Note: Sekirei belongs to Sakurako Gokurakuin and the only thing I own here is my OC.
"My, my." Kara stopped, seeing something on the road. I, still plagued by the nightmares I tried to shake off, stopped too but it took me a couple seconds to focus on the real world. "If it isn't Yume's container…"
I came back to find ourselves standing mere meters away from the fence surrounding Izumo Inn, facing Musubi and Minato who were also on their way to enter. While Minato carried what looked like a dozen grocery bags, Musubi caused me to raise an eyebrow at her huge satchel that she carried on her back.
"Lady Karasuba?" Musubi cheerfully waves at us, holding the bag nearly twice her size easily with a single hand while Minato looked at us cautiously. "Hi Lady Rei! What are you doing here?"
"Work." Kara gave a dangerous smile. "We are here for a short stop, Rei needs to pick someone up."
"Hell Musubi." I waved tiredly at the excitable girl and her Ashikabi who looked at my bloodied and tattered haori with obvious fear. "Hi Minato. Is Homura here?"
"Why do-" Was all Minato could say before 2 more Sekirei joined us. While Tsukiumi landed beside and slightly in front of Minato, her water blade out and pointed at us, Kusano landed right on her Ashikabi and brought them both down with a cloud of dust.
"Why are you here." Tsukiumi stared at me in controlled anger.
"Spirit!" Kusano on the other hand happily ran out from behind her fellow Sekirei's back and was hugging my leg in a flash. "Play again?"
"Sorry, Kusano, not right now." I lifted my hand to ruffle her golden hair but froze instead when my eyes noticed that my gauntlets were crusted with dry blood.
"Rei Is too tired to play right now kid." Kara told Kusano with a serious expression.
"Ku!" Minato tried to dash forward to grab Kusano but was held back by a serious Tsukiumi who still watched us, alert and wary.
"I will ask again." I sighed heavily, we posed no threat right now, why were so tense? "Is Homura here?"
"Why yes he is." The front door opened and Takehito peeked out in his usual kimono. "Why don't you all come in, Miya just finished cooking dinner."
I was faced with a tough choice. Go and eat delightfully delicious food and most likely pass out due to how tired I felt or persevere and go hunt instead. I was about to decline when I got a whiff of something delicious that seeped out from the open door. On the other hand, I wasn't really tired physically, just mentally and emotionally. I haven't actually done anything particularly physically strenuous and I could always just force myself to stay awake…
"Come on." Kara grabbed me by my waist and hauled me inside. "You need to eat."
Takehito raised an eyebrow at the care and gentleness Kara showed me but said nothing as he stepped aside to let us in. He did frown at the state of my armour and haori but he and I both knew there was no way I'd ever remove my armour in this inn. Not with Miya around. Granted, it wouldn't help much if she really does try to kill me but it was more psychological at this point. I only felt safe and comfortable without my armour when in Kara's embrace or Akitsu's.
"Oh my," Miya frowned at Takehito when she saw us all walk in. "I see you picked up a couple of strays again Takehito."
Much to the surprise of everyone at the table, who cringed from Miya's taunt, Kara ignored the jab and instead helped me sit down before taking a seat beside me, her hand holding mine.
Around the table sat: Yukari between Homura and Shiina, Kusano sat by Shiina's side and chattered away, Kazehana sat between Matsu and Homura while goading them into a drinking contest and Takehito took a seat at the head of the table with his arms around Miya's waist. Much to my surprise, although Tsukiumi and Musubi took a seat to put Minato between them, Yashima sat straight on his lap. The main surprise came from the fact that Minato, although red from his emotions, hugged his Sekirei from behind, allowing her to relax into his chest.
I mean, sure Takami hinted that his relationship with Yashima had progressed far beyond his other Sekirei but this was far past what I expected of the timid and usually shy boy. Still, watching them act lovey dovey in peace was a relief to me. After seeing so much despair, suffering and sorrow today I needed a rest. For a while, after introductions, they let us savour the fabulous food in peace but it didn't last.
