An announcement now, readers: I will be departing for Pittsburgh, PA on August 6th to tour Carnegie Mellon and see the family. I'm spending a week or so there, so that means BTILW will not be updated during that time. If I were a superbeing like I'd have you all believe, I'd write you all the chapters beforehand and then update them from where I'll be in Pittsburgh, but it's just not possible right now. (Plus, that would mean staying up until three A.M. in order to stick to my normal schedule. Regardless of the fact that it'll only feel like twelve to me, it's not happening. I require sleep.)
All that aside, you will be getting your Big Trouble in Little Wutai fix all next week. Stay tuned. Chapter IX is here in the meantime.
It was late afternoon by the time Reno got the car to what looked like Orochimaru territory, if the red snakes tagged all over the walls of the buildings were any indication. The sky had begun to cloud over and the air smelled of the iron tang of rain. Now they cruised down a side street, going at a leisurely thirty-two kilometers an hour. Yuffie was leaning up against Reno's side, looking bored and somewhat tired, and Rude was sitting in the back, umbrella open to keep the sun off of his head.
"You'd think some hot-shot biker punk with something to prove would have seen the damn umbrella already," Reno sighed. He looked over his shoulder at Rude, thought a moment, and then made a decision. "Partner, twirl it. You're not screaming 'nancy-boy' hard enough."
Rude gave Reno a silent, flat stare for a moment. "No."
"Aww," Yuffie snickered, not moving from her position against Reno's side. "Is widdle Wude afwaid of the scawy men thinking he's got no mascuwinity?"
"Don't even go there," Reno advised her quietly. "He headbutted the last guy who insinuated that he was my boyfriend, remember?"
Yuffie squinted in concentration for a second, then nodded. "Yeah. We were on the beach at Costa Del Sol, and someone thought it'd be funny to ask Rude if he was alone or if I'd stolen his date."
Making an effort to keep a grin off of his face, Reno asked, "You remember the guy's name?"
"Materazzi," Rude replied.
"Right, right. Wasn't he trying to sue you when we left?"
"He gave up after a call from Tseng, or so Elena tells me."
Reno gave a small oh of tacit understanding, and it was then that he saw the approaching bikers.
They were Orochimaru, all right; the three of them all wore jackets with the red, coiled serpent on them. What immediately caught Reno's attention, however, was the bike that the one in the lead was riding.
I nearly got run over by it last night. That's Makoto's bike or my hair's blue.
"That's Makoto's bike," Yuffie said abruptly.
Reno nodded, his grin widening. "I thought so, too. Looks like our bad ol' biker pal lost his ride when he got drunk last night, eh, partner?"
"Think we should return it to him?" Rude asked.
"Idea," Yuffie butted in.
Easing off of the gas, Reno replied, "They are coming straight at us and there's no room to swerve. You got an idea, you have ten seconds."
"We not only grab the jackets for the big heist tonight, but we take the bike too and return it to Makoto – for a price."
"Go on." Surreptitiously, Reno began to toe the brake. He didn't want any more swerving collisions in this car, especially not on a street narrow enough that he'd probably take off the fender if he pulled a drift.
"In exchange for his bike, he has to go on a double date with us! You and me, him and Rei."
"Yuffie, you're insane."
"Hit the brake," Rude interjected calmly. Reno took his advice and brought the car to a stop, which was easy enough when he was only going thirty kilometers an hour. As he'd hoped, the bikers pulled up to a stop in front of them and dismounted, shooting one another significant looks.
"There a problem?" Reno asked.
"Yeah," the leader sneered. He was a young Wutainese man of average height, though his build suggested considerable exercise. The knife scar on his face was self-inflicted, though. Stupid punk cut himself to look cool. "What you're doin' is trespasin', and we Orochimaru don't take real kindly to trespassers. We're willin' to overlook this in exchange for a favor."
Reno shrugged. "Go on." He laid his right hand on Yuffie's left when she unconsciously began to drum her fingers on his knee. Easy, sugar.
The three bikers strolled up to the car and leaned nonchalantly against the sides – one of them next to Reno, one next to where Yuffie would be sitting if she wasn't slouched against Reno's side, and one next to Rude, who was sitting on the right side of the back seat, umbrella still open.
Fortunately enough, the leader was the one who took up position next to Reno. "You drive a busted-ass vehicle, so we ain't got no interest in your car… and you don't look none too rich, either."
Reno gave another shrug, more nonchalant than the one before. "We get by."
"So there's really only one thing we'd be interested in now." The man's gaze slipped off of Reno and settled on Yuffie, who returned the gaze and blinked sleepily, as though only half-awake. It was an intensely sexy look, one that Reno didn't know the ninja-girl was capable of pulling off, and he fought the urge to moisten his lips.
"What would that be?" Yuffie asked, her voice a low, lusty whisper.
