Disclaimer: If I owned it, wouldn't it have been more interesting than it now is? I'd like to think that maybe it would be, but alas! It was never meant to be. Ah, well; gotta love fanfiction, I guess.
A.N.: Action is ramping up this time around, and thus is my choice of ambient music. I'm thinking a combination of "7 minutes" from Cowboy Bebop OST: Future Blues, along with "Still More Fighting (a.k.a. Those Who Fight Further or The Summoning)" from (specifically) Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII).
I've finally worked out enough of a framework of ideas in my mind to know where I want to take the rest of this story, and how to get there. All I can tell you is this: there's a more fully developed version of an OC I only briefly mentioned last chapter, and the fruition of my ideas concerning the villains are making one even nastier, one much more dangerous and involved in the eventual outcome, and one much more terrifying than I ever thought I could make him.
Onwards.
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Chapter 13: Your Ass, My Mythic Organo-metallic Foot
Even to her own mentors, Tsuruko Aoyama had always been a difficult woman to read. Even at a level of skill where movement itself was a study in form and elegance, her innermost self was rarely revealed to anyone; the rare occasions that it did, however, were enough to throw everyone around her for a loop.
When she left her post and position in her clan's Shinmei-ryu school as the heir apparent to its leadership, none within the clan could fully comprehend her reasons. She was a woman even more bound by her sense of duty and honor than her younger sister, and yet seemingly in the span of an instant she chose to leave it all but fully behind in pursuit of a married life. One could, she supposed to herself, almost pin the blame for her sister's pattern of behavior on that one, solitary act of defiance, the one time she could truly say she chose with her heart rather than her honor.
If truth were to be fully told, her anger towards Motoko was not specifically aimed for her wayward sibling, but rather toward herself. After all, as the eldest surviving member of their immediate family, the responsibility for Motoko's upbringing and future fell heavily upon Tsuruko's shoulders; moreover, though the future of their clan, the school, and everything they represented were no longer her burden to bear, they still pressed on her mind and soul as the future Motoko now faced.
One could easily surmise the general reason, therefore, that Tsuruko's fury so readily came down upon her younger sister's head, but not the reason why the normally poised and fully in-control swordmaiden would lose her composure so quickly in the process.
Guilt. Not Motoko's, but her own.
In the instant before the explosions began far above, before the alarm klaxons announced the coming battle facing each and every one of them, Tsuruko finally understood this about herself, the one person she could not fool forever and yet the one that needed her honesty most of all. It had come not of her own doing, though she had been ready to kill her sister a moment before, but through the actions of the young Urashima that stood in her murderous path. Keitaro, who alone among all of them had the sense to recognize the truth for what it was and the will to stand by it.
In a way, it put Tsuruko in the young man's debt for showing her what she had blinded herself to in the name of honor, for getting her attention long enough to let the fear in her younger sister's eyes register on her consciousness and resonate in her own being—long enough for it to show her how quickly she was following the same path paved with the best intentions straight to hell as her sister had been following for so long.
Like Motoko had done mere hours before, Tsuruko had finally seen the error in time to turn aside from that path and follow the one that led, with any luck, back out again.
But there was no time to ponder this change of outlook now, she knew. Now, she was back to her own duties to those around her as a commander in a secretive and purpose-laden force set against an onslaught of coming evils greater than many that she had faced, and she would have to save her thanks for him until later.
Forgiveness among allies was something that had to be assumed offhand in a battle and confirmed directly later; there simply wasn't time for it in between.
"ALERT! ALERT! Enemy forces attempting entry through vehicular tunnels 3, 7, and 10. Outer blast doors of tunnels 7 and 10 have been breached. Enemy forces gathering outside Alpha supply route tunnel and are attempting entry. All primary and secondary gates at tunnel entrances have been sealed. Enemy will reach the first gates in less than five minutes. All forces, report to assigned battle stations immediately! All civilian and non-combat personnel report to nearest safe zone immediately! This is not a drill!"
Tsuruko stood up immediately, her initiative to take charge overriding all else that had happened in an instant. "Seta-san! Take Urashima and Konno with you to the elevators and regroup with the forces there! Motoko, you're coming with me to the supply docks. Shirai-san and Haitani-san, you should go there later as well, but not now. We need the two of you to guard the rest back to the safe zone nearest the armory; make sure everyone without some sort of protective gear gets some before you head back. There should be more squads heading there by then; head there with one of them if you can. Stick together as long as possible, and stay alive. Understood?"
