Final Reaction
A Blue Seed Fic by Tobu Ishi
Of course I don't own Blue Seed, you foolish copyright enforcer. Also, if the quotation marks in this show up as rectangles, please blame my Notepad program, not moi. Arigatou!
-part 3-
*koffkoffhack...*
Grimacing, Momiji reached for another tissue to add the heap in her wastebasket. The sneezing had stopped sometime overnight, but her cough had settled deep into her chest, making her breath rattle thickly every time she inhaled...and she kept coughing up more of that awful green stuff. Worse, her temperature wouldn't stop shooting up and down the scale. One second she was shivering, the next she was baking to a crisp...
"Maybe I should call Mr. Kunikida after all," she wheezed, tossing the used tissue away in disgust. "Kusanagi was right...this is no cold. Maybe some Tylenol would help...?" Getting unsteadily to her feet, she started for the door-
-And nearly tripped over something on the floor. Across the room, the television came to life with a discordant squawk; Momiji let out a hoarse yelp of surprise and lost her balance, sitting down hard on the carpet.
"What the...?" she murmured, reaching for the thing she'd stepped on. It was the TV remote, of course. With a groan, she started to reach for the off button...
"...witnesses are claiming this is another attack by the so-called Aragami..."
"Aragami?" Momiji whispered, staring at the screen, which was filled with shots of screaming civilians, fleeing down the streets of what looked like the Shibuya district...except, the Shibuya district wasn't normally filled with masses of thorny vines...
"...and while a team of governmental defenders has arrived on the scene, can this handful of operatives really handle themselves against a monster of this size and strength? More live disaster footage coming up, here on the News at Noon!" Behind the bespectacled announcer, a closeup shot of the battle showed a young man in a red trench coat attacking the monster with a flying leap, only to be slammed viciously into the ground...
Momiji's face couldn't have gotten any paler; still, her stomach went cold.
"Kusanagi," she whispered, and stumbled to her feet. "Kusanagi!!"
Before she could think twice, Momiji bolted down the stairs, pulling on her jacket with clumsy fingers. It didn't matter if she felt a little under the weather-her friends needed her! They couldn't do this without her, they just couldn't-
A spasm of coughing forced her to a stop, leaning against the wall in the entry hall, her eyes squeezed shut as she fought for breath. Forcing air into her lungs, Momiji stood again, shoving her feet into her shoes and bolting out the door.
"I have to hurry," she half-gasped as she ran, her eyes focused firmly on her goal. "Kusanagi's always there for me...and now he needs me...
"I have to be there for him!"
Despite all its efforts, the rosebush Aragami shrank under the combined attacks of the TAC. Takeuchi and Kunikida's handguns weren't doing much, but between Koume and Kusanagi, they had the creature pretty well pinned down.
"We've almost got it!" Yaegashi cried, connecting leads like a madman.
Matsudera slid a cartridge of viscous-looking purple liquid into a slot in their machine, snapping it in place. "Right, that's it! All she needs is to be plugged in!"
Landing next to them, Kusanagi stared at the tiny contraption, which was hardly the size of both his fists put together. A long needle extended from one end.
"That's it?" he said, incredulous. "That's gonna wipe this thing out?"
"You've got it," Yaegashi agreed. "Mind sticking her in the Aragami for us? You're the fastest person here..."
Kusanagi grinned. "I guess you TAC folks still need me to do your dirty work, huh?" he said, snatching up the device. "Well, if you insist, I suppose-"
It was a sentence not destined to be finished. Looking up, Kusanagi's field of vision was filled with a single color: green. Before he could react, the vine struck him square in the center of mass, bunting him halfway down the street. The tiny device flew from his hand, clattering across the sidewalk and coming to rest under a parked car several blocks from any member of the TAC.
For a split second, all five operatives froze, stunned that the teenaged mutant had been caught so off-guard...and their hesitation was all the opening that the Aragami needed. Tendrils lashed out in every direction; the standing TAC members were nimble enough to jump out of the way, but Yagashi and Matsudera were still kneeling by their tool cases. Both of them went flying, much the same way that Kusanagi had a moment before. Matsudera hit the street and bounced twice before coming to a stop; Yaegashi's inadvertent attempt at flight was cut abruptly short by the trunk of a large tree, and he slid bonelessly to the ground, lying motionless among its roots...
