Sanction
A lone woman walks across a small forest. A frown scringes her face, and her eyes turn down. Her purple hair blows gently in the breeze's countenance, as does her rag-tag 'Wing' shirt and her short jean shorts.
"In my gentler days, I loved the battle arena-in all its myriad incarnations. Small or big, battlefield or dojo showdown. It was a magical place, where the dashing warrior would fight bravely to protect his lovely hime. More lovely than I could ever hope to be." thinks the purple haired one.
I dreamt of running away to be one of those warriors, instead who fought for herself. But I never had the courage. I figured that my life would be as drab and normal as everyone elses.
A twig snapped.
I was wrong.
Fast as I react to Nan's attack, he still draws pain.
Reacting almost mechanically, the woman kicks the sudden adversary in the neck, his face is swollen, but there appears to be no critical damage.
My kick would have broken the neck of an ordinary man, but this member of Ku has an elastic body. Making his virtually invulnerable.
Laughing menacingly, the elastic man twists his body around like a snake, curving in each direction in a sly effort to confuse the already dazed girl. When he feels it in his bones, the sensation tells him to strike.
Quick as light, the man thrusts forward a fist to dismiss the girl.
He misses.
Nan managed to throw me off balance by tripping me over and forcing me to smash my head against the hard tree trunk. I was almost knocked unconscious, if I was the type of girl to faint so easily.
He punches. He misses. I grab a gimlet, and swing it across at his neck.
"However 'invulnerable' you are Nan, you are still vulnerable to a slit throat." The triumphant girl tells the Ku member that is bleeding to death.
She hears footsteps. Stealthfully, she darts in a treetop for camoflouge, the green foliage hides her well.
A figure soon comes into vision, her footsteps quick and precise, and her gaze remarkably strong.
Moments later, Neon-one of my deadliest foes comes into vision. Her madougu controls soundwaves and has the ability the fire them in a solid form.
She has courage and intelligence, but her lack of experience with me will prove to be a fatal loss.
I leap down from the tree, with the grace and swift maneuvering I am reknown for. She looks up and makes a grab for her flute, but equips it too late.
A snap is heard, as I remove my foot from the dead woman's severed neck.
"MURDERER!!!" A voice bellows like a mountain exploding into fire, as the trees behind me explode into ash.
How ironic to use the word fire.
Because none other than my most dangerous foe stands in front of me now.
The black angel, Kurei.
"She did nothing to you! And yet you killed her!!!"
"As I will you, Kurei."
We stand gazing at each other for a for a moment, before I begin my last words to him.
"No one asked her to join Uruha. She knew the risks" I told him, as the legendary phoenix erupts from his blue battle aura.
I charge , backflipping over his head again and again, as he charges at me with numerous flames.
None miss, but I pay no attention to the white-hot fire that slashes at my sides. I eventually leap to my original place, to see his phoenix fade away, and the masked one gasping for air.
"Finding it hard to breathe? You should. You see Kurei, I have mastered the art of Fuujin. Using my fuujin, I was able to withdraw all the air around you, creating a vaccuum. You can't produce a fire without air."
"And now..." I say, my fuujin's central orb glowing brightly.
"DIE!!"
Raw lightning explodes from my outstretched hand in the form of a snake. By combining hot air and cold air, I am able to manifest the power of lightning.
I then run away, afraid now. Afraid to kill, afraid to hold someone's life in my hands. Just as I did with her.
"Why so shy, Fuuko-sama? Afraid to join us?" A voice calls out, as a lightning bolt strikes the ground. I look up to see Raiha, narrowly missing me.
"I don't want to hurt you Raiha. I loved you! You're as special to me as my own flesh and blood!" I yell.
"I'm a member of the Uruha! I've left you and Hokage for good!!"
he left me no choice.
I evade his attacks easily, and switch the main orb of my fuujin with the Kaze no Dama.
Raiha is positioned on a tree. I cut the tree, Raiha dies.
As the three falls, I howl, mad like a dog. Savaged by emotions I thought I'd put behind me a long time ago.
Then, I hear it. I hear the voice that haunts my dreams every night, the voice that traps me in that spider web of despair.