Still a little surprised by the sudden alert, everyone still spoke or nodded that they did.
Seta drew his Jericho and chambered the first round. "Keitaro, Mitsune, follow me! The rest of you follow Rambo and Spangler there, they know the way. You two," he said, looking directly at Haitani and Shirai, "make sure to keep the ladies safe; that's your job for now, so take it seriously! And if you can, find Professor Heihachiro, he should be organizing a group there. I haven't seen him yet, but I know he'll know how to work that thing on your back, Shirai."
"Got it. What does he look like?" Shirai asked.
Seta smirked slightly. "Don't worry, you'll know him when you see him; he's kind of hard to miss. But go now, and fight later!"
Both saluted him with all gusto, missing or ignoring the half joking tone of his voice as he instructed them. Keitaro shook his head; knowing the girls his two best friends were now assigned to "protect," he had to wonder whether Haitani and Shirai would be the ones in need of protection before very long!
'Oh, well,' he thought to himself as he watched them. 'At least they seem to be taking the task seriously.' It didn't stop him from praying, but it did make him feel slightly better; in spite of being more clueless than himself most of the time, they were still good, loyal friends to have. After all, it wasn't everyone that would stick their necks out like that for a friend, even if it meant they were getting a free excuse to hang around the likes of the Hinata ladies for their efforts. With any luck, they might even survive the upcoming encounter.
He just hoped the two of them would manage to survive the ladies themselves.
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Excess was not a term Garhem Essade simply strove for; excess was a philosophy he practically lived by.
For him, crime had always been the surest path to attaining excess in all areas of life, and he reveled in it like he reveled in his thoughts of what this latest venture would gain for him. Of all things Essade desired in excess, power came at the very top of his list, and he had garnered it in spades. Power over his men, those foolish little pawns that did his bidding for him, recruited and trained into his own private army; power over his resources, such that he could easily move whatever he wanted wherever he wanted it to do whatever he pleased, with enough influence to make the authorities turn a blind eye; power over evils greater than himself, like those selfish demonic bastards who were foolish enough to follow his bidding on the promise of gaining more power for themselves; power over women, whether willing or not, to make them satisfy his urges as he pleased…
Power to call himself the new king of the underworld, and power to swat off opposition to his claim like so many flies at a picnic. Even that wretched, inhuman mess of a man Dubate would think twice before showing his face before Essade's collective might as it was, at least as far as Essade himself was concerned; if all that he had learned about this object, this relic of power, was even remotely accurate, Dubate would be a fool to try once Essade had it in his hands.
Excess was the key to gaining that power, to expanding and maintaining it beyond the necessary to the point of extravagance. Essade had plenty of excess to spare: excess wealth to buy the toys and talent to raze his opposition at his command and whim; excess men to replace any that fell in droves as often as necessary; excessive planning and attention to detail, with methods and backup plans and rock-solid infrastructure such that the operations could essentially run themselves, even without his involvement.
Excess girls, gathered at random off the streets at his whim, just to keep himself busy. He liked to keep at least three at his beck and call daily; often, he kept more.
After all, he did go through them rather quickly, and he hated to run out of anything.
Power was what allowed Garhem Essade to have excess of anything he wanted, and he was a man that wanted everything his own way. He reveled in that which the weak and uninitiated idiots of "society" despised because he could easily get away with it. He had clawed his way to the top, and clawed everyone else down beneath him, to gain that power, and maintaining it was a full-time job. To his mind, the perks were worth the toil. As he sat soaking the powerful waters of a hot spring that had belonged to an enemy, with his mobile and ever-resourceful operations fully entrenched in the structure and ready to suit his own purposes, he reflected on just how much he enjoyed doing this. How utterly satisfying to use this place for his activities while its owners and residents were being captured, killed, and utterly pillaged by his own men! He'd already learned plenty about the group that had so recently left this piece of real estate ripe for his taking; it was worth it to him just to snub one of his oldest and least cooperative enemies to take one of her former dwellings for his own uses. Oh, and such uses as he had for it! And so close to a major hotspot of just the sort of young, rich, and stupid clientele that provided all the financial support a criminal empire thrived on!