"What happened to you Rei?" Yukari ran out of patience first, or was it tact that was lacking? "You look like you've been to hell and back, I've never seen you so…"
"Defeated and tired." Kazehana said in an uncharacteristically serious tone. "I can see it in your eyes; even when I saw you after the battle at the bridge you looked far better. Something big must've happened to cause this. Even Karasuba here isn't looking quite peachy."
"So?" Kara shrugged. "This has nothing to do with you all except for Homura. If you want information, I bet the little scuffle we got into will make into the evening news."
"Why would it affect me?" Homura asked wearily, instantly assuming it had to do with his Guardian business. His guess isn't that far off honestly, I mean what else could I come to him for? Meanwhile, Matsu adopted a vacant look I associated with her browsing the internet.
Speaking of Matsu, it was still interesting to see her out of that room of hers. Ever since that game of 'catch the ghost' that we played, Matsu seemed to give up on pretending that she was hiding and instead began to fully rely on Miya for protection. It was quite hilarious when I visited with Kara at one point in time and Takehito invited us to eat with them, as always.
Matsu sat there, frozen under Kara's playful gaze, for the whole dinner and she now has a strand of white hair that sharply contrasts her fiery mane. Honestly, I think it makes her look more professional and mature which clashed horribly with the mask of a young girl she uses.
In other news, she almost went full on berserk on Kara after the later told her she had nothing to worry about at the end of the dinner. Finding out that you were hiding from the wrong person for years was quite difficult for Matsu.
"Holy shit…" Matsu suddenly called out, breaking me from my thoughts, her expression still vacant. "Yea, this definitely made the evening news."
"Language, Matsu." Miya called out but Matsu ignored her, as she was still busy perusing the waters of the treacherous thing that was the internet. After Haihane forced me to sit behind a computer and browse the internet, clicking at whatever I thought was interesting I never once again looked at the computer in anything but in wary disgust. Haihane claimed that it was just a small accident that I ended up in something called 4chan but I don't care, the internet is evil and every time I need to use it to look up something I do it with full knowledge that it's just waiting to spew vile sludge at me given half a chance.
"What is it Matsu?" Minato looked at his Sekirei with great interest.
"MBI needs to come up with better excuses though," Matsu mused as she resurfaced and looked at us warily. "2 Gas tankers colliding in the middle of a street and then blowing it to kingdom come doesn't quite cover what happened, especially if there is several clips of a massive fight on several private blogs."
"What the hell happened there that yielded over 100 corpses and they still keep finding more? Nearly three times that are injured and a good number of those aren't expected to survive the night." Matsu took off her glasses and looked at us sharply. "MBI flooded the area with soldiers and are excavating an entire city block, searching for survivors."
The atmosphere grew dark as everyone looked at us in fear or – in Miya's case – revulsion.
"Do you know a certain Ashikabi named Himura Youichi?" I asked tiredly, sipping tea.
"He is this guy with glasses and has a single Sekirei with a spear, right?" It was surprisingly Minato who spoke up. "He came to me yesterday asking for help getting out of the city but I got some real bad vibes from him so I declined."
"And it is a good thing you did." I ignored Kara's frown as she realized that she was this close to having a better fight hours prior. "Otherwise you may have ended up dead or worse and your Sekirei might've joined my 14 kin who fell there."
"14…" Homura muttered in horror.
"No way…" Yukari covered her mouth in horror.
"That little shit sent 25 pairs into battle against us while he ran." Kara's frown turned murderous. "He ordered those he conned into following him to unleash their Norito's on us, not caring about friendly fire. I only got to fight 3 Sekirei because of that coward."
"Kara." I stood up heavily, having to force myself to stay awake at this point. I could tell that our presence was intolerable at this point. "Let's go. We have a coward to hunt."
"Oh?' Kara looked at me in surprise, ignoring the downright hostile atmosphere. "Didn't you want to ask Homura to join us on this little witch hunt?"
"Why would I?" Homura asked wearily. "My days as the Guardian are over, even if I did want to go I have duties elsewhere now."
"What, you don't want to hunt the one directly responsible for the deaths of 14 Sekirei?" Kara smirked as she got up. "I only terminated 2 Sekirei in that fight while Rei killed none. Neither of us did any of the damage that turned that city block into rubble. You still want to let that guy go free after this? Or will you join us for a little late night barbeque?"
