Chapter 7: Hiryuu the Flame Discovered
Hiryuu could smell the blood running from Red Rick's neck. It was unusually sweet smelling. The three men around him were watching him closely. Hiryuu was looking at the one on the left and he raised his hand with the revolver to his glasses taking them off and polishing them. The three men saw his eyes. Bright red with wide slits like a cat when it's hunting. He looked at all three of them directly in the eye. As he moved his eyes to the one on the right. The man on the left raised his gun and there was the sound of a shot. The man fell dead, while Hiryuu's eyes never left the man on the right. Red Rick shifted his weight a little and the knife pressed harder on his neck.
"Now, if the two of you drop all your weapons on the floor, and put your hands on your head, you can walk out alive," he said his eyes driving into the two who remained. About half a dozen guns and a dozen knives were suddenly dropped onto the ground. The men raised their hands behind their heads and swiftly walked out of the saloon.
Hiryuu jumped forward doing a flip off Red Rick and landing facing him, revolver aiming between the mans eyes.
"Do you want to fight fair or dirty?" Hiryuu said.
Red Rick saw Hiryuu's eyes and looked at them unable to answer. Hiryuu shot between Red Ricks feet.
"Give me an answer or die now."
"Dirty!" Rick said dodging left and firing seven shots into the chest of Hiryuu.
Hiryuu stood there. He looked down at his now running blood seeping down his shirt. Then looked at Red Rick, shocked.
"That is probably the fastest I have ever seen anyone fire other than me," Hiryuu said bluntly. "You want a dirty fight you got one."
A sickening scream came from the Old New Kansas Saloon as a round of gunfire suddenly burst out into the night. There was a deafening roar and the sound of a fire starting very quickly.
Then a huge creature burst through the front doorway, and fell to the ground in the street and lost consciousness.
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Several people looked at the monster lying on the ground as the saloon burned. No one was closer to it than twenty yards. Kristyn moved to the front of the small crowd. She saw the creature. The light of the fire danced upon it, making it's red scales shimmer. Ridges ran down its back from head to tip of the tail. Its claws were nine inches long and metallic. It was fourteen feet long with wings that had a thirty foot wingspan if they were open. They were retracted to its sides and had similar metallic claws. Its body was finely carved with strong muscles. Its arms were built very much like a man's but three times the size and its legs were extremely thick with muscles.
Someone from the crowd pulled out a rifle and started to approach the giant animal. He cocked the gun and got right next to the dragon and gave it a little nudge in the back with his foot. Black liquid was pooling below the animal. It was bleeding heavily all over its back and stomach. They were holes from gunshots. The man noticed it was breathing very slowly. Its side rose about an inch and fell back every ten or so seconds. The man quickly backed away.
Kristyn stared at the monstrous beast. David hadn't lied. Hiryuu the Flame was a dragon. This explained why he used flame as his weapon. Kristyn had only seen dragons in children's books about knights in shining armor in some magical land.
One of the two Red Boys who had escaped the monster of an outlaw walked toward it and pulled a small handgun out. He shot the monster in the head several times. Its breathing stopped. The black blood ran out its mouth and its jaw hung open a little showing its teeth were stained red. But its own blood was black. It had killed Red Rick. The man shot the monster again and again until all his gun did was click its hammer at an empty chamber. He started beating the thing's head with his foot.
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Toyuki approached the emperor and his wife. The sword in his hand felt as though it had a power over him he raised the sword and felt it come down through the shoulder of the man before him. He pulled it out and cut through the emperor's wife as well. Then he raised it once more and looked at the girl.
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"Toyuki!" his sister screamed just before the blade entered her neck. His sister fell into the bed headless. Toyuki ran to his room and hid in a small chest. He heard the sound of a sword slashing and slashing and slashing. After ten minutes the slashes had died down to squishing sounds then just a sword slicing through fabric of a mattress. Two days Toyuki waited in the chest. When he got out he went to the room where his sister, whom he had so loved, was. He opened the door and screamed.
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"Koyumi!" the girl screamed.
The sword clattered to the ground. Toyuki fell on his hands and knees. He turned and saw the boy peering through the door. The boy walked in. He saw the bloody figures on the ground and tears filled his eyes. Toyuki picked up the sword again feeling its power winding through him. He turned the blade towards himself and pushed it through his heart.
It was two feet into him, but never came out the other side. Toyuki fell to the ground. The two children ran out of the room, out of the palace, out of Kyoto. Toyuki could still see. Oddly he felt his senses becoming stronger, his vision sharpened, and his hearing became extremely clear, his sense of smell became strong enough to decipher between the blood of the two dead bodies in front of him. Then his sense of feeling seemed to die away. He could just barely tell that he was touching the floor. He couldn't move, though he didn't try to. A pool of black liquid was pouring from his chest.
