Kotoba
November 17th, 2010
Steady boot steps hammered against the asphalt as fast as they could, and laboured breaths hissed through gritted teeth in an attempt to keep up with their host. "The Lieutenant is going to beat me," a smooth voice clamoured. After nearly bumping into civilians filtering through the infrastructure, a clumsy public servant rushed towards good intentions. "Sorry about that!" His panting intensified to the sound of gear clamouring and soft eyes raised to the humbling view of crimson splitting the sky. H-haah…!? An exhilarated gasp escaped gaping lips as wild eyes sparkled, the force of the display nearly toppling his pursuit. "T-that light!"
It was the first time he'd seen it. Flames spread like mighty wings in the night sky high above Shizume City, coiling like snakes around a demonic-looking crimson sword. "That must be… the Third King, Suoh Mikoto's Sword of Damocles." His awestruck wheeze intensified. "Whoa! It's huge!" A cursory scan raised to where the sword floated nearby a series of tall office buildings a few blocks from where anxious feet thundered, and then, a nervous cry startled rushed breaths from the stalling man's chest. "No way! I'll never make it there in time!" With a desperate whine, a decorated scabbard rattled beneath unsteady fingertips as boots began to thump against the street with due haste. "Wait for me, guys!"
Anxious cries went unnoticed from the rooftop high above the city's metropolis as the wind ripped through the wild mane of the third and red king. The luminous amber signal illuminating the helicopter pad beneath his feet cast a foreboding glow over the lines of his face as his smirk broadened around his cigarette. Then, from all corners of the building railing, flashing red beacons egged on his mounting anger. At the centre, Mikoto rumbled his command towards blue interference beneath the ominous glow of his mighty sanctum. "I'm not gonna ask again."
"I tire of repeating myself as well, Third King, Suoh Mikoto." Seri hollered her rebuke from where she commanded SCEPTRE4's recently reinforced Special Forces Division in her king's absence. "By the authority of-"
"Blah, blah, blaaah." From the epicentre of the seductive growl serenading the tense assembly, Neirah flopped her bright tongue past her smiling lips to mock Seri's command. "Pretty girls are so boring." The wind tore through the helicopter landing pad and whisked her thick locks around her shoulders as she teased her greatest rival into a frenzy. "Seri-chan~" she sniggered giddily.
Through gritted molars, Seri murmured her impatient remark with great restraint. "You fiend… Who let you off your leash?"
Neirah retracted her tongue behind her teeth so she could flash them in a sadistic grin. "Are you sure you brought enough boys to handle me?"
The sardonic coo ground on Seri's nerves and made her resent the casual bar owner lingering in front of the yapping lioness. She knew that Neirah had picked up the habit of referring to her in an overly familiar way from Izumo. "Don't flatter yourself." Seri snorted her retort under her breath as every muscle in her body stood prepared to draw her sword and cut the smug look right out of the wild beauty's face.
"Neirah," Izumo carefully sang in caution. "Remind me to give you a lesson in diplomacy at a later date."
A curt snort huffed a humid cloud in front of Neirah's nostrils from within her boiling body as her smile faded to boredom. "Don't be ridiculous, Onii-san. My talents are in diplomacy that you can feel." She leaned her ear towards her shoulder as she rolled her instigating glower to face where Seri stiffened. "Isn't that right…? Seri-chan..."
Her giggle was mischievous as she watched Seri's cheeks flush to the recollection of their lips colliding. Through a morphing tapered leer focussed entirely on their resistance, Neirah scowled at the woman opposing her with an intense warning in her tone. "Besides, how do you expect me to keep the peace when their sense of symmetry makes me irrationally violent?" They were like bowling pins, set so neatly for her to strike.
"You're always irrationally violent," Izumo groaned.
"Maybe I am," she purred in lighter spirits. "But when the adrenaline is there, I have to use it. Otherwise, I'll burn up and carry everyone around me into the ashes."
"Tsukiyo's right," Misaki snarled. The entire time they stared down their opposition, he never took his eyes from Saruhiko's. Seeing red was one thing, but nothing boiled his blood more than the shade of blue complimenting the sparkle in his ex-friend's lethal glower. "I say we waste 'em…"
"Fine by me," Saruhiko droned. He moved to shift his weight forward with an arrogant chortle, but before he could lunge, Seri's arm was stretching in front of him to interrupt his advance. It reminded him that he didn't operate like he used to. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but they were deeply seeded habits that were hard to break.
"Fushimi-san, stand down," Seri thundered in command. "In the absence of our king, I will decide whether or not we advance."
Heh. A gruff snort denoted Mikoto's amusement with her assumption. When he made his move, she would have no choice but to defend, unless she was satisfied with dying. He knew that. Saruhiko knew that.
Although reluctant, Saruhiko reined in his temper and stayed his hand. If Seri were smart, she wouldn't provoke the beast before her, but her sense of duty was strong. If she wanted to tackle the threat of Suoh Mikoto on her own, she could be his guest. All he cared about was HOMRA's front line. And should they clash, he had no intention of going any further than that. For that reason, he slowly slipped his hand away from the hilt of his sword. "Yes ma'am."
Hah?! Misaki clenched his fist with a wicked beam. "What are you, her loyal dog? Yes ma'am," he mocked. The grating sound of Misaki's friend's tittering away at Saruhiko's expense immediately knotted the hostile deserter's face. "What'd she take your balls from you when you joined the blues or somethin'?"
