Differing Paths...
Chapter Ten
Tomo's unconcious body laid on top of the gate, her arm outstretched across the other side. As she laid, a boat, completely unaware of her presence, began to approach the gates. The gates opened, and Tomo came rolling down the front side of the gates. She hit the concrete on her side, and her head was fully submerged in the water below. The boat rocked forward with a mechanical clank. The head of boat came in, making Tomo fully invisible to the driver. The boat moved forward fully. It ripped into Tomo's side, and flattened her torso under its pressure. The boat moved fully forward, crushing her further. Her arms and chest were ripped apart, and her legs were broken by the impact. Luckily, her head was unaffected, and she was fully unconscious, making it impossible to die of shock. Chiyo rode in overhead by helicopter, as the rest of the squad from back at the tower flew in. The helicopters dropped their rope ladders, and numerous medical and police staff dropped down, Chiyo included. She looked down at Tomo, severely mutilated, but clearly breathing. The medical team took her away.
6 AM. Koyomi Mizuhara's phone rang. She picked up, with a nonchalant, "Hello?". Her tone went straight from casual to serious the moment she heard Chiyo's voice on the other side. "What is it now?", she said, cutting Chiyo off. "It's Tomo, she-". "Yeah, I got that.". "Anyways, she caused severe public damage.". "No, really? Tomo? Causing public damage? Never heard that one before.", Yomi spat sarcastically. "Anyways, we need you to come down here to the hospital and deal with her legal situation.". Tomi's face went deadpan. "It's not like we're married or something.". "Yomi, she's in a coma, and may not survive, let alone walk again.". "Ah,", Yomi answered, most emotion removed form her voice, "I'll be right over.". Yomi arrived in about a half hour, having had to walk quite a bit of the way. She arrived, and was immediately escorted upstairs by a few SWAT guys. A pretty high number of them were in the hospital, for two reasons. One was that they were the primary resource brought in during the chase. Secondly, if and when Tomo did wake up, they knew there was a good chance of her getting up and trying to shoot up the place. Yomi was soon lightly pushed into an office with Chief Inspector Shinji, as well as Chiyo. "Y'know what, guys?", she said immediately, "I say we do a non-present trial, press charges after she's out. Not that hard, guys.". Yomi walked out, despite the massive number of things left unresolved. That night, they were able to do a short, non-present judgement. She was given sentenced to death by cutting her life support. They went back to the hospital. Shinji handed Chiyo a mail-opener, saying "Would you do the honours?". Chiyo stared down at Tomo, and thought about the times they had had. She wanted to finish this madness, but it was hard to get over her own nostalgia. She handed it back to Shinji. "You do it.", she said, first in a whisper, then in an almost-shout. "Alright.". He reached the blade towards the cord. Suddenly, a massive pain rocked his entire body. He looked down, and saw Tomo, fully healed, holding her revolver. "W-What?", Shinji screamed. "I got better.", Tomo said. He looked down, and noticed the massive hole blown in his wrist. He fell to the ground, spasming, and stood up, grabbing the opener desperately. "I-It's impossible... You can't be healed... It's been less than twenty-four hours...". Before he cut the cord, she shot him in the chest, knocking him back. She shot three more times, and he practically sprinted backwards, smashing through the fifth-story window and out into the street. He looked up, barely alive, only to see a bus. His head exploded instantaneously under the wheel. Tomo pointed her gun at Chiyo. "You were always kind of annoying.". She fired. The bullet skimmed Chiyo's head, giving her a small cut, and blowing through her hair. "Tell the rest of 'em I'm coming.". Tomo unplugged the equipment hooked up to the wheeled bed, and stuck her leg off the side. She pushed the bed out the door, as Chiyo sat on the ground in shock. She pushed the bed out with a sudden burst of speed, shooting the two guards sitting by her door. She passed the office of the doctors working on her case. She fired off at a few more officers in the hallway, before shooting herself, the bed included, out of the window. The bottom of her hospital gown fluttered in the wind as she fell, landing roughly on the street. She went straight onto the road. The bed was going over a hundred km/h due to the momentum from the fall. She slid around a corner. avoiding the cars on the road. She saw a semi ahead, which would leave the path was taking considerably more narrow. The moment it arrived, she flipped the bed sideways, sliding it across the pavement. It released sparks as it skidded. She kept riding until she ran out of momentum, then left the bed in the middle of the road where it was. She was lucky to have gotten out of there. Tomo had healed after only eight hours in the hospital, and found that the police hadn't removed everything from her clothes yet, which laid on the ground in the room. The hospital staff left any patients' things in their room, and so they had. She grabbed everything from her jeans and jacket-pockets, as well as her holsters and guns, and put them into the hospital gown, which inexplicably could fit considerably more than it appeared to be able to, and continue to look as it would if there were nothing inside. Konata, watching from across town, looked over and said, "Contrivances are for hack writers!", despite there being no one in her house. Tomo hailed a cab, and rode as far as she could within bounds. Yomi was waiting there with her motorcycle, as