"What's the matter, Fuuko? Are you getting tired?"
The voice is like milk, rich and flowing. And at the same time, it harbours a deadly poison.
"Mikoto." I reply.
"Quite right." The ninja answers, as she draws her knife.
We then battle. Not Dokumashin to Fuujin, but blade to blade. I do a roundhouse kick, and soon I am flying above her from a tree branch. But my gimlet is pulled back.
Her blade isn't.
I wake up to find a cool cloth pressed to my face by warm hands, soothing a face I am certain is exhaustedly red.
"You did a good job, hon. 6 out of 7, it wasn't so bad."
Fuuko looked up to see dark chestnut hair with blond streaks falling gently down a face. Dark hazel eyes and a warm smile come to greet her.
"K-k-keith?" Fuuko utters, saying the name of her fiancée
"Shh, my love. Relax yourself." He tells her smiling warmly and pressing her face to his hirsute, well-muscled chest.
Fuuko's forehead rested gently on Keith's cool green jade necklace that dangled from his neck. The sweet-smelling fragrant hairs of his chest tickled her face.
"I could destroy a person closer to me that my own brother, but I could not destroy...her."
"It's ok. we all have weaknesses, dear." The seemingly 23-year old man replies. He looks lovingly into her troubled eyes, her emerald green contrasting with his golden brown.
"Go to sleep now hon. Your workout with Hokage's been pretty hectic today."
And with a smile, the woman called Fuuko smiles, and lets the wind push her drearily along to the bedroom she can call her own.
Too lazy to change, too tired to bother, she messily tucks herself into bed.
"It's a good thing that Kage Houshi was able to put Aki's Madougu together again. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to work out daily...even if Mikoto did kick my butt..."
And she drifted off into a lazy sleep.
However, the visions that night were not so hazily sweet as the beginning of her sleep.
"Why Fuuko...'' A voice called out, one that resembled a liquid.
"Why didn't you save me?" A deadly liquid.
"Wasn't that your duty?" A fatal liquid
"Wasn't that Hokage's Way?!" A poison.
Then, a door unlocks-revealing a memory from an alien time and place.
It is in the midst of a battle. The air is thick, so thick it is barely suitable to respirate from. The stage lights are blaring with an awesome intensity.
The ground is moist beneath fighter Fuuko of Hokage's feet, or should we say knees?
She is sprawled on the floor, her body throbbing with unimaginable pain, as her opponent merely laughs in sadistic pleasure.
Then, the tide turns. Mikoto is struck with a dokumashin, and her world goes blank. With amazing grace, the antidote is in Fuuko's hand. She sympathetically throws the back to Mikoto, who pulls out a .45, and Fuuko is off the cliff.
Domon saves her.
Mikoto falls.
Falling, falling, falling, falling....
"NOOOO!!!!!!!" Fuuko screams, bursting out in a fit of sweat. She glances at the clock, as she slumps exasperatedly into her bed.
the death happened 4 years ago, but the memory was still as fresh as a peeled wound.
Footsteps are heard,concerned footsteps. Rushing desperately to the scene of despair.
"Fuuko!" Keith screams, crushing her sweat-splattered face against his chest once more.
"My love, are you okay?" He asks, as she does not dare look at him.
"Yes, Keith. I'm..fine."
"Do you take me for an idiot, 'Ko? I know you were thinking of it again!!"
She was cornered. So she did the only thing possible, and fell asleep in his tender embrace.
The next morning, Fuuko arrived at the place where she would least expect to arrive in.
"Arigatou, Jake-san." She replied to her taxi driver-friend, tossing him a few hundred yen.
And mechnanically, almost lifelessly, she began to walk into the Uraboutosoujin hall.
Each stone, each tile on the floor held a memory for her. Each Member of the uruha, each fight, brought back the emotion that went along with it.
After exploring the labyrinthian ruins and remains of the preliminary battle halls, she came to the hall which she was destined to fight in.
A light clicked, and the spotlights were on.
Hesitantly, she hovered down to the edge of the stage, where the earth curved carefully down into an ingeneous trap.
