Howdy, y'all!
Guess who? This is a story I've been working with and poking at for a couple of months now, and I finally got a mad rush of inspiration a few hours ago to start writing the first chapter. Crazy Bookworm is crazy. Anyway, it is rated T for later content in the story, and may even eventually be changed to M, though that's a bit unlikely. If you're concerned about triggers, PM me and I'll give you a list of the content trigger warnings, otherwise they will be provided on a chapter by chapter basis. Some will obviously be worse than others. This chapter is tame, though, and is rated for violence and mild (very mild) language. I hope you enjoy this story, despite the fact that it's going to be very dark, and I hope you can enjoy that it does actually have an outline and thusly might be finished sometime this century. As always, reviews are appreciated if you get a chance, but if you don't, just reading and enjoying the story is more than enough for me. Thanks for dropping in and catch y'all later! Without further ado...Chamomile, A Library Wars fanfiction.
As he threw himself to the ground, it occurred to Atsushi Dojo that the Defense Force had had better days.
Grunting, he forced himself to his elbows, already reaching for a new clip to refill his ammunition with deft hands. The smoke grenade was still heavy and thick in the air of the corridor they'd just dove out of, choking them and eliminating a fair portion of their visibility. "Kasahara, are you alright?" Under the barked words, boots clomped closer down the hallway and gunfire shattered the air.
Just as he was starting to get concerned, the younger girl replied something that sounded loosely like an affirmative, which was good enough for him. His clip clicked into place and he pushed himself to his feet, staring down the hallway in a stony minded determination as he eyed the row of riot shields standing sentry fifty yards down. Damn, closer than I thought. How'd they get so far?
"Then hurry up!" he ordered as he squeezed the trigger. "We don't have all day!"
"Yes, sir!"
Within half a second, she was up and firing down the hallway beside him, the bag of books they'd been assigned to protect tightly fastened on her shoulders. Shooting a look to the side, he scowled. "What are you waiting for?" he snapped. "Retreat to B Passage – I'll cover you! Get moving!"
Unsurprisingly, she ignored his order, something he made a mental note to berate her for later. As she pulled the pin on the grenade, though, it occurred to him that there was every possibility of a later not existing. Pitching it down the hallway in a disconcertingly perfect arc, the explosive landed just behind the line of riot shields, and Kasahara turned sharply, yanking on his arm and starting to run.
They had managed fifteen feet before the sharp bang of explosion sounded behind them and a few riot shields clattered to the ground. Success.
As their feet pounded down the bloodstained tile and carefully avoided the fallen agents, Dojo growled. "What are you thinking?" he barked around a sharp right turn that took them into the B Passage, which he could only hope would mislead the MBC agents enough to lose the duo they were tracking. "If you're going to try to incapacitate the enemy with explosives, warn me!"
"Sorry," she yelled behind her, "but I didn't think the middle of combat was the best time to yell my plan out!"
That was at least fair. He'd have to come up with a better argument when they weren't running for their lives, or at least an excuse to yell at her for risking her life, again. Someday, he hoped to work that impulsive recklessness out of her, but that day wasn't ready to come just yet.
As Kasahara barreled out into the hallway ahead of him at full speed, sprinting towards the staircase at the end, he watched as a few shots rang down the hallway from her right, where the main East corridor fed into the library's main atrium.
"Kasahara!" he yelled as she hit the ground. Exiting the narrow passageway, he fired down the glass-walled corridor where the shots had come from. More MBC agents, unsurprisingly, though these ones at least weren't with shields. Spraying down the hallway, he forgot to aim to incapacitate and watched as more than a few of the agents crashed to the ground from headshots. Three seconds passed. Seven. No response from his ally. "Kasahara!" he barked again.
"Here!" The reply was weak, but still there as his clip ran out.
Growling, Dojo turned and headed down the hall, grabbing Kasahara's arm as she stood. "Run!" he snapped, half dragging her along. With a nod, she did exactly as ordered, shifting the backpack of books on her shoulders as they beat feet down the hallway. Taking a grenade off his own belt, Dojo threw it behind them in hopes that it would deter any fast-footed enemies from following them up immediately. As the explosive went off behind them, Kasahara stumbled and regained footing on the steps, her instructor right on her heels.
Their feet pounded on the roof within a few more seconds. The crate across the way was already waiting for the bag of books bouncing between Kasahara's shoulderblades. As they approached, a man holding his helmet tightly with one hand raised a gun at them before lowering it in realization. A new recruit, Rikuto's shaking gun gave away his poorly hidden fear. Dojo couldn't blame him for not enjoying his first smoky tastes of battle, but he was more concerned by the shell-shocked look on the young man's face. "Thank God it's you two," he breathed, rushing forward. "Did you check the books?"
"What do you mean?" Kasahara asked, swinging the backpack off with a wince.
"Major Genda's message," Rikuto clarified, words stumbling out. "Didn't you get it?"
"Our radios got destroyed at the beginning, Rikuto," Dojo snapped. "Spit it out!"
