X~36~X
"M-Miku, you need to move, please, please stand. Please stand." Len's hands nearly crush Miku's shaking fingers in his grip. Tears run down her face, burning. The world around her is blurry and a large pain explodes from her left ear.
Rin screams with rage somewhere far away. Miku forces herself to blink, and the world becomes clear. The front side of Miki's house is gone, leaving a large gaping and flaming hole of debris. Silhouettes bounce around in the opening behind the flames. Miku and the bloody and battered Len are pressed up against the back side of the staircase.
"Please, Miku, please get up!" Len shouts loudly over the buzzing chaos. Miku tries to think, but she is unable to push away the buzzing in her ears and the white light in her eyes.
"Len!" Someone yells.
"Over here!" Miku watches him yell back. Her hand slowly moves upward and with unbelievable difficulty she forces her finger to point behind Len to a large silhouette, a large object in hand.
Kaito smirks as he swings the sledge hammer into the side of Len's head. Upon impact his skull caves in, splattering the cowering Miku with his blood.
"L-Len…" She crawls forward to his body.
"Hello, Miku. I hope you haven't missed me." Kaito says, raising his hammer.
Gumi places her boot against a large piece of concrete, swinging her crowbar over her shoulder in a wide motion, using the rock to propel herself forward with immense velocity. With a large and rather disturbing smile she swings her yellow and red crowbar into the back of a man's skull. Only moments after she saw Miki get injected with some sort of sedative there was a large explosion that blew up the front of the house. Once the smoke cleared a troop of at least sixty men dressed in black masks with red bird's beaks attached to the front entered through the smoldering wreckage with cattle prods and pistols in hand.
Gumi swings left, the crowbar coming into contact with another plaster mask, shattering the nose of the person under it. A strong pair of arms wrap around her waist and lift her off the ground, her crowbar clattering to the floor below her as she kicks and screams. She sinks her sharp teeth into the arm of the man holding her and blood sprays inside of her mouth as she breaks skin. The man drops her, wailing in shock and pain and Gumi, in one swift motion and a crowbar in hand, shatters the man's skull with one blow.
Unaffected by the chaos around her she puts her goggles down over her eyes, hiding the sadistic expression forming in her eyes, and unable to stop the rush of adrenaline from holding her any longer she launches into a rampage, aided by a yellow crowbar.
Oliver shields Yuki and IA from the falling debris, covering both of their faces with his arms. He walks over them like a canopy, trying to avert their eyes from the flames licking the room.
"Oliver." He hears IA mumble. Her voice grows to a loud scream, "Duck!" She wails as a large cattle prod sails where Oliver's head was.
The attacker is far taller than Oliver, and with two children in tow his abilities are limited. With no more time to think a black boot makes contact with the back of the man's skull and his face and the rest of his body slam into the floor face first. A neon haired girl stands on top of him.
"Go! I'll cover you!" She shouts down at Oliver from her perch on top of the man's back. The masked man utters something from beneath her, nearly inaudible. "Oi, I didn't say you could talk!" Gumi jumps up and down on his upper back with all of her force, a crooked smile spreading across her lips.
Oliver picks up Yuki, throwing her over his shoulder. His right arm wraps around IA, keeping her close to his side as he moves through what used to be the front door. Yuki sobs, her small hands gripping Oliver as tightly as possible. What's bizzare to him is that IA seems relatively un phased, her only unusual behavior being that she's looking around her frantically.
A tall man with long purple hair stands in Oliver's exit path, grinning and holding a gun.
"Young man, I believe you have something I need. Now please, step away from the girl and no one has to get hurt." Gakupo coaxes him, outstretching a hand for IA.
"You can't make me go back to the dark!" IA screams, something a little similar to rage flashing through her eyes. Oliver stands dumbfounded, his hands shaking ever so slightly.
"You people… you animals. I never understood why you took Miki all those years ago, but it changed her. I'll be damned if I ever let that happen again, to anyone." The blonde boy's gaze is fixed with anger and a rabid determination. He glares through Gakupo, looking past the barrel of the gun.
"Very well then." A gun shot flies from the tip of the pistol and blood splatters Oliver, covering him head to toe with a thick red liquid. His breath comes in one deep shudder and he watches Rin spit blood onto the floor, a bullet wound through the side of her neck. That shot would have killed him, but she stopped it. Rin falls face first down onto a large hunk of concrete rubble with no more than a gurgle.
Gakpo struggles to reload as Luka comes running up behind him, her own gun drawn.
"Whaaaaaa-hoooooo!" A female voice shouts as a black dripping boot flies into Gakupo's face. Gumi swings her crow bar forward at Luka, barely missing. With no time to aim or shoot Luka dodges the blood stained girl frantically.
Gumi has no technique to her movements, and her mind seems to be taken over by a mere primal instinct to fight until she can't move anymore. Luka gulps, only slightly, upon thinking of what could have possibly changed a child into this. She is a pure war machine, and Luka loves nothing more than playing with fire.
