I don't know entirely how much I like this, it was mostly written in the rush of five hours, and then stalled for five days, so it's not as good as some of my other works, I'm already certain.
What I do already know is, is that this is another exercise in writing original characters that hopefully don't aggravate or come off as overly annoying to my readers, and as with Admirable, I'd love feedback on how I did.
Also, if I got any details of Clover wrong, I'm sorry, I had to return the books to the library and I cannot check back to make sure that I got them right anymore.
The job should have been a simple one, Noburo Tanaka thought as the avenging Angel of Death in chinese clothes and looking impossibly young approached on him with furious indigo eyes spitting fire.
He and his group of fourteen had been hired to break into the home quarters of one of the army men, the informant had called him Gingetsu, and rough him up enough that he wouldn't be able to remain a thorn in the side of Azeiza all by himself, although death was out of the question, the target being relatively important to his country.
The money behind it had been good and he had taken the job without a second thought.
Yet even as they advanced, there was something in the air that was warning him, a silent plea to stop and leave the house alone.
Tanaka shrugged off the impulse as an attack of nerves and had Jiro sneak up to check the lock for potential of lock-breaking.
The others of his group spread out around the area, careful to remain out of immediate sight, although the street was completely deserted, not even the damned mechanical pigeons were fluttering about, leaving mockery of messes everywhere and faking life.
"It's a good lock Boss." Jiro said as he continued to poke at it. "I'm not breaking in on this lock any time soon."
Tanaka scowled as he looked at the bolt in question. It looked close to fresh, the stains of age not showing on the reflective metal. Jiro stood up from where he knelt with his lock picks, shaking out his fingers. "What about the hinges?" he asked gruffly. "If we can break the hinges, we can probably get this turned enough to break in."
The man at the door looked them over, tapping on them. "It's possible, but it'll not be easy." he concluded, pushing on one of the joints. "Get Maru to whack through these, no one's gonna see."
Tanaka raised one of his hands, and made a two-fingered gesture towards Maru's hiding place, twitching them three times. The man was there in an instant, dark brows drawn down in concentration. "Break the hinges." he commanded, not needing more than the brief words to get what he needed.
Maru nodded silently, drawing a thick wedge of metal from somewhere on his stalking clothes. This was shoved in the small space between the head of the pin and the rest of the hinges, and held there by one large fist.
It was followed by his traditional mallet, the metal well cleaned from its usual uses, and it smashed into the wedge with terrifying strength, already cracking through the sturdy pin with nary a care.
It took only the work of a second strike before the head and pin were no longer compatible with the door, and there was a clanking of metal as the broken bottom tumbled to the top step, the door still holding firm.
Maru let out a grim smile, the whole thing pulling his wedge-shaped face into sharp relief before bending down to continue his work on the other hinge. Tanaka allowed himself a brief moment of relief as the second half separated with as much ease as the first.
The others slowly crept up from their different watch posts on the street, Satoshi heading the group and flicking one of his trademark knives from fingertip to fingertip, always catching the flat end of the blade and never cutting himself.
Maru took his mallet and smashed it on the outward opening door, bending the metal in enough that they could see the inner wall from up close.
A second strike left enough room for a thin man to slip through if he wanted to make the effort. The third let them through.
Tanaka started to guide them in, watching the street carefully for any snoopers on their job, the holster of his gun clenched between paling knuckles.
All seemed empty, but he caught a flash of indigo about the power lines on the other side of the street from the house.
He chalked it up to paranoia, and followed Jiro in.
As soon as his feet touched the floor, he turned to Maru, too large to safely fit through the door. "You stay out here, guard." he ordered, quite pleased when the man's only response was to heft his hammer up onto his shoulder, and scan beady eyes over the surrounding.
Inside were plain white walls, looking untouched. There was an end table, with one unopened envelope set on it, a doorway that led into a sitting room, and a door that turned out to open up into an empty closet but for a small selection of hangers.
Other than that, the entryway might have never been used for all of the humanity in it. Tanaka turned towards the living room, and thought of the rumors that spread out about the man they had been hired to rough up; he had a reputation as being almost inhuman in his job, emotionless and brutal when it came to fighting. If he and his sharp sword were anyway in the vicinity, only crackpots like Barus would dare operate in their less legal operations.
Which, of course was the whole point of this operation, so that Azeiza wouldn't have so much trouble with the army and getting anything done.
The sitting room looked like it was actually used on a semi-regular basis, with the curtains opened up and several of the cushions squashed into a comfortable mess on the couch.
There was a kerosene lamp on the coffee table in there, and it was still burning, yet most of the fuel in it had been used up. Here was a paradox that did not fit with the rest of the (admittedly limited) conceivable logic that made up this Gingetsu. What kind of well-trained military man left a lamp burning in a house he might not even make it back to within the next few days?
There was a scuffling sound on another hallway that led out of the room, and all of them whipped around to see nothing there. Yet Tanaka suddenly could not shake the feeling that something was about to go very wrong.
There was a meaty thudding sound, followed by a low groan, and he ran back to check on their escape route, and the guard.
Maru's dead face stared in the door, squinty eyes held wide by whatever emotion he had felt at the last minutes.