A dim growl rattled in Saruhiko's chest as a deadly intensity flashed in his eyes. It infuriated him that they dared to ridicule him just because he held himself to a higher standard of service than their mob mentality. "You're one. to. talk," he rumbled intolerantly. "How's Hana doing? I see you still have your hat." He emphasized the enunciation of the 't' to make sure Misaki realized he was spitting the words out with the utmost contempt.
Misaki's good humour immediately faded and replaced with wrath. He could see the free fluttering of cherry-scented tresses dancing along with the wild winds in the corner of his eyes, which he peeked only momentarily to fuel his ire. There was a particular abundance of gold in his eyes that night when he snapped his narrowing attention back on his snarky target, a fierce wringing in his wrist as he choked his pulse for control. "Fucking Monkey…" It nudged him even closer to the edge when Saruhiko sniggered lowly to the sound of his displeasure. At least Saruhiko was honest when he told Neirah that he was a sadist because he was quite evidently enjoying Misaki's suffering. "You better hope blondie there is smarter than to piss of Mikoto-san in red territory because if we go to war, I'm comin' straight for you!"
"Don't worry," Neirah mumbled her words indifferently through her distraction as she picked at her freshly polished fingernails. Like she could sense when Misaki tipped his curious hum her way, she held out her splayed fingers to her observation and continued. "She has more boobs than brains."
Seri's utterly affronted expression jerked towards the sight of Neirah's casual instigation. "Excuse me?!" The part that frustrated Seri the most was that she wasn't entirely sure if Neirah's bust was even a full cup size beneath her own. "Barbaric hoodlum!"
Mm. Neirah cut her flirtatious leer from beneath thick lashes. "I love it when you talk dirty."
Before things could escalate any further, Mikoto turned his nose towards the sky to peek the sight of a helicopter approaching. If it didn't look so familiar, he might have ordered their battle to take them somewhere other than the machines resting place. But he'd recognized it as belonging to the government brand dedicated to supporting his cobalt counterpart. As such, he tipped over his shoulder to watch the contraption circle with an entertained scoff. "It's about time."
Ehn? Mikoto's low rumble caused an inquisitive grunt to surface in Misaki's throat before he threw his incredulous gaze towards the sight of the Blue King inbound from the heavens.
"Lovely," Neirah muffled sarcastically through nibbling on her cuticle. "Just what we needed. More blue."
Seri's eyes narrowed to scrutinize the brunette's rolling azure gaze when Reisi suddenly struck the rooftop between her and Saruhiko in a low crouch. A startled gasp escaped her to the rapid acceleration of her heartbeat when she comprehended that her king had finally arrived. "Captain. You're here."
"Unbelievable," Masaomi jeered. "He just dropped from the sky. D' you see that?"
"Well, now that's what I call making a grand entrance," Izumo proclaimed over the sound of Misaki's impatient hiss.
Heavily sighing the smoke from between his lips, Mikoto chewed on the end of his cigarette before speaking. "What took you so long?" he rumbled through his teeth. After raising his arms out to either side of him, he tipped his head back to glare down his nose at his guest. "I sent out an invitation and everything."
As he straightened, Reisi adjusted his glasses on his face and sized up Mikoto's so-called summons. It came in the form of a monstrous armament haunting the skies over the Tokyo prefecture with its hideous edges. In his opinion, the night looked far more balanced when he'd activated his sanctum and matched Mikoto's threat with a promise. It was a promise that SCEPTRE4 wouldn't tolerate red lawlessness. As such, the elegant materialization of the classy cerulean blade took its place above Reisi's head as he spoke. "Third King, Suoh Mikoto," he regally announced. "Your actions are as wild and chaotic as they always are."
Mikoto relaxed and fed his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans to support his lazy posture. "Fourth King, Munakata Reisi," he playfully scorned. "Your face looks as awful and annoying as it always does."
Neirah gave her heel an anxious stomp to release some of the kinetic energy burning in her muscles. A playful rumbling joined her need to advance, but when she felt the pressure of fingers snagging her by her collar to keep her steady, she turned a deceitfully charming pout over her shoulder to beg Saburōta permission to strike.
With a devious chuckle, he offered her a reassuring thumbs up with the back of his wrist pressed against the beak of his cap, which kind of reversed the gesture. "Who woulda thought that one day I'd be the one draggin' you around by your collar?"
"Wolf-kun is becoming full of himself..."
"And he's about to lose an arm," Yō muffled from behind his cigarette. He watched Saburōta consider the threat for a moment, obviously contemplating its legitimacy. Then, the hooded boy returned his gaze to Neirah's just in time to watch as she snapped her teeth together with an alluring, predatory look in her eyes. Yō snorted when the rosy colour of Saburōta's cheeks barely peeked from beneath his glasses, and he slowly retracted his paw, to which Yō drawled his amused encouragement. "Smart move."
On the side of the Blue Clan, Saruhiko seemed just as eager to rile up his old circle, or Misaki, most specifically. Nothing was more exciting than the look of fire in his betrayed friend's eyes as he burned with bitter fury. Saruhiko hoped that Misaki forced all of his past clanmates to hear his name every day when Misaki ranted about his treachery. For every time Saruhiko had to listen to Misaki ramble about every one of them, he hoped they had to hear of the solo vanguard's resentment.
The mere consideration caused his teeth to grind around his sadistic grin as he anxiously filled his fingers with one of his sleek throwing knives. He worked the blade skillfully between his fingers, scanning for Neirah's distraction at the same time before he launched the ebony dart. The last thing he needed was her complicating things between them for the umpteenth time. "Why don't we have some fun? Misaki!"
