2/2

That exodus and the mere fact Strasbourg was one of the border towns made it rather deeply seeped in mafia connections, as all the mafia men from Germany used the town to plan their next move once free from any governmental scrambling that might restrain them. Which also contributed to the town having a bit of a suspicious air to it, mafia people weren't nice people, as Strasbourg developed into a more city-like area. Mostly due to the immigrants, but it was also more developed than the surrounding infrastructure explained.

All of that meant the city was a bizarre mix of urban developed streets and businesses, mixed in with a half-demolished main thoroughfare and semi-shifty city planning.

Only mafia people would place large pawn shops on the main street next to the train station and restaurants, for easy access to illegal weapons and a fence or two, rather than civil-minded city planners who would probably prefer to put those pawn shops on the very edges of the rebuilt city.

It was on a smaller scale but actually worse than Paris itself, even if you took into account the capital city's sheer volume of underground tunnels and hangouts implemented during the French revolutions over the age and expanded by the French Resistance only recently.

Strasbourg was almost, almost like Moscow in that respect. Not nearly as shady and with so many bolt-holes, but in open mafia neighborhoods and obviously claimed territories. It was smaller than the city she had spent over a decade living in with Cherep, but it had the same general air.

Sonya rather liked it.

CXVI (Wednesday the 31th of August, 1966 continued. Strasbourg, French Republic.)

She didn't like what she found when she followed the Frenchman's words to the supposed Carpentier homestead and vineyard.

So much for Cherep's insistence that civilians were less suspicious on average.

Instead of following the road, because she really didn't know what roads to take or not, Sonya had followed the edges of the Forest Robertsau up north. Checking in now and again on the houses that might have been her aim.

Since she wasn't the most sociable thief in existence, instead of knock on the doors she lurked around and waited for someone to say the family name before moving on to the next home.

It took her longer that just simply knocking on doors, but also kept her from notice.

Which made the presence of several unsavory types waiting in a semi-abandoned homestead jarring enough to catch and hold her attention fast.

She didn't know them, which didn't really surprise her.

She also didn't know what they were doing, nor what they wanted her for. If it was her specifically they wanted, or if it was her asking about a former Arcobaleno or Flame user that attracted their attention.

Like any good thief when presented with something they wanted that might be owned by another individual, she lurked around and stole it.

They had orders, tersely written physical ones one occasionally referenced while they waited. Meaning they were either locals hired through a third party or stationed abroad for other reasons and were expected to report back. The Russian didn't really care other than getting her hands on the papers and figuring out what the hell was going on.

Written in Italian or not, she could still read it.

Instead of finding out she triggered a defensive strike against anyone looking into one of the supposed 'pillars of the universe', this was merely human in nature.

As in a specific hitman in her acquaintance had pissed off someone with a whole lot of pull.

Enough pull to bother going after Renato Sinclair's associates and allies just because the magnitude of whatever offense the Mafioso had given pissed someone off that much.

The thief it was inconveniencing was a bit torn on what the hell to do about it.

It could answer why she had been stalked after that last visit to Mafia Land, she hadn't been back all year since joining the circus and it was entirely likely the Sun hadn't been able or knew to warn her about this. It could be something entirely unrelated to that stalking she had noted, which had to be borne in mind no matter what happened.

Said hitman she owed favors to might need a bit of help, or he might be perfectly able to take care of this himself.

However, Sonya was a bit committed to the circus thing Cherep was so hung up on. She couldn't really afford to go and abandon her spot on a whim, even if Renato really did need her help after all.

She might not get that spot back after everything was said and done, and her brother wasn't safe yet.

Her fingers itched, but she refrained from digging out her latest pack of cigarettes. She was smoking way too much as it was and was trying to cut back a bit. The distraction held her still a moment longer than she liked.

The hired henchmen weren't stupid, for all that it proved laughably easy to steal the terse and suggestive paperwork from their gear. They were simply skilled in different areas than she was.

The Italian that spilled across her ears was just as musical as any native speaker, slightly quicker than she could keep up with after so much time since the last time she heard the language spoken.

She caught the gist of it though, given their subsequent actions. Spreading out, checking high and low for any hiding spots someone might use, meant they were suspicious of someone lingering where they 'shouldn't'. They hadn't thought to look up, most never did, so she merely moved to keep herself out of any line of sight just in case someone did think to look in her direction.

