What Happened?
Chapter Ten
They were running past the immense fountain fronting the Elementary Division Building. Nokoru and Suoh were closely side by side.
"Hide," the former commanded and thrust a small bottle of powered substance in his hand.
"…Is this hypoallergenic?" came the absurd question of the latter.
A twitch of a smile threatened to engulf the blonde's face. "Yes. Don't worry about it. Just…explode the powder down your front. You'll be hidden from the eyes of the homunculus."
A hand squeezed his in thanks.
It was the dead of the night, the height of the witching hour. The storm had ceased her wrath. Department buildings with sporadically lighted windows loomed overhead.
Sudden rows of trees blocked the moon.
"Kaichou…" Idomu came.
The party skidded to a halt and turned their gazes to the starless sky.
"How are we going to kill the homunculus again?" Utako asked in a whisper.
"We're not going to fight, Ohkawa-san," Suoh answered. "We're going to end this."
"How? You mean surrender?" Nagisa did not understand.
"Never." vowed their red-haired friend.
Something rustled among the canopy of leaves overhead. Shadows seemingly leapt and moved in all sides. It was as if the crickets and birds vanished.
"It wouldn't be like you to give up, kaichou…" spoke a voice from within the depths of darkness.
Utako froze where she was. Nagisa and Idomu blanched, and though the latter had been prepared for such a possibility, he had been prepared for the actual thing.
Nokoru and Suoh, however, remained quite unfazed.
The homunculus in the form of Ijuyn Akira stepped into the light to meet them.
In truth, the brunette did not seem to have changed. He was leaner though and more stern. An eerie coldness now replaced honest storm gray eyes.
Tiger gold orbs widened as they saw their much coveted Nokoru, but Suoh clearly knew he was seeing wrong, and he was very glad it was that way.
"Where is he?" Akira hissed.
The mark of the homunculi was evidently seen on his chest, the crest of the Onaii on his hand.
"Why?" Utako screamed suddenly. She got the feeling that whatever Nokoru gave to the ninja made him unseen. "What would you do?"
The homunculus raised an eyebrow, making a most disturbing sight. "Utako-san," he said with the twitch of a sneer. "What does it matter to you?"
"It matters to all of us, Ijuyn-san," said Idomu. "We're his friends and we're protecting him. We refuse your advances to kill him."
"So is this a ploy?" Akira asked, putting his hands on his hips. "Hide the Takamura and meet me instead? Where is he? Mourning over his dead relatives?"
The small group fronting him was speechless in shock and fear. The younger girls were unaware of tears streaming down in torrents from wide eyes.
Nokoru was no exception. Though his face did not betray his feelings, his inability to speak did.
"What's the matter, kaichou?" taunted the homunculus. "Did you anticipate this? The day when your precious bodyguard would no longer be there to make up for you incompetence?"
For the first time in years, the fearless blonde faltered. Not even when Idomu was still bitter and had wreaked havoc in the campus did he falter, but now…now was different. Now was scary, now was not a situation where his mind could function properly, now was not another of the numerous times he could mask his real emotions from the world. Now was the time his heart revealed itself to the nations, and it was bleeding.
"Akira…" his voice broke for a fleeting moment; there was a gleam of familiarity in silver-gray eyes.
Suoh was having immense trouble keeping up with what was happening. His vision was increasingly clouding. His best friend beside him and their adversary facing them were switching faces. They were swimming in and out of his seeing range, the earth beneath him was starting to spin.
Without warning, the bluenette's head injury seared with pain. Suoh's body shook and he made a great deal of effort not to cry out and give himself away.
Nagisa moved toward him but the ninja stopped her with a look. Nokoru sensed the younger boy collapse on the ground, but he did not shift. Idomu and Utako jerked involuntarily.
A split second later, Suoh rose again, grave and solemn, quite altered from his old self, as if someone pushed a button to activate something.
In a smooth, blink-of-an-eye-long move, the bluenette rounded up his companions and slammed them up a tree.
"Suoh?" Nokoru asked, but stopped when summer blue met tiger gold; they, too, were cold and indifferent.
"Stay." was his command.
He darted toward the off guard Akira and tackled him to the ground with incredible force, dislodging the powder that had hid him.
"My son," the great master ninja Takamura had informed him. "Every one of us in this clan has the power to fight an Onaii with fierce and disciplined force as how our ancestors did. Every one of us has the choice to use this fighting skill or not in the entire course of our lives. Let us chose not to, Suoh, because fighting the Onaii today is pointless. It is time this war is ended…"
When the homunculus saw, his twisted grin broadened.
"It's about time."
The ninja did not respond to the jeer. He stood up still wearing that most indifferent expression on his face and took a fighting stance. Akira followed the suit.
The rest watched in horror as the last legendary battle between the Takamura and the Onaii began.
The bluenette charged, the brunette stayed cool. In a graceful twist, the ninja was up in the sky and crash-landed on his back on the ground behind his late kouhai.
The two sent gravel flying as one of them got to his feet and the other one wheeled about. Blows, kicks, punches and whatever else were violently exchanged between them. Both were still calm and collected, as if the dolls from Angelic Layer who looked like them had been made to face off.
The homunculus had enough philandering; he bared his fist and its fingers lengthened into sharp, thin blades.
Utako cried out.
The ninja, in turn, brandished a curious silver kounai that nobody had seen before. He did a complicated gesture and the throwing knife extended into a great, deadly katana.
Nokoru knew there was something terribly wrong with the picture. He glanced at Idomu for help and he got the same anxious expression. Suoh was breaking his promise to his family in front of them. It was unacceptable!
Against anyone's will, the blonde jumped right in the line of fire.
"SUOH! STOP!"
He saw it. Nokoru's face.
Finally…
…but what was wrong?
The bluenette's gaze shifted to the blonde's abdomen.
Five shining weapons had impaled the chairman's gut and were jutting out from it. Blood spurted from the large wound.
"There's a reason why you see Imonoyama-sama as Ijuyn-sama," Tetsuya had explained in a private conversation between him and Suoh. "It has a something to do with how to kill a homunculus, because the only way to kill them is if you destroy a part of themselves, in whatever shape or form. Once you do so, the homunculus become mortal…and it can die."
"NOKORU!"
Several voices resounded in the night sky and the soft thud of body hitting the earth was drowned out.
Epilogue in a mo…