"There were decoys," the recruit managed. "The MBC was playing dirty and set up a pack of decoy books instead of the records we were actually coming here for." He flinched at the look on Dojo's face as he swore. Kasahara unzipped the bag, and a collection of uncensored children's books fell out.
A pack of decoys.
She looked up at Dojo for a second, then to Rikuto. "We have to go back," she breathed, turning around to head back down the stairs, to what purpose Dojo had no idea. Honestly, he didn't care either, because that was when he caught sight of the blood staining the right side of her lower back.
"Stop, you blockhead!" he ordered, yanking on her arm and pulling her back as she let loose a sharp yelp of pain. "You're not going after anything. When did you get hurt?"
She yanked her arm from his grip. "One of their bullets got lucky down there. I'm fine!"
Dojo scowled. Below them, boots clattered. The MBC was coming. "You're not fine, you're injured! Now get on the helicopter transferring this crate and-"
"I won't," Kasahara snapped, running down the steps again before he could stop her. Gunfire bickered below again, and Dojo cursed under his breath.
Behind him, Rikuto still stood in shell shock, uncertain of what to do from here. "Sir?"
Dojo was already running. "Stand guard as long as you can and then run like hell!" he barked over his shoulder. "We'll get the books out ourselves!" He didn't wait to see if Rikuto got the message. He was already running.
It took him nearly two minutes to catch up with Kasahara, who was leaning around her cover corner and spraying bullets with her usual level of atrocious aiming capabilities. As she came back in to reload, he took her spot in firing. "When a superior officer tells you to fall back, you fall back, blockhead!" he snapped.
"Our job was to find the books," she shot back, firing down the hall and joining him. "We have to do our job!"
An MBC agent lobbed a flash grenade between the two Defense Force soldiers. In sync, the duo began to run due East, where the original pack was supposed to be, feet pounding out a steady rhythm even with Kasahara occasionally stumbling and making Dojo wince. When was she going to start taking care of herself?
"Do you even know where to look, Kasahara?" he barked as they ran.
"No idea! But if the ones we picked up were decoys, don't you think the real ones would be hidden nearby?"
"You're assuming they didn't already take the real ones!"
"Not assuming, sir, hoping!" The brown haired girl's tone was tight with exertion and determination, just like it always was. The area around the pair was oddly silent as they hurried through the bullet-torn and weary hallways to the original site they'd been running from – which was now singing with the sound of crashing tables and papers flying, sirening the message that they would not be alone.
Arriving just outside the doorway, the Defense Force agents pressed themselves to the wall. If the MBC was already in there, then they were recovering the real books and just had to be taken down in order to have the mission be a success. Luckily enough, taking down MBC agents was easy enough to do with the element of surprise.
Kasahara and Dojo reloaded their weapons as the inside of the room crashed. Counting off silently, they burst into the door in sync, weapons discharging round after round into the unprotected areas of the MBC's fighters, sending them to the floor with an incapacitated groan as the only sign that, while in pain, they were still alive.
One member held a riot shield up as protection as two others fled into a back hallway with a black bag. Without hesitation, Dojo and Kasahara flanked him, firing behind the shield and ignoring the clatter as both it and its wielder hit the ground, running down the corridor that sprawled before them in a mess of blood and agents of both sides of the censorship battle, though the ratio of dead or downed Defense force agents in comparison to the fallen MBC was skewed with a disconcertingly harsh negative to the LDF. It was yet another unfortunate side effect of the government favoring censorship's soldiers so heavily – when the Defense Force had come to the battle today, it had been even worse than the usual uneven numbers, and the number of people getting injured or killed was sickening.
It could not be considered at the moment. Dojo attempted to push it to the side.
Raising her gun, Kasahara fired at the fleeing MBC soldiers, her shots causing them to only duck, though she'd missed by a mile anyway.
"What have I told you about working on your aim?" Dojo snapped as he fired his own weapon until the soldiers in front of them went down. "Stop wasting ammunition shooting the air!"
Quickly approaching the fallen, Kasahara and Dojo took the pack, unzipping it to verify the contents this time. The handwritten and abused sheaves of paper that made up the reports on censorship and its development leading up to and past the Hino Nightmare peered out in affirmation.
They rezipped the bag and ran.
"How do we get out of here?" Dojo asked as they ran, Kasahara now keeping an even step with him in her exhaustion. The stain on her side had somehow managed to grow again, and he swallowed back the fear and rage.
"I don't know," she called back to him. "Wherever there's an exit, I guess, but I don't know where one is."
"Then find one – we don't have all day!"
"Yes, sir!"
Beside him, Kasahara coughed, books banging against her shoulders, one hand now pressed to her side. The wound had apparently decided to start bleeding actively, and she wheezed with the pain of it.
"Kasahara, are you alright?"
"Fine, sir!"
"Hurry!" She was anything but fine, that was obvious. But as long as she could still find it in her to lie and try and pretend she was alright, he knew she was close enough. As they ran past one corridor, silhouettes appeared at the hallway's end.
"That way!" They barked. Dojo swore.
