Les Soldats

A phone call begins episode 5 while Noir is driving through the countryside.  Calling for Mireille, Varnelle told her he had gotten the information about "that."  Of what, we don't know.  He wouldn't tell her over the phone, only when they meet in person.  Over the phone, Varnelle tells her to visit him tomorrow afternoon (which we assume is now, and the phone conversation is just a flashback).

When Mireille and Kirika arrived at Barbizon (where Varnelle is staying), they found the door opened already and everything quiet.  Becoming alert, the two starts to move through the house slowly.  Soon, Mireille discovers the body of the couple and gasped in surprise.  Kirika stated that they were late as a matter of fact.

[Title Screen: Les Soldats]

Mireille blames herself when she starts to tell Kirika about Varnelle's involvement in the matter.  She told her that she was investigating who Dux had contacts with recently by using Varnelle.  (If you remember Dux, he is the counter assassin that tried to kill Noir in the casino)  But just by asking, Varnelle and his family were killed.  Flashback plays in Mireille's mind of the time when she was just a child.  The soft bedtime melody starts to play with her big round eyes, staring at something we can't see.

Kirika admonishes Mireille that it is no use to think about it.  More flashbacks are remembered, about the time when Dux's trap is foiled and Mireille talks with the near-dead lady.  No names, no graves.  Varnelle caught their trail, and was killed.

Back in their apartment, we see Kirika and Mireille sleeping together in one bed like a cozy family.  In the morning, Mireille wakes and stares out of her window and then saw the wind-up pocket watch beside the plant that they have growing inside.  Lost in thought for the moment, Kirika appears behind her with a cup of water.  Upon saying good morning, she proceeds to water the plant with water and Mireille made a funny ^_^  "It's nice of you to take care of the plant, it just might turn black now."  Mireille then talked of her connection with the name Noir.  She remembers that it is the oldest name in the business, but she doesn't know its origin as well.  A puzzle she calls it... the name Noir, Kirika the noir, and the pocketwatch.

Back to the flashback of when Mireille is but a child, we see more of what she was seeing.  The wind-up pocketwatch that plays the soft melody and beside it... lies a hand fallen in a pool of blood...  staring at it, not knowing what to do while she blinks her big eyes.

At present time, Mireille tells Kirika that she is going to go look around where Varnelle was.  Kirika goes to follow with her bag, but Mireille tells her that she doesn't have to come.  The look on Kirika's face is so sad... <snifflez>

Going by herself, Mireille stops at a bar where Varnelle respected the bartender as an older brother.  After a few exchange of words about Varnelle's family (how the couple were the few that could be trusted and that Varnelle loved his children very much), the bartender gave a bottle of wine that is left for Mireille.  On the bottle, Varnelle had written "Mireille, in the memories of St. Galan Church."

Leaving the bar, Mireille had a feeling that she was being followed.  Footsteps that followed her movement.  Going inside an alley quick as she could and drawing her gun, she waits for the man to show up.  When the footstep draws close, the aims into the alley, only to find it empty.

[Commercial Break]

Safely back at the apartment, Mireille and Kirika both studied the bottle of wine slowly, and for a while, no conclusion could be drawn.  Upon closer examination, Kirika saw that some of the words on the bottle have been circled or triangled.  Asking about it, Mireille had no idea about it as well and deduced that Varnelle found something important and hid it in St. Galan's Church because he got scared.  The two of them started listing the places that you could find in the church... from bell towers to priest's quarters.  But when Kirika said "catacomb," it struck a cord in Mireille's head.

Mireille went off to the church's catacomb immediately.  Near the graveyard, she found a stairway down into the catacombs.  When she got in, she remembers the letters that were circled on the bottle D for 'droit' (right) and 5... so she went 5 coffins to the right and see a passage way leading deeper in.  G for 'gauche' and 7...  and at the spot lies a stairway down to a tomb where more bones laid around.  Mireille started digging for something and she soon finds an envelop sealed where inside, she finds a document describing noir.

"Noir,/The word comes from an ancient past,/a name of destiny./Two maidens who reign over death./The warm black hands.../protect the peace of newly-borns./among the people,/among love/among the sins,/The soldiers are within the truth./says the hermit to the sinned."

Leaving the catacomb, she immediately was accosted by a man with a gun that took the envelop from her hands.  But Mireille remained calm and said she knew they were being observed and that their objective is to obtain what Mireille had in her hand.  And that their objective is him.  Mireille wants to know who he is, whose order he is acting under... everything.  But, as if him saying that it wouldn't go well, they came under fire immediately and the man started to run.  Kirika stayed to return fire while Mireille gave chase.

Inside the church, salva nos begin to play and Mireille looks for the man who holds the key to the Soldats.  As he sneaked up behind her with a candlestick holder, Mireille realizes all of the sudden and turns to shoot.  At the same moment, Kirika found her target and eliminated him as well (two of them actually).

Back at inside, the man inside is still alive and Mireille questioned him.  Asking what the letter inside the envelop means, and the answer was that it is more important than any single life in this world.  When asked if he was the one that killed Varnelle and his family, he replied that it was their order and that the secret had to be kept.  The next question concerned who "they" are, and the reply was "They are the absolute ones that only very few knows of."  And that if she shoots him, the key would disappear.

Flashback of when she was a little girl came around and of the hand that lied in a pool of blood.  Another of Varnelle's dead family.  When the man just smiled at Mireille's hesitation, she shot him.  Gasping in surprise, but smiling as he died, the mystery remains unsolved.  Kirika was standing behind watching during all this exchange.  After taking a soft breath and looking for a moment at Mireille, she turns to leave.

Back home, they read the letter within the envelop once again.

"People among people,"
"Love among love,"
"Sins among sins."
Said the hermit to the sinned, "Soldats are together within the truth."

Soldats, that's their name, the enemy.

Watering the plants once again in the early of the morning, Mireille tells Kirika finally of her flashback.  That her parents and brother were killed in Corsica, her country.  She doesn't know why they were killed nor by whom.  And that was the last time she saw the pocket watch until Kirika brought it back to her from the past.  Kirika then says sorry... that Mireille doesn't have anything now.  To that, Mireille picks up the pocketwatch and voiced that she will open the door to the past by her hands, definitely.

[End]