The Tsukimura estate was quiet and still.
"Too large," stated one of the Red Phoenix. "Too vulnerable."
The fence, they knew, was wired to set off alarms if contact was made over a certain threshold of pressure. The weight of a man would be enough to trigger it. The alarm wouldn't contact the police, though, or a private security firm. The Tsukimuras preferred to keep their secrets, Tengu understood.
These men, though, were not run-of-the-mill burglars. One by one, they ascended a tree, then jumped from a limb, covering a good twenty yards in the air despite the lack of a running start. Tengu followed as they crossed the lawn like shadows, slipping silently, noiselessly through the darkness. The six of them divided, pairs going in different directions to approach the house from different angles.
The Red Phoenix were past masters at breaching security. Alarm wires were found, then severed or rewired. In one place, a windowpane was seamlessly cut out of its frame with a blade that seemed, perhaps, sharper than mere steel should have. They entered without any signal being given, any trap tripped.
They thought.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Is there anything I can get for you, Miss Suzuka?" Falin asked. "A cup of tea, something to eat?"
Suzuka frowned, then shook her head.
"No, thank you, Falin." She set down her pen. "I'm just restless, that's all. How can I concentrate on studying when I know that Arisa and Noel are off following up a lead?"
"They'll be all right, Miss Suzuka. Noel is very skilled at this sort of thing, and I don't think that Miss Arisa can be hurt now."
Suzuka smiled slightly at that.
"I suppose not. But it's hard to think about something as mundane as schoolwork when everyone is dealing with things like kidnapping and corporate intrigue. It almost doesn't seem real, somehow, if you understand what I mean, Falin? Especially with me apparently being at the center of it."
Falin nodded.
"It isn't part of ordinary life," she agreed. "It must be very difficult. But you should try to relax. Miss Arisa wouldn't want you to be worrying about her this way."
"No, I suppose not. She'd say that I was just being the cliche of the girl who sits home and frets while her man is off at the war--which is especially silly because I don't have a man at all."
"Wouldn't the principle apply regardless of gender?" Falin asked.
Suzuka's smile widened.
"Maybe, but it doesn't feel the same, somehow. Like...because we're the same sex, there aren't so many social expectations, so we can find the right balance between ourselves based on personality without having to fight so many ideas of what we should be to each other?"
Falin tipped her head to one side.
"That sounds awfully well thought-out for a relationship that only started yesterday, Miss Suzuka."
Suzuka blushed.
"That's because, well, I've thought about those kind of things for quite some time now, since I've known how I felt about Arisa for so long," she confided shyly. "I've dreamed about what it would be like to be her girlfriend for years; I feel like pinching myself to see that I'm not still asleep."
"I'm glad that you're happy, Miss Suzuka," Falin said, smiling.
"Thank you, Falin." Suzuka sighed happily. "This all began so horribly, but maybe...maybe there really will be something good that comes from it at last."
"I hope so too, although--" She broke off suddenly.
"What is it?"
"I hear something."
Security Mode: Active.
"A window at the other end of the hall sliding open." The windows in the old house tended to creak even when opened carefully. Noel had decided to leave them that way on purpose: a skilled burglar might disarm or bypass an alarm system but with the sisters' hearing the act of opening became a viable backup, with a constantly running subroutine scanning her audio input for the sound.
"What do we do, Falin?" Suzuka asked, keeping her voice down. "Should we try to get out, or to the secure room?" There was only a slight quaver to betray her nervousness.
Connect: Noel.
"I'm contacting Noel."
Link active.
"Noel, they're here! They're at the house!"
"Stay calm. How many are there?"
"I don't know. I just heard the window open."
"All right. Try to keep hidden until you have better information, then get to safety using whatever route is open. Tell me more when you can, and keep Miss Suzuka safe."
"I will!"
"Stay quiet," Falin told Suzuka. "Noel and Miss Arisa know that someone is here. We need to figure out what's happening, then get you away safely."
"I understand."
Falin turned out the light so that it wouldn't show under the door and pinpoint their location. A smart attacker would have seen which lights were on from outside, of course, but matching those observations to the mansion's internal layout wasn't always easy.
She didn't hear footsteps. Was the window a false alarm? An ordinary burglar, maybe, who'd been scared off by the noise?
Or were the intruders just that silent? And therefore, that dangerous?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Suzuka's in trouble?" Arisa exclaimed.
"We don't know that yet," Noel said, her heels clicking as she ran down the stairs. Arisa trailed along, glad that her legs wouldn't get tired or her "wind" run out. The maid's voice was infuriatingly calm and controlled from Arisa's point of view. Usually she appreciated that--a sensible voice of reason--but under the circumstances, it could be annoying.
"Well, what do you know?"
"Falin just said that she believes someone is trying to break in. She'll tell me more when she knows more."
"That's it?"
"For now."
"I guess we can hope for a false alarm, but..."
She didn't need to finish the sentence to know that Noel agreed with her. That would be far too much of a coincidence to believe, a false alarm right when they were expecting the kidnappers to try something. It had to be that Professor Morris.
