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“I didn’t know Chasshiro had an ex girlfriend.”
“For a woman tied up by a spy and her monster ally, you’re surprisingly calm.”
Mira shrugs as best as she can while, yes, tied up. It happens sometimes, and she isn’t in any real danger. Probably.
Yet.
“I can take you.”
The woman scoffs.
“I’m not like your Boon Blue,” she says. She frowns. Mira hmms.
“You seem a lot like him,” she says. “Do you have a name, or should I keep calling you Chasshiro’s ex girlfriend?”
“I wasn’t his girlfriend,” the woman says. “He was too cowardly for that. Or maybe too self absorbed. Or maybe he was smart enough to know he’d fall in love.”
She stalks forward. Mira refuses to flinch when the spy grabs her chin.
“I wonder what changed,” she says. “You seem so painfully… normal.”
“I’m not,” Mira says, glaring a little. She’s not unwary of her situation. “And you still didn’t give me a name.”
“…Steer,” the woman says. “Your Chasshiro called me Steer.”
Mira knows instantly that the plan won’t work. Taiya sees through everyone so well that she wonders why she’s the only one ever able to see through him. Jou might be fooled for a moment, but never long enough to matter, and he’d be the first to go looking for her. Genba will observe and find what he needs, what they need. Sakito will be the first to risk schooling her fake double.
And Chasshiro? Well, the fake won’t even last a second.
She says the last part out loud, and Steer frowns, running a hand through her fake’s hair, softly.
It’s like Chasshiro, when she met him. But even more careful. Maybe he does have cracks in his armor that they wove into, but it made his armor stronger and more colorful.
“We’ll see,” she says. “You’d be surprised how easily people are fooled.”
“I’m sorry,” Mira says. “Do you like living the way you do? Because you have a choice. Everyone has a choice, no matter where they start.”
Mira is a little good at everything, straightforward, yes, but not unintelligent. If she was tied up as thoroughly as Steer might have done Chasshiro, she would never get out.
Steer assumed she was easy.
When the ropes fall, Mira moves in moments, pulling out her Handle before anything else. She doesn’t like being tricked, and Steer lured her in. So Mira doesn’t hold back, when they fight.
“Even if you win, your team is done for,” Steer says. Mira looks outside, where her team is still fighting.
“Chasshiro probably took care of it,” she says. Then she dodges a bullet. “What the hell? That’s cheating!”
“There’s no such thing as cheating,” Steer replies.
Mira frowns and focuses.
“See that’s the difference, actually,” Mira says. “The problem with you underworld types. Chasshiro was the same.”
Spin, move, hit where they don’t expect, which is usually everywhere. Fighting, for Mira, is as easy as breathing, and this woman is all of the parts of Chasshiro that never knew what to make of her.
She tore through those shells, she can do it again.
“Good things happen when you take your wheel,” she says, blocking a kick. “People are kind, and there’s something way better in just trusting it.”
Pin her. She looks surprised.
Mira finally lets herself worry and sigh in relief.
“It didn’t happen all at once,” she admits. “Chasshiro only trusted Taiya, and then the team over time. But he left, he didn’t lose any of himself to open up.”
“That’s…”
One offer. Still an enemy.
“I think whatever you’re doing this for is hurting you,” Mira says. “Why don’t you come with me instead?”
Steer looks up… and kisses her.
And flips them around. And runs.
Mira stares after her… and hopes to see her again.