There were long ropey marks around his puffy neck, and yet there was nothing there on his neck itself.
Tanaka staggered away from the body, gun clenched in suddenly faltering fingers as he joined back up with his team, all of them drawing weapons and collecting into a group. "Maru's dead," he said, proud that his voice at least didn't shake, "And something's off about this whole thing."
Satoshi flipped one of his ever-present knives solidly into the palm of his hands. "What ever it is, we can handle it."
"Are you sure?" The voice was young, and yet ancient in a strange contradictory way. Tanaka turned towards the sound, down the long hallway, and then there was a choked gasp behind him and blood spattering on his neck. This terrifying, although not completely new to him, sound was followed by one that was new, the hissing crackle of electricity combined with breaking glass.
He whipped around, and saw the body of Hachi, eyes shot wide in shock, and power lines snaking in through the windows, dripping with a dark fury.
They snapped out again, five or six of them arcing through the room in slithering hunger, and darted straight at Tanaka.
He ducked, and they smashed into the man right behind him, letting out a choked scream before they withdrew again, searching for another death.
"You are not allowed in my home." that young voice stated again, bitterly cold, like the beginnings of frostbite. "And I will not let you leave as you are."
Tanaka found himself slinking backwards into the hallway, past the stairs, trying to avoid those whirling cables. His men followed him for that relative idea of safety, of farther rooms past that hall, but it ended at a locked door, and Jiro was not close enough to pick it.
Not that it mattered, because those cables snapped forwards again, to snatch up Jiro and another, by their necks. There was a sickening snap of bones collapsing from sheer force, and bloody foam flecked their lips as the wires released them, to fall on the floor and lie there, faces purple with dying agony.
They were trapped.
"In fact, you won't be leaving at all, since no one must know." the voice continued, and there was a crackle of indigo light on the stairs.
A child, he had to be a child, stepped down, an aura of color tinting the walls that same shade as his stormy eyes, looking coolly angry. "Why would you feel the need to break into my home," he asked, his tone not expecting an answer that he hadn't already thought of. He lifted up a hand, and the cords, wheeling about in the sitting room, snapped forwards, coiling about the men within their grasp lovingly before pulling tight enough that flesh and blood and bone gave way, leaving them just pieces on the floor.
Tanaka suppressed the urge to run at the look in those eyes, and instead pointed the gun at him. It was strange, he'd never felt fear at the hands of anyone before, but this child, this child possessed the ability to make him want to collapse in terror.
The bullet left his gun, speeding for the boy's shoulder, but was stopped before it ever reached him, slamming into the body of another one of his subordinates and leaving him gasping in pain.
"I won't let you live." the boy said with a promise layering the words, as the cables slunk around, and Tanaka avoided only the first strikes before they slid up to bind him to the wall, by arms, legs and chest.
The sound of more bodies, both whole and in pieces, brought up the urge to vomit from increasing terror. In mere seconds, the whole 'fight', if it could be called that, was over, and so few of his men were left, pinned to the wall just like him.
He was fucking terrified, his knees refusing to hold him up anymore, yet he was not permitted to fall because of the thick wires- and just where had they come from? -wrapped painfully tight around his stomach, upper arms and legs, pinning him to the wall like a butterfly to a display in a museum.
The unexpected child in the house of the two leaf stared at him and his remaining men with an unreadable look on his face, but he was pretty sure he was the only one who could see the curl of distaste filling his eyes as the child floated a good foot off the ground, matching their height with his own mystical powers.
"Why are you here?" The boy hissed as he hovered in the air effortlessly, even his long ponytail, dripping with the blood of his companions, snapped about with agitation. "What reason do you have to invade my home?"
The cords pressed into his throat hard enough to cut off air entirely, then released just as Tanaka thought he would run out of what life he had left. He still said nothing, a strange combination of honor and panic locking his throat shut.
The air around the boy shone a distinct shade of indigo, the same as his violently vibrant eyes. "Tell me now." He said, his voice deadly cold, every inch of sound a sharpened blade ready to breach the lines of his skin.
He tried not to let his eyes flinch to Satoshi, who had cut the bond of one arm off entirely now with the concealed knife, and attempted to work through the other without making a sound.
Ken on the other side of the hall made a whimpering noise, and the deadly angelic child drifted over to him, indigo-hued hand pressed an inch away from his throat. "Will you tell me?" he crooned, the sound as close to a lullaby as a lioness thirsting for vengeance.
The other binding on Satoshi's upper body snapped free, and he slipped the blade beneath his sleeve again.
Tanaka felt beads of sweat swelling up and lying stickier on his skin then the gore of his teammates, the horrible stench of blood and burned flesh making him want to vomit.
Ken let out a strangled wail, driven completely inarticulate by this boy who attacked them with powers never even seen before, and there was a flash of fury that snapped the mask of tranquility on the boy's face.
Ken's head joined the other ten on the floor with a sickening squelch, the blood from his severed arteries covering the wall and ceiling and the face of his killer in a mess of sticky splatters. In a nausea-inducing way, it reminded Tanaka of tomato sauce in a kitchen.
