At the train station
Xan
We were hidden behind luggage of normal passengers, and saw the three cars that must have been our targets near the rear of the train: One with men bristling with guns, one in the middle armored all over, one with Li's "Experimental Soldiers:" some half-man half-machine, some half-man half-Afreet, some just deformed humans.
"I can see why you left the freak," Kylie, in human form, said. "Human experimentation! Who'd have thought?"
"He just started with the first group when I defected. The Academy stopped that one, but it appears as if he just started again," I said.
"So, what do we do?" Riley asked.
"Well, I say that you, Kylie, and Eva take Li's freaks, and I'll take Durendal's. Li's experiments aren't as dangerous as they appear," I said when I saw the look of protest on Eva's and Kylie's face. "They're probably only going to be useful to spread Shinigami-sama's forces out through terrorizing the citizens of Death City."
"Shouldn't we stay together?" Eva interrupted. "It'd be more safe."
"No," I answered. "We don't want to all attack one car and alert two others. Better to take down two cars and alert the third that has less warriors."
"Won't they just lock up that armored car when they hear their guys dying?" Shinobu asked.
"Yes, but I have an idea. We'll meet up on top of the armored car, since it's in the middle of the other two. I'll use my bombs to blast through."
"And if you can't?" Riley wondered.
"Supposing I can't, they'll have to leave sometime, anyways. Especially when we get to Death City."
The train engine's whistle blew, and it started moving forwards slowly.
"Let's go!" I yelled, and we ran and jumped onto the rear car, the only one behind the car with Durendal's men inside.
"If I were you, I would burst into the car from the top," I whispered to Riley as we stood on the back of the car, Riley with a claymore and a cutlass at his sides, I with Shinobu in my left hand.
"Did you think I was going to walk in and curtsy?" He answered, climbed onto the top of the car, and began his journey to fight Li's soldiers.
As I waited to hear the sound of Riley's assault, I readied Shinobu like a baseball bat.
"Are you ready for your final revenge?" I asked.
"I think so," she answered. "I'm just a little nervous."
"Don't worry. Revenge is much more fulfilling than you could ever hope for, usually."
"Usually?"
"Well, occasionally, if it's someone that you know well, you may come to regret it, but that's not something that we have to worry about."
Then, we heard a commotion towards the front of the car.'
"Time to go," I remarked, and swung Shinobu at the rear door of the caboose.
I walked through the caboose, which had boxes of extra weapons and other supplies for the soldiers. When I reached the other door, I made my grand entrance.
I ran and swung Shinobu, smashing the door, but at the same time activated Oni Resonance. When I burst in on Durendal's men, I shocked the first ten or so near the rear door, leaving about fifty others.
"Only sixty?" I taunted as all of the men, shocked, turned and looked at me. "With Li's, that's only like one-hundred! You guys are ambitious!"
I would have gotten a face-full of bullets right there, if I didn't have Shinobu's field. I did the old return-to-sender trick on the bullets, leaving another fifteen men on the ground. All of the other soldiers had melee weapons, usually swords, others with pole-arms, such as halberds.
"Well, you guys thought ahead for the Academy. Regretfully, you'll not get there."
A couple charged at me, and I brought Shinobu on a horizontal strike, knocking them both through the train's right-hand window. I tried taking Shinobu on a vertical strike for the third man running my way with what looked to be a broadsword. However, when I brought her up, she hit and stuck in the ceiling.
"Crap!" I yelled, and pulled up on Shinobu, which made me be above the attacker. I dropped, knocking his head with my boots.
"Well, some courtesy here would be to allow me to retrieve my weapon," I announced, attempting to pull Shinobu free, as the soldiers approached slowly.
"I told you no!" I shouted, and flung a lit Freeze grenade in front of them. They scrambled back, as it exploded, creating a wall of solid glacial ice between us and them.
"How long will that hold them?" Shinobu asked. "I can't change into human form, stuck like this, or I'll be stuck as a human lodged inside a ceiling!"
"That ice is thick enough normally to make it a couple of hours, but in the summer heat it'll last half an hour, at best."
"Great."