The released dart sailed through the air before Neirah could interfere, but Misaki didn't seem as threatened as he used to be when stray knives lobbed his way. With minimal effort, he spun his kick into the trajectory to slow the projectile. When it bounced into the air, he straightened, folding his arm behind his tailbone to catch it with a dull look of impatience on his face even as Tatara cheered for his triumph.
After straightening to lock his eyes on Saruhiko's, he flipped the blade between his fingers before catching it by the handle. "Don't look so smug, asshole," he growled. He buried one brow into the crook of his nose as the other cocked. "D' you seriously think that after all the time I spent dodging Tsukiyo's knives, yours were gonna be any different?"
Saruhiko let out an eager chortle, preparing to bark back at his old roommate when Neirah interrupted his train of thought. Like an elegant dancer, she slipped alongside the indifferent ginger. Misaki's eyes remained fixed on Saruhiko even as she stole the dart he slackened in offering and spun until she launched the offending article towards its host with a delighted cheer. "From HOMRA with love," she hummed. She'd always preferred his sleek projectiles over her clunky kunai. They were so deathly accurate. "Return to sender!"
Even as his wild gaze focussed on the raucous sight of her bratty attitude mocking his efforts, Saruhiko couldn't keep his smile from broadening. He retracted a step to lengthen his arm behind him, catching the dart by its razor-sharp tip before flipping the edge through his fingers and returning it to its place with the remainder of his cache. "What's this, Misaki?" he sang in an attempt to honey his insult. "You're going to rely on your little girlfriend to fight your battles for you?"
"Battles?" Neirah's voice filled with sultry malice as her flames flickered over her taut fingertips. She threw her head over her shoulder, and her jaws parted for her hot breath as she returned his passionate resentment in full. "Fushimi-san, everything up until now has been foreplay."
Raising his clenched fist to his mouth, Reisi cleared his throat to interrupt their bickering. "Achem. I think that's enough aimless chattering, for now. Wouldn't you agree, Fushimi-san?" he calmly intercepted. "Red Lion?"
Tsk. Saruhiko tossed his head to the side, hating how badly his skin itched from the thought of Neirah clawing around beneath it. "That depends," he rumbled coldly.
"If the Red King can't keep me under his finger, what on earth makes you think the blue one will stand a chance?" Neirah sneered.
"I must ask you to leave here immediately, Red King," Reisi commanded authoritatively over the banter. "This matter comes under the jurisdiction of SCEPTRE4."
"Not my problem," Mikoto rumbled evenly.
As the only diplomatic force left among their edgy assembly, Izumo reached behind his head and attempted to steady the mess that was becoming of his hair as the altitude continued to tousle it. "This is about those Strains you arrested a moment ago," he reasoned soundly. "They came into our territory and pulled some stunts not too long ago. We have a few questions that we wanna ask them, so could you do us a favour and hand them over?"
Unsuccessfully swayed, even by the charm of her favourite bartender's drawl, Seri locked her eyes on their resistance and reached out to her command for the final word. "Captain?"
Reisi remained undaunted by their looming threat. "You know we're not able to comply with such a request," he confidently rejected. "As always, you people are nothing but trouble."
"Well, so much for reason…" Izumo surrendered with a heavy sigh. "Mikoto?"
Izumo knew what his king was going to say long before he asked the question, but Mikoto appreciated the sentiment even as he stubbed his smoke out beneath the toe of his shoe. "Burn them," he murmured through an arrogant smile.
"No blood! No bone! No ash!" The rally call thundered on top of the building and promised that mayhem was about to follow.
Although his sigh seemed arduous, Reisi wasn't surprised that the encounter had escalated beyond what dialogue could reconcile. When the Red King was involved, it seemed like communicating by words, no matter how well structured, was an empty gesture. As such, he touched his glasses, tilting them on the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes and meditated on the situation at hand. "We will advance with our swords in our hands. We will triumph, for our cause is pure."
Upon whirling to command their unit, Seri threw her arm out and addressed the men at their back. "Men! Draw your swords!"
As passionately as he defied fitting into HOMRA, Saruhiko couldn't help but delight in the command to follow. A menacing chuckle caught in his throat as his colleagues sounded off in sequence. They weren't perfect, but watching Neirah's teeth clench with distaste to their orderly choir as he drew his sword made it that much sweeter when he proclaimed his preparation.
After watching Reisi draw his sword, honing it on his red target, Mikoto's upper lip quirked with narrowly concealed wrath. It would be irresponsible to let it spill over with a young girl present, so he kept his burning gaze locked on the Blue King as he commanded Anna to evacuate the area. "Totsuka?"
Tatara didn't need the full command. He knew what his responsibility was. For that reason, a fond whirr filled his gentle tone as he addressed the implied order. "You got it!" he hailed. He laid his palm between Anna's shoulders with a tender smile. "Come on. Let's go, Anna-chan."
The young Strain didn't seem interested in abandoning her king, and she softly fussed after being forced from his side. "Mikoto." There was a gentle urgency in her tone, but she didn't resist outside of calling to him.
"He'll be fine." Tatara waited for Anna's bright ruby gaze to fall on him from under silver bangs before his smile broadened beneath his playful wink. "It'll all work out, somehow!"
