To Lyger 0: A little more than Ryoku could manage while also trying to fight the other two!
To Butterfly: Let's see how Luka will get them out of this one…
To yellow 14: "Second Chance time" is not as easy to write as it sounds! Luka accepting the no-win was a pretty big part of the story for him.
"No!" Viperion's heart stopped as he watched Ryoku fall to the floor, collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. Kamiyama stood over her, battle-rage in his eyes, and flexed his arms against the hammer in his hands. Viperion looked down at his wrist: Second Chance had ended. He had made his choice, and now he would have to live with it. There was nothing he could do for her now but end the fight as quickly as possible. Then he could worry about the consequences of his decision.
On the far side of the room, Kamikangae stumbled to his feet, shaking his head in confusion, bracing himself against the wall. Without a moment's hesitation, Viperion spun around to build momentum and launched the shattered end of Kamisenshi's katana across the room at Kamikangae, piercing his shoulder and pinning him to the wall behind him. Kamikangae moaned in pain as blood trailed down his arm from the injury. He fumbled to press his uninjured hand against the wound to slow the bleeding, his brows knit together in pain. Viperion's eyes lit up with fury: the time for niceties was over.
Even before the katana tip had struck, Viperion had already turned back toward Kamisenshi, throwing a roundhouse kick at his head. Kamisenshi jumped away but not far enough; Viperion's foot still caught him in the shoulder and knocked him to the floor. The moment his feet were back on the ground, Viperion stomped Kamisenshi's wrist to break his grip on the katana handle and kicked it out of his hand before he could try using it as a weapon. Kamisenshi surged to his feet, wakizashi held out, but before he could gain his footing, Shiro rammed his knee into Kamisenshi's chin, knocking him backward. Kamisenshi struck the back of his head against the wall and slid down to the floor. In the same motion, Shiro snatched the wakizashi out of Kamisenshi's grip with his free hand, spinning around and crossing his blades centimeters from Okamura's throat.
"Now we revisit your 'offer' of last night, Oyabun!" Shiro declared, glaring down at Okamura, trapped between his blades and the café wall.
Viperion turned away from Shiro the moment Kamisenshi went down, hurling his lyre at Kamiyama with a vengeance. Kamiyama still stood over Ryoku, hammer raised. Ryoku's chest rose slightly as she drew in a ragged breath, though her eyes remained clenched shut, brows furrowed in pain. Kamiyama clenched his hammer's handle and swung. Viperion's lyre ricocheted off the wall behind Kamiyama and struck him in the back of the wrist. His hammer dropped to his side, barely missing landing on Ryoku's head. Kamiyama glared at Viperion in a fury.
"You're going to pay for that!" Viperion spat, eyes narrowed in rage.
"And what are you going to do, little man?" Kamiyama scoffed. "I could break you over my knee without breaking a sweat!"
"Try it." Viperion launched himself at Kamiyama in a ferocious assault, arms outstretched. Kamiyama lifted his hammer from the ground and swung down at Viperion's back as he came into range, but Viperion contorted himself to one side, allowing the hammer to swing past him into the destroyed floor. Catching Kamiyama around the waist in a bear hug, he drove the enormous man off-balance. Kamiyama stumbled back and swung his arms to regain his balance, but Viperion planted his feet on the ground and pushed, lifting one of Kamiyama's feet off the floor and tipping him over backwards, sending him crashing down to the ground.
Viperion landed on Kamiyama's chest and punched him in the face, over and over. Blind rage took control. He could still see the look of shock in Ryoku's eyes as she had died the first time. He could still see her bruised and bleeding, pinned to the wall by shards of flying wood. He could still hear her anguished scream when Kamiyama broke her shoulder. He could still see her head bent at an odd angle, see the knife protruding from her neck, see the wall collapsing on top of her – and all of that in the last five minutes! He could still see her as Il Pirata decapitated her, as a wall fell on top of her that spring, as her head exploded when she was shot last winter. All of those deaths, all of those injuries he had undone so she couldn't remember them. But he had witnessed all of them. He still remembered. He still saw them when he closed his eyes. He still woke up to the memory. And this time, Ryoku lay on the floor only a couple meters behind him, clinging to life. But he couldn't undo this one. With a frenzied yell he grabbed Kamiyama's hair and slammed his head back into the destroyed wooden floor.
