She had taken it upon herself, early that tepid day, to detract herself from the daily, monotonous errands of her roommates and, instead, use a good portion of the morning to personally reflect on the events that had happened in the past few days.

Oh, and Rhiannon had decided to tidy up a bit. Of course, this was a plus.

With a headset hung around her neck, gray shorts whose waistband had been rolled, and a long sleeved, slightly off-white hoodie, the blond lazily walked through the small meeting space adjoining all four rooms of Tödliche Künste’s upstairs apartment. Her arms were continuously piled high with this and that: dirty laundry, clean sheets, wood polish, and the casual box of 9mm pistol ammunition. She tripped a few times on the journey back and forth, but wittily broke into a small dance move to save herself from falling. A few times she even stepped up onto the kotatsu in the center of the room, bypassing the four separate piles of laundry she had created outside the four separate rooms.

The air around her smelled of disinfectant and Clorox as she bent down before the table and ran a hand over the dusty, trash-scattered surface. Gathering an empty bag of clips, a half eaten ramen cup, and a pair of take-out menus into her hand, Rhiannon dumped them into the trash at her side. With her hand now curved, she gathered up a small pile of crumbs and slapped her hand together over the bag.

Rhia got to her feet, lifted the garbage container, and twisted the ends into a knot. Hauling it over her shoulder, she stepped over a mound of pillowcases and threw it out into the hallway.

Both hands were wiped on the sides of her shorts before she took a left into one of the rooms. The curtains, black lined with tan cheetah prints down each shade, had been drawn tightly, but the windows behind it had been opened earlier that morning. With the heavy smell of leather came the relaxing, heavenly smell of Sakura blossoms from the front courtyard. A gothic laced comforter, twisted and flattened from use, hung off the side of the small cot in the corner. Before snatching it up, Rhia reached over and switched on the overhead light. Much to her dismay, the spotted lampshade failed to cast any real light in the darkened room. Instead, illuminated on the ceiling and surrounding walls were oblong auburn and beige circles.

Along with the comforter, a zabuton cushion was thrown out the opened door. After a sweep of the tatami mats, a swift wipe down of the punching bag in the corner, and the pile of free weights in the corner sprayed with antiseptic, Rhia moved over to the television.

The screen was polished clean. She collected the numerous Playstation games scattered before the consol and laid them out neatly on the floor. Strategy books, most notably Final Fantasy X-2, Fatal Frame II, and Tomb Raider, were carefully stacked beside the two black controllers.

She left the room after spritzing the air a few times with deodorizer. With one last survey of the tidied space and a approving nod, Rhiannon slid Autumn’s door closed. Outside, she kicked the red comforter out of the way with her bare feet and hopped through piles of linen towards the next room.

If she killed her own brother, who cares? Even though Masafumi wasn’t a primary target, who cares? Sofia has her reaso-- But, aren’t those who kill for personal reasons just plain Murderers?

It was her room this time, and, like always, it had already been cleaned and shined to perfection. The row of desktop computers and laptops lining the far wall had already been wiped, the printer’s ink cartages restocked, the keys dusted and rid of crumbs. Beside the table, lying on a small, white rag, was her firearm. It had been washed, cleansed and polished prior. The leather holster had already been scoured with shoe polish and varnish.

What are we if not another form of murderer? Just because Estelle tells us to kill, just because we assassinate those who hurt others, does that make it right?

She paused with her hand scanning her literary collection of John Keats and Lord Alfred Tennyson, and grinned.

Her thumb ran down the binding of William Butler Yeat’s complete anthology.

Hopkins and Thomas were felt up next as Rhiannan’s eyes softened.

Like the last room, hers was sprayed with deodorizer before she slid the screen closed. Bending, she lifted a plastic basket of cleaned laundry and balanced it against her hip. With her free hand, Rhia slid the next door opened, smiling as she was welcomed with a musical chime.

Marie’s room, for some reason, was a bit to warm and bright for the blonde’s liking. The windows had been pushed completely open, the curtains pulled back with bright green and yellow ribbons. The floor, if one could locate it beneath the mess, was cloaked in clothes and magazines. Fluttering gently in the afternoon breeze, one magazine, a recent issue of Nippon Vogue, had been dog-eared and marked up by a felt-tipped pen. What interested Rhia was the numerous photos had been tacked to the wall.

The blond touched the glossy surface of one picture, smiling at the memories it brought back. Captured forever in time was the four of them sitting at the bar of a soba shop. Marie’s face was pressed against Autumn’s, her lips in a wide, enthusiastic grin. Autumn, on the other hand, looked quite bothered. Held up to her lips were a pair of chopsticks, their contents caught in mid-air as they slipped free. Smiling, Rhia found herself in the photo, her eyes watching the noodles fall. She had tried to grin, but at the last minute twitched her mouth in a weird fashion. She looked frightened, but she doubt she was at the moment. What bothered her the most was that Sofia, sitting at the end of the table, arms folded against the wooden surface, hadn’t smiled. The brunette was looking to the side, as if caught up in something else.

