Chapter 14 : The Scottish Guy Saves Nobody

The woman reached for her stun baton and found it missing. She fumbled in shock, trying to locate her weapon by looking around. Perhaps this little… inhuman girl had other powers. As a servant of Aku, the woman had seen enough. There wasn't much she could leave to imagination any longer. Her colleague was equally frightened ; he took a few steps back and then ran away. The woman hoped he'd return with backup…

Then she backed away in an attempt to locate anything else she might use as a weapon, but felt a sting on her neck so intense and painful that she bent over and ended on the floor. Behind her, there was a young man, breathing heavily while holding a stun baton.

"J-John?" Nobody uttered slowly, still confused about not being harmed by the sword.

John approached her, not believing what he had just done. On his way, he picked up the sword and used it on the zip ties around Nobody's wrists and ankles.

"You're insane," Nobody told him, standing up. "Thank you. You followed me?"

John nodded and handed the sword back to the girl.

"I didn't want to stay in that camp. Patrolling and looking for survivors is more important," John said.

"Well, I'm lucky to have you by my side," Nobody told him, smiling beneath her mask and wishing he could see her relief. "But we have to go now, quickly."

At that point, she remembered about her shirt and glanced down. The shirt was ripped and her bra was clearly visible, but Nobody did not have the time to fix that at the moment. John and her had to leave the barracks right away.

Holding the sword ready for possible battle, Nobody led the way and John followed her with the stun baton in his hands. Outside, the two lines of metal shacks formed a new street between them. Wondering if there were other people imprisoned here, Nobody stepped out. Would it be wise to check the shacks and possibly save other prisoners?

"Wait…" she said.

"We can't," John replied immediately. "If we get swarmed by Aku's Forces in here, we'll both end up in a cell."

The girl nodded sadly ; John was right. She couldn't afford getting captured again. It shouldn't have happened in the first place. As they silently moved through the barracks and out of the area, luckily they didn't encounter other guards. But Nobody would not forget where they kept the prisoners. She made sure to remember how to get to the barracks because she definitely and seriously considered coming back and aiding prisoners. At least, that was what she wanted to do.

"I hope I didn't kill that woman," John said suddenly when they left the vicinity of Aku's fortress and the barracks.

"I'm sure she'll be fine," Nobody replied.

Perhaps the woman would be fine from the stun baton, but Nobody didn't have the heart to think about what would happen to her once Aku finds out she had the girl and lost her.

"And, hum… 'guess we should get you a new shirt…" the young man said after a few minutes of walking in silence.

After what he witnessed in the shack, many questions were going through his mind ; however he wasn't quite sure where to start.

"There isn't any clothes stores still open in this part of town, is there?" the teenage girl asked, trying to hold her shirt closed in front of her.

"I wish I knew", the foreigner sighed. "It'd be great to find some new clothes right now. And also a launderette : I haven't been able to wash my binder in – Hum, I mean… hum…"

He suddenly stopped walking. Sweating nervously, the redhead spewed out the first thing he could think of in order to change the subject :

"How come you're immune to swords?"

Nobody also stopped and turned around to face him.

"I'm not!" she replied, resting her hand on the hilt of her katana. "I don't think? I mean…"

She struggled a moment to find the words in English.

"I've been… cut by other things before…" she whispered. "So why… Oh. I think I get it. It's the sword. It refused to hurt me."

John only replied by incoherent confused sounds. When, a few seconds later, he started blushing and averting his gaze, the girl realised she had momentarily forgotten about her ruined shirt and let it wide open.

She turned her back to him and resumed her walk ; he soon followed her silently, clutching his new weapon until they reached the place where the group of free survivors were waiting for them.

Everyone knew they couldn't stay here : after all, it was by constantly moving that these people had escaped Aku's minions for so long. It was time to find a new shelter and Nobody took the responsibility of protecting them during their research. When asked what had happen to her shirt, their protector, not wanting to worry them too much, simply said she had gotten into a fight.

Their quest for a safer place led them farther away from the city centre. Here, some of the buildings, including a relatively small hotel, actually still had their roofs. John's jaw dropped at the sight.

"That's the hotel my parents and I were staying in!" he cried out, frozen in place in front of the building's entrance. "I can't believe it's still standing…"

His voice decreased in volume until it was barely more than a whisper. Tears started appearing in his eyes and slowly rolling down his face. The others didn't see them, as they were standing behind him in silence ; however, the girl with the mask, who was right next to him, noticed and gently put her hand on his shoulder.

"John?" she asked.

"I just… look at it. Aku didn't cause as much destruction here as he did in other parts of this city and… and… What if… we had stayed in the hotel room? I'm sure my parents would still be alive now…"

"You don't know that. And… How do you say again? Oh, yeah, 'the past is in the past'."

The foreigner nodded silently and dried his tears on his sleeve.

"I'm sorry about your parents", Nobody added. "I'll make Aku pay for this, I swear."

John still didn't utter any more word, but instead hugged her tightly. He then let her go just as suddenly and entered the hotel, followed by the others.

This was their best shelter yet : they finally had separate rooms and beds to sleep on and the roof was only slightly damaged. Nobody picked a room with single bed, closed the door, removed her helmet and mask, sat down, took her little notebook and pen from her pocket and started writing. The pages had had the time to dry after going through the water when she had jumped from the boat, but most of what she had previously written was now illegible and needed to be re-written, which she did before she could finally add the most recent events.

Now, she could allow herself to take some rest.