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22. Naifu: Taken

Naifu scrunched up her face. Her left side was on fire and she couldn't feel anything below her right elbow. She wanted to curse, but her mouth felt too rubbery. She leaned backwards against the smooth wall to catch her breath. How had this happened? She looked over at the body and then looked away. He couldn't tell her.

Pushing herself onto her good arm, she spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and wished she knew the layout of the Costa del Sol better. Where the hell was she? She could hear ocean waves and smell salt. Blood usually masked all other scents, so she had to be pretty close to the shore. Staggering to her feet, she felt her way along the wall. She had crashed into it several times during the scuffle. Her head hurt from a combination of that and the wasn't-dead-at-the-time guy's punches.

She stumbled suddenly, teetered and fell. The distance was bigger than she expected.

"Shit," she tried to say. It came out more like 'shish'.

She struck the ground and sprawled, fire filling her battered limbs. She swallowed the blood this time instead of spitting it out. Maybe she needed the iron. You couldn't have too much iron in your diet, right?

She considered just lying there for a while, but that was stupid. The first rule of survival was never let yourself be caught off guard. If you weren't working at a hundred percent capacity that held especially true. Right now she was barely fifty percent. Maybe less.

Shish. Totally shish.

Her eyes struggled to focus. She lay on her back, face turned towards wherever she had fallen from. She could make out a dark gaping square, which coalesced into the open mouth of an industrial packing crate – one of those big metal behemoths that needed cranes to load them onto freight ships. She had woken inside and woken fast out of necessity, so there hadn't been much time to take stock of what was going on beyond 'Someone is trying to kill me and I don't want to be killed'. Now she had more time to take stock, but her body cried out for her to take notice of it instead.

She rolled onto her front. A deep grind inside meant bones were broken. She tasted blood.

Where the hell is my Phoenix Down? she thought frantically.

All Turks were issued with one Phoenix Down to carry wherever they went. She hadn't ever used hers. A cursory inspection revealed she had been frisked somewhere between walking with the sun on her back and fighting for her life in a metal box.

Her throwing knives had also been missing when she reached for them during the fight; as were the shuriken inside her jacket. The discovery had flummoxed her for maybe two seconds. Hand-to-hand wasn't her forte, but being partnered with Rod had taught her a few things. Rod's style wasn't as polished as Kakutou or Youhei, but he had learned from street fighting, which gave him creativity and a streak of viciousness their polished techniques lacked. The bozo who had grabbed Naifu off the street hadn't bargained on her being able to kick his ass without her weapons. Idiot.

Or was that idiots plural? She heard voices. Did her attacker have friends? Damn it, she couldn't afford to be caught lying down on the job.

Getting up wrenched things that didn't need to be wrenched. Her belly started the dull ache that told of recent throwing-up and imminent need to do it again. She tamped down the urge, already thinking of places to hide. Heroic last stands were fine and dandy except for the middle word. She was too damn tired and sore for another fight, but she didn't plan to die either.

Her heart beat like a bird in a cage. Was she on the docks? That made sense. Where could she hide on the docks? Maybe behind the crate. Or maybe if she somehow got into the water without drowning, she could work her way from support-strut to support-strut until she hit a safer quayside –

"Naifu?"

Crap, they knew her name. Did that mean this hadn't been a random attack? Was this Turk-related? Of course it was; it was always Turk-related when you were a Turk.

"There she is! Over there!"

"Naifu!"

Wait one cotton-picking second …

"Kakutou? Rod?" She turned, just as her knees told her to go screw herself and put the 'out to lunch' sign on the door. They buckled. She pitched forward, narrowly missing another face-plant. A pair of strong arms caught her just in time.

"Easy there, Sureshot," their owner murmured. "I gotcha."

"Legend," she murmured vaguely. "Your … town … sucks …"

The world closed in and went dark.