The biker's leer increased, showing a rather unpleasant set of yellow teeth. "You know what we want, legs. Take it off."
Not a quarter second later, Reno gave him an uppercut that ground the man's jaw shut and wiped the sneer – as well as any conscious expression – clear off of his face. The sound of grinding teeth was loud and unpleasant, through it was obvious that the sound wasn't the only unpleasant part of the experience.
The other two bikers barely had time to react before they were taken out, too. Yuffie pushed off of Reno like he was a red-headed springboard and took her biker out in a wild tackle that ended in his head hitting the pavement with a satisfying crack. Rude swung his umbrella around so the opened canopy was behind his biker's head, the shaft pressed against his neck, and then the Turk pulled, hard. The result was by far the most unpleasant sound to grace the trio's ears: the lovely wet crunch of Rude's forehead breaking the man's nose.
"Damn," Reno observed as Rude disentangled his umbrella from the insensate biker, who slumped to the ground a moment afterwards. "Materazzi had it easy."
Yuffie picked herself up off of the biker she'd taken out and dusted herself off. "That was fun. We oughta do this more often."
With a quiet, satisfied chuckle, Reno sighed and said, "Damn, Yuffie, do I love you." He turned his attention back to Rude too quickly to see the momentary slackness that overcame Yuffie's features. Rude saw it and made a note of it, but said nothing. "Rude, you wanna take the bike?"
"Sure."
"Alright. Yuffie and I'll get the jackets."
When he looked at her again, the ninja-girl was grinning from ear to ear, busily stripping the jacket off of her motionless biker. Reno opened the car door and stepped out, shut it behind him, then bent down and began to retrieve his own jacket. He heard Rude doing the same thing behind him, and had just gotten the jacket off when he realized that the biker was waking up.
"Apologies, but we're taking Makoto's bike back," Reno said lightly. "Not that I really care for the guy, but I'd rather see him riding this beauty than you." When all that produced was an insolent, dazed grin, Reno frowned slightly and slapped the man across the face. "You still in there, buddy, or did I jam a molar a teensy bit too high in that soupy head of yours?"
That got a wheezing laugh. "You got… no idea," the biker mumbled, his leer returning to display several chipped teeth from Reno's uppercut. "We got the bike from him… last night. Boss says we can impress our supplier… if we finish the job."
Reno stopped grinning and hauled the biker up by the collar of his tee-shirt. "You're serious?"
The leer widened. "Right about now, red, eight of our best guys are beatin' the everlivin' shit out of Makoto."
Rei had finally dropped off to sleep half an hour after Reno, Rude, and Yuffie had left. Now she was faintly aware of it having been some time when she heard another knock on the door.
Dammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammitdammit.
Slowly, inexorably, she pulled herself out of what had been shaping up to be a very pleasant dream. Inspecting herself to make sure that she was decent, Rei stepped out into the hallway, passed the room where Makoto was still sleeping, descended the stairs, and went up to the door.
Sliding it open, she was confronted with eight men, all wearing Orochimaru jackets, and all of them armed with liuye dao broadswords.
"Afternoon," the one closest sneered. "We was told that a man by the name of Makoto was stayin' here. Would you be so gen'rous as to confirm that?"
"There's nobody by that name here," Rei replied, struggling to keep her tone even. "I can fetch Grandpa Souta if you need me to."
"Don't bullshit us. We had two of our people watching when the stupid bastard staggered in here, and they saw you open the goddamned door for him. He hasn't left, so he's gotta still be here."
The biker stepped inside before Rei could reply and kept walking forward until Rei was backed up against the wall of the hallway. His features twisted into some semblance of a grin and he moved to within inches of the geisha. "But seein' as how you say he's not here, we've come a long way fer nothin'. It'd be a shame if we left without gettin' something for our trouble."
Rei felt his hand cross around her waist, seeking her obi, and she retaliated the way Grandpa Souta had trained her: fingers curled flat against the top of the palm, thumb pressed against the side of her hand, she thrust the protruding bone of her wrist into the biker's throat.
He staggered backwards, making a strangled gagging noise, then recovered far faster than Rei had anticipated. "You little bitch!" He sprang at her, right hand clenched into a fist, arm drawn back for a blow to her face. "You're going to pay for tha –"
Makoto's flying leap took him in the side and threw him back into his fellows, sending them all tumbling back from the door. The Shinsengumi leader landed deftly in front of Rei and pressed his left hand against her stomach, backing her up to the wall.
Her heart was already pounding, but Rei still felt it speed up when she saw the sheathed sword that Makoto was holding in a reverse grip in his right hand, the sheath pressed up against his arm. He looked over his shoulder at her, and the eye that she could see was blazing with hot rage, visible even through the smooth sepia of his irises.
"Stay back, Rei. They're here for me."
Rei felt her eyes trace up the metal sheath of the sword. Wrought into the steel were the characters Aku Soku Zan.
