Week

A/N: This story, Week, will be a collection of Black Lagoon's extraordinary characters dealing with ordinary situations. By "collection", I mean: nonsense stories I didn't feel comfortable posting as one-shots and found an excuse to compile them into a multi-chapter format.

Just Another Soul holds no responsibility for any brain cells lost reading this drivel.

Disclaimer: Black Lagoon and its characters © Rei Hiroe

SUNDAY

Sharp taps echoed in the chapel. A nun with blonde hair and pink sunglasses stomped briskly through the Church of Violence with a scowl, a towel in one hand and a pair of straight scissors in another. It was her turn to trim the cockatoo's wings again.

Eda cursed. What a nasty little thing that bird was, saying expletives at everyone that passed by the front or squawking the occasional "I'll kill you!" in that annoying parrot voice. But no, it wasn't the language that bothered her.

She squeezed the towel more tightly. That stupid bird had an attitude problem, always hissing in a tone that made it sound like it was possessed whenever she came close, batting its wings wildly and screeching while she tried to get a good grip to make it stay still. She was reminded of the small scar on her left index finger and growled. And on top of it all, that bird liked to bite, hard. By comparison, Revy had a better temperament than that stupid parrot.

Yet it didn't act that way around everyone. Whenever Yolanda came by, the bird's attitude made a 180 degree turn. Chattering quietly and acting meek and innocent while the elderly Mother Superior quietly tended to it. Having personally bought it and had it smuggled in from Indonesia as a baby, that cockatoo was her pet.

Eda never gave much thought to whether or not an animal had a conscience, but when it came to that cockatoo, she knew it was capable of rational thought. That bird knew it had it good. Among those who stumbled into Roanapur, that bird probably had the sweetest deal in the entire city. All it had to do was sit outside the church and preen itself while it basked in the colorful scenery and had an old woman tend to its needs.

Well, most of its needs. Somehow, Eda was always the one who drew the shortest straw whenever it came to the subject of who had to trim its wings. Among all the things that came with being a nun for the Church of Violence, taking care of a spoiled bird was the last thing she would have imagined.

Eda would love to wring that lousy bird's neck, but she knew Yolanda certainly wouldn't have it. If anything were to happen to the Mother Superior's cherished Tanimbar cockatoo, there'd be hell to pay.

Eda sighed hopelessly as she opened the doors of the church. It was no use. She was going to be stuck with trimming duty for a long time.

But really, what use was trimming the bird's wings? There was always a tether tying its foot to the perch out front, so it wasn't like it could fly away.

...

Unless the bird chewed through the rope.

Eda dropped the towel and scissors as her eyes bulged.

"No."

She dashed toward the low-leveled perch and knelt down, picking up the chewed tether with a shaking hand.

"Hey, sis!" Rico shouted, coming around the building and seeing Eda's back turned to him.

"It flew away," Eda muttered quietly.

"Huh?" Rico asked, looking over her shoulder and seeing the empty perch.

Eda turned to Rico and held the chewed end of the tether.

"It chewed through and it flew away," Eda repeated. She dropped the thin rope and stood up.

"Sister Yolanda won't be happy about that," Rico said.

"Worse than that, she'll be fucking pissed," Eda said, failing at masking her panic. "I'm going to be staring down the barrel of a desert eagle!"

"Wait, what? What makes you think she's going to blame it all on you?"

"Acedia," Eda said exasperatedly.

"Uh... Envy?"

"You call yourself an apprentice priest?" Eda snapped. "Sloth! I was supposed to trim the bird's wings last week, but I put it off! Yolanda's going to be using me for target practice when she finds out!"

Rico couldn't decide whether or not that statement was accurate, but he tried to have an optimistic approach with his following words.

"Well, it's not all your fault. The bird is the one who chewed through the rope. It would have managed to get away no matter how big its wings were. You could have trimmed the wings and it still would have gotten away in short bursts, like how a chicken flies."

Eda gave him a dirty look. She wasn't in the mood for trivia that could be found on the back of a cereal box.

"... but she'll probably blame you when she finds out," Rico admitted sadly.

Eda pinched the bridge of her nose. If she was lucky, Yolanda would chain an oversized cross to her back and force her to walk around Roanapur with it for a month. But was public humiliation really better than dying? She'd be alive in the former option, but she wasn't sure if she'd be happy with giving the trash of the city an anecdote to hang over her head every time she ventured out into the public domain.

Then again, how much better would it be to have "BIRD BRAIN" engraved on her tombstone?

She held her jaw contemplatively. Perhaps if she went into hiding for a while...

Eda was so deep in thought, she didn't hear the quick flapping of wings overhead. Rico looked up and grinned.

"Eda! Look!" He shook her shoulder and pointed to the sky. Eda looked up, seeing the cockatoo emerge from the top of the chapel and flying in a circle above them. A look of relief immediately washed over her face. The bird was still around. She was saved!

Something splatted on her sunglasses.

The cockatoo landed in a nearby tree and squawked.

"Raa! Eat shit and die!"

Something inside Eda snapped.

As the bird excrement made its way down her face, the Rip-Off nun's teeth clenched in a snarl and she reached for the Glock at her side. That was it. Public humiliation, death, hiding—it didn't matter. She took aim.

"Rico, if Yolanda asks, the bird flew away."

"But sis—"

"THE BIRD FLEW AWAY."

A/N: For those of you who can't remember the cockatoo – Episode 7, the bird that starts saying "Hello" and "I'll kill you" when Revy knocks on the Rip-Off Church's door.

Don't worry. I'm sure Eda missed the birdy by an inch and it lived to see another day.

Maybe.