Besarki: The start of this one was originally in chapter 4, but I YANKED IT OUT to put it in this one instead. :D
Oh, and that thing I said about this being a longer chapter? I lied. ^-^ Plain and simple. However, this FINALLY sets up for the adventure-esque format. YAY!
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Don't judge a thing till you know what's inside it
Don't push me, I'll fight it
Never gonna give in, never gonna give it up no
If you can't catch a wave then you're never gonna ride it
You can't come uninvited
Never gonna give in, never gonna give up no
You can't take me, I'm free
~You Can't Take Me, Bryan Adams
???
I grunted in frustration as I pulled against the chains that bound me. Another useless attempt. I wasn't going anywhere.
I don't know what enrages me more: The fact that Hao has taken over, or the fact that I let it happen.
My eyes sweep over the area around me as I mentally contemplate the many reasons to justify bashing his head in.
Hao is a coward, a pathetic, worthless coward. By imprisoning and enslaving all living threats he has ensured that there will be none who rise against him. At least, none that he feels are a danger to him.
I couldn't stop myself from smirking. Well, that bastard messed up. My son was out there.
My son! HA HA HA! Hao won't even see it coming.
My smile grows. By now, he would have probably found the meathead's boy. I pray, for his sake, that he takes after his mother.
The inner monologue makes me laugh a bit, and the soldier at the door turns his head a bit to throw me a suspicious look. Accursed man.
"What are you smiling about in there?" The guard demanded.
My smile only grew, threatening to push the already impatient man over the edge.
"Insignificant troll!" He hissed, jamming his spear into the cell. I was too far back for it to reach me.
I gave the man a taunting smirk. "That makes two of us."
His eyes blazed as he threw himself at the bars, pushing the spear as far back as it could reach. This time, it reached. My face contorted in pain as I was stabbed through the shoulder, the sharp tip digging into scarcely protected flesh.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" The guard sneered, twisting the blade. I flashed him two rows of angry teeth, and his face became all the more psychotic. "Admit that it hurts! Beg for forgiveness! AND THEN BURN IN HELL!"
I hissed through my teeth, "You first!"
A moment later, a bolt of lightning rained down from the ceiling and struck the guard, killing him on impact. Instantly, my offender collapsed to the ground in a smoking heap. His grip on his weapon loosened and I was able to yank it out of his hand.
I held the spear up in front of me and glanced down at where it was impaled in my shoulder. The wound was fairly deep. If I just pulled it out, I'd risk profuse bleeding. However, it's not like I could just leave it in, either.
Bracing myself, I decided to go with my first instinct, drawing the weapon out of its entrapment, and sending rivers of blood running down my arm.
I flinched as I freed the weapon, not listening as it clattered to the floor. The fabric of my shirt was already partially ripped and I went to tear off a bit more to use as a sort of makeshift tourniquet until Hao's goons came in to patch me up properly. None of us were allowed to die, after all. We were too valuable, too important to Hao to be allowed the peace of death. In fact, had I not killed the single guard standing outside my cell, Hao would have seen to it himself that he was put to death. As I said, he couldn't have his guards going around impaling their prisoners. At least, not without their master's permission.
I defiantly spat on the ground before me, imagining it to be his face.
He's a coward. Always has been, always will be. A filthy coward. Someone I vehemently refuse to lose to. Someone I won't lose to.
He hasn't broken my will yet. I'm still here.
And if I go down, I'll go down fighting.
----0----0----0----0----0----
Hana
I was only half-listening.
"As you both know, there's a tunnel under the bridge that few know about. Hao wouldn't bother placing troops there because they would just drown. Really, anyone normal would. However, we have Silver Tail, and an oversoul with him shouldn't be something Hao is anticipating us to think of. If I oversoul him, I can move more quickly and can swim the three of us through the tunnel before we drown. There's way too many soldiers on the bridge to go over it, and, theoretically, they shouldn't be paying attention to the ripples in the water so we should be safe with that," Someone was explaining. Probably like Anna. Unless another Patch girl joined our trio.
"So you're positive we can't just beat up the soldiers?" I think that was Men.
"No, we'd be hopelessly outnumbered." Anna again. "Anyway, the tunnel goes in three directions. Sadly, our best bet is probably going to be traveling underground, since there will be fewer guards down there."
"In the sewers? Forget it. Not even Hao is worth a trek through sewage."
"I know it sounds bad, Men, but--"
"Where do the other two branches go?"
"To a river and to a square."
"So we'll take the river. It's cleaner and..." How many times do we have to argue over this? We have a plan and we're sticking to it. Well, in theory, since Men always seems to get his way.
I snapped out of my reverie when I felt suddenly felt a sharp pain in my skull. I turned my baleful expression on the only female of our group of three.
"Focus, pinhead," Anna scolded, staring directly at me with her hands on her hips. In her hands, she held a lightly worn map with a trail marked in red marker. Her journey to the market had been just as successful as my mission to find a path, though she hadn't had to fight anyone.