"Swift death to evil," Makoto growled at the Orochimaru bikers as he strode outside. "This will be carried out instantly and without reservation. The great katana Kikuichi-monji of Shiranui-ryū will see it done."
Pounding footsteps sounded, and an instant later Grandpa Souta emerged into the hallway. He took one look at Rei and said, "Makoto." She nodded and pointed out the door, where the eight Orochimaru had drawn their broadswords and surrounded Makoto, who had yet to draw the Kikuichi-monji. People were pulling over on the roads nearby to witness the standoff in Grandpa Souta's compound's front yard – previously little more than ten square meters of grass with a walkway to the front door, now an arena where the biker gangs were going to prove themselves in a field completely outside that of bikes.
"He's not yet in his proper mind," Grandpa Souta muttered. "What a pity."
"That he's not in his proper mind?" Rei asked, confused and understandably frightened.
"No, it's a pity what's about to happen to those men. All the Orochimaru have succeeded in doing by sending them here is producing eight pieces of meat."
The Orochimaru directly behind Makoto struck first, charging forward, liuye dao cocked for a diagonal slash. Makoto spun on the balls of his heels, bringing his right arm up parallel with the ground, snapping the Kikuichi-monji into a forward grip as he did so and disengaging the tanka from the sheath with his thumb. His momentum sent the sheath flying clear of the blade and into the face of one of the Orochimaru who was standing ready, and he continued his motion, whipping around until the fine, honed edge of the sword bit deep into the neck of the charging enemy.
Makoto reversed his momentum, turning in the opposite direction, dislodging the Kikuichi-monji from his dying enemy and bringing it around into the ready stance in time to confront two more charging Orochimaru. He twisted out of the way of a thrust from the closest enemy and cracked the blade across the top of the man's skull as he went past, snapping his wrists to cause the edge to bite into the brain-pan and then freeing it in the next motion. Makoto continued his twisting motion and brought the sword around into a block, parrying the waist-level horizontal swing by the second man, then reversed his grip on the sword again and thrust backwards, expertly slicing open the jugular vein.
Four down. Rei only now saw that the Orochimaru who'd been hit by the sheath had taken it in the right eye. He was down and wasn't moving.
The last four charged in one motion, screaming a beleaguered and discordant battle cry as they attempted to rally themselves. Makoto whirled and charged as well, but he kept low to the ground, running in a sort of odd half-crouch –
"He's going for a Heavenly Sword Judgment Strike," Grandpa Souta muttered. "That's the stance."
Rei was about to ask what the hell that meant when she saw Makoto leap out of his running half-crouch and land squarely on the shoulders of one of the Orochimaru, who looked understandably surprised. A moment later he was in the air, at least sixteen feet above the now-staggering biker and his companions, the Kikuichi-monji raised above his head –
And he screamed.
"SHIRANUI-RYŪ: TENKEN CHUSEI!"
He rocketed downwards, the blade moving in a great and terrible arc, and Rei could see spirit energy sparking and flashing about him and his weapon. Makoto returned to earth like a thunderbolt, slamming with tremendous force into the earth, the Kikuichi-monji releasing crashing waves of spirit energy that roared out through the ground and enveloped the Orochimaru.
Nothing but burnt ash remained after the flickering magic flames subsided.
"This is why I've never revealed my mastery of Shiranui-ryū to him," Grandpa Souta whispered in Rei's ear. "Furanui Kenjutsu combines the concept of battle ki and the spirit energy of the world. One trained in it can harness spirit energy limitlessly in order to power the techniques of the style." Rei kept an eye on Makoto, who was slowly rising from the crater his impact had created, and nodded for Grandpa Souta to continue. "But there are side effects. You've heard rumors about Cloud Strife and how he cut down the giant dragon in Edge City. They're all true; he was using spirit energy to empower himself. The only reason he was capable of such feats with it is because he was exposed to mako and injected with Jenova cells – things he told me while I was making the Fenrir for him. Spirit energy is not naturally harmful, but when twisted to be that way it takes a strong body to withstand its energies, and repeated use will wear down anyone short of an ex-SOLDIER."
As if on cue, Makoto fell to one knee, grasping the hilt of the Kikuichi-monji to keep himself from falling over. Rei made to rush out, but Grandpa Souta caught her by the arm and restrained her. "He wouldn't let you help him. Better that you respect his moment of weakness and allow him to deal with it himself."
Rei narrowed her eyes slightly and jerked her arm out of the old mechanic's grip. "I'll decide if and when I'll help him, thanks."
Makoto gave a sharp gasp when he began to straighten again and felt pain lance through his chest. He braced himself on the Kikuichi-monji and started to try again when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Looking up, he found himself staring into Rei's amethyst eyes.
"It's okay, Makoto," she said softly. "Thank you."
