, with a disguise and some second hand cutlery for an alibi. Even she couldn’t quite overlook that.

But she had, tacitly, chosen not to ask why they hid their face behind a novelty moustache; she’d left herself open to the idea that it was a misunderstanding, and there was some kind of benevolent reason for it that would be revealed in the fullness of time. That was at least something.

The door closed. A novelty moustache, Mira reflected, really was a lot like a gun. Sure, it was powerful if you knew how to use it, and it sure drew attention like nothing else. But sometimes, things just went better if you left it at home.

“So? What’s she planning?”

Mira leaned back in the chair. This time they’d met at an old truck stop diner. Red and white checkers were the theme of the décor, and they’d surely haunt their dreams later this evening. Across the table, Alte was nursing her fourth… no, probably fifth cup of coffee. Her voice definitely had that kind of edge to it. She’d never quite been able to handle caffeine in large amounts.

“Nothing,” Mira answered, spreading their palms out. Empty-handed. “All our info seems basically correct. She’s just doing her own thing, living a peaceful life. No plans to speak of.”

Alte’s mouth curled into a frown. “But she’s gathering allies. You don’t do that unless you have some kind of plan.”

“If she has a plan, we’ll eat our left boot. We don’t think she can have a plan.” They thought back to their impressions of her – a sleepy girl who stayed up all night watching random documentaries, squabbling over cookies and apparently brushing up on her puns. Sure, there was a brain in there, and it was working – she did see through the disguise, after all – but there didn’t seem like she was using it for anything, particularly. She was, as Hime had described her, a space cadet. Perfectly willing to just explore the universe and experience what it brought her.

The trouble, of course, was finding a way to convey that to Alte. She was an intelligence officer. She didn’t live in a world where people like Sora existed. She lived in a world populated by spies, agents, hard nosed corporate executives trying to find knives for each others’ backs. In Alte’s world, everybody had a plan, and her job was to know what it was.

“How do we put it… Ah! That’s it. She’s just like you were,” Mira said, snapping their fingers.

Alte’s voice was a dangerous growl. “Don’t compare me to that.”

“Come on. Think about it. How long did it take you to be able to plan for the future, right after the war? Years? Decades, even?” Their voice was as light as they could make it. Dancing on eggshells around the difficult topic of a husband gone missing. A future not worth planning for. “You were living day to day, for the longest time. So was I. So was everyone. For her, the war only ended recently. So yeah, we could see her planning for tomorrow, or maybe even next week. But anything big? Forget about it.”

Alte scowled. Unconvinced, but closer. Just a little bit more of a push.

“Besides, when you think about it, she never planned anything, even back then. She didn’t really have a plan to end the war. She was just flying around, protecting what she could. Sure, it might have made a difference eventually, but… if you’re asking us, Sora never ended the war. That other weapon ended the war. She just made sure it couldn’t end the world on top of that.” Mira’s hands went to their red muffler – tattered, often repaired, but still there. “That’s the difference between a war hero and a hero hero, we guess.”

Alte simmered on that for a minute – long enough that the blood began to dilute her caffeine stream again, and she sank the rest of her cup. Almost there.

“You said you’d back off either way, right? This is the info we collected, and our opinion on it. Give us a little credit here.”

“...Fine. Fine!” Alte grumbled. “For the record, I don’t appreciate how highly you speak about that…. Thing. However, I’ll accept that she, at least, probably isn’t planning anything.”

“But?”

“But,” Alte continued, “she’s a weapon. She doesn’t need to plan. All she needs is somebody to point her and pull the trigger. I’m going to keep her allies under surveillance for the time being.”

“Nath and Sham? The same ones you were telling us last time hadn’t done anything interesting for thousands of years?” Mira asked, raising an eyebrow. “Go nuts, we guess. Just don’t go kicking their doors down for an interrogation. You’ll take the lid straight off Pandora’s Box.”

“I’m aware,” she said stiffly. Then her face softened, just a little. “Good work today. I’m glad I didn’t lose you.”

“As if you could ever get rid of us that easily, right?”

The waiter arrived with Mira’s order – iced tea, a little sweet with a twist of lemon. It never feels like a successful mission before they’ve taken the first sip.

“Hey, Alte,” they asked, toying with the straw. “Do you think frogs look like cake decorations?”

Alte’s brow creased. “What? No. That’s weird.”

“Thought so.”

The whole thing, Mira thought, had been troublesome. A pain in the proverbial ass – and it wasn’t even over yet. They sighed, and thought back to Hime’s shopping list (which she’d forced them to transcribe). It seemed they’d accidentally signed up for mission two.

When Alte had gone, they took out the list, and scribbled something at the bottom of it in slanted handwriting – 1 x Book of Puns, the good kind. The fake moustache was all well and good, but the book it came with was trash. When next they visited that house, they’d have a peace offering – and hopefully, teach Sora some better taste.

A/N: The collected version of this, Tales of a Warless World, recently got to 1k hits on Ao3, which I wanted to celebrate even though I don't have a great deal of time to write stuff for myself right now. This ended up a bit rushed, but hopefully okay.