It was like that in other photos as well. Sofia would smile, but her eyes remained shallow, dull, dead.

The question was more to reassure her, then to truthfully answer. All people changed over time, it was a fact.

Again, reassurance.

Rhia scanned over a few more photos, one of them at a shrine on New Years, one of Estelle and Persia, one of Autumn slapping Marie, before moving on.

Before leaving, Rhia, once again, swept the tatami mats, rearranged the pieces of Marie’s automatic pistol in the right order and, as a little extra, turned the brunette’s guitar. She shook the can of air freshener, sprayed a bit too much, and tiptoed through the mountains of panties and bras and tank tops to get to the hallway.

Sofia’s room was relatively simple. Shades closed, yet windows cracked to let in a breeze, the small space seemed slightly eerie. All four walls, even the back of the door, had been wallpapered with clips of newspaper and magazine articles. Editorial pieces on the Takatori fortune, tabloid photos of Sofia with her father’s clients, an accidental candid shot of Autumn holding her leader’s hand were mixed in with headlines, photo captions, and pamphlet headings. One section, cornered off from the clippings, was entirely composed of pictures of Cordette Takatori.

Rhiannon rarely came into this room, for multiple reasons. For one, there was an uncomfortable feeling there. Autopsy pictures and articles on legendary family scandals did that to a person.

She stood there for a few seconds though, letting her eyes adjust to the dim lighting. Because of the breeze floating in, the newspaper clippings fluttered against each other. It sounded like a mass of leaves constantly rustling, constantly moving and twisting. She turned, and with a shiver running up her spin, stepped out into the living room, and slide shut the door.

“Ok.” Rhiannan said as she clapped her hands together eagerly. “Now to do some laundry.”

She, instead of carrying down the three baskets of dirty clothes, gathered up handfuls and simply tossed them down the stairs. They cascaded down the steps like water, rolling and tumbling around before falling between the gaps in the banister. Following them, Rhia would kick the leftovers further down until they all accumulated in a pile at the foot of the stairway.

“Perhaps I should have rethought this.” She mumbled to herself as she picked the bottom of a bikini off of the lamp in the front hall.

It took a few trips back and forth but, after a few minutes, only a few pieces of clothing were left over. The rest had been stashed in the laundry room at the end of the corridor. With her last handful of clothes, Rhia straightened up and started down the foyer--

The sound of the lock turning caught her attention at once. Halfway to the laundry room, the blond paused and turned towards the front door. Past the door’s side window, hazed over by the watery decorations in the glass, she could just make out a Black Bently parked in the front drive.

Rhiannon stopped her journey to the back of the house and stood before the door, her lips arching up in a smile. She had every intention of welcoming Estelle’s partner but, at the last minute, she happened to look down into her hands.

There was a scarlet thong, two pairs of strapless bras, and her own bathing suit within her fingers.

“Crap.” Without thinking, the blond quickly turned and dashed into a side room with the sole objective of hiding the intimates. As the lock flicked open, Rhia bent down beside a couch and reached below the stitched chair-skirt to hide the clothes--

“Good, no one is here.”

Rhia perked up her head, eyeing the empty hallway she could see past the room’s door. Persia’s shadow moved against the floor as he slipped off his shoes and took a step into the hallway.

“We’ll have to make this call quick,” Persia’s voice carried easily into the room Rhia crouching in. With her palms pressed against the floor, her lips gently parted as she listened to him speak into his cell phone. “Estelle and the girl will be home shortly.”

The shadow lengthened across the doorframe. For a moment, Rhia thought that he would look in. She was frozen to the spot, paralyzed by the taste of paranoia building within her throat.

Go make your presence known, Rhia, She said to herself.

She didn’t move.

“No, forensics didn’t found any fingerprints, no DNA, no hair samples.” The man continued. She could hear the rubbing of fabric as he slipped his coat from his shoulders. “Nothing was found at Kritiker.”

Rhia forced a smile on her face and stood up. She started towards the door, wiping off her hands as she straightened out her shirt and shorts.

“I think it was the other three.”

She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Yeah, I agree. We’ll have to do something about them. Oh, an ‘accident’. I see. Good idea.” The shadow stopped as though it had been startled. A small portion moved, and Rhia, too confused to budge, heard the front door’s handle jiggle. “Listen, we’ll have to talk about this later. They’re here.”