Longinus: Cage of Angel
Chapter 1
Nabiki stared at the building from across the road. She could just make out the sign in the stale morning light. "Acupressure, Acupuncture, Moxibustion," she mouthed the words; licking her dry lips and suppressing a groan as the pain in her arm flare up again. She didn't know if it was broken or not, but it hurt like hell. She'd been running for who knows how long, just trying to get away from those damned things she'd seen prowling the street around her apartment uptown. It'd been a long time since she'd seen her sisters, either of them, and they hadn't exactly parted on good terms either. But, she hadn't known where else to go. Most of the city had been attempting to evacuate just prior to the first attack, and Nabiki had been caught downtown in the worst of it. Just making it back to her apartment in one piece had been a small miracle.
The phones were down, the satellites; it was like a communications blackout. That had only made the panic worse on the streets, so she'd holed up in her apartment with nowhere else to go, and no one who knew what was really going on anymore. The neighbors on both sides of her had already made it out of the city, as had most of the rest of the mansion, judging by the hastily scrawled notes she found on their doors, but one or two of the residents had stayed. Like the young Tendou, they'd had nowhere else to go outside the city.
Initially, she'd proposed that they all pool together, and scrape what little resources they had into one apartment, and it had seemed like a good idea in theory. But the other two happened to be a couple a little younger than Nabiki herself, and in the end they valued their newfound privacy over the companionship and foodstuffs that Nabiki was offering to share, if they would help her keep watch on the rest of the block.
She'd been worried, since after the first attack, the city had been silent for a few days, but then one night, they'd started showing up. It had been easy to mistake them as derelicts, or wounded survivors of the bombings, but it wasn't a mistake Nabiki would be making twice. Neither would her former downstairs neighbors, who'd made the grievous error of leaving their door unlocked one night. The screams had woken Nabiki, and probably saved her life, giving her a head start on getting out of that part of the city.
Originally, she'd planned on heading to her father's place, but the idea of meeting up with her younger sister, even in a time of need, was too much to bear, not with an alternative. And the more pressing matter of her mounting injuries sealed the deal. Once she made it into the Nerima ward, she'd headed straight for her older sister's workplace, the Ono Clinic.
Now that it was so close, she was beginning to rethink her choice; Kasumi wouldn't try and turn her away, would she? Nabiki was sure the doctor would fix her arm, but after that, it would be too uncomfortable to stay in the same place as her elder sister. Kasumi would make sure of that and in the most nonchalant, subtle way possible. Nabiki frowned in confusion. But in the end the throbbing hot sensation tearing at the insides of her arm won out, making the decision for her.
--
"Hey, hold your end up you idiot, we gotta get this crap nailed on good," Kenji scowled at his partner.
"What does it look like I'm doing? Think I want that freaking thing just waltzing right in?" Akira took a nail out from between his lips and held it up to the piece of cabinet shelving they were using to board up the windows. They'd already got most of the first floor taken care of, and this was the last in the rear of the clinic.
"Yeah, well I'm getting all antsy about the upstairs. You saw how high some of those little buggers can jump," he handed his partner the hammer, and pressed against the board, keeping it flush with the window frame. "Did you catch where that nurse went? I thought she'd be back by now with more wood. We're running out of things to use."
The spiky haired Akira just shrugged as he hammered the board in place. He shot a look over his shoulder at the little pile of scraps they'd gathered to use as material for securing the doors and windows of the two story clinic. Kenji was right, there was barely enough to cover one of the upstairs windows. "Lady, uh, miss?" Akira shouted, and then turned to the taller man, "Crap, I forgot her name, Tanibata, or Tachikoma, Tan-something."
"It was Tendou, come on, not even a kid could forget one so easy."
Akira scowled, "Whatever." "Ms. Tendou, you still with us," he yelled back into the recesses of the clinic proper.
When there was no immediate reply, the two got a little worried. "Go take a look and see what's taking her. I don't like the idea of a girl running loose, especially in that short little getup she's wearing," Akira jerked his chin at his partner, tossing him one of the handguns they'd appropriated off a dead patrol officer.
Kenji grabbed the gun, shaking his head. "All right, Mr. leader. And what exactly is stopping you from doing the dirty work yourself?"