And it was there, along the edge, where she found an empty dokumashin.
"Why, Mikoto? Why did we have to end it this way?" Fuuko asked the empty hall, where the ghosts of the enthusiastic spectators cheered rapidly, before dissipitating into the hazy nothingness.
"I knew I'd find you here." A familiar voice came, as Fuuko turned around, only to shield her eyes from a bright light reflected off a shiny jade.
"I thought you would."
She smiled at her fiancée, who was wearing nothing but a pair of bicycle shorts.
"I suppose you haven't heard, but in this country, it's customary to wear shirts."
"All the better to hold you in my arms with." replied the man.
"Look, kid. I'm not a doctor or nothing, but I know people. And by the way you described this 'Mikoto', she sounded like a real Marilyn Monroe."
"
"Who is that"
"Doesn't matter. The point is, you don't have to go beating yourself up over her. She was...twisted. You had to stop her, you did. Sometimes 'ko, it's that simple."
Fuuko sensed a profound love behind those words, just as warm as the arms that scooped her up and held her in an embrace.
"I know...and it's the sheer simplicity that terrifies me. And for a moment, I literally held her life in my hands. And afterwards, a part of me just fell down with her. I killed someone, keith. And it scares me."
"That's why we keep doing what we do, kiddo. That's why you're a Hokage Member, to save the world from the people like Uruha. And to keep people-and madougu masters-from becoming monsters."
In my gentler days, I loved the battle arena-in all its myriad incarnations. Small or big, battlefield or dojo showdown. It was a magical place, where the dashing warrior would fight bravely to protect his lovely hime. More lovely than I could ever hope to be." thinks the purple haired one.
I dreamt of running away to be one of those warriors, instead who fought for herself. But I never had the courage. I figured that my life would be as drab and normal as everyone elses.
But no-one's life is ever really normal, now is it?"
I could've stayed in keith's tight embrace, feeling his warm arms massage my pained back, press my face against the tickling hairs of his chest, and smell his sweet fragrance-but sometime, I'll have to face the sanction.
A lone woman walks across a small forest. A frown scringes her face, and her eyes turn down. Her purple hair blows gently in the breeze's countenance, as does her rag-tag 'Wing' shirt and her short jean shorts.
"In my gentler days, I loved the battle arena-in all its myriad incarnations. Small or big, battlefield or dojo showdown. It was a magical place, where the dashing warrior would fight bravely to protect his lovely hime. More lovely than I could ever hope to be." thinks the purple haired one.
I dreamt of running away to be one of those warriors, instead who fought for herself. But I never had the courage. I figured that my life would be as drab and normal as everyone elses.
A twig snapped.
I was wrong.
Fast as I react to Nan's attack, he still draws pain.
Reacting almost mechanically, the woman kicks the sudden adversary in the neck, his face is swollen, but there appears to be no critical damage.
My kick would have broken the neck of an ordinary man, but this member of Ku has an elastic body. Making his virtually invulnerable.
Laughing menacingly, the elastic man twists his body around like a snake, curving in each direction in a sly effort to confuse the already dazed girl. When he feels it in his bones, the sensation tells him to strike.
Quick as light, the man thrusts forward a fist to dismiss the girl.
He misses.
Nan managed to throw me off balance by tripping me over and forcing me to smash my head against the hard tree trunk. I was almost knocked unconscious, if I was the type of girl to faint so easily.
He punches. He misses. I grab a gimlet, and swing it across at his neck.
"However 'invulnerable' you are Nan, you are still vulnerable to a slit throat." The triumphant girl tells the Ku member that is bleeding to death.
She hears footsteps. Stealthfully, she darts in a treetop for camoflouge, the green foliage hides her well.
A figure soon comes into vision, her footsteps quick and precise, and her gaze remarkably strong.
Moments later, Neon-one of my deadliest foes comes into vision. Her madougu controls soundwaves and has the ability the fire them in a solid form.
She has courage and intelligence, but her lack of experience with me will prove to be a fatal loss.
I leap down from the tree, with the grace and swift maneuvering I am reknown for. She looks up and makes a grab for her flute, but equips it too late.
