Faithful
She had knowledge of explosives, specifically grenades.
Grenades were designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time. This particular model, an M26, had a detonation time of three seconds. Three contemptibly small, meager seconds. Three seconds to make a decision that could ultimately save her life.
One-thousand one.
Two seconds to make a decision that could seal her fate.
She had always performed well under pressure. She had been trained from birth to keep her composure even under the most severe circumstances.
One-thousand two.
Her body reacted on its own accord, for once not heeding to the instructions her subconscious had given it, which was to turn away and make a run for it. The side of her boot came in contact with the hideous green metal of the explosive, flinging it a fair distance away.
One-thousand three.
Without even so much as a glance at the woman who lay before her, sporting two completely useless legs and a broken heart, she fled. Perhaps settling for the final showdown on the second floor had been in her best interest. She lept over the design encrusted railing and plummeted to the floor below.
"We could have had it all."
Tomoe's final whisper was swallowed whole by the deafening explosion, a lance-like ray of red light exploded from the tiny, metal contraption with the force of a thousand suns. An instant later, there was a blinding flash, as if a previously captured bolt of lightning had finally escaped the steel compartments of its prison.
She didn't flinch as she was engulfed by the furious inferno. The flames licked at her skin, tore through her exposed flesh, burnt her flimsy clothing to a crisp. It was as though she couldn't register the pain of being burnt alive. Her mind was clouded, her singed features vacant and motionless.
Through rapidly melting eyes, she watched as the previous love of her life dove off the edge of the platform, with those luscious chestnut locks she had so desired to run her fingers through whipping behind her like a shawl of silk, and her crispened lips parted to utter a soundless scream.
The force of the explosion sent Shizuru violently spinning through the air as she made her descent to the floor below. She fought to gain control of her body, wincing as shards of broken glass and shrapnel were forced into the air and sent spiralling into her exposed flesh.
Shizuru screamed in agony as she crashed onto the floor below, the belching flames missing her by mere inches in its haste to engulf everything in its path. In her attempts to protect her head, her left side had remained entirely unprotected.
There was a white, jagged edge of a broken bone cutting through the skin of her shoulder where her collarbone had been crushed upon impact. Blood ran freely in thick, crimson rivulets down her chest, mixing with the blood from other minor wounds.
Her hip throbbed violently, sending white hot slivers of pain streaming down her entire leg, and she knew, without a doubt. that it was broken, possibly beyond repair.
I am alive.
The thought made itself present as soon as she could register the pain, and despite her horrific injuries, her lips parted into an eternal, grateful smile.
I will see her again.
Injured, deathly tired, but internally flooded with happiness, the Queen of the Yakuza closed her eyes, and like the man who had been victim to Tomoe before her, her features were relaxed into an eternal, breathtaking smile.
...
Hideki momentarily paused his assault as the building was rocked with the force of yet another explosion. But this explosion was different. He could hear it, feel the force of its fury beneath his feet, and he knew that unlike the others, it had come from inside the building.
Natsuki wiped the blood from her cheeks, grimacing as she unintentionally put weight on her injured ankle. Her mind was instantly filled with worried thoughts of her wife. Shizuru had been on the floor beneath them. It had been their plan.
Hideki also felt anxiety claw its way through his gut. His daughter had also been on the floor beneath them, but he had no knowledge of either one of them carrying a grenade. Natsuki knew she would have to end this quickly. Shizuru could be injured and vulnerable.
Brawling with Hideki Marguerite was no simple affair. He was highly skilled and deceptively light on his feet for such a big man. Her body was a canvas of bruises. Her left eye was snapped shut, bleeding profusely from a lateral incision that slashed through her cornea.
Her ankle hurt, but she knew it was only a mild sprain. She could put some weight on it, but too much affected the limb's ability to keep her standing upright. Hideki was faring no better. He was missing all but his thumb on his left hand.
A broken jaw kept him from spewing his usual nonsense along with quite a few missing teeth. A fire burned deep in Natsuki's core. It mixed with the already growing fear for her wife's well-being, and a new purpose conjured from the ashes of the old.
Ignoring her protesting ankle, she surged forward, slamming her clasped hands into Hideki's already busted jaw. The man cried out as he was thrown off balance. Natsuki swept his feet out from under, using his momentum against him.
She straddled his lap, his head whipping from side to side with every relentless blow to his cheek. Hideki snarled, seizing her fists within that huge paw of his. He used his other hand to roughly grab her neck.
Natsuki's hands pounded on his wrist in an effort to free her throat. His grip was like iron as he beared down on her windpipe, restricting all oxygen.
"You should have stayed down." Hideki mumbled, despite his broken jaw. He squeezed harder, entranced by the shades of blue his victim was turning. "You've failed just like your predecessor, and now Tokyo will be ours."
