"Of course it is." 

Galina had not missed even one of Souma's warning glances, telling her without a word to stay still, to stay calm, to do nothing rash or foolish. He need not have worried on her account though. The lightness she found in their sport, the joy in those few precious moments of playful banter, faded from her flawless ivory face as if it had never been.

No, Souma need not have worried. Galina never moved. Not when Ai's face contorted with rage at the sight of her. Not when she pulled her blade, or when Souma launched his distraction, or even when she reluctantly sheathed that blade once more in the sleeve of her kimono. She did not so much as flinch when Souma spoke around the reason she hunted the Americans with him; or as Ai deliberately sat beside Souma, all her unspoken accusations and a world of mistrust resting in that frown.

Even if Ai had managed to unsheathe that blade and rush her, Galina would not have raised a single hand to stop the woman from doing her very worst. Her own vast deception had earned Ai the right to do as she would, though Galina was certainly grateful to Souma for his unorthodox intervention. Galina bowed her head respectfully to Ai though she neither expected nor sought any form of recognition or politesse in return. 

One hand alone betrayed her true emotion under the withering gaze of Takahiro Ai, her fingers gently brushing the skin of the ear Souma had only just touched, as if to tuck a piece of her dark hair before forcing her hand back to her lap. "Your brother could not have found me in western Russia, nor managed to book my passage aboard the [i]Empress of Japan[/i] if it were otherwise - as, no doubt, he has told you by now."

Galina considered - for a single moment - veering from the truth, softening the hard reality of what she had done while a guest of the Japanese nobility, and then of the Takahiro clan. Almost as quickly, she dismissed the thought. Ai was no fool, nor was she a child who needed to be spoon fed milk-sopped foods lest she choke. "I also confessed to your brother, the day he first returned, that I purposefully used my 'actual name' in your family home. I was confident at the time he told no one who I was, how we had met, or what had happened aboard the [i]Empress[/i]."

"Do not misunderstand me though. There was a woman once, a certain Baronessa Galina Vasilyevna Demidova. Unfortunately she is quite dead, shot in the chest during a pirate attack on a Pacific voyage near Manilla." For a single moment, Galina fought to keep her fingers in her lap, to keep from reaching upward to touch the scarred flesh above her breast, still an angry, deep reddish pink and quite painful - though not nearly so as its larger twin on her back, ripped between her shoulder blades. 

"She struggled valiantly to recover, and yet eventually succumbed to her wounds some painful weeks later. She was survived only by her brother Yury, a man whose own family has, of late, been beset by a string of great and horrible tragedies." 

Galina's eyes fell away, her expression thoughtful, troubled and so genuinely sad, before she spoke once more. "There was also a woman nicknamed 'Shizuka,' who is also likely dead. She was a happy woman though, truly contented, and she learned to love those her opened their doors to her." 

She fell silent, half-fearing the eruption of Ai's wrath - or even Souma's - for the truth in her words, presumptuous and overreaching as they very likely were. 

"That, of course, may be a tale for another day."