Again, the boy floated over to him, ponytail cracking the air like a bolt of lightning confined to bloody indigo locks. "The longer it takes you to explain, the longer it'll take me to clean up the mess and the sooner Gingetsu comes home. I would really like to get the blood off the walls before it sets."
Tanaka shivered, but spat on the boy's cheek, a bubbly mess of saliva running down his cheek.
Disdainful and angered indigo eyes snapped up and held his.
Then they were shut up by blackened eyelashes in a gesture of shocked pain as Satoshi made his move, swiping the knife in a downward motion that should have killed the boy where he stood, stood being a relative term in this case.
But he somehow managed to turn with the blow, so that it only left a long scarring scratch down his back, and his shirt collapsed under the added trauma. Yamanaka let out a horrified gasp as the boy's hand flew to his uncovered shoulder, attempting to hide something there. But he wasn't fast enough, and all five of them knew it.
Whatever his companions had seen was the reason for this demonic angel to go from furious to murderous.
The air shuddered and everything was indigo for a second, and Tanaka knew that the number of those who were breathing tainted air dropped from five to two, a fact confirmed by Jiro's head bumping against his foot.
The boy turned his whole body to face him again, all tranquility utterly destroyed to leave a mask of ugly vicious fury on his pretty face. "Now that you know who I am, I cannot let you have the possibility of escape. The wizards can have you."
The last thing he saw was a hand glowing with supernatural fire smashing into his forehead.
Gingetsu didn't know why he hadn't gotten the alert even that there was someone trying to break into his house, but when Ran called him, voice shaky and his face covered in blood, he promptly abandoned his post and moved for home. Very rapidly, despite the fact that Ran said he had it under control, and he was very sorry about the blood on his walls.
The door hung ajar, both of the hinges mutilated in whatever had happened. There was blood all over the top two doorsteps, and the nearest power line had the cords snapping and sliding in through the front window, the glass lying in the flower bed lacking flowers, and presumably inside as well.
Inside, the carpet was splattered with blood, most of it rusty brown and already dried into the fibers beyond what could be saved. Right by the entry way, there were eight black plastic garbage bags, each neatly tied off with Ran's particular style of handiwork, and it wasn't hard at all to guess what lay inside the bags.
In the hallway stood the three leaf himself, one of his pajama shirts thrown on haphazardly and his ponytail lying whacked off unevenly on the floor, as he stood on one of their kitchen chairs, scrubbing at the ceiling with his left hand being used to hold the damp cloth, and his right hanging down dully at his side.
The sound of Gingetsu's foot sinking into a blood-saturated carpet brought Ran out of his revery, and he turned to face him, face also sprayed with blood. Thankfully, none of it looked like it was his, but he couldn't shake the disconcerting idea that Ran had been hurt. "Welcome home Gingetsu." He said, forcing some of the usual cheer into his voice. Gingetsu didn't doubt that he was genuinely happy to see him, but the state of the front of his house was undeniably causing Ran distress. "I'm sorry about the cords, I haven't finished cleaning up yet."
That was kind of obvious, but he caught Ran, gently, by the left shoulder as he moved to return to his cleaning "What happened?"
The Clover sighed, and let the stained cloth drop to his side. "Fifteen men broke in, fourteen of them are lacking heads and the fifteenth is unconscious, tied up in the power lines and locked in the cleaning closet." He motioned towards the door that barely shut, the little door with a little alcove in it. "I thought you might want to interrogate the leader, since he would have the most information"
It was a little surprising that Ran had noticed that much, but then he never did leave the house, so whatever he learned that was within, he learned with more totality than most people ever even tried. "And your hair?"
Ran shrugged, the action leaving the few strands longer than the back of his head rippling sadly. "It got covered in blood and gore. It made me feel sick to keep it on."
Gingetsu noticed the way that he shivered, making the shirt he wore look even more enormous. Ran was scared, he realized, scared of whatever had happened, of what the reactions everyone would have to his decapitation methods of stopping a home invasion, perhaps even how Gingetsu felt about having his entry way torn up and covered in blood.
Kazuhiko probably would have done something like ruffle the newly shortened hair on the Clover's head and said something light-hearted and comforting, if he weren't flipping out over the amount of mess to be cleaned up.
But he wasn't Kazuhiko, the fact well discussed and proven that where Kazuhiko could do things like that, he really couldn't. So none of the human methods of comfort were really going to work that he knew of.
So instead, Gingetsu took the cloth from the shaking boy and rubbed at a spot of drying blood on the wall, not caring at all about the damage to his dignity that would have been done if anyone else had been there.
It took a few moments, but when Ran lifted his head with one of those smiles curling up his mouth and relaxing the haunted shadows in his eyes, Gingetsu knew he had done the right thing. "We can have the carpet replaced." he added when he caught indigo eyes looking at the newly dyed fibers. "It wasn't really in good shape anymore." He attempted to justify himself.
A soft chuckle rose from the other Clover as he got a fresh cloth, and began to work on removing more of his proof of defense from the walls.
The space between them was silent after that, but nothing more needed to be said.
So, mediocre, good, bad? I'd love your feedback!