Neirah's sparkling gaze came to life when she watched her typically lethargic king launch from her side, crossing the rooftop to chase the Blue King right over the edge of the building. When she moved to rush after the spectacle, she was quickly interrupted by the resentful emerald gaze of a bluecoat scorned. She narrowly jolted her nose out of the blade's path when it nearly sliced the tip. When the pulse of aquamarine aura swelled from the sabre, she exhaled a feminine grunt and walked over her hands a couple of times until she had escaped the destructive wave.
When she landed squarely on the gate fencing off the rooftop, she spread her feet in a wide stance to keep her toes stable on the smooth railing. After folding her arms across her torso beneath her bouncing breasts, she sized up her target with a sinister beam. From afar, Andy whisked his sword through the air as his free hand shook a tense fist by his smile.
"Running away?" he commanded hotly. "That's not a very lion-ly thing to do."
Neirah cocked a brow at him playfully as the building began to quake, but she didn't let it jostle her off her toes. As sure as she was that lion-ly wasn't a word, she thought that his passionate defiance was utterly adorable. "Is that what you think I'm doing?" she cooed. "Are you still sore about me taking your toys without permission?"
Andy braced his stance, steadying his blade with a menacing grin. "I already told you. My Excalibur isn't a toy!" He powered off the concrete with his sword gripped in both hands while she mocked him from her perch. "But if you want a demonstration, standby, 'cause here it comes!"
"Mmn, temper, temper," she sassed. Just before he could swing his blade, she raised her index finger to her lower eyelid, pulling it down as she poked out her tongue and let her feet slide from the handrail.
The youth had to catch himself just shy of the railing when she vanished over the edge, her arms out by her sides as she sailed backwards like she was anticipating the ocean tide to break her fall. She watched him grow smaller behind the fence as she let the cold rush of passing air fill her lungs, and once her body warmed it, she was ready to burn. "Let's play."
On the rooftop, Izumo cocked a brow at the sight of Andy hissing his bitter hatred towards the fiery spirit he'd lost track of, and soon, the energetic bluecoat was chasing her over the side. "I guess this is where we scatter, huh?" Izumo casually drawled his words, tipping his apologetic gaze towards where Seri looked as toxic as she ever did in blue. A weary sigh filled his chest as he pulled out his cigarettes and picked one from the pack, casually lighting it as the chaos unfolded. "That's a pretty scary face you're makin' over there, Seri-chan," he teased upon snapping his lighter shut. He took his light between his fingers, lowering the burning stick to exhale the smoke he'd taken in to calm his nerves. When he returned it, he curled his lips into a charming smile. "You have so many other desirable expressions to choose from, so why this one?"
As he fled the rush of royal-blue waves, the heavy patter of Izumo's shoes was hammering against the roof as Seri's clacking heels gave chase. Moments after the area had cleared, his palm was on the sky-high railing to help him vault over the gate lining the edifice. "What? Was it something I said?"
Seri didn't vault, she leapt cleanly into the sky and somersaulted into the strike she slammed into the air between them. "Kusanagi Izumo-san, you're under arrest!"
A thin crimson serpent coiled at his fingertips as he scattered the brick of the building at his back to create a deceptive smokescreen between them as they fell. "Well, hell, I kinda like the sounds of that." He was mildly apologetic when he considered the traffic beneath them, but these were matters out of his control. If Mikoto said burn, they burned, and they would do so until they got their way.
Seri landed on the street below to the sound of car horns blaring to ward off her sudden intrusion. She ignored them, too riled to be concerned over such trivial matters as she scanned the hazy area. As far as she was concerned, a smokescreen was the least of their worries when hooligans like HOMRA were on the move. Then, suddenly she felt a warm touch on her shapely hip, lining her back as a flirtatious whisper touched her ear.
"Over here, Seri-chan."
Seri's face ignited, and she felt the lag in her attack as she desperately struggled to settle her heart rate. By the time she whirled, that warmth had vanished entirely, and so had he. It caused her to pant ragged vehemence from the sidewalk that he'd encouraged her onto in place of the bustling intersection. "S-show yourself!"
From where he stood at the corner of the walkway with one hand in his jacket pocket, Izumo smiled calmly and waved at the livid lady. "Sorry, I couldn't resist."
She steadied her grip on her weapon, hoping to draw some assurance from the familiarity. "If you have no intentions of resisting, then come quietly," she thundered. "Maybe then I won't have to use force."
"Our little lion sure does get under your skin, doesn't she, Seri?" Izumo offered her a playful wink as he raised his extended index finger towards her stable guard, grinding his thumb into the straight line he made for her body as his other hand flicked the top from his lighter with a musical ring. "But as sweet as that sounds, I've got a job to do. So how about we talk about it later?"
Seri's eyes widened as he snapped his wrist back, commanding the swelling sparks from his lighter to race down the sidewalk towards her perfect form.
"Bang."
Neirah's laughter escalated as she bounded through the streets with blue waves of power racing past her conceited expression at Andy's command. "My, you have a lot of energy," she sang. Her eyes flashed with flame as she caught her breath and folded herself backwards over his clumsy parry. Her ivory boots noisily clattered when she wanted them too, and they sputtered bursts of flames that couldn't help ventilate from her body.
In the next instant, her fingers supported her legs above her head as she whirled her fanned feet in a broad circle, fire spiralling around her dynamic handstand. When she popped back onto her toes, she straightened to a flare like gasoline igniting on a calm water's surface. One hand stroked her tangled locks from her face as the other raised and commanded the resulting blaze towards her opponent. "I'm going to enjoy burning you out."