Even in his revelry, Garhem Essade the Chief Kingpin was only cautiously optimistic. Whatever his desires were, he knew his enemies had what he now sought, and knew how to use it to at least some degree; that they had shaken a twelve-strong fully-armed pursuit of his men proved as much on its own. Even he, regrettably not the most attuned to the finer subtleties of such powers—at least, not yet anyway—could feel the scope of power emanating from what they had even from this great a distance when it had been used. Though it had taken quite a few of his specially trained forces more sensitive than he to pinpoint the source of the emanations precisely once they had finally come to rest, Essade now knew they were entrenched and cornered, ready to hold off an onslaught in their own minds. Still, the notion of resistence hardly deterred a man like Essade; rather, it encouraged him all the more. What challenge in getting the artifact there would be, especially considering the strength of some of the enemies lined up in opposition! It had been a long time since Essade had last had such fun. And with Dubate snooping around at their heels no less, the bastard son of a bitch! Oh, he would enjoy this little war; he would trample the foolish do-gooders with his prize in their hands, and steal it back from them; then, he would use it to stamp out anything left to oppose him. Indeed, the one thing that power attracted and brought about so freely was challenge, and challenge gave one something to live for.
He knew that many of the men he sent on this mission for his benefit would not make it back, but what of it? They could all be replaced easily, and those that survived could share the pay meant for the fallen when they got back anyway. Besides, it wouldn't take very many to bring the artifact that nuisance Noriyasu Seta had squirreled away to his hands, anyway. Maybe he'd use the ones that did as test subjects to find out just how powerful the thing was when they did, just for the hell of it!
Excess was Essade's sustenance, his drug; power was the way he got high. And he was primed to become stoned on both before very long.
It took less than a moment to satisfy himself with the trivial and necessary final details of coordinating the heavy-handed strike he was to make on those fools; it had taken his men very little time to scope out tunnel after tunnel leading toward the base kept hidden for so long, now that the young owner of the building he'd commandeered was there. Essade, true to his very nature, was going all-out on this venture; with any luck, the personal power he would glean in success would trump any and all losses of men and resources his organization would incur many times over. Their lives meant nothing to one such as Essade; they were mere pawns in his game. Even those intractable clans of wretched demons followed his command now; if they fell, what of it? It would make that many fewer potential enemies to oppose him in the future. Glancing now from the waterproof equipment his loyal minions of men had arranged for his usage, he saw the doors if the hot springs opening to allow four of them in, the very four that had located his enemies for him. Though victory had yet to come, Essade knew the value of reward in securing loyalty; these four would share the first fruits of it with him as their enemies fell.
His attention shifted to the bound forms of half a dozen fresh young girls caught for his usage today, their bared limbs immobilized by the supple yet strong bands of soft, blood-red silk that bound them. He saw mouth-watering fear in their young eyes, a delightful and tantalizing mixture of terror and dread mixed with the secret fascination their innocent minds still held with their runaway imaginations. Oh, he knew what their fates would be tonight, and he knew they knew it as well, even though the particulars were hidden from them…for now, anyway.
Such a shame the Hinata's young owner wouldn't live to see what his preciously maintained building and his carefully guarded tenents were to be used for. Essade's lecherous grin grew even wider as he considered what he would try on those delectable morsels once they'd been captured.
For now, however, he'd happily practice on these.
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For the first time in the last few days, Mitsune felt a little less afraid.
She couldn't really pin down one specific reason for the ebb of her fear, only that she was somehow less afraid than she felt she ought to be at the moment. After all, it wasn't everyday that she found herself facing a firefight for her life and the lives of others around her; they were now all mere minutes away from immediate, mortal danger. She didn't even need to imagine what it would be like to be shot, as her memory was still quite clear from the previous day's experience.
At least the ground would stay in the same place beneath her this time. Shooting at moving targets was hard enough as it was.
What she did know, however, was that she'd been positively terrified a few moments earlier.
She had been dreading the encounter she knew was coming for the better part of the morning. When it had come, it had happened so fast that she barely had time to register it happening fully. Naru was angrier than she'd ever seen her, and she was clearly not just angry with Keitaro, either. No, her best friend had learned enough of what was going on to find a new target for her fury, a wrath that Kitsune knew the reasons for and behind better than anyone, maybe even Naru herself.
Not that it made any difference in the end. Once irked, Naru expressed her innermost emotions with the end of her fist. From anyone else, Mitsune might have taken the blow, maybe reacted with anger, maybe not. If it had been Keitaro in her place, she might even have freaked and attacked back, a fate she was glad to have avoided; at least she'd know he'd recover.
She, on the other hand, might not have survived such a blow.
He must have known that, too. She'd never seen anyone move so fast in her life. In the time it took her to blink, he was already between her and Naru; when she felt herself lifted and gently tossed by a current of air she could only imagine was him using his ki, and saw everyone else around her caught on the same current, she no longer felt the urge to panic, to run fast and far from her own incoming doom.