"I-" Homura stood up, frowning but he was suddenly interrupted by a serious Matsu who somehow gained an aura of command around her.
"You should go." She said in a forceful tone, her pale red eyes drilling into Homura. "I just finished analysing the MBI reports, witness compilations and what little footage survived. Karasuba isn't lying. It was a one sided slaughter caused by friendly fire."
The whole table fell silent at this. Thanks to Matsu's mask of a disturbingly lecherous girl, it's a bit hard to realize that the real Matsu was the Lieutenant of the First Generation Disciplinary Squad for a reason. Although Miya was the one who made the decisions and led them in battle, Matsu was the brain in operations that was ever at her captain's service. Thanks to her hacking and spying skills, she was always in control of the battlefield, in and out of combat.
According to Kara, Matsu was the real reason why untrained and unready Sekirei wiped the floor with a force of 100 000 men, armour, air and ships. Oh sure, she didn't do any actual combat, but suddenly, the ships would stall, their targeting algorithms fried, tanks would suddenly get lost, their GPS pointing them in a completely random direction, helicopters would crash as their delicate systems malfunctioned for seemingly no reason whatsoever. In fact, when the fleet tried to cut their losses and use rockets to bombard the island into oblivion, Matsu hacked them into exploding right in their silos inside the carriers, tearing the massive steel islands into pieces and killing thousands.
Of course, all of this was highly classified information and Kara advised me not to blabber on about it as an angry Matsu could make your life very, very difficult. She shuddered when I asked for clarification and refused, stating that in the age of electronics, a Sekirei with power over them can be quite scary if slighted.
Regardless, Homura might not know of Matsu's true role but I could see that he was quite unnerved by the little bit of Matsu's true self he got shown here for a moment. He still hesitated though and glanced at his Ashikabi who didn't seem to be too keen on the idea of letting her Sekirei go off and burn someone to death. Seeing this, I sighed and made my way back to the entrance, my body swaying slightly from my exhaustion.
Normally I'd never fight in this condition, but thankfully, all I need to do is find the bastard and stick a sword or 2 down his throat. Kara will handle his Sekirei for me. I had only taken maybe 10 steps before Kara appeared by my side and grabbed my waist, supporting me. I smiled at her in a silent thank you and continued on.
"Stop." We both turned our heads to see Matsu, still without her glasses and serious, hold out a phone to Kara. "I will feed his current location through this. Feel free to throw it away after you find him."
"Thanks, lieutenant." Kara smirked at Matsu's huff as she grabbed the phone. Matsu didn't go beyond an irritated look though as Kara made sure to keep her voice down. Even though Minato called for her, she ignored him in favour of seeing us 2 off.
"Make him pay." Matsu told us at the door before sighing wearily and putting on her glasses with her mask to go calm down her clueless Ashikabi.
"Look," Homura rolled his eyes at our silent question. "My Ashikabi is a young, clueless girl who hasn't actually seen blood and war. What the hell do you think my response would be to you asking me to go kill people right in front of her?!"
"That," I laughed, embarrassed. "Makes perfect sense. I wouldn't want Chiho on this mission either, at least not yet."
"Not yet?" Homura, in his badass outfit of awesomeness raised an eyebrow as we stood on a small skyscraper, the wind only adding bonus points to his overwhelming image as it ruffled his ashen hair. I don't usually care much for men, but damn, this guy was making me feel heat just by looking at him. Or maybe I am just tired and delirious, either one works in my state.
"Our Ashikabi is trying her best to be worthy of us." Kara said with a hint of pride and amusement. "Not that she actually needs to, as far as we are concerned she's fine as she is."
"Oh great," Homura sighed. "Don't tell me she's going to be going after the Ashikabi in these fights?"
"No, nothing like that." I sighed peacefully as I sat down on the edge of the 50 or so story building. Our target was just below us, unaware of the doom awaiting. Matsu truly is something, she hacked the entire city grid and found our target in minutes and since then never lost him. Scary woman that one, I thought as I squinted down to see our target argue with police, to think that she put down a fake arrest warrant out for the guy just as a casual addition to feeding us information on his whereabouts…
"We should go grab him before…" I paused as apparently the man lost his cool and set his Sekirei on the two cops. The poor guys never stood a chance as they fell to the ground, cloven in 2 by a halberd. So that's what her weapon looks like in its full form, interesting. "Well, too late I guess."