Andy didn't seem intimidated as he chopped his blade through the air like the flag a matador might wave. He sliced through her sudden burst, their aura's colliding in violet hues as her heat combined with his resistance drew sweat to his brow. "You're pretty quick yourself," he praised through a heaving grin. "But you don't scare me. Lions are just big cats, right?" He dropped his blade to his side and darted towards her casual posturing. "But to me, you look more like a kitten!"
Something about being undermined even in a way that sounded like a compliment boiled her blood. "You poor boy," she whispered between gritted teeth. "I'm afraid you're about to wish you never said that."
The flames reflected in the lustrous surface of Andy's widening gaze as Neirah drew the chain from her belt, unfurling the burning links until the weaving pattern of her weapon resembled a Chinese dragon. He immediately locked both hands on his hilt to reinforce his stance, waiting for the serpent to rear its ugly head, but he'd lost track of her within the coiling tempest. Then, as he'd anticipated, the fangs flashed when she pitched her first kunai straight from her shoulder toward his guard, its rough surface reflecting the streetlights before it bit.
He was quick to beat it away and charge headfirst toward the inferno, but it wasn't long after he struck the first away that she was snapping her toes against the chain and firing the second. After brushing off the next assault, he caught the sight of glowing violet eyes scorching with sadistic pleasure, and she turned her back on him for only a moment before retracting her weapon around his ankles.
He wasn't expecting her to use the slack of her weapon to bludgeon his blade, but he sharply defended in a bust of reassuring blue, shielding one eye as white-hot embers scattered from the collision. He gasped through locked molars when she winked at him, flopping slack chain over his blade to trap it between scalding links. Once she had the sword hostage, she heaved on his guard with a delighted roar, jerking him to the side.
With her fierce determination, Andy lost his balance against her unexpected strength, but he'd kept a hold on his sword when he toppled. He rolled to the side, sinking his boots into the asphalt to steady his slide before making eye-contact with the mighty beast again. Most people probably should have been as fearful as Neirah suggested, but for Andy, it was the opposite. He was exhilarated. "Wow. You're actually pretty tough, aren't you? I guess if anyone managed to take my sword from me, I'm glad it was you."
A gentle flush dusted Neirah's cheeks as she stood proudly and rolled a small section of her golden chain to fan her flame. "You flatter me, sir."
"Sir?" he jeered upon straightening to dust off his front. "I kinda like the sounds of that."
"Keep up, and you might hear it again."
Andy faltered, reminding himself of his purpose as he watched her bolt down the emptying street. "Oi, wait up!"
"I'll handle this one!" After dodging Saburōta's volleyed flames, Yūjirō charged his blade with a bright azure glow and sliced through the subsequent offence with focussed dedication.
It had been a while since Saburōta was able to stand against an enemy without his chastising clanmates picking apart his inadequacies. Maybe it was for that reason that he was so eager to cut loose against the man who had considered him enough of a threat to take responsibility for his interference. Either way, he was feeling pretty confident. "Man, this really pumps me up!" he yipped energetically. He rolled his right tonfa between his fingers before crossing his body with force, causing Yūjirō to cut through one last flash before their weapons collided.
When Yūjirō's blade knocked against Saburōta's protected forearm, Saburōta rotated, showing his back to the enemy in an attempt to crack Yūjirō in the ribs with his second offence. Before he could lay a hit, Yūjirō was swiftly pressuring his close-ranged enemy backwards with a defiant grunt, powering upwards to tumble through the air over his target's head. "Nice try. But sneak attacks won't work on a trained swordsman," he rumbled calmly.
An impatient growl rolled in Saburōta's throat as he ignited both of his weapons and charged back into battle. "Whose bein' sneaky?" he snapped. "I'm comin' at you straight down the middle!"
Yūjirō's tranquil demeanour didn't break as he beat back each attack Saburōta dealt with calculated precision. "You won't break through my defences with those clumsy attacks."
"I'll break what I wanna break!"
Both men staggered when a brilliant burst of flame combusted between their struggle before a glowing cord jerked out of their midst to a passionate holler. "It looks like you're making trouble for my wolf, and that won't do!"
Yūjirō barely had time to be surprised when Neirah's leg was rounding her head to crash into the blunted edge of his sword, throwing it in the opposite direction of Saburōta. "What?! Where did you come from?!" He ducked to the side and lunged out of her striking range when her dainty balled fist rocketed through the flames towards his head. "That was close!"
"Oi! Onē-san, you can't just steal a man's fight like that!" Saburōta growled lowly and pursued the interruption with his fingers weaving his baton in a flaming circle. "That's totally uncool!"
"Heads up! Two against one isn't fair!"
Saburōta jerked his attention towards the skies that had previously delivered Neirah only to meet Andy's energetic smirk. "Keh?! What the hell!?"
Yūjirō flinched, narrowly dodging Neirah's bombardment to catch the notice of Andy flipping his way around Saburōta's impatient chase. "Dōmyōji! I said that one was mine!" A winded bark locked in his chest as Neirah raised her boot behind his distraction and beat him forward by his tailbone.
"Actually, I found him, so he's mine!" she nearly snarled through her bashful pout. When Yūjirō quickly recovered and swept his sword towards her, Neirah walked over her hands until she was where her comrade required her support. She caught the frustrated glint in quiet brown eyes as she danced her way back into the fray with a delicate chortle.
After straightening, she spiralled her chain around her lean frame, using her surging aura from the boiling links to protect her from Yūjirō's final assault on her departure. "Bandō, baby," she purred.