"It's not fair, you know," she commented to him as they ran after Seta down the corridor toward the elevators.
"What isn't?" Keitaro asked, not breaking stride.
"This…attack happening right when you were getting your point across," she replied. "You didn't even get enough time to hear the big round of apologies they owe you!"
He hesitated half a step, falling back ever so slightly as a confused look came across his face. "W-what do you mean? I wasn't really expecting any apologies…I mean, all I did was make sure no one got hurt; if anything, I should've been the one asking for forgiveness. What if I'd screwed up and…you know…pushed a little too hard, or accidentally struck back? I'm just thankful I didn't hurt anyone!"
Inwardly, she sighed to herself. She'd been hoping, for his sake if nothing else, that he would get to hear the other girls give him their apologies for their many, many acts against him, so that a small piece of justice could be done for him. Under the circumstances, it was all she could hope for, and yet…even then, he wasn't thinking about himself, was he? No, his main purpose had been to keep best friends from killing each other, to keep zealous sword-wielding sisters from slicing each other to ribbons with everyone else in between. His only requests, after saving their lives from each other's wrath? That they don't attempt it again, and to accept his apologies for having to stop them. Hell! What ever happened to them admitting how badly they'd treated him, and agreeing not to send him flying at the drop of a hat?
But then, he was used to being disrespected by just about everyone around him, even as he went out of his way to respect and cherish them. She, on the other hand, was used to the opposite case scenario. Though she was a master at all forms of cheating for personal gain, she never really could stand watching life cheat someone else like that.
It was a good thing she knew how to tell reality where to stick it when it counted.
Without a word, she turned in mid-stride and stopped almost completely, enough to cause him to run almost straight into her. Before he could, however, she was kissing him fiercely, deciding that she would afford him some form of reward for being who he was even if no one else could, or would, give him the time of day for it.
Had they not been facing a fight for their lives, she might have drug him off to thank him some more. She resolved once more to do so the moment they got the chance.
Assuming, of course, they ever would get it. But that was a matter of staying alive in the face of impossible odds; Keitaro excelled at that.
When the kiss broke an all-too-short moment later, he looked at her in appreciative surprise. "…wow! What was that for?" he asked.
"For being you," she said simply, unable and unwilling to hide the warm look on her face toward him, "and not what everyone called you all the time." A hint of fresh mischief lit up the expression as she teased, "You have no idea how cute you are when you do that!"
Keitaro stopped almost dead in his tracks as Kitsune skipped on ahead, giggling like mad. His face was contorted comically, disbelief and embarrassment fighting for supremacy on his twitching features as he stared after her.
A long moment passed before he could utter, "Wha—? The hell did you…cute! Ah, hell no!" Grumpily, he marched after her, grumbling, "Of all the things to be called, why the hell did it have to be cute? I am not, repeat not, kawaii!"
Mitsune only laughed even harder. 'Ha! Nailed another one right on the head, I did!' she thought to herself. True, she loved the guy now more than she could really begin to comprehend, but that wasn't going to stop her from teasing him a little bit.
She was, after all and in spite of all the dangerous crap going on around her, still Kitsune and damn proud of it.
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Tactically speaking, the supply dock was the equivalent of the base's front gate. Though its entrance was a wide, heavily barricaded and reinforced powered gate connected to a large tunnel with a hidden exit (apparently tucked conveniently behind a wall in an old warehouse on the edge of a nearby city), it stood as the only direct route into or out of the main compound. All other tunnels led to the parking garage above, which was separated from the main base by the large elevators near its center. Theoretically, an attack could reach the underground fortress from either direction; in practice, only the supply dock would allow direct access without the immediate need for equipment or expertise more advanced than plastic explosives.
Unfortunately for any would-be invaders, Motoko mused to herself, coming in the front door was never a good idea. Once they got past the gate, they would be at the center of a V of crossfire from numerous well-defended points manned by the better portion of the base's forces; if by some chance they managed to push far enough into the docks to reach the defenders themselves, they would come face-to-face with herself and her sister, both of which were in no mood to welcome them kindly.
Still, she could tell that this would likely be where the hammer would fall hardest. The entrance tunnel was straight enough to drive down, according to Tsuruko, and wide enough to mobilize plenty of people and equipment at once in either direction.
For once in her life, Motoko found herself actually wishing that Kaolla Su had brought one of her dangerous mechas, regardless of their detestable turtle-like appearances. At the very least, the wide radius of the missles they used would be able to hold back larger groups of enemies than bullets alone, and might even help against anything better armored than one of the Guardians were.