They could only hope that Falin did a better job of protecting Suzuka than the living Arisa had managed.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Slowly, Falin peered out around the corner, wishing as she did that the mansion had internal surveillance cameras. They'd moved cautiously out of Suzuka's room, first into the hall, then down the corridor towards the landing that led to the atrium with its grand sweep of staircase.
Suzuka was with her; she couldn't move quite as quietly as Falin could, but close enough, and they considered it more likely that she'd be safer with Falin entering a potential hazard area than without Falin in a location the other side would be aware of.
They were wrong, but not for any of the reasons they'd anticipated.
Peering into the darkened atrium (light could only help the enemy since Falin had both low-light and thermographic vision), Falin saw the two men ascending the staircase. They were dressed in black, with long coats and wearing white full-face masks that shone eerily in her sight. Their movements were quiet and stealthy; they glided through the darkness like living shadows.
Until the lead one suddenly reeled back, off-balance as a yowl went up. He'd collided with Ein, the striped gray cat that liked the fourth step from the top as his perch and who'd been nearly invisible in the dark to normal eyes. One could consider Suzuka's cats (currently numbering eight) as an informal part of the security system.
The intruder deftly caught his balance, and then in the next instant a Japanese sword was in his hand, quick-drawn from somewhere, and slicing down towards the cat out of rage or a practical desire to prevent further noise or both. Falin watched in horror, knowing how much Suzuka loved the cats.
Suzuka herself didn't just watch.
"No!" she screamed as she bolted from cover, charging the men. Even Falin's reflexes weren't fast enough to grab her, so all she could do was follow. The masked man, though, reacted at once, somehow stopping in mid-swing and whirling to face Suzuka.
Configure-RtArm: Sword.
Falin's hand folded as the blade extensions slid down her arm and locked in place, putting a two-foot, double-edged blade at the end of her wrist. If they wanted to play with blades, she could match them.
The man who'd stepped on the cat slashed out at the charging vampire, but again managed to restrain himself mid-swing, probably because he'd recognized their target. The second intruder drew not a sword but a machine pistol with a barrel extension of some kind and ripped off a three-round burst, silenced. His aim was remarkable, despite the darkness and the silencer and the effect of rapid fire on his arm he put all three shots right where he wanted at a target moving at Falin's speed at an angle across his line of vision.
Not that it did him any good; the bullets penetrated her maid's uniform and her pseudoskin sheath but were stopped cold by her subdermal armor.
The lead man reversed his grip and brought the heel of his sword in towards Suzuka. She grabbed his arm before he could make contact and wrenched it down and around. Ein bolted as Suzuka nearly stepped on his tail as she shifted her footing, bringing her free hand up for a punch to the sternum. Falin could almost see the intruder read Suzuka's body language and begin a countersequence, but while he was undoubtedly better than the girl she--aware of the situation and intentionally drawing on her inhuman abilities--was simply faster than he could cope with.
Transmit Stream: Full-Sense/Realtime.
She didn't have time to explain in language; Noel could decipher it for herself through Falin's own sensory input. Another burst of gunfire sprayed up at her, scoring twice as her left hand grabbed the balustrade and she launched herself in a spinning loop through the air that made the gunman dodge aside. Falin landed, deftly found her footing on the staircase, and swept a thrust with her sword-hand at him. He slipped the attack while drawing his own sword and she chopped the gun out of his hand, breaking his wrist.
A door at the opposite end of the landing from which Falin and Suzuka had entered was flung open and spat out two more masked men, who rushed towards the fray. A moment later, as Falin blocked the gunman's sword with her own, two more of them entered from a door near the middle of the landing.
That settled it, then; down and then out was the way to go. Suzuka seemed to have figured that as well, bodily hurling the man she was fighting at the nearer two arrivals. They dodged, and the man hit the wall hard, jarring loose a heavy, framed portrait in oils of a Tsukimura ancestor. The two lunged all but simultaneously at Suzuka, stun-guns in their hands. Knowing that those would have an effect on her--moreso if they'd upped the power level to deal with Suzuka's nature--Falin broke away from her opponent to intercept. She took a slash across the back of her left shoulder which did no more than his bullets had done, sprang past Suzuka to take one man off his feet with an extended forearm, but had the stungun blast its charge into her.
"The maid's armored!" the gunman shouted, and indeed the stungun had no effect on her as she was insulated against electricity that wasn't on the order of a lightning strike. She tried to execute an attack, but the man she'd clotheslined whipped his legs against hers from his prone position and jarred her off-balance. In that instant the intruder who'd stungunned her slapped his free hand against her side and vaulted away so that her sword-slash only tore open the front of his armored duster.
Suzuka leapt at the man on the stairs. He came up with his own stun-gun, but she was again simply too fast in a one-on-one situation, knocking his arm wide with enough force that the stun-gun went flying and then hitting him in the chest hard enough to knock him off his feet and send him tumbling down the stairs.
The man on the floor rolled away from Falin, trying to get to his feet. She turned his way rather than the other because the other two men were on that side and her priority was to keep as many of them as possible away from Suzuka.