"Oh, no," Kunikida groaned. "Matsudera!"
"Yaegashi!!" Koume's pretty face twisted into a mask of rage unlike anything she'd shown before in battle, as she whirled to face down the monster, whose inhuman hisses sounded almost smug. "All right, you stupid plant! You wanna play rough?!" she bellowed, yanking her rocket launcher into place on her shoulder. "You got it!!" Cocking the trigger with a sharp yank, she prepared to fire-
From where he sat up dazedly, one hand pressed to his forehead, Kusanagi thought for a moment that the slender figure sprinting down the street toward him was a figment of his battle-fogged brain... Suddenly, the loosely-tied ponytail and red-trimmed jacket clicked into place, and his eyes went wide with recognition...and alarm.
"M...Momiji?!"
Kusanagi's cry of shock reached Koume's ears, and she hesitated, glancing past the writhing stems of her adversary...but she was not the only one who'd heard. Instantly, a hundred razor-tipped stems spun loose from the rest of the Aragami like a cloth unraveling, shooting down the street toward the oncoming Kushinada...
Kusanagi tried to leap to his feet, but his body wouldn't obey him...
And Momiji stopped, her feet set firmly on the ground, her jaw set with determination, and held out a hand as if possessed with some overconfident madness...
"Stop!" she cried.
And to the amazement of everyone present...the tendrils froze.
They simply hovered in midair inches from Momiji's fingertips, trembling slightly, as if frightened...or fighting an unseen force.
"Impossible..." Takeuchi whispered, her eyes wide behind her low-hung bangs.
Momiji's face had tensed, as if she was struggling to support a heavy load. "Go!" she gasped, jerking her head at Kusanagi. "Get it...quick..."
Turning to look where she'd indicated, Kusanagi saw the little Aragami-melter protruding from behind the back wheels of the parked car it had landed under. He hesitated, then nodded to Momiji, deciding not to question this strange new ability of hers just then.
"Right!"
Leaping to his feet, he bolted across the street, diving beneath the car to reach for the device...
Beads of sweat popped out on Momiji's forehead, and her outstretched hand began to tremble, then to shake, as she fought tooth and nail to keep the Aragami tendrils leashed.
*Listen to me!* she cried desperately, no longer able to speak aloud, only thinking the words as hard as she could at the thing before her. *Don't you...dare...move!*
Watching helplessly from the sidelines, Kunikida pressed his lips together, praying for strength for them all.
Kusanagi's fingers brushed the metal casing of the machine, but it rolled further under the vehicle, drawing a choice string of cuss words from the mutant...
A gasping cry of effort squeezed from Momiji, and her vision went blurry, then doubled, orbiting itself dizzily. Breathing in short gasps, she struggled not to vomit again, as her knees suddenly seemed to turn to water beneath her. She gritted her teeth and forced herself back into reality. She had to hold on...just a little longer...! The vines before her twitched, pulling loose from whatever grip she had on them.
"Got it!" Kusanagi crowed, his hand closing around the device. At the same moment, the Aragami burst free, throwing a handful of thorny vines toward the distracted young man-
*BOOM!* "Die, you bullying scum!!" Koume screamed, as a mighty explosion blossomed where the attacking vines had been, barely missing the mutant himself. Struggling out from under the car, Kusanagi lurched to his feet, just in time to spot another wave of vines coming in fast on his left, ready to slice him in half. Spinning to face them, he drew back his arm and flung the needle-tipped gadget with all his strength!
It punched into the skin of the thing with an audible popping sound, instantly releasing the venom within it. For a heart-stopping moment, the vines continued their headlong rush toward the unprotected man...
And then, so suddenly that it seemed almost unreal, a look of complete transparency rushed up along the body of the creature, which trembled for a moment like a drop of water on the end of a spout, and then collapsed into a rush of liquid that tumbled down the street in all directions like a miniature flash flood. Within a few moments it had run away into the gutters, leaving the street empty of everything but a few heaps of rubble-turned-mud and the shaken, filthy, yet still-living TAC.