"Now, Kasahara!" He ordered.
"I'm trying!" The words were strained and harsh as the pair ducked behind another set of walls to defend themselves.
"Take them out fast, and don't spray it!" Dojo ordered. An affirmative nod met the command, and Kasahara spun out from around the corner, aiming as best she could – which, admittedly, was not much better than before. With a light growl of irritation, Dojo aimed for her targets as well. "If you can't shoot where you're supposed to—"
He was cut off by Kasahara yelling and crashing to the ground as a bullet tore through her leg.
"Kasahara!" he yelled, gunning down the offending agent. Her face was white and blood pooled beneath her. An odd tidbit floated back to Dojo's mind from field training. The leg is full of arteries and veins, which, if nicked, can cause shock and bleeding out within a few minutes…
She groaned, but could not push herself up, and Dojo cursed. How did she always manage to make this happen to her? "This is going to hurt," he warned, picking her up in fireman's carry since it was obvious she'd be getting nowhere on her own.
Kasahara opened her mouth to respond, but she was cut off by the sound of an alert sounding from the PA system of the desecrated library they now ran through, the signal hacked by the leaders of one side or the other, no doubt.
"Attention, soldiers of the Kanto Library Defense Force," the voice said through the system, oddly unfamiliar. Had the MBC gotten a new leader? "Return the stolen materials immediately and exit the premises with your hands up. We have bombs at all exits and major intersections in the library, and if materials are not returned, they will be detonated in two minutes. Return the materials now, and leave the building with hands up if you wish to survive. This is your only warning."
Dojo cursed. They were playing rough today, just like Rikuto had said. The bombs were low, even for them. "Where's an exit to this place?" he yelled. There had to be one they'd missed somewhere. "Dammit!"
The hallways around him sprawled out unfamiliarly. The only recognizable one led to the main atrium and an exit that would no doubt be generously armed.
Considering that it was the only place that he knew had an exit, Dojo decided it was a risk they had to take.
"Hold on, Kasahara," he ordered, picking up his pace as much as the adrenaline and extra weight would allow. Over his shoulders, the dark haired girl didn't reply, though he could tell by her grunts of pain that she was still awake and alive. "This is why I told you we needed to leave," he growled as the exit came into sight.
They'd said two minutes. How long had it been now? A minute? More? "Come on," he urged, desperately pushing himself toward the bloodied glass doors and narrowly avoiding the bodies that littered the floor.
Gracelessly, he slammed through the barriers, listening to Kasahara cry out on his shoulders. "A little farther!" he informed her, feet pounding down the front steps of the building.
A little farther.
He was more right than he cared to know.
They got a little farther from the doors. Twenty feet or so.
Then the bombs went off, and Dojo pitched forward into the ground.
The first thing he noticed was the pain. His head pounded in the darkness, and the air tasted like ash around him. Any part of him that didn't ache as if it had been massaged by a crowd of professional boxers stabbed with pain, bad enough that he had no desire to move.
Something heavy weighed on his back. His little sister? What was she doing here, and why was she dogpiling at a time like this? With a groan, he tried to shift, and on his back, the stone dug into his flesh.
Stone. Bombs.
Kasahara.
Groaning, Dojo forced himself to open his eyes, though what he was made no sense. The dirt was littered with chunks of rock and gravel. Across from him, silhouettes against a storm grey sky, a dark black van that could have belonged to the MBC if not for the wrong coloring was parked, the back doors hanging open. Several men in dark, pristine suits stood over by the van, gesturing towards a hump on the ground several feet ahead of Dojo.
The lump wore the Defense Force's clothes. It had brown hair. And it lay in a puddle of blood.
"Kasahara," Dojo wheezed, struggling to force himself up. He had to get them out of here, to medical attention. He had to get them somewhere, away from this place, before they both wound up dead.
A few of the men in suits turned at his sound, grim smiles blurring across their faces. Three of them moved towards the immobile girl and picked her up by hands and feet, one supporting her back half-heartedly. Carefully, they moved towards the back of the van.
"No," Dojo coughed, reaching for his sidearm, which was strewn just out of arms reach on the ground before him. His fingers curled desperately for the handle of the gun.
A foot kicked it far away and scuffed his fingers.
"Now, now, Instructor Dojo, haven't you heard that it's rude to shoot at strangers?" A man with dark grey pants and a vest stood at a calculated distance from the injured soldier, hands behind his back. His tie was blood red against the background of his white shirt.
"Give her…back…" Dojo managed carefully, coughing into the dirt.
"I don't think so," the man replied, giving a grin that felt anything but comforting. "Miss Kasahara has been chosen, you see, to be our guest of honor for a little while. I'm sure you don't begrudge her that honor, do you? The girl you love, yes? Don't you want the best for her?"
Even through the pain, Dojo saw red flash across his eyes. "Who…are you?"
The man smiled. "Patience, Instructor. You'll know soon enough." The van doors slammed shut. The man's grin was wide, stretching from one side of his face to the other.
It was the last thing Dojo saw before a foot connected with his head and turned the world to nothing.