Natsuki glared down at him with her good eye, her lips, despite her current predicament, stretched into a dashing grin. "You should have finished me off when I was down."
Hideki frowned as he slammed the woman into wall. "Oh, don't worry. I'll finish you off now. Any last words, Lord Kruger?" He mocked, already blinded by his apparent victory.
Natsuki spat a glob of blood at the man, grinning roguishly as it landed on his right beneath his nose. "As a matter-of-fact…Yes." Natsuki glanced at the window to their left. "Duck."
Hideki's brows furrowed in confusion. "What are you playing at, girl?" He demanded. When the woman refused to answer, he brandished his customary Compact .45 from his waistband and thrusted it into her face.
He opened his mouth to say something more, but it snapped shut as a peculiar sound reached his sensitive ears. His blood ran cold as the distinctive sound of propellers sliced through the air. His head snapped to the left.
Hovering outside the massive windowpanes was a small black attack chopper, shiny and new as the day it was constructed, and with all of its weapons pointed at him. Nina's fingers were shaking with anticipation as they hovered over the triggers, her lips curved into a satisfied smirk.
"Remember when you froze as soon as you heard the explosion earlier? That was your biggest mistake yet. Never take your eyes off of your opponent! You never know what they may have up their sleeve. In this case, literally." Natsuki said, holding up her arm.
Natsuki used Hideki's distracted, fearful state to her advantage, pulling her powerful legs in close to her chest and slammed them into Hideki's throat with as much force as she could muster. The man howled in agony as he released her and stumbled backwards.
Natsuki wrestled the Compact .45 from his frozen grip and snatched him by his to slow his descent. "You lose." She said pointedly as she pushed him away and pulling the trigger all in one motion.
Natsuki leapt backwards as the man screamed in agony. He fell to one knee as blood leaked from the bullet wound in his chest. She could've ended it with a simple shot to the head, but he deserved a fate far worse.
And Nina would provide that.
Natsuki briefly turned to her and slowly slid her hand across her bruised throat in a motion that was all too familiar. Nina trained all of the Little Bird's weaponry on the Triad King muttering, "Game Over," and fired. Every. Single. Weapon.
Machine gun bullets and Mini Cannon projectiles obliterated Hideki's body. Bits of flesh and limbs rained down from the ceiling in a storm of death. When Natsuki was certain that nothing was left she held up her hand and immediately all fire ceased.
She spat on the spot where he previously stood. It was nothing more than a pool of blood and a pile of burnt flesh.
"This war is over." Natsuki muttered as she flashed a quick, thankful smile before she slowly, but determinedly made her way out of her throne room with nothing but her wife on her mind.
...
Hideki's sons lay gagged and bound at Nao's feet. She tsked. They hadn't even been worth the effort. She roughly pulled the eldest one up by the messy spikes of his hair.
"You know, yelling 'sneak attack' defeats all purposes of a sneak attack." She informed him.
He mumbled something around his gag, his dark eyes blazing with murderous fury. She slammed his head back down on the concrete. "I don't like your tone, fuck boy."
He mumbled something else.
"What's that?" Nao asked, cupping her hand over her ear and kneeling beside his head. "Prevent any chances of offspring? Why, I like the way you think." She said, flashing him a dashing smile.
He whimpered, snapping his legs shut to protect his fleshy bits. His brothers did the same, all snotty-noses and tear-stained cheeks.
Nao smirked as she looked around. Yakuza agents and recruits were going around and apprehending the Triad members who had long-since surrendered, which hadn't been long after the fighting had initially began.
Unlike Natsuki, Hideki hadn't bothered having his minions trained. They were basically idiots running around with guns. Nao's charges, a very-capable battalion of sixty-four, had ambushed the poor bastards soon after they deployed.
She was able to successfully re-capture the Northern Gate without any casualties or serious injuries. Those who had been injured would be fine after a few stitches, a few women, and a lot of beer.
Other Triad members were spineless and fled, all down the streets men and women clad in red and black retreated back to the cars and planes that had brought them here, humiliated and defeated.
Nao glanced up at the Metropolitan building. She could see the silhouette of the Little Bird in the distance, hovering beside one of the stronghold's massive windows. She could also see a thick trail of smoke that escaped from a wound in the building's left side.
"Damn," Nao muttered, "I'll kill those fuckers if they died."
...
"Shizuru!"
Natsuki called out once more as she stumbled through the wreckage of the Second Platform. Bodies were littered all over the place, mostly Triad, but a few Yakuza members as well. She prayed she didn't encounter anyone she knew amongst the throng of the dead.
She was limping, drenched in blood and sweat, but her gait was confident and strong.
"Shizuru!"