There was a long, frozen silence.
Then, at the foot of his tree, Yaegashi stirred, opening his eyes to stare at the wreckage of the street. "Wha...what happened...?"
The spell was broken. Koume dropped her gun where she stood and ran over to him, shouting and swearing and crying and laughing all at the same time. Kunikida and Takeuchi fell into each others' arms, gasping with relief. Across the street, Matsudera was also waking up, gazing around in appreciation at how well her idea had worked.
A block away, Kusanagi strode toward Momiji's unmoving form, ignoring the twinge in his side from where he'd fallen on the sidewalk. "Momiji, that was incredible! How did you..."
His voice trailed off as he saw her face. Momiji stared straight ahead, her eyes unfocused, pupils starkly black against the icy color of her face. She was so pale...and why was she breathing like that? In tiny, strangled gasps, as if something was choking her from within... Kusanagi felt a chill run up his back. He reached out to touch her face.
"Momiji?"
Somehow, his voice filtered through the rush of wind in Momiji's ears. At the moment the Aragami had broken free, it was as if someone had taken her world in a cup and upended it, sending her tumbling headfirst through the air, down and down and down...the street spun around her, and faded...faded, as she tried to hold on...
"Kusanagi," she choked, and her legs folded beneath her, as she drifted ever so gently to the ground, like a flower cut neatly from its stem.
*I...came...for you. I was...there....*
The smile in her heart never reached her lips. And then there was nothing left to feel.
________________________________________________
AN- YAAAAY!!! My computer is finally fixed!!! It's been unable to log online since October, and now, at last, I fixed it! ^_^ Thank you, Jen, wherever you are! (Jen was the nice nice lady at MSN Tech Support who helped me out with the tough stuff. God bless her. ^_^) Anyway, in celebration, I hereby publish the long overdue third installment of Final Reaction! I hope you enjoyed it; please show your appreciation by reviewing, and join in the celebration! *~*^_____^*~* -Tobu Ishi
A Blue Seed Fic by Tobu Ishi
Of course I don't own Blue Seed, you foolish copyright enforcer. Also, if the quotation marks in this show up as rectangles, please blame my Notepad program, not moi. Arigatou!
-part 3-
*koffkoffhack...*
Grimacing, Momiji reached for another tissue to add the heap in her wastebasket. The sneezing had stopped sometime overnight, but her cough had settled deep into her chest, making her breath rattle thickly every time she inhaled...and she kept coughing up more of that awful green stuff. Worse, her temperature wouldn't stop shooting up and down the scale. One second she was shivering, the next she was baking to a crisp...
"Maybe I should call Mr. Kunikida after all," she wheezed, tossing the used tissue away in disgust. "Kusanagi was right...this is no cold. Maybe some Tylenol would help...?" Getting unsteadily to her feet, she started for the door-
-And nearly tripped over something on the floor. Across the room, the television came to life with a discordant squawk; Momiji let out a hoarse yelp of surprise and lost her balance, sitting down hard on the carpet.
"What the...?" she murmured, reaching for the thing she'd stepped on. It was the TV remote, of course. With a groan, she started to reach for the off button...
"...witnesses are claiming this is another attack by the so-called Aragami..."
"Aragami?" Momiji whispered, staring at the screen, which was filled with shots of screaming civilians, fleeing down the streets of what looked like the Shibuya district...except, the Shibuya district wasn't normally filled with masses of thorny vines...
"...and while a team of governmental defenders has arrived on the scene, can this handful of operatives really handle themselves against a monster of this size and strength? More live disaster footage coming up, here on the News at Noon!" Behind the bespectacled announcer, a closeup shot of the battle showed a young man in a red trench coat attacking the monster with a flying leap, only to be slammed viciously into the ground...
Momiji's face couldn't have gotten any paler; still, her stomach went cold.
"Kusanagi," she whispered, and stumbled to her feet. "Kusanagi!!"