A snap is heard, as I remove my foot from the dead woman's severed neck.
"MURDERER!!!" A voice bellows like a mountain exploding into fire, as the trees behind me explode into ash.
How ironic to use the word fire.
Because none other than my most dangerous foe stands in front of me now.
The black angel, Kurei.
"She did nothing to you! And yet you killed her!!!"
"As I will you, Kurei."
We stand gazing at each other for a for a moment, before I begin my last words to him.
"No one asked her to join Uruha. She knew the risks" I told him, as the legendary phoenix erupts from his blue battle aura.
I charge , backflipping over his head again and again, as he charges at me with numerous flames.
None miss, but I pay no attention to the white-hot fire that slashes at my sides. I eventually leap to my original place, to see his phoenix fade away, and the masked one gasping for air.
"Finding it hard to breathe? You should. You see Kurei, I have mastered the art of Fuujin. Using my fuujin, I was able to withdraw all the air around you, creating a vaccuum. You can't produce a fire without air."
"And now..." I say, my fuujin's central orb glowing brightly.
"DIE!!"
Raw lightning explodes from my outstretched hand in the form of a snake. By combining hot air and cold air, I am able to manifest the power of lightning.
I then run away, afraid now. Afraid to kill, afraid to hold someone's life in my hands. Just as I did with her.
"Why so shy, Fuuko-sama? Afraid to join us?" A voice calls out, as a lightning bolt strikes the ground. I look up to see Raiha, narrowly missing me.
"I don't want to hurt you Raiha. I loved you! You're as special to me as my own flesh and blood!" I yell.
"I'm a member of the Uruha! I've left you and Hokage for good!!"
he left me no choice.
I evade his attacks easily, and switch the main orb of my fuujin with the Kaze no Dama.
Raiha is positioned on a tree. I cut the tree, Raiha dies.
As the three falls, I howl, mad like a dog. Savaged by emotions I thought I'd put behind me a long time ago.
Then, I hear it. I hear the voice that haunts my dreams every night, the voice that traps me in that spider web of despair.
"What's the matter, Fuuko? Are you getting tired?"
The voice is like milk, rich and flowing. And at the same time, it harbours a deadly poison.
"Mikoto." I reply.
"Quite right." The ninja answers, as she draws her knife.
We then battle. Not Dokumashin to Fuujin, but blade to blade. I do a roundhouse kick, and soon I am flying above her from a tree branch. But my gimlet is pulled back.
Her blade isn't.
I wake up to find a cool cloth pressed to my face by warm hands, soothing a face I am certain is exhaustedly red.
"You did a good job, hon. 6 out of 7, it wasn't so bad."
Fuuko looked up to see dark chestnut hair with blond streaks falling gently down a face. Dark hazel eyes and a warm smile come to greet her.
"K-k-keith?" Fuuko utters, saying the name of her fiancée
"Shh, my love. Relax yourself." He tells her smiling warmly and pressing her face to his hirsute, well-muscled chest.
Fuuko's forehead rested gently on Keith's cool green jade necklace that dangled from his neck. The sweet-smelling fragrant hairs of his chest tickled her face.
"I could destroy a person closer to me that my own brother, but I could not destroy...her."
"It's ok. we all have weaknesses, dear." The seemingly 23-year old man replies. He looks lovingly into her troubled eyes, her emerald green contrasting with his golden brown.
"Go to sleep now hon. Your workout with Hokage's been pretty hectic today."
And with a smile, the woman called Fuuko smiles, and lets the wind push her drearily along to the bedroom she can call her own.
Too lazy to change, too tired to bother, she messily tucks herself into bed.
"It's a good thing that Kage Houshi was able to put Aki's Madougu together again. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to work out daily...even if Mikoto did kick my butt..."
And she drifted off into a lazy sleep.
However, the visions that night were not so hazily sweet as the beginning of her sleep.
"Why Fuuko...'' A voice called out, one that resembled a liquid.
"Why didn't you save me?" A deadly liquid.
"Wasn't that your duty?" A fatal liquid
"Wasn't that Hokage's Way?!" A poison.