expected. Yomi smirked. "You should be glad you have a concerned friend to plan things like this out for you.". Yomi was the one who had ensured the style of trial they used, as well as being the one who distracted the police from checking Tomo's pockets. The only thing she had told Tomo about was where she would be, and that she would get the motorcycle fixed. Tomo rode off into the distance, and Yomi took the same cab back home. Tomo rode as far as she could, her destination known. She drove as far as she could on as many tanks of gas as she could afford, and finally hit the temple. It laid just outside Tokyo Prefecture, on a hillside. Still wearing her hospital gown, she began climbing up the massive stairs towards the temple. Her phone rang. She pulled her phone out from its hospital-gown-based hammerspace and opened it. "'Ello?", she said. "What are you doing out of town anyways?". It was Yomi. "Ah, well, you know how in kung fu movies, the shamed master seeking revenge starts off with the grunt workers, in this case, Kaorin, then move up to the stronger ones?". "Uh, no.". "You clearly haven't seen enough kung fu movies. Anyways, I wasn't enough to beat Sakaki, and it was under pretty terrible circumstances, so I figured it would take one more practice fight to work my way up. And, in a kung fu movie, who's the next step up from the big bad's grunt workers?". "I... have no idea.". "Their master, of course! And I was able to get Sakaki to spit the name of her master before I passed out back there.". "Ah, so who was it?". "Are you ready to be shocked?". "Shock me.". "Kimura.". "No way! It's like fate's conspiring to bring the gang back together...". "So yeah, I'm just on my way to take the old man out now.". "Be careful... I don't even want to think about what might happen if you lose.". Tomo reached the top of the stairs. She took a deep breath, and kicked the red wooden doors open. Sitting there in the grass, slack-jawed as usual, was Kimura. He still wore his glasses, which reflected off some light. Tomo shot at him, but he immediately sidestepped from the sitting position. He got up, and stood in place. Tomo fired two shots. He stood there, as the perfectly-aimed bullets hit the ground in front of him. He continued standing there. His wife walked out into the yard from inside a small enclosure. "Honey, I have your tea... Oh.". She jumped out in front of figured that there was something about his fighting style that allowed him to avoid bullets with impeccable skill. Kimura's wife got up, and walked back inside. Kimura stayed still, staring at Tomo. She shuddered. Tomo decided to give up any pretense of defense, and ran straight at him. She jumped, and kicked at his chest. He grabbed her leg, bare from the force pushing against her hospital gown, and threw her to the ground. Tomo's mouth had a bit of blood hanging out of its edge, but she wasn't ready to give up. She ran at him, sidestepped behind him, and fired. He moved to the side, and gave a remarkably high kick to her shoulder. Tomo ran straight at him, guns blazing. Kimura weaved back and forth, nearly a flash from spot to spot dodging the bullets. He stood in one spot again. Tomo ran straight at him, but this time chose to slide under his arm, firing off whilst doing so. One of the bullets cut his arm slightly. He reached back, and backhand slapped her, knocking her on her back. "How,", he said, finally speaking, "is Sakaki?". "Just...", Tomo said while running straight at him again, "fine!". He grabbed her arm, and put her into a pin on the ground, bending her arm. Tomo grunted, holding back the pain on the ground. "You see,", he said to her, leaning into her back on the ground, "Each member of the society is an amalgamation of their masters' styles. For instance,", he stretched her arm back further, "this I learned from my second master, user of Grapple style.". He pulled Tomo back, and suplexed her into the ground. Her arm was most likely broken at this point, but she fought the spasms and pulled her (still-holstered) pistol's trigger, while they were pressed together. At that moment, Kimura ended the hold and jumped back. "That, is what I learned from my original master, user of Reader style, the trait I passed on to Sakaki.". "W-wait...", Tomo whispered, saving her air, as she was currently winded, "I-if you knew Sakaki, why were you so weird to the group of us?". "I wanted to seperate her. The mark of a true fighter is their removal from all else. Such as myself.". Tomo kicked as high as she could, and flew towards Kimura, who blocked, and prepared a lower strike. Tomo dodged around to his back, at which point he spun, doing a similar kick to his previous shockingly-high one. Tomo slide under his legs, and jumped up while he was still moving back around, kicking him in the ribs, knocking him across the field in which they stood. He ran to the side of the temple walls, and ran in a circle around the edge. Tomo was confused, as this completely broke from his previous strategy. He ran straight at her, and she looked him in the eye as he ran. He lifted his arms, about to tackle her. But, he had underestimated her speed. She jumped backwards, and kicked him in the chest, jumped, kicked herself off of his shoulders, and fired a couple shots in midair, ripping straight into the back of his skull, red pieces of bone and matter falling out as the bullets arrived. Tomo leaned forward, pushing herself into a front flip, and landing flawlessly behind Kimura. "Yes!", Tomo shouted, hopping in the air with glee. She put a couple more bullets in Kimura's spinal column, just to be sure. The corpse twitched slightly. She looked back as she moved towards the doors, and saw his wife sitting on the grass next to his corpse.
"Nothing personal!"