It was humiliating enough to be passed around opponents that wouldn't take him as seriously as he initially thought. Then, when he heard Neirah call to him in her cute sing-song voice, his nerves burned with intolerance until his cheeks flushed beneath his shades. "Would you quit callin' me that?!" But as bitter as he was, his cheeks still flushed with bashful fondness as he beat Andy's sword away with one reinforced forearm before raising the other for Neirah to vault off. "It's bad for a man's pride!"
Despite their playful dispute, Saburōta fluidly picked up on her unspoken command, supporting her elegant leap as she powered off the dark bar lining his arm. Just as she wound her body into an aerial tumble, he could have sworn there was sheepish colour in her face too. "Is anything good for your pride?" She only asked because she'd never heard him take a compliment, so it was genuine curiosity.
Saburōta took it as a staggering invitation to do some research, and that distracting thought wasn't as productive as he'd like. "A-ah, I could think of a few things." He muttered his suggestion in a mild voice and sheepishly scratched at his face, but he was quickly reminded of his reality when Yūjirō rushed his unfocused form.
Andy growled the moment he lost sight of his swift target and was quick to give chase. "Benzai, I'll leave this goof to you! I'm goin' after the lion!"
A dull groan rattled in Yūjirō's chest as he watched the pair depart as quickly as they'd come. "I said I'd deal with him, to begin with… Was all that completely necessary?"
"Screw both of you," Saburōta hissed with an impatient stamp of his foot. "How 'bout you two fight and I'll go after the lion!?"
After Saburōta's encouraging boost, Neirah took her chase to the air between buildings, darting between window ledges and folding herself over balconies. "Are you still back there?" Her shrill squeal was almost musical as she gripped a railing, lurching off the strength of her fingertips to narrowly avoid the cool burn of his sword slicing the steel.
"Does that answer your question?" Andy ground through an eager smirk. "I won't give up that easily, even if you are fast!" She'd disrespected their captain, their lieutenant, their ways. But most importantly, it took him hours to polish her fingerprints off his sword. "If anyone's gonna arrest HOMRA's lion, it's gonna be me!"
Neirah bounced off the brick behind her before plummeting over where he advanced, her boots striking the pavement of the quiet street they charged down. "I'm most impressed," she cooed. "And that's no easy feat."
An impish chuckle caught in his throat as he powered off his perch, flipped backwards and sailed back on track with the spirited huntress. "Yeah, I kinda got that from what that other red guy said." He successfully outmaneuvered the lash of her chain as it buckled the street beneath his feet. "He didn't seem too happy about you jumpin' into his fight back there."
Neirah recalled her shackles and whirled in an attempt to cross the street against Andy's resistance. "That's irrelevant. Wolf-kun is mine to protect." Despite Saburōta's every effort to impress her, she would much rather stunt his pride if it meant keeping him safe.
Andy beat one of her darts away, bounding off the building behind him to skip its return. "Really? I thought you were with that punk-ish skateboarding guy? That's what Fushimi said, wasn't it?"
Oh? For a moment, she locked her chain between her hands and satisfied her curiosity. "Does Fushimi-san talk about me often?"
Andy derisively snorted as he landed with both hands around the hilt of his blade, crashing into the pavement between them and sending his force straight towards her. "Yeah right. He barely talks at all unless you people are involved!"
You people. Closing her eyes, she smiled humbly to herself and lost track of her thoughts for a moment, sidestepping his rush of power with a delicate tut. "How disappointing."
After leaping into a forward somersault, Andy's sabre slashed into Neirah's boiling chain strike, jerking the weapon from between dedicated palms before he landed. Once his feet planted on the road behind her, he lunged. Unfortunately, Neirah's reflexes were swift enough that, once she was unarmed, she drew the kunai from her belt and whirled to pitch it at him amidst a brilliant flare.
"Woo, touchy subject?" Andy yipped roguishly from behind his blue guard. "That was pretty unexpected. You're kinda crazy, huh? But in a good way."
Neirah ignored his clumsy prattle. "If you're prying into my love-life looking for a date, I wouldn't bother," she drawled in a sultry tone. "As single as I am, crushing on me would be bad for your health."
Andy outwardly laughed as she reclaimed her chain weapon, drawing them to a standstill in the street. "Oh, don't worry about that," he teased. He dropped his sword over his shoulder and let it tap a couple of times. "I think I could handle crazy, but just not your crazy."
Neirah struck, sending their weapons into a choir of musical collisions forcing each of them to stay on their toes. "What an outlandish redundancy," she sassed.
"Eh? Wait, you can't be mad at me for being interested and not being interested at the same time."
Her smile broadened as she wrapped her chain around his sword. Once she'd captured it, she spun into his chest, jerking her elbow into his solar plexus before heaving on his weapon. "That's hypocrisy."
Andy winced with her strike but refused to release his blade. When she jerked him forward, he let the momentum carry him over her head so he could snatch his weapon free. He landed gracefully, keeping his balance with one hand as the other reapplied his sword's menace. "Man, you use too many big words, and it's kinda confusing, but in a good way."
Neirah whirled on her heels and smiled at him over her shoulder. "So, you like intelligent girls?"
"Sure!" he admitted frankly. "But not you. You're scary."
"In a good way?"
"Nope. Just the regular not interested kind."
"That's good, 'cause I'm not lettin' you lay a finger on her!"
Andy yelped, scattering to the flaming burst of a kick that nearly took off his nose. He dodged the heat to one side until his back struck Akira's and startled them both into turning their swords on one another. "Oh! Hidaka! What's up?"