"Falin, get that thing off your side now!" Noel's communication came through. She had to reach back across her body with her standard left hand for it, which slowed her reaction. One of the intruders at the far end of the landing delayed her even more by shooting her--and he'd taken the warning to heart, switching to a clip of armor-piercing bullets that although not penetrating did begin the process of compromising her armor.
Then the mine went off.
There was only so much explosive that could be packed into a palm-sized explosive device, particularly one that would adhere to a target and included a remote detonator. The shaped charge did a great deal of damage, though, breaching Falin's armor and blasting a fist-sized chunk out of her side where her lower ribs would have been, and also taking three fingers off her left hand where she was reaching for it. Damage assessments spilled through her mind as alternate pathways were found for destroyed circuitry.
Configure--LfArm: Sword.
Configure--RtArm: Hand.
More bursts of gunfire hit her chest and face, staggering her, the combination of damage sources making her unable to properly react as the gunman's partner leapt into the air, descending towards her with a powerful diagonal cut of his sword, a shockingly inefficient maneuver from a member of an otherwise highly efficient team, which made Falin deprioritize it as a threat.
Then his katana came alight with a dull red light, an aura crackling around the blade like lightning, and the edge sheared through her neck from just below her right ear into her left collarbone, which it glanced off, its unnatural power spent. Falin's head went spinning away, bounced off the balustrade, and fell towards the atrium floor below.
"Falin!" Suzuka screamed.
Visual receptors: Disabled.
Primary audio receptors: Disabled.
Primary olfactory receptors: Disabled.
Gustatory receptors: Disabled.
Primary communications array: Disabled.
Link inactive.
The man who'd decapitated Falin got the surprise of his life when her right hand fisted in his coat, holding him in place. It didn't last long, though, as she drove her sword-hand through his chest. Noel and Falin's creator had not been foolish enough to place their core functions in their heads just because that was where the human brain was located.
Connection request: Noel.
Accept.
Link active.
Resume transmission.
Using the impaled corpse for cover--she felt more than one shot hit it--she fished through his jacket and found his gun, recognized the model, flipped the fire selection switch to full-auto, and swept the weapon in an arc to cover the landing. She heard the impact of a bullet on an armored duster and centered the gun on the spot, emptying the remainder of the clip in another trigger-pull. She felt the movement of air, heard the footfalls on the carpet of the remaining man on that side, and spun into a wheel-kick that any blindfighting sensei would have applauded. Falin felt her foot contact his face, felt the mask shatter under the force of a blow that could punch through a concrete wall.
In the next second, though, the last intruder standing proved that the shock of seeing a headless maid tear through his comrades did not long paralyze a disciplined mind. Armor-piercing ammunition slammed into her back as the masked man emptied a clip into her. Her armor, already compromised by the blast, gave way more than once as shots tore into her torso, more than one actually ricocheting off the inside of her chest armor to do even more damage. Her consciousness became a stream of damage reports and error messages; she wasn't even aware that he'd stepped up behind her and ripped his sword into the cavity blown by the mine to tear her body in half.
Emergency shutd--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Screaming in terror, Suzuka sprinted towards the mansion's front door. First Arisa and now Falin! How many lives were going to be sacrificed for her sake? How many of those she cared about? She wanted to turn back, rush up the stairs and tear any of the masked men who still lived limb from limb, but the knowledge that Falin had given her life solely so Suzuka could escape from them kept her running.
As she reached for the front door, the heavy wooden panel was flung open, knocking her sprawling. A tall, dark-skinned man stood there, towering over her.
"I should have done this the first time," he said, raising his hand. Yellow-green energy crackled in his palm while around his feet a runic circle like those Suzuka had seen Nanoha and Fate conjure shone the same hue. "From the sky comes your destruction! Midnight Striker!"
The light exploded from his palm, and Suzuka knew no more.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!
Arisa brought the Yamaha to a stop. Suzuka got down off the back of the bike, then watched her girlfriend swing a leg over the machine, admiring the way the white and red leathers hugged her body.
The restaurant they'd stopped at wasn't quite as pleasant a view. It was clearly a biker hangout: motorcycles were lined up in the parking lot, ranging from Japanese and European racing models to big American touring bikes to tricked-out "choppers" from a biker-gang movie. Inside, the place was jammed full.
"Maybe we should go someplace else?" Suzuka nervously suggested. She wasn't that hungry, after all...
"Nah, we're good. Besides, it's a good three hours until we get to anywhere else that offers real food." She flashed Suzuka a grin. "Three hours with a starving vampire pressed against my back."
Suzuka giggled, then watched as Arisa walked over to a table for two that had four leatherboys jammed up at it.
"Hey, guys, mind if we sit down?"
They turned their heads sullenly, then paled and jumped to their feet.
"Hey, no problem, Bannings; we were just leaving."
Arisa held the chair for Suzuka.
"Do you know those bikers?"
"Not really, but I've got kind of a rep."
"You do?"
"Well, a lot of these guys use reckless stunts to show how brave and badass they are. Since I'm absurdly rich, if I total my ride I can be sitting on a brand new one the next day. And since I'm already dead, no matter how badly I wipe out, it won't actually hurt me." She grinned. "By now, it doesn't even count as losing face to refuse to play 'chicken' with me."