"Let's go." Kara jumped down, her aura coming to its full might giving her the image of a demonic crow descending on her prey. I sighed as I leaned over and fell, Homura's surprised face giving me a slight grin. He leapt after us, jumping from building side to building side, using his fire as a jetpack of sorts. I shifted into Soul Form after noticing the lamppost pass by, figuring that the ground was near. I was too tired to turn as I fell back forwards.
Ah, there was a reason why I tended not to escape fall damage using Soul Form. It has something to do with the sewers of Shinto Teito. Although highly automated and quite sophisticated for what they are, it didn't stop them from being extremely unpleasant. Especially if you land in the sewage water itself. Thank gods it doesn't actually touch me as I was in the Spirit Realm but it didn't make it any less disgusting to fall into. By the time I got back to surface level, still in my Soul Form, it was already over.
Kara stood over Nanaha, the Sekirei of our target, her blade dripping crimson liquid. The downed Sekirei was on her back, lying in a pool of her blood, a surprised expression frozen on her face as she clutched her halberd, cloven in 2. Looks like someone tried to block a strike from Kara's blade as she enhanced her strength. Even I had trouble blocking those and I bet I could snap Nanaha in 2 in I wanted to. For her troubles, she got her weapon sliced cleanly in 2 and then the blade proceeded to cleave her from shoulder to waist, narrowly escaping from touching her Tama. Instant death that was, which was good; I'd rather not have any of our kin suffer if we must terminate them.
"Ah, the final Arbiter has arrived." Kara grinned sadistically at the man's flinch when he saw me. "Good, now we can start now, hmm?"
I looked at the fucker responsible for ruining my day beyond all measure and the bastard responsible for killing 14 of my kin. I was…disappointed. It was just a common Asian guy; you could find hundreds of them in the street. Dark brown hair, glasses and a cowardice that could easily be judged by the dark stain on his pants. Not saying that all or even most Asians were cowards, if I so much as hinted at that I am afraid Takami will kill me but this one was truly a coward. Really, this was responsible for killing 14 Sekirei? 15 if you count his own. By the gods, this fool should've never even been an Ashikabi, I mean, look at him grovel away before us for his life.
"Pathetic." I pinched the bridge of my nose with a sigh. "This…this is what we chased after?"
"Indeed." Kara looked at the guy with disgust. "I am sorry, but I am not letting this filth touch my blade. I am afraid he'll corrupt it somehow."
I rolled my eyes at her, really, I mean sure the guy was a slime ball and a disgusting creature but somehow I doubt he was on par with her corrosive miasma that she coats her blade with occasionally nowadays.
"Homura," I turned to the fire Sekirei who also looked at the young man before us with revulsion. "Burn him."
Homura sighed but complied, a fireball quickly forming between his hands and he casually threw it at Himura. Kara sighed as we knew that he made it extra potent to kill the man fast, it could be easily seen by the intensity of the flame. To our complete surprise, our target dove to the side and managed to escape most of the flames. Most of them, but not all of them though, the enhanced potency of Homura's flames playing a foul trick on the man as even a little bit was enough to quickly consume him. We watched as he screamed in pain, rolling around trying to put out the fire on his clothes.
"No." I stopped Homura from launching another fireball to end his pain. When the fire Sekirei looked at me in surprise I explained. "Consider it fate. He could've got out of this relatively painlessly but fate had other plans."
Homura made a face and put out his fire. Right, he isn't quite enamored with fate. Something about Minaka preaching a bit too much about how his fate was to be of a confused gender. So we watched in silence as Himura slowly burned to death, screaming and wailing for every minute that he fought to stay alive. As he died, I made a note to never get hit by Homura's fire. Before he got his wings it was a lot less potent than this. Seriously, those flames stuck to their target like ravenous wolves on their dying pray. Considering even the cement burned in some areas, I wondered if he applied a Napalm effect to his fire, I mean cement doesn't burn…right?