Eh? Akira seemed bemused by his sudden partner swap, still slightly floored by Rikio's ability to be somewhere he wasn't in less than a second. "Dōmyōji-san? Wait, where'd the big guy go?"
Rikio snorted gruffly behind Neirah as he narrowed his gaze on the sight of the boys interacting. "This little punk's askin' for it," he growled under his breath. "Chasin' you around like that. Just wait 'til Chitose finds out."
After winding her chain around her palms, Neirah tipped her head back so she could look up at Rikio's looming posture lingering with his arms folded over his chest. "To be honest, it was kind of my fault for leading him on."
A bashful Andy immediately jerked his flustered attention to where Neirah was deriding his purpose. "Oi! Didn't you hear me already?! You're crazy, lady, and I still owe you one for what you did to Excalibur!"
Neirah's calm smile broadened as the memories filled her. It wasn't too long ago that the same boys taking a brave stand against her were just fledglings in the supernatural world. They'd come a long way since that day at the mall. "Ri-chan?"
Rikio responded by locking his scowl on their combined targets, and he rolled his knuckles beneath his free hand.
A couple of streets over, a steel pole locked with a sword, making the night ring with the collision of alloys and bitter curses. "Saruhiko…" Misaki growled through his teeth. "If you think I'm gonna let you walk away from this after all you did, you're dead wrong!"
Saruhiko sniggered deviously and leaned all of his force into Misaki's persistence. "What's this? Aren't you going to help your girlfriend?"
An entertained snort rushed out of Misaki's chest as his sinister smirk broadened. "Ch'ye right! After she's done fuckin' up your little pals, her and I are gonna take you down together!"
Pals. It grated on Saruhiko's nerves to have Misaki instantly consider that his new clan had so seamlessly replaced his old one. He didn't make friends with any reds, and he had no intention of befriending any blues. He didn't need anyone. All he needed was control of his fate. With a sudden surge of blue aura, Saruhiko broke their standoff, forcing Misaki to leap away from the swift strike to follow. "As romantic as that sounds, I'm not interested," Saruhiko droned upon fixing his spectacles against his nose. His eyes flashed when they opened to lock on his target and fill with a vengeance. "Nothing is interesting about a woman who can't figure out what she wants in this world."
Shrill clanging of weapons colliding between entangling auras deafened the combatants as Misaki beat off Saruhiko's fierce slashes. "Dumbass! All she wanted was to be your friend!" he thundered in opposition. "Was that too much to ask for?!" Their blades locked again for a moment before Misaki was dropping and kicking his foot towards Saruhiko's boots, which immediately fled the impact. "She's not your fucking doormat! She's a human being with feelings and shit!"
When Saruhiko landed nearby, he was staggered by Misaki's words, not the brute force to clamour against his skilled defence. "Hold on," Saruhiko hummed casually. His intense leer tapered on his old friend as his wicked beam broadened. "Could it be? Have you actually fallen in love with Tsukiyo?"
Saruhiko's words managed to make contact with Misaki using enough force that the riled warrior was stumbling over his own feet and crashing into the street without being the victim of Saruhiko's sword at all. Embarrassed by his blunder, Misaki quickly scrambled to his feet and steadied his polearm in both hands. "Y-yeah right! E-everyone knows that-"
"That what?" Saruhiko's instigation was merciless as his wild gaze sparkled with intrigue. "Say it!" he commanded. "Everyone knows that she always liked me better!" Saruhiko's heart started to race when Misaki's once playful expression clouded over maliciously. "That's it, isn't it?" he droned. "You're just pissed off that she never noticed you when you were standing next to me."
"That's not true," Misaki snarled beneath his breath. "Tsukiyo's not like that." She was his friend and one who was there to make him smile after his closest friend deserted him. They laughed together, and she cared. She cared more than Saruhiko had the day he abandoned their life together.
"How does it feel?!" Saruhiko protested vehemently. "Tell me, Misaki! What does it feel like knowing that that one person you care about the most doesn't even know you exist?!"
In a sudden surge of ferocious flames, Misaki launched across the street and collided with Saruhiko, sending both of them down the pavement in a violent scuffle. "Bastard! Don't you dare talk about Tsukiyo like you ever cared to know a fucking thing about her!" he raged to the sound of alloy's colliding. "The things she likes or doesn't like. The way she feels." With a rebellious bark, he swept his polearm across his front with enough force that Saruhiko was encouraged to leap out of the trajectory. It was all in her eyes, and Misaki couldn't consciously recall a time where Saruhiko had ever just quietly absorbed the secrets that she tried to conceal behind them.
And what infuriated him the most was that, most recently, when Misaki looked in her eyes during quiet moments, all she saw was the pain. She missed Saruhiko, and he knew that. He wasn't bitter about it because of a petty rivalry. He was livid because that undying admiration went wasted on someone who didn't care to reciprocate her comradery. "You don't know a damn thing about her," he grated in a furious hiss. "If you did, you never would've betrayed her like you did the rest of us."
"That's right, I did betray her, didn't I?" Saruhiko spat rancorously. "I betrayed your precious Tsukiyo and your beloved HOMRA."
'You betrayed me, asshole,' Misaki mused with aching heartbeats thundering hard in his chest.
"I even betrayed. your. king."
Misaki's wild expression hardened with rage.
"So, come and get me-"
And he attacked.
"Misaki!"