Oliver turns around to be met by a wall of masked men with weapons drawn.
"Oh god…" The boys mind frantically works when a loud animal like scream erupts from behind him. A bullet whizzes just past his ear and a man right in front of him collapses to the floor in his own blood. Rin stalks forward, gun in her hand, blood dripping down her neck.
"You want me? Take me." Within mere moments large groups of men are upon her, the only remnants of Rin still visible are her flailing limbs under a tangle of men. Behind Oliver Gumi and Luka rage on, Gumi laughing manically.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now?"
Miku whimpers as Kaito plunges his fist into Len's rib cage, sending blood spraying from the boy's mouth.
"Please… please…" She sobs, curling up into a ball yet unable to tear her eyes away as Kaito swings his sledge hammer into Len's chin. His face collapses in on itself and he falls silent. Kaito laughs.
"Do you like this, child? Are you enjoying my show?" He screams with joy, his eyes wide and blood shot, sweat rolling of his face. "This is what you deserve… our world shall not end, you will not kill our world! This is what you deserve you vile pieces of trash! Burn in hell! Burn in the fires from which you were born! Burn until you can't comprehend pain any- MORE!" His hammer strikes down again reducing Len back to a heap on the floor. No part of him even looks human anymore. Miku wonders if they were ever even human to begin with.
"Please…" She sobs violently. "Len… what-wha-what do I d-do?" Her hands shake as drops of his blood roll to the floor below her. "Len… please what do I do? What can I do?" Miku cries even harder.
She forces her eyes closed but a pain near the top of her head rips them open again. Her breath comes in gagged gasps as Kaito presses his forehead to hers.
"Watch my show demon child, watch what you will do to us all, watch. Watch. Humanity is not one to be messed with, we will kill you all until you die, finally, finally, die. So watch, demon child. Watch me." Just as Len begins to stand Kaito flings the hammer back into Len's foot, shattering every bone and rendering him completely immobile.
"No!" Miku screams, tears flowing down her face like a waterfall.
"What do I do? What can I do? What can I do? I can't do anything… I can't… I can't do anything. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? Please… somebody…"
The blaring of a car horn smacks Miku back awake and from behind her one of the loudest noises she's ever heard erupts. A large object flies beside her and she is faced with a car tire surrounded by a mountain of glass. A hand reaches out from the back seat and pulls on Miku's arm gently.
Slowly, as if every muscle in her body is on fire, Miku turns to see IA's tear covered face pleading her.
"B-b-but Len…" She sobs. Oliver's voice yells back at her from the front of the car.
"Rin's got it!"
Miku forces herself inside the back of the car and she watches out of the shattered windshield as Rin comes face to face with Kaito. Shards of glass cling to his skin and trails of crimson run bellow them. The impact of the car bursting through the back door knocked him off his feet, and his hammer is far away from him. He cowers on the ground as Rin stands above him.
"Do you have mercy?" She asks, her voice void of emotion. Kaito quivers bellow her. "Do you have mercy?"
"Y-yes, hell spawn, yes I-I do." Kaito pleads. His eyes with a new shadow of terror.
"The last time I met you, it was on that roof. Do you remember that? You were so willing, so full of venom, so sure I wouldn't kill you. Where's that confidence now? Where's your pride? Where have you hidden all that venom inside you? Or was it never there at all?" Rin pauses, her eyes hidden by a dark shadow cast by her bangs. "I told you I couldn't end your life. I told you that I couldn't kill you. People change. I'm not that same girl anymore. I asked you if you had mercy, and you replied yes. I don't."
A bullet flies out of the barrel of her gun and smashes into Kaito's chest. It passes beside his heart, he lays in agony, an undying and blinding pain. He slowly begins to bleed, his bloodshot eyes shaking as he watches Rin lower the gun. He is the only one that can see her expression from his angle and what he sees shocks him. She slowly shakes her head, and walks away, slipping her arm under Len's and slowly bringing him to the car. Kaito murmurs something, and Rin stops.
"Y-you know… the s-s-sunrise th-that morning wa-wa-was beautiful, hell-spawn."
"Yes, it was." Without another word she turns away, and even as the car pulls away from his body and drives out of Miki's backyard Rin doesn't dare look back.
"We need to go find Miki!" Oliver shouts.
"I think Miki just found us!" Rin screams as the Crypton Corp. van smashes into the side of their car, rolling it into the ditch beside the park. Shrapnil fills the air as the group's car lands upside down, flinging a battered Miku from the windshield and sending her flying into a tree. As her vision clears she sees another van pull up beside the first, and she watches a yellow haired woman in a white lab coat step out.
Lilly takes a pistol out of the hand of an assistant, cocking it and loading it.
"Well then, let's see what we have here."