Ronin Warriors: Passing Along
Nikki Kino
Prologue
The Beginning
Dark billowing clouds of a fiery red smoke choked the tight atmosphere of the North building in the World Trade Center. A young 17 year-old girl stood terrified as she tightly clutched hold of the tiny Taiwanese girl in the protection of her shaking arms. The girl screamed and cried, almost rendering the one holding her deaf... as if the cacophony of the burning building surround her wasn't loud enough. The father of the Taiwanese baby cried in agony as he was trapped under a small growing mountain of fallen derbies, fire, and smoke.
"Keep... her... safe..." he managed to painfully heave out. Nodding hastily the teenager reached with one trembling hand for his, amazed at her own patience for not having run yet.
"I promise!" she yelled loudly to get her voice over the noise of the building which seemed to be angrily replying to the assault it had received from the air. A sudden blast from somewhere else in the building nearly sent the teenager on top of the burning mass in front of her. The girl squealed even more loudly and more terrified. The man under the pile screamed out in pain as his body was shifted underneath the "Hell Pile". He just barely held onto his own shaky conscience.
"N..na...me..." he struggled out, gasping for air.
"Nikki Kino!" she replied as loud and enunciate as she could to be sure he heard her.
"Nick...ey. Boy... named...," he forced out again. She smiled, showing she understood. He smiled out a shaky smile of thanks then his eyes dulled. They stared strait ahead in a blank stare, red and puffy from smoke and tears. His mouth drooped in a sloppy smile with a tinge of pain. It slowly – but quickly enough – dawned on her that the man lying before her, the father of the baby in her arms, was dead. Realization quickly came to her that the room was crumbling, as were the ones above her.
"AHH!" Nikki screamed as a small pocket of fire near her suddenly burst up, singeing her clothes. "Run. Run! RUN! I'M GONNA DIE!" Screaming at herself she started crying. "I don't want to die!" Sobbing she choked on the smoke in the air and fell to the floor. The baby in her arms was having some problems breathing too. It didn't dawn on her until after the baby began to stop screaming. "I'm right.. I gotta run..." heading for the stairs, wondering why in the world she didn't do that from the beginning, Nikki flung the door open and began sprinting through the smoke. As she kept running she saw no other living people and began to wonder what it was like outside. Down those stairs she ran as fast as she could, running into a few fire-fighters along the way who were surprised to see someone up as far as she was. Following their only advice she clutched the child in her arms tightly and didn't slow her pace. If anything, she quickened.
After what seemed dozens of floors a heart wrenching, mind shattering sound echoed as if a great chasm of destruction. The building was collapsing.
"NO!!!" Nikki screamed. "NOT NOW! NOT NOW! SOMEONE HELP ME!!!" The baby in her arms was screaming and coughing. "SOMEONE HELP US!"
CRASH!
A chunk of ceiling crashed into the side of her head. Instinctively she twisted the child away from there as her vision fell blank. All she knew was she felt something crash into her head, warm arms wrapping around her waist, and then nothing.
All went silent.