We were startled out of reverie by an MBI evacuation chopper that landed nearby and Takami climbed out, faithful Akitsu beside her. Ah yes, by the time Himura turned to a merrily burning campfire, it would seem enough time passed for MBI to arrive to pick up Nanaha.
"So that's him?" Takami held a cigarette out for Homura who lit it without question, the move long practised between the 2 of them. "I am not sure if Minaka will be sad that you didn't bring him in alive or overjoyed that he had such a painful death."
"It doesn't matter." I sighed and sat down straight on the ground, my strength finally spent. "It's over now."
"Not exactly." Akitsu said with apprehension as she joined us, having finished overseeing the evacuation of Nanaha. As we turned to her, the silent question on our faces, it was Takami who answered instead. "Minaka had begun the 3rd Round 15 minutes ago."
We all stared at Takami in silence and then a dreadful feeling arrived. I shifted to look at Kara and sighed, of course she wouldn't be happy on missing out. Homura on the other hand, was sweating buckets as he stared at the warped, evil apparition that Kara has become. Ah right, he never actually seen her use her aura in such a way. I wonder if I should tell him that it's actually Kara's Norito that she drags out into reality as a phantasm. Na, let him get surprised on the battlefield when this see-through apparition suddenly turns solid and starts obliterating everything before it.
I giggled as I imagined his face and drew the attention of everyone present. While Akitsu, Takami and Homura stared at me incredulously, not understanding how I could possibly not be affected, Kara looked at me in concern.
"I'll deal with Minaka later," She canceled her aura and stooped over to pick me up, her enhanced strength easily allowing her to pick up someone twice her weight. It felt rather nice actually, being held in her protective embrace. It was incredibly hard not to fall asleep in fact. "Rei needs rest."
"N-no." I mumbled, opening my eyes to look into Kara's pale brown ones. "We need to get to Chiho."
"She'll be fine." Takami looked at me anxiously. "She has Uzume, Haihane and Beni to take care of her."
"…" Kara and I looked at each other and then looked over to Akitsu. Obviously, she was the more realistic one of the 2, having seen our Noritos. Having Uzume and Beni in 1 group was asking for a tragedy. Sure, we wanted to break things and force Minaka to never use us like this again, but we planned to have only 1 of those 2 actually attend the fight. While Beni or Uzume rampaged, Haihane, I or Kara would protect our Ashikabi from debris and what not.
"The next fight is here," Akitsu took out a tablet and showed us a picture of twisting roads and bridges. "This is the Chuuou Junction, it's about 15 minutes from here by helicopter if you want a ride."
"Where is it?" Kara ignored Takami and Homura talking to each other in the background.
"Here." Akitsu just handed us over the tablet, a GPS route already traced on it. "The battle is scheduled for 10:00, so in 22 minutes. Good luck."
"Karasuba, Rei." Before we could take off, or rather before Kara could take off with me in her grasp, Takami approached us once more. "Chiho has already picked Haihane, Beni and Uzume to go with her. Minaka won't let you switch the order anymore. The most you can do is watch."
"We don't have to participate." I smiled as I held out my hand and let my power course through it, making it glow pale blue. "Why, I think we'll just watch, just me, Kara and Chiho."
"Hmph, I see." Takami smiled before turning serious. "Minato will be present there. Please, try not to kill him."
"We won't aim for the boy." Kara replied as a matter of fact. "But in the chaos of a battle anything can happen."
"That's all I am asking for." Takami sighed wearily and suddenly looked decades older then she usually appeared. Akitsu, sensing the change, embraced her from behind tenderly. Meanwhile, Kara took off, the speed of her charge making people look at us with wild eyes as we passed cars and people in a flurry of wind. Kara was obviously using her power to enhance her speed in an effort to get us to the Junction as fast as possible, but even with us moving at nearly 80 kilometers per hour according to the tablet it will still take us about 10 minutes on the GPS to get to our destination. And then we'll have to look around for Chiho as we forgot to ask where exactly she was.
I could only hope that we would make it in time, as much as I trust Uzume, Beni and Haihane, Chiho will be much safer with me. After all, the 2 Realms can't touch each other.