Now she had a decision to make.

The Russian could go confront them herself, in hopes of narrowing down why this was going on. That would possibly mean she'd have to kill them to continue moving around unmolested or un-hunted.

She could try to find a bit more on her own, pawing through the rest of their gear and maybe pickpocketing them for anything else of intelligence or monetary value. That wasn't likely to pay off, as something all thieves and criminals were taught was to shed anything identifying from their person before engaging any acts of dubious moral nature. Semi-official looking orders in her hands or not, she probably wouldn't get that lucky again.

Sonya could leave and pretend nothing had happened.

After a few moments, of delicate balancing and wall scaling around to avoid detection, she decided that abandoning this wasn't going to happen. If it would have, she would have left already the moment something suggesting violence appeared.

That probably made her a very stupid thief, really. Thieves like her were, by nature, creatures of stealth and avoidance, fights were only things of last resort unless they had a secure upper hand and escape route nearby. Tatiana might be a different sort of thief, but she could afford to be with her gang close at hand.

She was on her own here. Her methods had to be undetectable or lethal in respect to that lack of support, or she'd never survive it.

However, she also didn't really want to kill anyone.

Musing on the problem, she kept on shadowing the Italians as they hunted around but eventually grouped back together in the main room of the abandoned homestead.

"Where is the bitch?" One muttered to another, a simple enough question Sonya understood him clearly.

She didn't quite follow the response, but it was probably crude and rude in nature by the gestures and what sentence structure she understood.

Cute.

One, the man she was mentally labeling the 'leader' of this little mission, snapped something else at the two underlings of his. Something about the dawn and the next day.

Probably telling them it was likely she had decided not to check out the lead she had been given that same day and instead try tomorrow.

Which was entirely possible, it had been rather late when she set out from town. Her meandering walk up here had not helped, seeing as it was pitch dark outside now.

...her brother would start to worry if she left it much longer.

Sonya tentatively decided to riffle through their belongings before making any other decisions, when something new was added to the mix.

A middle-aged woman pulled up from the cellar.

…the owners or residents of the building were still present?

Broken French was more understandable to her than their Italian had been. The lurking thief clearly heard the order to fix dinner for the three men… or the 'children' would get it.

'It' wasn't understood on her end, and frankly the Russian didn't care to learn either, but the woman seemed to know full well what 'it' was.

Civilians, especially civilians that ended up in the middle of mafia operations, didn't tend to survive long. It was highly unlikely any of the original residents of this broken-down house would out-live this incident if she didn't do anything.

…and she was enough of a Russian Mafiya member to be instantly irate over the possibility of child abuse or mistreatment.

CVII (Thursday the 1st September, 1966. Headquarters of the Campo Famiglia, San Giovanni in Fiore, Italian Republic.)

Renato Sinclair rather desperately pawed the 'cellular phone' brick thing the former Don of the De Campo Famiglia once owned.

The older man's cooling corpse wouldn't have need of it anymore. Spoils of war and all that.

He didn't really understand the damned device, nor did he hold much hope he'd get anything done using it. Hell's take it all, the hitman didn't even understand exactly why the old bastard had decided to devote so much of his resources into isolating then trying to kill him off.

It would take some time, and Renato was nothing if not through, but he would understand by week's end.

What Don De Campo had succeeded in doing was murdering off probably most if not all the freelance hitman's carefully cultivated contacts. The ones he had from his rather laughable version of childhood on up to now.

Most of them, so far, because he hadn't realized what had been going on until too late and missed warning them to go to ground before they got caught out. Deaths happened, one or two a year wasn't all that suspicious even for the more civilian of those contacts. When five of them ended up dead when he tried to reach them, then he got apprehensive over the coincidences.

Learning how much of his associates and allies were gone was another such thing that would require some investigation, but Renato wasn't confident any decent number of them had escaped the reach of this famiglia. The bulk of those contacts weren't hitmen, some weren't even remotely connected to the mafia.

The mere thought of the number of people he might have inadvertently doomed by simple association had the hitman's grip on the clunky block of circuitry tightening until it creaked, and he almost pitch the thrice-damned thing at a wall.

