How 'bout a classical battle-packed mini-chapter?

Because I love you all...

~Tiruneko ;3

X~68~X

With a gasp of pure terror, Yuuma pulls on the warehouse door with all of his strength. The heavy door swings open just as another scream pierces the air. Before Yuuma can even blink, a large, hot hand reaches out and slams him into the cement floor by his neck. Something snaps and pain, white hot pain shoots through Yuuma's body like a poison. Instinct drives his body like a force, and, fueled by adrenaline and brutality, his right hand raises sharply on impulse.

With a sickening squelch the blade in his hand meets resistance and with all of his might Yuuma pushes as deep as he can go. Warm liquid spills onto his lower abdomen but Yuuma cannot open his eyes as the fingers around his neck push impulsively deeper. With a whimper as he fights for the rapidly fleeting air, Yuuma's hand snaps to the side and the thing above him lurches violently one last time before all the pressure on his neck fades and Yuuma bucks upwards as hard as he can, sending the massive thing to his side before his brain can even process what just happened.

Panting and lying on his back on the cold cement floor, Yuuma's eyes snap open to a desperate shout of, "leave me alone, assholes!" Iroha, Yuuma's brain urges him forward. He can't tell to what though as he slowly sits up. Shock. Is this shock? I always thought it would be more… what's the word?

"Don't!" a shrill scream sends a jolt through his body and Yuuma's on his feet, staring down at a quickly dying body with a crisp silver blade jutting out of the left side of its chest. The man is massive, a human bulldozer, and has a pointed noise and about a day's worth of stubble. He gasps like a fish as his big meaty hands flutter around uselessly at the blade imbedded into his lung. The wound bleeds swiftly and darkly, like a geyser. The man's eyes search Yuuma's desperately with an indecipherable emotion that Yuuma hardly registers as he places a foot on the man's chest, two hands on the blade's handle, and pulls.

The man doesn't even have a moment to scream before the pain wipes his mind blank and it snaps out like a lighter. Then the sword is in Yuuma's hands again. And the screams are in his ears again. And his heart beats faster.

It takes ages for him to find the cause of the screaming. Iroha is against the wall, another, big, meaty looking man holding her there roughly by the shoulders. Her feet don't even touch the ground. The other man is smaller, thinner, but still buff and seeping a confident and slimy aura that makes Yuuma feel physically ill, as if something has poisoned the air. They're all dressed to the nines and then he sees it. Oh god. The big man has the barrel of a shot gun pressed in between Iroha's immaculately pained lips and down her throat.

The action hardly registers with his brain until he's there. A hand outstretched to the gunman, blade leading, Yuuma's entirely swept off his feet by an intense blow to the knees. He crumples to the ground like a dropped napkin and a booted foot stamps down on his lower back. A sound of pain and fear fills the room. Oh. That came from me.

The man before him is the one holding Iroha, the one on top of him the evil looking man. The evil one is saying something, spitting something, something vulgar. Yuuma whimpers. The man laughs. They laugh. They LAUGH.

Somewhere someone's voice screams, a lingering echo. And somewhere a thing collapses in his arms with a pained, "God damn…"

With a carnal shout, Yuuma swings with all of his might. The blade of the katana hits hard bone and a guttural scream tears through the air. A gunshot and a thump follow and then there's blood in his face. In his eyes. In his mouth.

"Shit, shit, shit!" The man above him shouts frantically.

Pop. A large weight thuds down on top of Yuuma that knocks the breath out of him quite literally. Pop. Another thump ends the screaming.

Panting and a frantic ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump fills his ears.

"Yuuma," a female voice whispers. It's raspy and terrified. He can't respond. The weight on top of him rolls off with a push and then Iroha's blood splattered face appears in his line of sight. "Yuuma," tears flow freely down her face. "We gotta'… oh shit… we gotta' go," she whines, nearly sobbing.

Instinct makes him reach out and touch her face. Iroha whines and her entire body shudders as Yuuma's body moves of its own accord and forces him to sit up. On starkly steady legs, Yuuma stands, the hilt of his sword gripped so tightly in his palm his hand is throbbing. It doesn't register.

Iroha moans, wavering in a half-standing, half-kneeling position beside where Yuuma just was. "I didn't—I didn't—, " she whimpers in between silent flows of tears running down her face in such rapid succession Yuuma's never seen. It's like someone turned a hose on behind her eyes.

Yuuma starts to walk when her hands grab his and she makes him stop as she uses his body to stand. They walk out, her quaking form beside his tall, strong, and steady. Her hand vibrates in his grip. Just then a car comes tearing down the road, pulling straight into the dead yard directly in front of the two. Yuuma almost forgets to stop walking.

The passenger's door flies open and a tall man with incredibly long and braided hair launches out, his strong arms ripping Iroha from Yuuma and pressing her with deadly force into his chest. Her small hands wrap around his neck and clutch at the fabric of his jacket as the tall man practically cradles her.

"We didn't know they were armed, Neko. Shit we—we didn't know," he whispers into her blood splattered hair. "I wouldn't have—" Yuuma's ears ring and his vision swims and rolls.

The tall man with the black and white braided hair who looks faintly Chinese ushers Iroha into the car and without a word it peels off. Yuuma faintly registers the warm blood splattered all over his body, thick and drying.

He blinks heavily and stands there for a long while. Then he starts moving, walking right off into the sunrise. After what seems like eternity, a lifetime of walking with that distracting staccato bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump in his head like a bad drum beat, a voice hits him with the force of a train. It doesn't sound like it's actually there.

A pink head of hair and a soothing voice says so close he can taste it, "Yuuma, you killed me. You killed me. You killed me. You killed me." And it blends to something green, a voice so missed it nearly breaks him. "You killed me. You killed me. You killed me."

And then the world flickers with a flash of red and Yuuma falls over, unconscious in the road.