Chapter 23: Aim for the Head
It was like a nightmare, a bad prank that had gone horribly wrong.
It had to be a lie. Nina stood frozen, petrified from the violent scene she was witnessing. Everything happened so fast, yet it felt like an eternity, a perpetual bad dream she failed to wake up from. She could see in slow motion every droplet of those precious crimson liquid spilling out from the ugly wound on the girl's neck. It was flawless just a moment ago... Not flawless. I marked it last night in my sleep. I could still vaguely recall what it tasted like on my lips.
Nina didn't hear her own scream. But she clearly heard the word lingering between Erstin's pale lips.
Ni-na.
And she went to her.
Nina caught the falling body in her arms before it hit the floor.
"Let her lie down." Youko was kneeling beside her and applying a thick wad of cloth on the bloody wound.
Nina gently lay down Erstin's body on the floor. She didn't see the woman coming, she didn't care much about anything right now. With the tenderest touch, she held the girl's hand up and nuzzled it with her cheek. It felt cold and slightly sticky. Her blood...
"Arika, raise her feet up a bit." Youko ordered, and the brown-haired maid promptly did as she told.
Nina didn't notice Arika there either. She felt tears streaming down her cheeks. Erstin looked as if she were going to disappear in her blurred vision. The girl's charming but shy emerald eyes she adored so much had lost their sparkles. And the pink blushes always adorned her cheeks had lost their colours.
Ran... Danger... Nina...
"Pull yourself together! Stay with us!" Youko lightly tapped on Erstin's shoulder to get her attention. The girl was clearing fading out of consciousness. "At least her airway looks clear... She is losing a lot of blood."
"We need to take her to a hospital." Fumi checked the girl's pulse as Youko frantically trying to tape up the wound on the other side of the neck.
"That'll be too late. We'll take her to the basement. I remember there are enough medical supplies I need down there." The school nurse said with a grim expression. "I need to get her blood pressure up fast."
"Ojou-sama!" Miyu leapt out of the window and landed in front of Alyssa, shielding the blond girl from the four Slaves closing in from all around them. Since there was no longer a hostage holding her back, nothing in the world could stop her from tending to her precious Golden Angel.
Despite being the youngest among her companies, Alyssa was the only person who was not scared out of her mind. Much to the child's displeasure, Chie and Aoi were holding onto her as if their lives depended on it while trembling at the sight of those monsters. Shiho, unfortunately, had no one to hold on to, so she was sitting on the ground while trying hard not to soil her pants.
"Take Alyssa ojou-sama to the basement in that building." Miyu said to them and pointed at the direction of the Director's Office. "It's reinforced to withstand heavy attack. The entrance is in the Director's Office." She knew that place well because it was where Midori rebooted her near the end of Carnival. "I'll fend them off for as long as possible, ojou-sama." She said to the child. "Please hurry up."
Chie knew the severity of the situation, and logic told her that obeying the android was the only way for them to survive this ordeal. No matter how scared she was, she could not afford to let fear cripple her at this crucial time. "Alright, I understand. Aoi, take Alyssa and run!" She grabbed the fear-stricken young girl by her elbow and dragged her up. "Shiho, get your ass off the ground!"
The fifteen-year-old was paralyzed with fear. She thought she was having the worst day of her life yesterday, but now she knew she was wrong. Spending a stormy night alone in the mountain seemed like a fun and dandy camping trip comparing to this.
Surrounded by those towering monsters, the android looked fragile and insignificant to those who didn't know any better. "You cannot pass." Miyu said in her usual monotone while transforming her left arm into a blade.
The Slaves hissed and aimed their claws at the Yggdrasil Unit.
This place was like a battle field. The moment Tomoe hurt Erstin, the hostage situation officially dissolved. There was nothing holding the HiME Rangers back either from running away or from fighting the C-types head on. Miyu was the only one leaving the room, she jumped out of the window to get to her ojou-sama. The rest of the HiME Rangers, however, chose to stay and whack Tomoe's skull with whatever that's handy.
If Erstin were not bleeding profusely on the floor, the whole situation would have been considered laugh worthy.
Haruka somehow managed to hurl a heavy piece of cherrywood end table at the captain of Valkyrie Unit. Tomoe transformed to her Robe and easily dodged that piece of furniture. However, as she was dodging Haruka's attack, a table lamp Nao tossed nailed her right on the head, and she got herself tangled in the lamp's power cord.
Mikoto followed up by swinging a baseball bat (the one Chie and Aoi used to play 'bash a melon' game earlier yesterday) and hitting it repeatedly against Tomoe's helmeted head. Midori was doing pretty much the same thing except she was smacking the Otome's head with a six feet long curtain rod. Although Tomoe's Robe absorbed most of the damage, those attacks still annoyed the hell out of her.