The subsequent click and droning beep it suddenly emitted extended its life expectancy by a great margin.

Renato eyed the thing dubiously as it did something, the receiver box on the desk lit up in response to that something and it seemed to ponderously decide if it would work or not.

There was another 'click', an oddly echoed sounding one, and a voice came through the handheld part the hitman was still holding.

"Boss? We ain't done yet, the thief-girl hasn't shown up-"

A distant but audible meaty thunk cut the man off, even as far removed as he likely was Renato winced internally when the sound of something puncturing bone reached him. A woman's shrill scream sounded then cut off with a harsh gasp, a wetter suction sound following. Swear words, several rather inventive ones, were spoken by the first man who had been speaking until his voice was cut off by another of the meaty thunk sounds... a much closer one.

As if a butcher had chopped bone, if he was pressed to identify the sound.

There was suddenly a clatter, light footsteps on creaking wood, and a very different voice suddenly spoke into the hitman's ear.

"Whoever the fuck this is, if you-"

"Sonya?"

"…Renato?"

It had been a little difficult for the hitman to place that feminine voice speaking almost unaccented French, seeing as the last time he had ever heard the Russian thief so pissed off was back when she had been a young preteen girl and their association had been new.

Tisk, tisk. Rather saucy words for a little lady to be speaking.

Somehow, the young Cloud had avoided the trap the former Don of the De Campo Famiglia had set for anyone that would even remotely call Renato Sinclair an associate.

No, the hitman corrected himself dryly, the thief hadn't avoided it. She had obliterated it from the sounds of that fight. He idly wondered how many she had to kill and what state she had left them in.

Clouds weren't the type to do things halfway.

"…the fuck is going on, Renato?" Sonya's tone was still flat as she switched to English, almost expressionless as she pressed him for answers she probably did deserve.

"Sorry, a little ah… miscommunication occurred."

"Miscommunication?" Echoed back the young blonde teen dubiously, the very word dripping in sarcasm. "Really. Exactly how did something on your end translate over to mean something lethal on my end?"

"I assure you, Sonya, I'm on the issue." Renato fingered the trigger of his favorite gun, not that there was anyone left for him to kill in the mansion. There were probably a couple handfuls still at large, however. "It won't bother you again."

There was a moment of silence on the other end, from what other noises he could hear there was a rustle of cloth and someone dragging a booted foot across wood. "Strasbourg, France, is dealt with. Clean up the rest on your own."

"Will do."

A huff of breath from her translated into something staticky through the telephone lines they were tying up, not that it seemed either of them really cared all that much. "This better not happen again, Renato. Or at least, give a girl some warning if you could."

A faint grin stole across the hitman's face, which he was man enough to admit was mostly relief and a bit of dark humor. He had one contact left, it seems. "Of course, dear lady Sonya. It would be entirely ungallant of me to endanger you in such a way twice."

"I am sure you would not dream of ever being ungallant, Renato." Her dry return sounded much like her usual tone, startling a bark of laughter out of the Mafioso she was talking to through a dead man's equipment. "I will see you later in the year, then."

"Later?"

"Sometime this winter, I have taken a bit of a… sabbatical, in a way."

Probably how she avoided being killed off with any other associate of his, she hadn't stayed long in any place they could easily reach her.

"October?"

"Around then, maybe."

"I'll buy the next round."

There was a snort. "Very well. Till then, Renato."

A click then dead silence informed the hitman that she had hung up on him.

Well… how rude.

Renato slid to his feet in one movement, ignoring the rapidly cooling body on the floor of the opulent study one minor Don had formerly occupied, tossing the brick of technology behind him.

Time to cover his tracks, but first… some answers.

CXVIII (Thursday the 1st September, 1966 continued. Strasbourg, French Republic.)

Talking to Renato did at least let Sonya put some distance between what she had just done and her mental state.

Taking a deep breath, the thief wrenched the pick end of her Bec de Corbin out of the tangled mess of electronics and allowed it to bleed off the Cloud Flames that made it full-sized. Another of the spinel gemstones cracked, but she had expected that.

The moment she was apparently unarmed, the older woman slapped her across the face.

The Russian figured she deserved that. Still, it earned her an icy look in return. "Do you have anywhere to go?"