"Easy, I'm going upstairs to check on the rooms. Someone trust worthy's gotta do it," the spiky-haired young man remarked with a smirk.
"Mmm hm. And it's not because you're scared of needles right," the taller man jibed.
Akira socked him in the arm, scowling. "Shut up, I knew I should have never told you that story."
"Hah, it's too late to take it back now, in fact, maybe I should just share it with Ms. Tendou, I'm sure she'd get a real good kick out of it."
Kenji ribbed his friend, at least until he saw the other man reaching for the shotgun on the counter. "Right, I think I'll keep it to myself, for now," he chuckled in parting. "Man, you really need to lighten up. Can't even take a joke."
"Jerk," Akira muttered, taking the shotgun and heading toward the stairs at the back of the clinic.
--
In the basement, Kasumi was sitting quietly next to the body of her departed friend and mentor, the late Doctor Ono Tofu. She offered up a prayer for his soul to find peace in the next life, and that he would be granted salvation.
Bowing her head, she excused herself and rose from the seat, wiping an unbidden tear from her eyes. The whole situation was just too much for her to handle alone. She'd thought she could do it, but only a day without the Doctor's presence and she was starting to fall apart all over again. She could hear the men upstairs working, and their subsequent shouts, calling out her name.
But, all she wanted to do was rest. She'd been foolish to think that she'd be able to get downtown. Now she knew better. All it had taken was one good look at what prowled the streets to shake her resolve to the core, and it hadn't helped that strangers had been ordering her to dismantle the good doctor's clinic. Their reasons made sense but she didn't like it. It felt like she was betraying part of herself, even if rationally, she knew that wasn't the truth at all.
Kasumi didn't even have the time to sort out her feelings, before the sound of footsteps on the wooden basement stairs echoed down to her.
"Ms. Tendou? You still down there?"
It was the voice of the tall intruder, easy enough for her to recognize since the two men were as different as night and day in the way they looked, and spoke, though they both carried themselves in a manner that she found all too familiar after living for so long around martial artists. Both men were fighters, even if they bore firearms. She supposed with the things out in the city, traditional weapons might not be enough anymore.
"Ms. Tendou?"
"Y-yes, I am here," she dried her eyes, and looked around for where she'd placed the supplies she was gathering earlier.
Kenji walked into the small circle of light cast by the lone lamp mounted above the chest height table in the middle of the room. A white sheet covered the telltale lump atop the table. "Is that?"
"Yes, please, let us return upstairs now. I've found the things you requested," the nurse was suddenly businesslike, with no hint of her earlier distress present on her face. In her arms were bundles of medical supplies and a dozen small white shelves. They would have to be enough, because they were the last of the shelves she was able to take down by hand.
As the two ascended the stairs, the front door jerked with the force of the heavy pounding it was suddenly bombarded with. They'd gotten the door back on its hinges, and reinforced it with an empty book shelf, but even still it was starting to creak alarmingly.
Kenji drew his sidearm, gently pushing the nurse behind him as he approached the door.
"Is it that thing? Has it come back?" Kasumi grabbed onto the tall man's shoulder, tightening her fist in the material of his vest.
From the other side of the door came frantic shouting and the pounding increased. "Gods! Kasumi! Doctor Ono, if you're there open the damn door! Hurry, they're almost here! Let me in!"
Kasumi almost tore Kenji's vest when she heard the cries. "I know that voice--," she trailed off. There was no way her sister would be this far from her home. And to come to Kasumi off all people.
"Kasumi! Let me in damn you! I'm not going to die out here, not in this damn town! Open the--," Nabiki yelped in pain as the door whipped open beneath the weight she was pressing against it and a hand shot out from the inside of the clinic, dragging her into the building in a vise-like grip. The middle Tendou nearly passed out from the pain of being almost lifted off her feet by her injured arm. It occurred to her as the pain nearly made her retch, that if her arm hadn't been broken before, it probably was now.
As the days of fatigue and the fresh flowers of pain blooming in her body overtook her, she collapsed to the ground, the last thing she heard was a flurry of motion and the sound of something heavy being scooted across the wooden floor. Just like that, she was reunited with one of her estranged sisters. Nabiki welcomed the blackness that took her in its bosom. Maybe she could sleep forever and spare herself the agony of dealing with the devil in white that was her older sister.