Kamiyama blinked in confusion, tried to move his head, lifted his arms to fight back. Reaching behind him, Viperion's hand closed around the handle of Kamiyama's own hammer. Even with his miraculous-enhanced strength, he could barely lift it from the floor. The hammer head crashed to the ground next to Kamiyama's head. The villain stared up at Viperion, eyes wide, pupils dilated in shock and fear. Viperion rolled the hammer to the side, laying the handle shaft across Kamiyama's throat. Then he pushed down with all his might, holding it steady with both hands. Kamiyama struggled for a minute, coughing out garbled words as he scrabbled against Viperion's arms and wrists, but his movements slowed and became feebler. Finally he collapsed, his arms dropping limply to the floor. Viperion pressed two fingers to the man's throat: his pulse was weak but present.
For the first time in hours, the tea shop was still.
"Do it!" Okamura hissed on the other side of the shop, glaring up at Shiro through slitted eyes. "It won't change anything!"
"No," Shiro agreed, tightening his grip on his swords' handles. "My father is still dead. Because of you."
"Then end it already."
Shiro drew the blades together, pricking Okamura and tracing thin lines of blood along either side of his neck. Then he hesitated. His arms shook from the tension of holding the blades steady. "No." Shiro withdrew his swords, wiping the katana's blade and sheathing it before adjusting his grip on the wakizashi. "Father would not want me to become a murderer." Wailing police sirens approached on the street. "Instead, you are going to answer for your crimes."
Viperion set his jaw firmly and turned to Ryoku, who still hadn't moved. Carefully he slipped his arms under her shoulders and knees, scooping her up into his arms, resting her broken arm on her chest and cradling her lolling head against his shoulder. Shiro still hadn't taken his eyes off of Okamura, who remained motionless in his chair. Without another word, Viperion sprinted through the shop's front door, running past a group of surprised police officers standing on the sidewalk.
Where was the closest hospital? He hadn't thought to look before they started – or even during their fight. Viperion hesitated, turning in either direction – he should have taken the time to find out during a Second Chance. His jaw clenched and he hugged Ryoku tighter: yet another regret, another mistake he had made. A helicopter cut across the sky overhead, and he looked up just in time to make out the red-and-white coloration of an ambulance helicopter. Looking in the direction of its flight, he found what he was looking for: a hospital sign off in the distance. His grip tightened, holding Ryoku close to his chest as he took off at a dead sprint toward that sign. The scenery whipped past him faster than he could take it in, all his attention on the girl in his arms and the hospital in front of him. Taking the intersection in front of him without breaking stride or slowing down, he ignored the car horns that rang out behind him. The hospital was less than a kilometer away now. Now less than a quarter of a kilometer. Viperion raced across the parking lot, eyes trained on the emergency room entrance. All he could think about was getting Kagami the help she needed.
Wait.
"Sass, scales rest," he whispered, ducking behind a car as the light of his transformation washed over him and Sass appeared next to his head. Shifting his grip on Ryoku, he reached behind her neck and found the clasp of her choker. Her transformation dissolved as he removed her miraculous and Longg emerged from the gem on the front of it.
"What happened?" Longg demanded, blinking in confusion. He froze, staring at Kagami in shock. "Kagami…"
"Not now," Luka retorted curtly. "Hide." Even before the Kwamis had disappeared into his pockets, he was back up and running toward the hospital. Though her weight hadn't changed, he felt every kilogram of it now that he no longer had his miraculous-enhanced strength on his side.
The hospital doors slid apart automatically as he reached them. "T–Tasukete!" he gasped the moment he was inside. "Please!"
A nurse rushed over, a serious look in her eyes. "Dō shita?" she demanded, her eyes immediately drifting down to Kagami's arm, which rested at an odd angle.
"I–I–" He swallowed back bile, forcing himself to speak clearly. He couldn't think – not in Japanese, at least. "She got hit – in the head. Her–her arm–"
The nurse nodded curtly as an orderly appeared with a gurney. "Place her here, please," the nurse instructed him. No sooner had he laid her on the gurney than two orderlies pushed her through another door. The door slid shut behind them, and Luka saw her no more. Hardly aware of what was happening, he allowed the nurse to guide him over to the desk and place a clipboard in his hands. "Please fill this out, sir."
Luka grabbed the clipboard and stumbled over to a chair in the waiting area. All of his energy had drained. He couldn't move, couldn't think. Surreptitiously, Sass and Longg phased out of his pockets and sat down in his lap, hidden by the clipboard. Longg removed the choker from Luka's limp grip and gently affixed it onto his wrist opposite the Snake Miraculous. Sass patted Luka's hand consolingly. Finally the two Kwamis massaged his palms, trying to draw his attention back to his surroundings, though Luka paid them no heed.
Only one thought ran through his mind.
Would she be okay?