Bounty

It happened out of nowhere. First Setsuna had been leading her over a steep angular piece of rock that'd been sticking out of the ground then boom the whole thing had blown apart. Hitting the ground with Konoka she wrenched her back down as she staggered to her feet. A jagged piece of rock flew over ther head instead of stabbing her in the back of her head if Setsuna hadn't pulled her down. All around them more explosions ricocheted through the air, spraying geysers of earth and rock like someone had just set off a bomb. Setsuna didn't know what to do but to stay where she was. She heard Kaede yell at everyone to get down.

Around them the ground ruptured, blowing craters and belching rocks into the air in a hailstorm. She was holding Konoka close to her and had her wings wrapped around her in a protective shield as rocks scraped her wings and pummeled them. Konoka had her eyes shut. Setsuna didn't dare move. If she did she'd get crushed for sure. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mana ducking, dodging and rolling out of the way of the falling rocks, jumping away as soon as the ground beneath her exploded. She was shooting at them with a pair of Colts as she went, strafing the rocks by a good half. It'd lasted only a minute until things had finally calmed down but it felt a lot longer than that.

"Good grief…" Mana remarked, gazing down at the ground in disappointment.

"Ok what the hell was that?" Asuna said, getting up from where she'd been hiding behind a lone unharmed boulder with Kaede.

"Magical landmines rigged up underneath. From what happened it was probably an entire network meant to kill," Mana replied. She knelt down, inspecting a crater.

Setsuna sat up, pushing Konoka off her and brushed pieces of rock from her clothes. Getting up she frowned, "Yours?"

"I'm not that stupid Setsuna to endanger the lives of people who could be of use to me," Mana chuckled darkly, her deep laughter echoing across the air.

Setsuna could see something sparkling at the base of the gauge that'd been created near Asuna. "Mana, are those the diamonds you're looking for?"

"Indeed," Mana said, getting up. "Let's see…"

Kaede was looking around though, an eye open, "One of us must have set it off."

Mana was aiming one of her guns down at the chasm though somewhere near the sparkling object and fired a clean shot. Something sharp spun out of the darkness and Mana caught it. It was a shimmering, large silver-white diamond crusted with dirt and moss. As she examined it from every angle Setsuna's gaze snapped upwards. She'd heard the sweep of large wings above them.

Jerking her head a little to Kaede she started to walk through what was left of the ruins, "There's something up there Kaede, above us. We have to go now."

"What's the matter?" Konoka asked worriedly, following her.

Sharing a glance at Kaede she just shook her head. The ninja was looking up at the sky with her eyes narrowed and gave her a look that meant "watch out". She put a hand on Asuna's shoulder. The redhead was admiring the diamond Mana was holding. As Kaede walked after Setsuna and Konoka she followed leaving Mana by herself, throwing a reluctant look back at the diamond.

It was getting colder and a little bit darker as the quartet made their way across. As Konoka rubbed her arms in an effort to warm up Setsuna took off her cloak and draped it around her.

"Thanks Secchan," Konoka gave her a grateful look. Then to her utter surprise when no one was looking she rose up on her tip-toes and pecked her on the cheek with a warm kiss.

Astounded, Setsuna touched her cheek as Konoka grinned at her and fell back in line to talk with Asuna who frowned asking her why she had two cloaks. Whispering something in her ear, she stuck her tongue out at Setsuna as she caught her looking back at her. Asuna was smirking at her. Setsuna blushed, quickly turning around. Then she heard it, the whisper of voices and the feeling of eyes on them.

"Kaede-" Setsuna started, looking over at the ninja, tense.

"Yes, I sense them too Setsuna," Kaede moved closer to Asuna.

"What are you guys talking ab-mmpf"

"Quiet please Asuna-dono," Kaede said in a low voice, putting her hand over her mouth.

"Asuna-san, Ojousama, keep moving, don't stop don't talk," Setsuna said in a low voice, taking Konoka's hand.

"What's going…Mana-san I though you were collecting the diamonds?" Konoka's voice trailed off as the gunslinger appeared in front of them, grim.

"A problem came up. I saw it in my better interests to stay with you four," Mana said. She cocked her head and glanced to the side. "Also…"

Konoka gasped as black fog surrounded them. From them a mass of demons formed carrying swords and daggers. They had the bodies of humans but had animal ears and tails. All of them had large leathery wings and were wearing various pieces of body and head armour made out of metal.

"Stay behind me," Setsuna said to Konoka.

The demons rushed them as one and Setsuna let herself go on autopilot. She slashed, sliced and stabbed any of them that came near her, moving onto the next one as soon as the one she was fighting fell down dead. Bullets streamed through the air courtesy of Mana, downing at least half a dozen and out of the corner of her eye she saw Kaede mowing down about ten with her giant kunochi. As one of Mana's bullets grazed her cheek she skidded forwards, flying underneath a demon's knife strike and plunged Yuunagi upwards into his heart before he could blink. Wordlessly Setsuna ripped out her sword and stepped to the side as the demon made a gurgling noise and fell down dead before he even hit the ground. Turning she saw that there were only ten left. Half of them had surrounded her but Mana was aiming a gun at them but as she shot four of them in quick succession Setsuna saw the demon behind her and even more were coming from shadows that had appeared without them seeing.

"Mana behind you!" Setsuna grunted as she blocked a swing from the demon in front of her and slammed into him with her shoulder with such force he dropped his weapon.

Grinning and saluting to her, the gunslinger back-flipped and gunned down about two dozen of the demons in one go including the one that had been aiming to slice her head from her neck.

Kaede and Mana were finishing off their last opponents. Setsuna sighed in relief, kneeling down at Konoka to help her up but the girl's eyes were wide and fear washed over her face. Confused, Setsuna looked at her then she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She heard wind whistling, the familiar sound a blade made when it swiped the air at super high speeds. Setsuna spun around, sword rising to block just as Mana roared out,

"Setsuna, look out!"

It was too late. With not enough time to prepare a counter-attack or strong enough block the demon was bearing down on her and his blade sliced all the way through Setsuna's arm, breaking through Yunagi in a horrible screech. The two pieces of Yunagi spiraled away, one narrowly missing decapitating Konoka and the other disappearing into the darkness. Face pale and it looked like she was biting her tongue to keep from screaming, Setsuna slammed her good palm into the demon's chest, a combination of strengthened ki and natural strength breaking its ribs. Multiple cracks pierced the air, one after the other from each rib bone snapping. Making a gurgling noise, the demon stumbled back letting go of his blade. Setsuna, gritting her teeth, wrenched it out of her arm. A torrent of blood spurted out from the cut.

Swaying, she dropped the blade where it fell to the ground with a clatter. She stared at the demon for a long while who was laughing in ragged gasps. Suddenly everything else seemed to be drowned out. Adrenaline pumped through her body, a blind rage consumed her. She could only see red. Breathing hard, she walked over to it and stepped on its throat, grinding her feet hard.

"Setsuna, stop!" Kaede yelled from somewhere to her left.

"Was that your spirit that I broke servant of the Dark Evangel?" The demon croaked out, bubbles of blood foaming at his jaws. "I'm glad…"

Setsuna stomped hard and the demon let out a funny noise as his wind-pipe was crushed like a bunch of grapes. She turned around from the dying demon and strode past a horrified Konoka towards the pieces of her broken sword.

A.N: Argh busy, busy, busy, busy uni exam/assessments coming up. Enjoy everyone, Blue out!

world: We'll see :D