"Die! You worthless insects!" Tomoe opened her helmet and cursed at the HiME Rangers as a halberd materialized in her hand. She let out a shrill cry and lashed out at her opponents.
Mikoto, Nao, and Midori hurryingly scrambled out of the way. Haruka was a lot slower than these three, so she had to toss a chair at the Otome in order to distract her long enough in order to escape. With a flick of her Element, Tomoe slashed away the chair easily as if she were swatting away a fly.
"Hey! Tomoe Marguerite!" A familiar voice called out from behind her. Viola? Tomoe turned and expected to see the chestnut-haired Otome, but instead she saw a huge velvet curtain coming at her. Before she could react, something heavy knocked her off her feet.
Midori, Haruka, Mikoto, and Mai were sitting on top of the struggling Otome as Shizuru and Yukino holding the curtain down. Nao was putting her well-practiced bondage skill to good use for once and busily tying Tomoe up with a silk curtain rope. "Now!" Shizuru yelled.
Natsuki jumped out and accurately stabbed Tomoe's neck through the thick fabric with three syringes in her hand, swiftly pushing the content into the Otome's vein. "Eat this, bitch!"
Tomoe screamed and flew up from the floor, tossing everyone off her body while ripping the curtain to shreds.
"Damn! Three is not enough? That's all we have!" Natsuki muttered as she struggled to her feet.
"Heads up! Incoming!" Natsuki snapped her head up at the sound of her own voice. It was Kruger yelling through the hole in the roof. "Slave is here!"
What the hell is a Slave?
Her question was quickly answered as a giant monster that looked like the unholy offspring of spider/scorpion/mantis hybrid crashing through the wall and started hacking away with its giant, menacing claws.
Whatever that monster was, Youko couldn't allow it to touch her patient. "Director, please be gentle. Don't shake her. She might bleed out." She warned as she helped Fumi picked up Erstin's limp body.
"I'll be careful." Fumi promised and headed toward the hidden passage.
The Slave didn't let her go far. The heavy smell of blood made it restless with bloodlust. With Erstin in her arms, Fumi couldn't fight nor run. Any disturbance might dislodge a clot in Erstin's wound and set off another massive bleeding.
"If you want to hurt them..." if you want to hurt Ers... "You'll have to go through me." Nina stood her ground in a fighting stance, her knees bent and her shoulder square, a small knife in her hand. She wrapped her fingers around the blood-stained handle so hard, her knuckles turned white.
"And me!" Arika stood with her back pressed against Nina's. "I got your back." She said to the older girl.
The Slave made a strange screechy sound as it attacked. Nina and Arika jumped from side to side to dodge the consecutive attacks of those giant claws slashing at them like Death's scythes.
Since the Slave had turned its attention to the young maids, Fumi and Youko reached the elevator at the end of the hidden passage without trouble.
Not before long, Nina and Arika were in a pinch. As much as they would like to avoid being hacked to pieces by the Slave's shiny claws, they were running out of stamina.
Panting hard, Nina used the last of her strength to jump up in an attempt to drive the knife into the Slave's head. The blade broke in half on contact. Nina landed poorly on the floor with a loud thump.
"NINA!" Arika screamed when she saw her friend fell. Erstin getting hurt was bad enough, Arika didn't know what she would do if Nina got hurt too. She never felt more helpless.
"Pick someone your own size!" Midori yelled.
A hail of debris rained down at the Slave. Arika wiped away the sweats rolling down her forehead and let out a relieved sigh. Fear not, Arika. HiME Rangers are here to the rescue! She said to herself. Midori and the others were throwing various heavy objects at the monster to divert its attention. The two maids could finally catch their breaths.
Contrary to the sense of relief Arika was feeling now, Alyssa was in great distress. Miyu said she would delay those monsters for as long as she could, so how come one of them is here now? Something must have happened to her. The young child was fearing for her dear guardian's life.
"Don't be afraid, Alyssa-chan. I'm sure Miyu-san is alright." Aoi said. The surprisingly observant brown-haired girl was holding the Alyssa's hand tightly in her own and shielding the child from flying debris with her body at the same time. "Now we just have to get to the passage leading to the basement..." She eyed the small opening beside the book shelves at the other side of the room.
In order to get there, they would have to get pass the giant monster and a crazy flying girl in black armor.
"Fuck! She is more insane with drug in her system!" Natsuki let out a groan. Her whole body hurt like it would really fall apart if she took any more hits. She was sure she had cracked another rib and broke her left wrist when she was thrown across the room by that teal-haired psycho.