"Why? What else will you cost us?"

She could understand the woman was distraught, being held captive for however long had to be stressful. On the other hand, the thief wasn't going to let the older civilian woman use her like a punching bag. "Because I'm going to set this house on fire, madame. If you wish to be inside of it when I set it ablaze, then by all means."

She looked to be on the edge of tears but glared defiantly back at the younger woman even still. "My children are locked up downstairs. Get them free, and I will be entirely too willing to put you and this incident behind us."

"Be warned, you speak of this and even I couldn't prevent your demise."

Vindice officers weren't picky about who they arrested, that was as little as Sonya had managed to get on the shadowy enforcers of mafia life. Just that, and the fact the ones 'arrested' weren't ever seen again.

However, the thief did step to where the staircase down was while gingerly avoiding even looking at the dead bodies she had caused.

Breakdown later, emergency clean up now.

There were in fact three children caged in a small wine cellar the mother called out to get them away from the door. From the looks of it, the older woman had been desperately trying to claw the stout wooden door hinges off in between… whatever she had been doing. She even succeeded slightly too, from the wood shavings she hadn't managed to conceal on the ground.

Not nearly enough to free her little family on her own, but an impressive effort for a civilian anyways.

The blonde didn't bother trying to find a key or another way into the storeroom the children were locked behind. She had a red crystal skeleton key, a dab of her Storm Flames focused through that melted the internal mechanisms enough to wrench the thing open.

A male teenager, a young preteen girl, and a just out of toddlerhood boy stumbled out of the cupboard closet and into their mother's arms.

Sonya drifted away from them as they rather desperately greeted one another, instead pretending to inspect the quality of the wine stocked.

It would prove to be a semi-decent accelerator if it was old enough. Even if it wasn't dusty wood was, and Storm Flames would eat away at everything anyways. A more generous dab of Storm Flames and it would likely go up in an instant and take the rest of the house with it.

"We're leaving." The older woman snapped from behind her, and the thief waved the older biddy off.

The moment the footsteps of the unbalanced mother sounded near the main entranceway overhead, she threw up the little remains of lunch.

Killing… was altogether too easy for her. It was one thing to know, in an abstract way, that she could put enough force behind her hits to shatter heads like rotten pumpkins. It was entirely another to do it, slit the throat of another before he could use that motherly Frenchwoman as a human shield, and then bury the pick end of her war hammer into the chest of a third man.

Taking a deep breath and ignoring the tang of bile from the previous contents of her stomach and the taste of it in her mouth, Sonya drew one forearm across her mouth to scrub any evidence away. She still had to search the place, just to be sure there wasn't anyone else she needed to deal with like she told Renato, but then she'd set the house on fire and pretend nothing had happened.

Then there was the Frenchman, who pointed her in this direction. She had the suspicions the man was the father of this little family unit she was about to make homeless, and if that was true she'd let him go. If not… her body count this day would be four.

She was entirely too thankful they were just about to leave France behind. Another day and the circus would be in the lower reaches of Germany. She'd prefer to never come back, really.

…there was blood on her boots, too. While walking through grass to get back to the circus might wear that off, there wasn't much she could do about the full skirts she was wearing. Something to keep blood stains from setting in would be needed, or a different skirt.

Which she didn't have on her. Cherep would notice the change in clothes, if she sought out something of the older lady's to wear instead.

Then, no… maybe a bit of wine, to cover the blood?

She could then explain it away as someone spilling wine on her instead of risking bloodstained skirts being noticed.

A cover plan in mind, the thief stole her way up the stairs where three dead bodies needed to be frisked were lying and the rest of the house still waited to be searched.

She couldn't wait to set the whole mess on fire.

It was almost unsurprising to find out the family that had lived in the almost-wrecked house for decades had been the Géroux family, not the Carpentier one she was looking for.

Sonya broke her resolve to smoke less and resigned herself to becoming a chain-smoker for the foreseeable future. The palm-full of Storm Flames she lit her cigarette with was tossed into the wine casks instead of snuffed out.

CXIX (Friday the 9th of September, 1966. Bern, Swiss Confederation.)

"Are you alright?" Cherep asked her in slightly clumsy German.