Another flash of pain. Makoto grimaced and then banished the expression from his face, replacing it with a pained grin. "It was nothing."
Rei grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him up. His chest protested, but he wasn't about to lash out at her for her kindness. "It was not nothing," she replied sternly. "There's no telling what those creeps would've done if you hadn't intervened when you did."
Finding that he could stand now, Makoto plucked the Kikuichi-monji from the ground and moved to the body of the man who'd taken the sheath in the eye. He grabbed hold of the sheath and pulled sharply, disengaging it with a loud sucking sound. Distastefully, Makoto withdrew a cloth from his pants pocket and ran it over the blade, then the tip of the sheath, before replacing the Kikuichi-monji inside it.
"So, Makoto, you couldn't have done this somewhere else?" Grandpa Souta asked as he stepped outside, looking distastefully at the blood on his lawn.
Makoto rubbed at his temples with his free hand before answering. "They were here to kill me, Grandpa Souta. What should I have done?"
"You should have done me the courtesy of spilling their blood on someone else's lawn!" the old mechanic snapped. "It's going to take forever to –"
He broke off as he felt a raindrop land square on his head.
"Never mind. Come inside and I'll summon the police."
Fifteen minutes after they'd acquired the Orochimaru uniforms and gotten Makoto's bike back, Reno roared around a corner and came to a stop in front of Grandpa Souta's compound. He put the car into park without bothering to shut it off and began to charge towards the front door until Yuffie grabbed him by his ponytail.
"Slow down!"
"Shit, don't do that!"
Rude brought Makoto's bike to a halt behind them and said, "Reno, look."
Stopping his efforts to disengage his hair from Yuffie's impish grasp, Reno looked around and saw two things: first, the fresh, wet blood on the grass, being quickly dissolved by the rain, and second, the two police cars parked across the street.
"If we rush in the cops'll probably shoot us," Yuffie chastised him. "One way or the other, everything's under control. We'll just have to see."
Reno blew out a sigh and replied, "Fine. We never get to have any fun."
Sliding out of the car on Reno's side, Yuffie giggled quietly and whispered in his ear, "We'll have 'fun' later."
Rude, his expression a carefully studied shade of neutral, watched the ninja-girl bounce along the path to the front door, then turned his gaze to Reno, who was standing very still, watching Yuffie move. "You must have said something to make her very happy," Rude observed idly as he retrieved his umbrella.
"Apparently I did. Now I just have to figure out what."
"We're real sorry to keep interrupting you like this," Reno said to Grandpa Souta, five minutes later, seated in his kitchen. Yuffie was seated next to him, and Rude was standing behind their chairs, both hands on the handle of his umbrella, which was balanced against the floor on its tip.
Across the table, Grandpa Souta made a dismissive gesture, while Rei was making Makoto, humorously enough, drink a tall glass of orange juice. She'd explained briefly what had happened to the police while Reno, Yuffie and Rude listened. The police had left shortly afterwards, as Rei's story flew and there were more than a dozen witnesses who testified that the Orochimaru had struck first with lethal intent.
"Nothing to be concerned about. Makoto took care of the attackers most admirably." Grandpa Souta looked none too happy with the whole affair, but Reno could read the relief in his voice. Better that eight no-good gangsters got killed than anyone here.
Makoto, on the other hand, looked borderline cheerful. He still grimaced slightly when he moved, but a shot from the Cure materia that Tseng kept stored under the car seat had done wonders for him. Now he was finishing the orange juice at Rei's insistence and his gaze lingered on Yuffie.
"By the way, Makoto," Reno said, loudly enough that both Yuffie and Rude knew that the direction of Makoto's eyes was bothering him. "We picked up your bike off of some Orochimaru… friends. We think you'd like it back."
The Shinsengumi leader set down the now-empty glass and nodded. His expression was neutral, and he was evidently in much better control of himself now that he'd slept a bit. "Yes, I would. Is it outside?"
"Yeah, but it's got a price tag on it," Yuffie said with a grin before Reno could reply. "And it's pretty steep."
Makoto closed his eyes and inhaled slowly before asking, "What is it?"
"A double date."
The sepia eyes snapped open. "What?"
"A double date. Me and Reno, you and Rei. We'll go out to dinner somewhere and then go clubbing."
Now the eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to accomplish something with this, Yuffie?"
"Maybe," the ninja-girl replied coyly. "If you're not willin' to indulge me, though, I understand."
Reno exchanged a sideways look with Rude and suppressed a grin. She has him by the jewels, and they're not the ones he keeps in his safe.
None of them failed to notice the hopeful excitement that was drawing itself on Rei's features in the form of a twitching smile that she'd tried to restrain but failed.
"All right."
Yuffie gave a delighted half-squeal, half-cackle and stood. "Great! Look out, Wutai, here we come!"
"I'll send the evacuation order," Reno said dryly.