I pulled and pulled as hard as I could, but I couldn't get Shinobu to budge. Then I heard the scraping. I looked over and saw what I feared would happen. Durendal had sent one of his Meisters to help his normal soldiers. The man was using fire attacks with a Demon Weapon cinquedea, a ridged and wide dagger from Italy. He was wearing a black cloak, but the hood was down, revealing a Meister about my age with black hair.
"Shit!" I struggled to pull Shinobu from the car, panicking. "Come on!"
As the last layer of ice started to melt, I said, "Shinobu, Soul Resonance!" However, when we matched wavelengths, she didn't glow with electricity. Instead, her whole weapon form started to glow. "What the hell?" I wondered, as Shinobu's form became longer, thinner.
When the glow subsided, Shinobu's weapon form appeared to be a Chinese Guan Do bladed-spear, with a golden staff and a crimson blade, covered in Phoenixes and Dragons.
"What's this?" I asked. "A new weapon form?"
"You're guess is just as good as mine," Shinobu answered, "but I suggest that we use it right now!"
I looked at the ice, and saw that it was incredibly thin. As Durendal's Meister readied the final blow to the wall, I yanked Shinobu from the ceiling, and stabbed her blade at the wall, pointed at the meister.
A large blast of wind emanated from Shinobu's cinnabar-colored blade, blowing the ice to pieces, obliterating the flames that had been shot by the Meister, and cutting large gashed into the skin of the men in front of the blast. However, the Meister dodged out of the way, causing the wind to blast the door behind him to smithereens.
"Damn!" I yelled. "I have an awesome new move! I'll call it Kama-Itachi, going with the whole 'Oni' thing!"
With this, the soldiers all looked at the Meister, as if pleading for help.
"Fine!" The Meister shouted. "I'm Black 13, and I challenge you to a one-on-one dual. Do you accept?"
"Sure, why not? I'll kill you, and then any of these other cowards who don't jump off of the train themselves afterwards," I answered.
With that, he jumped forwards with his dagger. He rushed in for a stab to my gut, but I blocked with the staff, stepped to the right, brought the bottom of the staff up behind his knee, and pulled. It should have caused him to fall for an easy kill, but he jumped forward, out of the trap. I stabbed after him, but this was parried by his dagger. Those ridges made for excellent deflecting!
"You're good!" I made for conversation. "Why don't you join Shinigami-sama?"
"Why would I do that? I can have so much more fun here!" He answered. "Money, women, and human souls! What more could I ask for? Certainly not that much from Death!"
I leapt at him after this last sentence, and when he dodged to the left, he struck out with his blade, which didn't physically touch me, but it sent out a small rope of flame, burning my left leg slightly.
"That wasn't good sportsmanship!" I remarked as I landed and turned back towards him.
"The same could be said of your own move!" He replied.
It was then that I had an idea. I leapt at Black 13, same as before, and he dodged to the left again, since he couldn't dodge right without jumping out of the window.
"That didn't work the first time! What made you think that it would work a second!" He taunted.
"Because last time I didn't do this!" I shouted, and used Shinobu's wind current to spin myself 90-Degrees. I was able to land a slice on his left arm, but he jumped away before I could cause serious damage.
"That was good. Why didn't you do that the first time, though?"
"Well, it might be because I've never actually done this weapon form before. You know as much as me by this point!"
"Well, let's see if I can beat this new form, then!"
He leapt at me, and shot flames straight towards my face. I used the wind current to redirect the fire upwards, lighting the roof on fire. As he went to land behind me, I turned and sent the wind current under my feet, jetting forwards to within range of his landing.
"Jet Stream!" I yelled theatrically, and, when he landed (there wasn't anything that he could do fast enough to stop me), I stabbed into his calf, stopping his movement. Then, I used a pair of handcuffs I had for such occasions (don't ask) to buckle him into one of the remaining seats, and buckled his weapon's hilt to another seat with another pair of handcuffs, as it changed into the form of a young teenaged-boy with long hair and a matching black cloak to Black 13's.
"Stay there," I ordered. "These handcuffs change with weapon forms, and are anti-magic. There'll be no escape. Anyways," I said, turning to the shocked soldiers, and pointing Shinobu's resumed kanabo form at them, "I better hear some men jumping off of a certain train!"
The sound of them scrambling to the windows was music to mine, and, I'm sure, Shinobu's ears.