"I was!" I growled, rubbing the back of my head. "Dammit, Anna! Why do you always hit me?!"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm in the middle of reiterating the plan. I know who your dad is, but is it at least possible for you to stay with us for five minutes?" I was sure if I should take that as a plain statement or an all-out insult.
"I know the damn plan, Anna! In case you're forgetting, I MADE IT!" I shouted back at her.
"Easy, guys," Men interrupted sagely. Men had an old messenger bag around his body. It was filled with meager rations and objects that he had picked up on his little outing.
"NOBODY ASKED YOU!" Poor kid. Instantly, Anna's head whipped from Men's face to mine. "Okay then, Hana, if you don't need to hear the plan again, then what are we still doing here?"
I threw my hands up, exasperated. "Lazing around here wasn't my idea!"
"For once," Men added.
I turned to glare at him, though he made no move to acknowledge my stare.
After a moment of useless staring, I turned away from him and sighed. Time to be the peacekeeper again.
"Okay, guys, we seriously need to stop this. I'm just going to go ahead and say sorry to both of you. Anna, I'm sorry I wasn't listening to you before. Men, I'm sorry that I don't know what I'm apologizing to you for." The Chinese boy snorted, and I smiled. "Okay, so we all know that the real reason we've all been getting on each others nerves is that--" Men stopped me there.
"I thought we agreed that I get to give the speeches from now on." I couldn't help but snort just as he had moments before.
"Alright, Men. You can give the speech."
"If I must," He said, suddenly playing the martyr. He opened as mouth and went on to say the exact same thing as I was going to say, "The real reason that we've been getting on each others nerves is that we're nervous to leave this place. It's where we've lived for all these years and it's difficult to say goodbye, especially since we know that we may never see it again."
"He's pretty deep for a seven year old," I muttered to Anna, who laughed.
Men glared at me. "I heard that, Hana."
I shrugged. Didn't matter to me.
He cleared his throat. "Anyway, as I was saying, what we're really scared to do, is leave. If we can do that, we'll be in good shape for the rest of the journey."
The three of us exchanged fleeting looks. Anna crossed her arms.
"It's not like we have anything left here," She pointed out, referring to our incinerated house. Men and I shifted uncomfortably. The loss of our home was an iffy topic among the three of us, but, in retrospect, it was also the best reason for us to leave. No home meant no safehouse. No protection from Hao. We'd be in just as much danger here as we would be on the road.
"No," I seconded, "we don't." I paused to glance over my shoulder. Soldiers, as far as the eye could see, but also, something else: a long and winding path. A path stretching from Kyoto to Aomori. The path we were looking for.
I sighed and turned back to my friends. "This is it, guys," I said, nervously.
Anna slowly walked up to me, then, and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. Though she offered no words of comfort, her silent compassion was enough.
Behind us, Men snorted. "Our parents used to do this stuff all the time. This would all be old hat to them."
I had to laugh. "Yeah, it would."
That same laughter-born smile still on my face, I turned back to the road. It wouldn't be easy, but I had faith in our little team of three, team of seven if you counted our spirit allys.
"This is it," Anna repeated.
I scratched the back of my head, a smile on my face. "Yeah, this is it."
This was it. This was the start. This was the time.
This was the beginning, and this was the foundation.
The foundation of every new day.
Besarki: That last line has to be read slowly to sound good. Anyway...OH MY GOD! TOOK DAMN LONG ENOUGH FOR THE PLOT TO START! SHEESH! AND ENOUGH OF THIS HORRIBLY CORNY ENDINGS! ARGH! (Hopefully we'll get to escape them for a while. I should do a brick wall ending. Oh man, everyone hates those even more than cliff hangers. Haha. No, I won't do that. CAUSE IT'S MEAN!) Anyway, now that we're done with all this, the drastic personality changes are going to stop. Hana may go through an unpredictable number of them, but I'm going to try to keep Anna and Men somewhat static. They'll have their moments, but I don't think anyone likes them being some dramatic, so, yeah.
For some reason, teen Hana really strikes me as a potty mouth. I don't know. Yoh swears more than Anna, but Anna has that raging potential. You mix them together and it seems like, well, Hana would just be that way. I dunno. *Shrugs*
You should have figured out who the ??? was in this chapter. However, if you couldn't, just ask and I'll tell you. HA! I'm making you work. Either think or ask! YOUR CHOICE!
Ugh! Next chapter FINALLY begins the adventure. Oh, and if you figured out who the ??? was in this chapter, you may be able to predict who the next ??? will be. Hee hee! I love games!
And speaking of games, good job to -CoinJager- and Animewitch17 for figuring this one out. Next challenge will be up within the hour. (I'm not going to be announcing the successful guessers for each chapter. If there are more than three, I won't announce the winners one by one unless I really need to take up more space)
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