Then, a door unlocks-revealing a memory from an alien time and place.
It is in the midst of a battle. The air is thick, so thick it is barely suitable to respirate from. The stage lights are blaring with an awesome intensity.
The ground is moist beneath fighter Fuuko of Hokage's feet, or should we say knees?
She is sprawled on the floor, her body throbbing with unimaginable pain, as her opponent merely laughs in sadistic pleasure.
Then, the tide turns. Mikoto is struck with a dokumashin, and her world goes blank. With amazing grace, the antidote is in Fuuko's hand. She sympathetically throws the back to Mikoto, who pulls out a .45, and Fuuko is off the cliff.
Domon saves her.
Mikoto falls.
Falling, falling, falling, falling....
"NOOOO!!!!!!!" Fuuko screams, bursting out in a fit of sweat. She glances at the clock, as she slumps exasperatedly into her bed.
the death happened 4 years ago, but the memory was still as fresh as a peeled wound.
Footsteps are heard,concerned footsteps. Rushing desperately to the scene of despair.
"Fuuko!" Keith screams, crushing her sweat-splattered face against his chest once more.
"My love, are you okay?" He asks, as she does not dare look at him.
"Yes, Keith. I'm..fine."
"Do you take me for an idiot, 'Ko? I know you were thinking of it again!!"
She was cornered. So she did the only thing possible, and fell asleep in his tender embrace.
The next morning, Fuuko arrived at the place where she would least expect to arrive in.
"Arigatou, Jake-san." She replied to her taxi driver-friend, tossing him a few hundred yen.
And mechnanically, almost lifelessly, she began to walk into the Uraboutosoujin hall.
Each stone, each tile on the floor held a memory for her. Each Member of the uruha, each fight, brought back the emotion that went along with it.
After exploring the labyrinthian ruins and remains of the preliminary battle halls, she came to the hall which she was destined to fight in.
A light clicked, and the spotlights were on.
Hesitantly, she hovered down to the edge of the stage, where the earth curved carefully down into an ingeneous trap.
And it was there, along the edge, where she found an empty dokumashin.
"Why, Mikoto? Why did we have to end it this way?" Fuuko asked the empty hall, where the ghosts of the enthusiastic spectators cheered rapidly, before dissipitating into the hazy nothingness.
"I knew I'd find you here." A familiar voice came, as Fuuko turned around, only to shield her eyes from a bright light reflected off a shiny jade.
"I thought you would."
She smiled at her fiancée, who was wearing nothing but a pair of bicycle shorts.
"I suppose you haven't heard, but in this country, it's customary to wear shirts."
"All the better to hold you in my arms with." replied the man.
"Look, kid. I'm not a doctor or nothing, but I know people. And by the way you described this 'Mikoto', she sounded like a real Marilyn Monroe."
"
"Who is that"
"Doesn't matter. The point is, you don't have to go beating yourself up over her. She was...twisted. You had to stop her, you did. Sometimes 'ko, it's that simple."
Fuuko sensed a profound love behind those words, just as warm as the arms that scooped her up and held her in an embrace.
"I know...and it's the sheer simplicity that terrifies me. And for a moment, I literally held her life in my hands. And afterwards, a part of me just fell down with her. I killed someone, keith. And it scares me."
"That's why we keep doing what we do, kiddo. That's why you're a Hokage Member, to save the world from the people like Uruha. And to keep people-and madougu masters-from becoming monsters."
In my gentler days, I loved the battle arena-in all its myriad incarnations. Small or big, battlefield or dojo showdown. It was a magical place, where the dashing warrior would fight bravely to protect his lovely hime. More lovely than I could ever hope to be." thinks the purple haired one.
I dreamt of running away to be one of those warriors, instead who fought for herself. But I never had the courage. I figured that my life would be as drab and normal as everyone elses.
But no-one's life is ever really normal, now is it?"
I could've stayed in keith's tight embrace, feeling his warm arms massage my pained back, press my face against the tickling hairs of his chest, and smell his sweet fragrance-but sometime, I'll have to face the sanction.