It wasn't a language he had a whole lot of experience speaking, even if it was the last one Lisa had helped him learn and they did hear some of the scraps of the tongue around the circus every now and again. In the next few weeks, he'd get that lacking experience speaking it to sound fluent again.

Too many would speak Russian instead to him, especially if they were seeking his help.

Keeping multiple languages straight when you didn't speak them for months on end was a little trying, especially with the number of them they had. She had it slight worse, given that she knew a fair bit of nine different ones to his five and a few of those shared words in different meanings between them.

"I'm fine, just… haven't been sleeping well." Sonya rubbed at an eye, scowling slightly at the gritty feel.

Thankfully, nothing she was going to be doing for the foreseeable future in West Germany involved any great coordination. She could afford to be less than her best.

Killing was supposed to come easier the more one did it, right?

She wasn't at all sure she ever wanted to do that again, or to the point she could claim a hitwoman's title. Stealing would be her limit of selling skills, and if she could get through the rest of her life without another death on her hands she'd be pathetically grateful.

It wasn't likely, and some of her actions in France might have been her wanting to get that phase of her life over with already. Tatiana was already 'blooded', made her 'bones', or was a self-made woman as her red roses tattoos signified.

This thief would not be counting kills as it seemed was popular in the Mafiya, but an acknowledgement at least would be required. A tattoo touch-up was probably in her future, the moment she and her sister had some time to kill next Christmas.

'Revolted' might cover what she felt about the trade of violence, the one based on buying and selling the service of death dealing. However, it was so much a part of the underworld she wasn't likely to escape that either.

The downsides of her rebirth. She might be able to live again, but death and destruction was so much part of her trade it wasn't likely she'd be able to go another five or so years before killing another person.

"Seriously, Sonya." Cherep pulled her out of her head with a touch to her elbow, a slight frown on his own face. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Depressing herself in public wasn't probably the best idea ever. Especially not in front of her best friend, who was also her foster brother. He'd want to know, and she was of two minds of telling him of what she had done.

At least Sonya wasn't so seeped into mafia life to ignore the fact that murder was wrong, even if it was an inevitable fact of her lifestyle. That bit of mafia brainwashing she had managed to avoid through her second childhood.

Though, it was entirely annoying that she had to wait to grow up twice.

"I… don't feel like going around drinking this week. Want to play tourist with me?"

"We're here for work, Sonya." It wasn't a no, and indeed her fellow Cloud looked thoughtful. "Maybe… do you think Master Liam would let us go for a couple days?"

"We'd actually have to ask Madame Crina, honestly." As the old bat was her keeper, in a way.

"To bad it's not October."

The Russian laughed, slightly but she did. "I just said I didn't want to go drinking this week, Cherep. Octoberfest is just as much as a drinking holiday as anything else. BMW has a headquarters somewhere around here, we could go claim to look at something for your future stunt work."

"…but you hate it when I spend hours to go look at motorcycles."

"I said claim, not that we'd actually do that." The sulky look Cherep pulled in return made his little sister finally smirk. "You know we're not likely to get time off, right?"

"Probably not, but it's nice to daydream."

It was, in more ways than one. If she could get a little time off from the circus, she wouldn't have to run multiple contract heists in the winter for however long she would be staying with the Großes Volksfest.

Heaving a sigh, the thief rubbed her face again. "Get lost, Cherep. We've work to do."

"Yeah, yeah. I should probably…" The purple colored, want-to-be stuntman trailed off as he looked to the end of the fairground the carnies had set up the more mechanical attractions and rides. "Do you feel better, at least?"

Surprisingly, she did.

"You don't have to look so surprised, you know."

"I'm just admiring the fact I can put up with you for months on end. I really don't know where I get the patience to do so from."

Her brother's flat expression was reward enough for her, she even gracefully ignored the punch he aimed at her shoulder for it.

CXX (Thursday the 15th of September, 1966. Salzburg, Republic of Austria.)

It took until Austria for Cherep to realize exactly where their circus was heading, exactly.

Sonya had eventually put her actions in France behind her just as she had with the country itself, with generous amounts of help from multiple puffs of nicotine laced smoke. It still gave her the occasional nightmare, but she was alright with that.

Switzerland was just as interesting as she had thought it would've been, given the reputation the country had for amnesty and neutrality.