The nanomachines inside Tomoe's body were responsible for her stunning resistance to the sedatives. Although injected with three times the normal dosage, the Otome could still fight like a rabid dog. The drug had disoriented her and slowed her down significantly, it had also lowered her concentration to the point where she couldn't materialize her Element. However, her inhuman strength was still there; she could still sent people flying in her drunken frenzy.
"Oi! People! A little help?" Natsuki yelled a little weakly as she coughed. She could taste copper in her mouth, and she was starting to see non-existent wiggly lines in her vision. Being flung against the wall three times in a roll did that to her.
"Can't! Busy! Monster! Sorry!" Mai yelled back as she dodged another attack. She would really like to help out her friend, but the current situation didn't allow her to do so. They were having some trouble fighting the Slave too. Nothing they did could hurt the monster. They tried hurling heavy objects at it, stabbing it, bashing it, but nothing worked.
Mikoto even tried to bite it. Not so surprisingly, that genius idea didn't work either.
"Natsuki, stay down." Shizuru demanded with a harsh tone.
Tomoe only had one goal in mind: to take Viola back by force. However, all those drug in her system had compromised her judgement, and her confused mind decided that Shizuru was indeed her Viola. She ignored all her other opponents and obsessively targeted the Kyoto-born.
Shizuru could barely hold the Otome off with a pathetic brass floor lamp as her weapon. Every time she was forced into a corner, Natsuki would jump out and take the blow for her, buying her enough time to recover.
How she wished she could have her HiME power back.
"I'll stay down as soon as I put a hole in that psycho's seaweed head!" Natsuki picked up a fist-sized broken brick that was originally part of the wall and flung it at Tomoe's head. A jolt of pain shot through her newly broken wrist when she did that. Natsuki clenched her jaw and stifled the scream that was brewing in her throat into a rough grunt.
She soon forgot all her pain when she saw the brick hit its mark. "HA! How do you like that? That's for trying to hurt my Shizuru!" Natsuki let out a gleeful laugh and finally collapsed on the floor. She had long passed her limit. Now she felt like throwing up.
Shizuru didn't let Natsuki's effort go to waste. While Tomoe shrieked in agony from the fresh head wound Natsuki made, Shizuru gathered all her strength and mauled the Otome with a combo attack. She only stopped when the brass floor lamp got all bent out of shape and rendered useless as a weapon.
"That's for hurting my Natsuki." Shizuru said breathlessly. She had used up almost all her stamina at the previous attack.
After all that beating, Tomoe was still not down yet. Not counting the drug, the most serious damage she took was only a bloody wound Natsuki made on the side of her head on top of several smaller bumps the other HiME Rangers had caused. If she were not so stoned (no pun intended), she would have realized her mistake and closed up her helmet as soon as the fight broke out.
"This is for hurting Ers!"
Having recovered somewhat from her earlier battle against the Slave, Nina felt a renewed sense of rage burning inside her chest when the initial surge of numbness finally passed. With the broken knife firmly in her hand, Nina lunged at the teal-haired Otome.
Tomoe swatted away the knife with a wide swing. The motion made her lose the little balance she had. Nina didn't care much about losing her weapon, she tackled the stumbling Otome again and nailed her to the ground. Tomoe fell flat on her face.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!" Screaming in agony, Nina held back none of her dark, raw hatred as she repeatedly pummeled Tomoe's head with her bare fists.
Tomoe shook off the vengeful assailant sitting on her back with a violent toss. Before she could get back on her feet, Nina tackled her again, latching onto her back with all limbs. "Get off!" Tomoe blindly flailed her arms around, but she couldn't get rid of Nina. The berserking maid had her left arm hooked over Tomoe's neck in a choke hold and continue bashing her head with her bloody right hand.
It was bloody because both the skin on her knuckles and the skin on Tomoe's head had torn off during the vicious attacks.
Erstin's blood was on her hand too.
Nina felt no pain. Not when the Otome flew back and rammed her back against the wall; not when her ribs snapped to pieces with a sickening crack; not when blood came gashing out of her mouth like a leaky faucet.
Tomoe flew up high in the sky in her desperate attempt to remove the arm that was slowly suffocating her. She succeeded. The blue-haired maid didn't have enough strength to hold on as the Otome thrust upward at her maximum acceleration.
Nina had the most satisfied smile on her face when she ripped the black crystal off the Otome's earlobe. She knew she wouldn't be the only one plummeting toward her death.
TBC
Author's Notes:
1. People will call me a liar if I claim I don't do character bashing in my fic. Honestly, I wasn't trying to bash Tomoe. I don't hate her as much as Sergay. It just... sort of... came out this way... T-T
2. The title "Aim for the Head" is inspired by my favourite movie "Shaun of the Dead". I still have the poster on my bedroom door. :)
3. This is my one stab at drama/angst. Please let me know what you think.