Before she could think twice, Momiji bolted down the stairs, pulling on her jacket with clumsy fingers. It didn't matter if she felt a little under the weather-her friends needed her! They couldn't do this without her, they just couldn't-
A spasm of coughing forced her to a stop, leaning against the wall in the entry hall, her eyes squeezed shut as she fought for breath. Forcing air into her lungs, Momiji stood again, shoving her feet into her shoes and bolting out the door.
"I have to hurry," she half-gasped as she ran, her eyes focused firmly on her goal. "Kusanagi's always there for me...and now he needs me...
"I have to be there for him!"
Despite all its efforts, the rosebush Aragami shrank under the combined attacks of the TAC. Takeuchi and Kunikida's handguns weren't doing much, but between Koume and Kusanagi, they had the creature pretty well pinned down.
"We've almost got it!" Yaegashi cried, connecting leads like a madman.
Matsudera slid a cartridge of viscous-looking purple liquid into a slot in their machine, snapping it in place. "Right, that's it! All she needs is to be plugged in!"
Landing next to them, Kusanagi stared at the tiny contraption, which was hardly the size of both his fists put together. A long needle extended from one end.
"That's it?" he said, incredulous. "That's gonna wipe this thing out?"
"You've got it," Yaegashi agreed. "Mind sticking her in the Aragami for us? You're the fastest person here..."
Kusanagi grinned. "I guess you TAC folks still need me to do your dirty work, huh?" he said, snatching up the device. "Well, if you insist, I suppose-"
It was a sentence not destined to be finished. Looking up, Kusanagi's field of vision was filled with a single color: green. Before he could react, the vine struck him square in the center of mass, bunting him halfway down the street. The tiny device flew from his hand, clattering across the sidewalk and coming to rest under a parked car several blocks from any member of the TAC.
For a split second, all five operatives froze, stunned that the teenaged mutant had been caught so off-guard...and their hesitation was all the opening that the Aragami needed. Tendrils lashed out in every direction; the standing TAC members were nimble enough to jump out of the way, but Yagashi and Matsudera were still kneeling by their tool cases. Both of them went flying, much the same way that Kusanagi had a moment before. Matsudera hit the street and bounced twice before coming to a stop; Yaegashi's inadvertent attempt at flight was cut abruptly short by the trunk of a large tree, and he slid bonelessly to the ground, lying motionless among its roots...
"Oh, no," Kunikida groaned. "Matsudera!"
"Yaegashi!!" Koume's pretty face twisted into a mask of rage unlike anything she'd shown before in battle, as she whirled to face down the monster, whose inhuman hisses sounded almost smug. "All right, you stupid plant! You wanna play rough?!" she bellowed, yanking her rocket launcher into place on her shoulder. "You got it!!" Cocking the trigger with a sharp yank, she prepared to fire-
From where he sat up dazedly, one hand pressed to his forehead, Kusanagi thought for a moment that the slender figure sprinting down the street toward him was a figment of his battle-fogged brain... Suddenly, the loosely-tied ponytail and red-trimmed jacket clicked into place, and his eyes went wide with recognition...and alarm.
"M...Momiji?!"
Kusanagi's cry of shock reached Koume's ears, and she hesitated, glancing past the writhing stems of her adversary...but she was not the only one who'd heard. Instantly, a hundred razor-tipped stems spun loose from the rest of the Aragami like a cloth unraveling, shooting down the street toward the oncoming Kushinada...
Kusanagi tried to leap to his feet, but his body wouldn't obey him...
And Momiji stopped, her feet set firmly on the ground, her jaw set with determination, and held out a hand as if possessed with some overconfident madness...
"Stop!" she cried.
And to the amazement of everyone present...the tendrils froze.
They simply hovered in midair inches from Momiji's fingertips, trembling slightly, as if frightened...or fighting an unseen force.
"Impossible..." Takeuchi whispered, her eyes wide behind her low-hung bangs.
Momiji's face had tensed, as if she was struggling to support a heavy load. "Go!" she gasped, jerking her head at Kusanagi. "Get it...quick..."
Turning to look where she'd indicated, Kusanagi saw the little Aragami-melter protruding from behind the back wheels of the parked car it had landed under. He hesitated, then nodded to Momiji, deciding not to question this strange new ability of hers just then.