Every call that went unanswered was another punch to her already bruised gut. She would never forgive herself if Shizuru was hurt or…
No, she couldn't think like that. Shizuru was fine. She was probably up looking for Natsuki right now with that gorgeous, stunning smile in place, dirty and tired, but alive and smiling.
The dead lie like dolls on the marble floor, limbs at awkward angles and heads held such a way that they cannot be sleeping. She nearly trips over the body of a girl who looks no older than her twins. She shook her head, once Shizuru was found and the remaining Triads were weeded out, funerals would be held and the dead will be mourned and buried.
Natsuki finally reached the Second Platform and she looked around warily. In the distance, a body lay, limbs mangled burnt to a crisp. She limped towards the body and crouched near its skull. It was a woman, or at least it had been.
"What did you do," Natsuki muttered restlessly, "Hold a grenade?"
She could see the remains of the explosive device in the distance and she shook her head. "People bring grenades to gunfights nowadays, I suppose."
She abandoned the body and continued the search for her wife. A trail of blood led from the burnt corpse to the edge of the platform. Natsuki cautiously leaned over the edge and peered across the devastated room.
Her good eye scanned all around the once great room, and all the breath rushed from her lungs when she spotted familiar chestnut locks splayed on the marble floors. "Shizuru?" Natsuki croaked out as she made a dash for the staircase, injured ankle be damned.
She fell to her knees beside her beloved's head, grimacing at the state of Shizuru's body and the injury to her shoulder. She carefully pulled her into her lap and shrugged off her leather jacket, using it to support her wife's head.
She checked for a pulse and was dizzy with relief when she found one, faint, but one nonetheless. A lone tear dribbled from her good eye and splashed on Shizuru's pale cheeks. She cradled her wife's head carefully with her bruised, tired arms.
"Come back to me, my love," Natsuki whispered softly, pressing a gentle kiss to her wife's lips. "Let me see those beautiful eyes."
Shizuru remained comatose.
Natsuki's long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders as she leaned over her wife's form, dark strands feathering over pale pink lips and gentle features. "Don't do this to me, Shizuru." Natsuki begged. "Don't do this to us. Open your eyes."
Natsuki forced the growing hysteria down and continued to speak in hushed, soothing tones. "Remember when we were sitting in my room, bored out of our minds and you insisted I teach you how to play video games? I do. The first game we played was Mortal Kombat. I wouldn't teach you how to play, so when I went to shower you had gone through the entire tutorial by the time I came back."
Natsuki smoothed a blackened curl away from Shizuru's forehead.
"I never believed in tutorials until after that day. I always liked the feeling of figuring things out on my own and inventing my own techniques. Boy, did you prove something that day when you destroyed me with Kitana. I was undefeated when I used Mileena, until you of course."
More tears spilled from Natsuki's lone eye.
"You made me a believer of tutorials." Natsuki said. "I remember you didn't talk to me for an entire day because I accused you of simply button mashing."
Natsuki fell silent as sobs wracked her body, she bit her lip to keep the sound of defeat from escaping. She may have won the battle, but she had lost the war. She couldn't imagine the looks on her daughters' faces when she told them about their mother.
She had promised them that she would always keep their mother safe, and she had failed.
"This is my fault." Natsuki croaked, "All my fault. I shouldn't have let you walk away! We should have stayed together. I don't care how much of a goddess you are at Martial Arts, you are only human. This is all my fault."
In the light of a dying sunrise, the Lord of the Yakuza broke down, cradling her wife's broken body to her chest, tears pouring from her good eye. Her mind transported her to a time where Shizuru was dancing around their apartment, clad in a beautiful white sundress, and a baby Keira nestled to her bosom. Natsuki had smiled that entire day.
Another image of Shizuru made itself present. This time she was lying on her side, chestnut locks spilling over her outstretched arm as she gazed softly at her sleeping twins. She had looked up at Natsuki then and had whispered in that soft, melodic tone, "look what we made."
She couldn't imagine a life without Shizuru. Without the brunette, there was no life. She would be living, but would she be alive?
"We have three beautiful girls waiting to see your face. Open your eyes, my love. I know that I may be selfish to ask you to do these things when you are so injured, but please, grant me this one wish." Natsuki begged.
And as the last rays of sunlight bow down before the upcoming moonrise, crimson eyes fluttered open, naked and shiny as they day she was born.
To Be Continued.
...
The end is near, but fear not because I sense a sequel on the horizon. And, a look into the past. We know somewhat the events had transpired in their youth, but what's the full story? A prequel possibly. You guys have been phenomenal in my quest to become a worthy writer, and I hope that I can continue and provide my absolute best works to you all.
Words cannot even begin to express my gratitude, but all I can say is thank you. Chapter is inspired by you all.