Its underworld was similar in respects, as close to 'free-trade' in nature as possible for something landlocked. Possibly the forerunner idea of what Mafia Land was built off from, just a touch more stationary than the island was. Mob Families, syndicates, and formally structured criminal enterprises were startlingly thin on the ground there, made up by the sheer number of unaffiliated that claimed the country as home.

There was also the fact that if you paid just enough it was possible someone would 'erase' your history and hide you away for a couple years. It was a hellishly expensive service, but also a highly tricky one to perform. It was only done by one specific group of what the Russian was sure were Mist users, or at least they had enough quirky mysticism going on to suggest it as a façade to hide whatever it was they did behind.

Austria's underworld was almost an echo of that. It still had a very low number of structured criminal groups, but the few there were normally just ensured everyone was spread out far enough not to step on anyone else's toes as they collected the dues to operate in their territory.

Enforcer orientated, rather than criminal enterprises like the Zolotov clan or a Family one like Vongola.

She still found it easier to find and insert herself into the local mafia hotspots than she had it back in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Most of that was due to the fact they were swinging back around to Moscow and so her tattoos garnered more interest by those that knew how to read them, but also some of it had to come from the fact Austria had less structure to its underworld so foreigners weren't so uncommon.

More to the current point, the thief found that she rather liked the more tavern-themed mafia hangouts she could find the closer they got to the Iron Curtain's southeastern edge. It was a hell of a lot more neutral too, so she wasn't too upset Cherep tracked her down on a night she generally went drinking to freak out about visiting the country of his birth.

Dinner and a show, Sonya thought as she took another sip of the pale märzen she had been forced to order.

The wiener schnitzel she had ordered just to say she had actually eaten it once wasn't all that bad, for how silly it sounded to her once American ear to hear pronounced. She could've done without the beer, but they were curiously out of the hard liquors she tended to favor when ordering alcohol.

The bartender had suggested it instead, but she was never going to trust the man when it came to beer ever again.

No, it didn't taste like horse piss... but that didn't mean it was good tasting either.

"Do you like beer, Cherep?" She asked of her brother idly as she looked into the glass stein, wondering what he was like smashed out of his mind.

She had yet to see him completely drunk and really was interested in seeing how that would result.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Not really, here." Passing him the tankard, the blonde Russian busied herself with the breaded veal cutlets. "Why is this such a problem, anyways? The… difficulty that happened to you happened years ago, the likelihood they would know you on sight is rather remote even accounting for your wildly noticeable coloring. Additionally, 'returning to the scene of the crime' is more of a fantasy novel gimmick than something criminals actually do once we're done in a location. We tend to avoid doing that, just because it's such a stupid way to get caught."

Cherep already seemed to have realized what kind of place he had tracked her down to, the mention of anything remotely smacking of illegal natured acts didn't have him flinching or looking around like a green newbie and the non-affiliated.

He restricted himself to gripping the handle of the beer stein and glowering at her over it. "I never wanted to go back, Sonya."

"I never wanted to go to Italy in any depth, either. I think Master Liam intends to take us east next year and come up the African coast through the Mediterranean Sea, including Italy in that, and then back to the USSR." She gave an absent shrug, stabbing her next bite and shoving it into his mouth before he could interrupt her. "Point being, we don't always get what we want. Why not make some plans? You know, instead of panic like a headless chicken?"

Her mechanically inclined foster brother huffed rebelliously, then curiously peered into the beer she had passed off on him.

Sonya suppressed the desire to roll her eyes.

His stupid procrastination protesting thing was getting old, not to mention a rather bad response to things going wrong on him. She had little hope she might get him to do something proactive when he protested in his own little ways, Cloud users were nothing if not stubborn creatures, so she supposed planning for the circus' next country of operation was her responsibility.

"Here you are." The new voice had the thief blinking out of sheer shock.

Really, was it too much to expect the man to refrain from bothering her outside Mafia Land?

"Renato, what brings you to Austria?"

"Sonya?" Cherep chipped in before the hitman could respond, eyeing the sharply dressed Italian warily and then her with a bit of concern.

"He's a… associate of mine. From my other workplace." His fellow Cloud tilted her head back to see the newcomer fully. "Renato Sinclair, meet Bazanov Cherep."