Here is the next chapter of what has turned out to be quite a long "arc." This chapter is rather short, but I plan to put up the next one soon. Thanks for reading and reviewing, and please enjoy! ^-^
A large swath of pirates remained standing, swarming around the docks. Kagura frowned. She opened her mouth to yell at the pirates:
"Stay put, would you all? I'm missing my beauty rest for this!" A petulant demand. Okita nodded solemnly.
"Me too." He deadpanned.
The pirates paid no heed to their comments, some trying to salvage their stolen goods, some fleeing, and others attacking the pair.
Furious swings of steel and purple paper cleared a ring around Okita and Kagura for a couple of seconds. They conversed for a moment, as more pirates began to approach.
Swiftly and smoothly, Okita knelt next to Kagura, placing his hands, palm-up, on the ground. Kagura leapt toward him, landing on his hands. His eyes tightened an instant with the effort, knees bending, then he was upright, in a fighting stance, and she, propelled into the air.
High above the pirates, Kagura carefully shot a circle around the pirates, corralling them towards Okita, who had begun knocking them unconscious one after the other. At Kagura's wishes, he was careful not to kill any of them.
The ground was rushing towards Kagura with increasing speed, and she braced herself for impact. Then the concrete was meeting her feet, knees bending, back bowing, bouncing into the impact and turning, pivoting to her left to knock out a couple more pirates.
The morning sky was orange when Okita and Kagura had finally sunk down, breathing hard, against the storage units, side by side. A pile of pirates lay in front of them.
"You have something we can tie them up with, right, Sadist?" Kagura asked expectantly, beginning to rummage through the pockets of his jacket. He
frowned.
"I was sort of saving it..." he hedged, "Don't you have anything?"
Kagura nodded, sitting back on her heels.
"A woman is always prepared, uh-huh!" She pulled out a flattened package of stale sukonbu.
"Sukonbu fixes everything, huh?" his head turned slowly and he met her bright blue eyes with lazy red ones.
"Obviously, uh-huh!" She smiled brightly, though still slightly out of breath. She pulled a piece of sukonbu out from the battered package and shoved it in Okita's mouth. While he choked and spluttered, she dug through his pockets.
She removed a pocket knife, a bottle of pink nail polish, a crumpled pie tin, and an MP3 player labeled "Tetris theme", before Okita coughed down the sukonbu, and reluctantly pulled out a massive butterfly net.
"I was saving this to humiliate Hijikata-san..." he lamented.
Kagura patted him on the shoulder. They then stood and enclosed the pile of pirates in the enormous net.
Okita scanned the scene.
"The other officers will want to see the stolen goods." He noted. "I'll wrap the area in crime scene tape." Kagura waited, slinging the bag of men over her shoulder and behind her, using both hands. She then proceeded to hold the bag with one hand and march off, dragging it behind her.
"I'll leave you behind, you slow sadist!"
He looked up, finished with the tape, and followed her.