Suddenly there was a huge light and Toyuki felt as though his entire body was on fire. He saw the flames engulfing him in the mirror next to him. He watched in horror and agony as his body changed. The sword disappeared into his chest and he suddenly rapidly increased in size. His arms and legs distorted and grew. His back extended past his legs and felt as though it was widening past his sides. His face lengthened, his muscles and innards twisted and distorted wildly. Then the pain and the fire and the changing stopped. Toyuki opened his eyes and flew backwards away from the mirror crashing into a pillar holding up the roof. The roof creaked threateningly and Toyuki burst through the doors sending shards of wood everywhere. He shoved his way through the hallway, the walls giving way to his width. It led to the next one and out to the stairs in the massive spacious foyer. At the bottom was the old woman.
"You failed, you are cursed to forever suffer through killing, and not being killed," the woman said. He felt himself propelled forward and the woman vanished. He charged through the giant palace doors and ran down the steps tripping and crashing down them under his new awkward weight proportions. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked back as some of the roof came crashing down causing another portion of the palace to calapse and another until it was only a stairway to wooden ruins.
Suddenly Toyuki felt a great hunger. He knew what it was he needed, but he couldn't stop himself. He roared in protest to his muscles propelling him toward the city full of people.
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The man's feet were throbbing with pain as he and his partner kicked the beast, thinking it was dead. Hiryuu's eyes suddenly opened as they proceeded to beat him. The man kicking his head froze. He backed away slowly, the eye following him backwards. Several of the people gasped as they noticed the dragon's eyes studying them. He started to get up and people started screaming and running away. The man who had remained beating the dragon looked up at it as it got up, he was having a heart attack. The razor claws entered his chest and Hiryuu threw him at the blazing pile that was once a building.
Kristyn tried to pull Myra away but Myra was fixed to the spot. Hiryuu got up on his hind legs towering over the two girls. Someone had pulled out a gun and started shooting wildly at him. He returned a ball of fire to the man and the man ran screaming blindly into the funeral pyre of the Old New Kansas Saloon.
Hiryuu looked back at the two girls and opened his wings. He jumped upwards and thrust himself into the air. Hiryuu flew west until he couldn't keep himself in the air from blood loss and dropped to the ground roughly. He reverted to his human form and started walking west,red blood trailing him in the sand.
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Myra stood there looking at the flaming building. Kristyn had tried to pull her.
"Myra we have to follow him, we need to go, now!" she said, Myra saw a car approaching from the east.
"Hey you, stop!" Myra said, running towards the car. Her gunstrap snapped as she ran and she picked up the giant gun and put it on her shoulder. The driver saw the fire and Myra with the gun and ditched his jeep. Myra got in and revved the engine. She threw sand into the air as she drove off and stopped fast to pick up Kristyn.
"Get in we're going to help Hiryuu!" Myra said. Kristyn had little choice.
Myra gunned the engine and shifted the gears grinding them terribly.
"Myra!" Kristyn said as they sped through the city as people dodged them. "Have you ever driven a car?"
"Nope!" Myra answered beaming at Kristyn.
"EYES ON THE ROAD!"
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Hiryuu heard an engine roaring behind him. He saw the lights of the car two miles away. He looked at the trail of blood he had made and stopped, finding it useless to try to hide or fly away. He fell to the ground, very much weakened by the loos of blood. His body felt as though there were thirty knives stabbed into him. The car approached quickly and started to slow down as it got close, gears grinding terribly as it suddenly jerked to a stop fifteen feet away.
"David?" Kristen said, looking at the boy. "You are Hiryuu the Flame! Oh, my God. We've been with him this whole time!"
"It's only been four days," Hiryuu said.
Myra jumped out of the car and picked Hiryuu up. She set him gently into the back seat and Kristyn jumped into the driver side before anyone could do anything. Myra sat next to Hiryuu and Kristyn started off towards Green City.
Hiryuu came in and out of consciousness until they reached Green City two hours later. The sky was starting to brighten as they arrived in Green City. Kristyn followed signs through this usually bustling urban city towards the hospital. There, they stopped the stolen jeep outside the front doors and Myra carried the bloody Hiryuu into the hospital.
"Someone help!" Myra said. "He is going to bleed to death."
A nurse rushed into a door and suddenly two men and a stretcher came flying out of the door. They came to the girls and gently moved Hiryuu onto the stretcher.
"What the hell happened to this poor boy?" one man asked the other man stopped pushing the stretcher. "What is it?"
"His eyes! He's…"
"Help him now or I'll blow this hospital to pieces!"
Myra was aiming her gun at the two men as Kristyn pulled two pistols from her case as well. The men looked at each other and pushed the stretcher through the doors at gunpoint as the girls followed them into the hospital.
Next, Chapter 8: Prey of Prey, Hunter of Hunters