Neirah could interact seamlessly with nearly any of her friends during combat, but she excelled as a solo hunter. Andy finally lost track of her somewhere between Masaomi and Kōsuke, but she lingered pressed to admit that she was grateful for a moment to catch her breath. He was certainly persistent. She closed her eyes as she left the commotion behind, feeling the wind in her hair as she rushed through the vacant street. She was wind and fire, and flames didn't whimper, they-
Suddenly, Neirah's breath rushed from her lungs past her fading smile in a forceful blast nearly powerful enough to choke her. Wide eyes floated between planes of existence as she froze in place, tears burning against her ducts as she struggled to keep her hand from embracing the ache in her chest. Outwardly, all anyone would see was a surprised woman lingering on the realization that two worlds were about to collide, but on the inside, she wanted to scream.
"I know what you're going to say," a smooth voice drawled upon their steady approach. Boot heels clicked towards her against the street as a kind song filled the night. "And yes. I did run all the way here." The gentle rattle of plastic frames folding in his hand caused Neirah's breathing to hitch even more painfully in her burning lungs as he stuffed red glasses into his blue jacket pocket. His smile was bright and sincere. "Not that it's all too surprising since I've been trying to keep up with you since middle school." Gentle fingers combed back his side-swept ashy brown bangs as his dark brunet gaze tilted to meet hers. "But I'm here now. Ready to be a part of your world."
She could feel it, tugging at her lips as she fought the wave of emotions crashing into her wracked body. The song of his sword sliding fluidly from its sheath rung in her ears as he rotated it a couple of times by his wrist before steadying it vertically in front of his familiar face. She didn't know which one of them was more surprised when her smile burst across her face and twisted until her excitement shone through the sparkle in wide sapphire eyes.
"Okazaki, ready."
Without another word, her body burst into flames, to which her typically skittish friend hadn't budged. Pride swelled beneath her breast as she unfurled her chain amidst the heat on approach. The moment his blade collided with her shackles, it chased the first anxious scream from within her, and her enthusiasm intensified. She wove her weapon elegantly through the air, not a bit frustrated when Gin batted every assault away with one hand remaining folded behind his back.
He was trying not to touch her, letting their weapons speak instead. She wanted to cry. Neirah had never been so elatedly relieved in all of her life, not that Gin would notice that when she flipped her chain over his head and jerked his legs out from beneath him.
Gin tumbled clumsily, barking his discomfort when his skull bounced off the street. Honestly, it still hurt less than Misaki's skateboard to his temple. After being distracted only momentarily, Gin's eyes flew open to regain focus when he felt the mortal world fall from beneath him.
When brown eyes met blue, emotions raged between two starstruck comrades lingering in a moment they shared amid combining worlds. Neirah had mounted his chest, her knees pinching either side of the blue uniform coat he shared with his new clanmates. She was radiant, and streetlights flashed in her glassy gaze as it burned with a flame he'd never been able to see before. And he could feel it in her touch that seared into his memory for him to hold closest to his racing heart.
His lips barely parted to speak his triumph through his huffing breaths. "I think this is the first time you've ever touched me," he murmured tenderly.
Neirah's smile didn't fade as she leaned down and let unkempt auburn tresses frame his gentle face. Her lips were a breath away from his as she curled her head to one side, her dazzling smile flashing the sadistic warning whispered. "Welcome to my world, Gin."
It was in the next moment that Gin remembered that even if they were finally on the same page, they were enemies in the story unfolding before them. His fond gaze widened alertly to the sight of her slipping a knife from beneath the lustrous curtain of hair lining her back, nimbly weaving it between her fingers before lunging. He bared his teeth nervously, rolling his head to one side to avoid the strike as he slipped both palms beneath her knees and the concrete.
He heaved on her lean frame with all his might, thrusting muscular thighs off his torso to reluctantly free himself from her nearness. She used the momentum to propel herself, turning her fall into an elegant airborne layout before landing on her feet with an eager hiss. "This is for ignoring all of my messages!" She folded her arm across her chest before savagely pitching her free knife through the air at breakneck speeds.
With an embarrassed chuckle, Gin's single-handed cartwheel bounded to the left, laying his hand against his sabre to reclaim it in the process. "Sorry about that!" Once he was back on his feet, he popped the blade into the air to capture it in his right hand, noting how convenient his ambidexterity was in the heat of battle. "I had to work pretty hard to catch up with everyone else," he reassured her casually. But that was just Gin. When he set his mind to something, nothing could stand in his way. It was a trait that Munakata Reisi was particularly fond of when the persistent youth all but begged his attention. He was resilient and focussed, and finally, he was ready to be a part of her life.
After retrieving his blade with a playful twirl, he calmly deflected the knife that she threw across her body. He was rather fond of the exhilarated heaving of her chest beneath her HOMRA brand, and the last time he saw a smile that broad on her face, she was talking about Tatara. It was a nice feeling that left him warm from his head to the tips of his toes.
Gin gave his wrist another playful spin, letting his blade reflect her mesmerizing flames now that he understood why they burned. He returned his free hand to where it folded by the base of his spine, straightening confidently in her wake. It was time for them to talk, and even if they didn't say another word, he was ready to understand her. "HOMRA's Red Lion," he purred proudly. "I don't have a fancy name, but I'd like it if we could do this more often."
"Well, if that's what you'd like-" The street between them burst into flames as her double layout saw her chain looping between them in a whirlwind of swelling auras. "Then you'd best live long enough for a second date!"
His sunny smile was as sincere as it'd ever been as sparks glittered in the humid air between them. "Naturally!"