"Right!"
Leaping to his feet, he bolted across the street, diving beneath the car to reach for the device...
Beads of sweat popped out on Momiji's forehead, and her outstretched hand began to tremble, then to shake, as she fought tooth and nail to keep the Aragami tendrils leashed.
*Listen to me!* she cried desperately, no longer able to speak aloud, only thinking the words as hard as she could at the thing before her. *Don't you...dare...move!*
Watching helplessly from the sidelines, Kunikida pressed his lips together, praying for strength for them all.
Kusanagi's fingers brushed the metal casing of the machine, but it rolled further under the vehicle, drawing a choice string of cuss words from the mutant...
A gasping cry of effort squeezed from Momiji, and her vision went blurry, then doubled, orbiting itself dizzily. Breathing in short gasps, she struggled not to vomit again, as her knees suddenly seemed to turn to water beneath her. She gritted her teeth and forced herself back into reality. She had to hold on...just a little longer...! The vines before her twitched, pulling loose from whatever grip she had on them.
"Got it!" Kusanagi crowed, his hand closing around the device. At the same moment, the Aragami burst free, throwing a handful of thorny vines toward the distracted young man-
*BOOM!* "Die, you bullying scum!!" Koume screamed, as a mighty explosion blossomed where the attacking vines had been, barely missing the mutant himself. Struggling out from under the car, Kusanagi lurched to his feet, just in time to spot another wave of vines coming in fast on his left, ready to slice him in half. Spinning to face them, he drew back his arm and flung the needle-tipped gadget with all his strength!
It punched into the skin of the thing with an audible popping sound, instantly releasing the venom within it. For a heart-stopping moment, the vines continued their headlong rush toward the unprotected man...
And then, so suddenly that it seemed almost unreal, a look of complete transparency rushed up along the body of the creature, which trembled for a moment like a drop of water on the end of a spout, and then collapsed into a rush of liquid that tumbled down the street in all directions like a miniature flash flood. Within a few moments it had run away into the gutters, leaving the street empty of everything but a few heaps of rubble-turned-mud and the shaken, filthy, yet still-living TAC.
There was a long, frozen silence.
Then, at the foot of his tree, Yaegashi stirred, opening his eyes to stare at the wreckage of the street. "Wha...what happened...?"
The spell was broken. Koume dropped her gun where she stood and ran over to him, shouting and swearing and crying and laughing all at the same time. Kunikida and Takeuchi fell into each others' arms, gasping with relief. Across the street, Matsudera was also waking up, gazing around in appreciation at how well her idea had worked.
A block away, Kusanagi strode toward Momiji's unmoving form, ignoring the twinge in his side from where he'd fallen on the sidewalk. "Momiji, that was incredible! How did you..."
His voice trailed off as he saw her face. Momiji stared straight ahead, her eyes unfocused, pupils starkly black against the icy color of her face. She was so pale...and why was she breathing like that? In tiny, strangled gasps, as if something was choking her from within... Kusanagi felt a chill run up his back. He reached out to touch her face.
"Momiji?"
Somehow, his voice filtered through the rush of wind in Momiji's ears. At the moment the Aragami had broken free, it was as if someone had taken her world in a cup and upended it, sending her tumbling headfirst through the air, down and down and down...the street spun around her, and faded...faded, as she tried to hold on...
"Kusanagi," she choked, and her legs folded beneath her, as she drifted ever so gently to the ground, like a flower cut neatly from its stem.
*I...came...for you. I was...there....*
The smile in her heart never reached her lips. And then there was nothing left to feel.
________________________________________________
AN- YAAAAY!!! My computer is finally fixed!!! It's been unable to log online since October, and now, at last, I fixed it! ^_^ Thank you, Jen, wherever you are! (Jen was the nice nice lady at MSN Tech Support who helped me out with the tough stuff. God bless her. ^_^) Anyway, in celebration, I hereby publish the long overdue third installment of Final Reaction! I hope you enjoyed it; please show your appreciation by reviewing, and join in the celebration! *~*^_____^*~* -Tobu Ishi