She also found herself hoping the young Molmol girl, one of the few people close enough to her to be called a friend in her sight, would not get herself hurt. For all her mischievousness and unpredictability, she was astoundingly innocent in many ways; the young swordmaiden could only pray for her sake that she could stay that way through the horrors to come.
The slow rumble of machinery and approaching explosions brought her back to the present. She carefully adjusted the extra body armor her sister had insisted she wear (just in case); it reminded her a bit of the protective gear they used to wear for their kendo training in a way, only heavier and less bulky.
For a swordmaiden in a firefight, it was the best that could be hoped for to stop what her sword and reflexes could not.
In the moments before the final set of doors were breached, however, Motoko realized that one thing had been left unsaid that shouldn't be, something she had scarcely a moment to amend. In part, it was her sense of honor that convicted her to say it, but mostly it was an obligation to her sister that, regardless of how she had or would view the circumstances, needed to be said.
"Ane-ue?" she said tentatively, attracting her older sibling's attention.
"What is it, Motoko?" Tsuruko replied evenly, the lingering sentiments of their earlier, brief confrontation still evident in her voice.
Hesitantly, Motoko took a breath and said, "I…I'm sorry, for having acted so dishonorably. Though it does not right the wrongs I have caused…I still regret having caused them. I feel I have failed you most of all, and for that I am truly sorry."
For a moment, her older sister said nothing to her, only gazing with penetrating eyes at her as though to read something of her mind and soul. Then, to her surprise, the older Aoyama's expression softened. "In that case, my sister, I forgive you, and ask your forgiveness in return. For I fear that I, too, have failed you in the same way. In my anger, perhaps, I failed to realize how much we share in common, you and I."
Motoko blinked, somewhat taken aback. "How so?"
"Well, for starters," Tsuruko said, with a hint of a smirk, "we both have a tendency to swing first and ask questions later, don't we?"
She blinked again, considering the point. She remembered her sister's face, how it bore the same terrifying look of unrestrained, almost hot-headed anger she often wore herself when confronting the likes of Keitaro. For the first time, the similarity in their personalities at such moments became almost uncanny, no matter their differences otherwise.
To her own surprise, it actually made her want to laugh. And laugh she did.
So did Tsuruko.
It lasted only a moment, as they both knew they were facing battle and deadly peril, but the extraordinarily rare lapse of seriousness in both women was freeing for both of them, a means to let go of some of the tension between them that had been building between them for so long.
And then the enormous gate began to bend and buckle from the other side, and both drew their swords as one, a look of sheer determination on both of their faces.
For the first time in ages, the Aoyama sisters would enter battle together with their swords aimed in the same direction.
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Of the many emotions Naru had felt toward or because of Keitaro, numbness was a brand new arrival that overwhelmed her as completely as rage.
Normally, she would be hitting something or someone, anything to release the pent-up and frustrated tide of emotions that had been broiling within her for the last few days, especially the last few hours. She had gone to confront her best friend and the baka she never really could get off her mind, the thought of them actually being together driving her well past her short limits of self-control. She'd found her best friend first, but it had been Keitaro that had thrown her, quite literally, for a loop.
A part of her realized it was the first time he'd actually directly taken action to stop her from hitting anyone, himself included; though it shouldn't have surprised her after all that had happened so far, it still did. She was shocked he even had it in him to pull off what he had, considering the fact that he'd held not just her off, but both the Aoyama sisters, with relative ease.
What really got her was that she was beginning to understand why he did it, and the reasons scared her deeply. She had seen, now, a glimpse of the truth she had long denied as vehemently as she could, and had no recourse left to avoid dealing with it, to stave off her own course of emotions with her fist. She had lost her sense of permission to do so days ago, when Haruka had read them the riot act for the way they'd treated their kanrinin; she'd lost her sense of moral support when Motoko had confronted him in disguise on her own, only to return believing the same thing Haruka had told them.
Then, mere moments earlier, she'd lost all hope of being right, when Keitaro himself proved her wrong in more ways than one. He had revealed his strengths to them directly at last, and with them had demonstrated his true intentions more clearly than any words could tell. Therein lay the worst realization of all: the fact that she, Naru, had lost her chance with him by her own hand, now and probably forever, all because she had been too blind and stubborn to see the truth of the matter sooner. A hundred opportunities flashed before her eyes that she had missed; she'd had at least a hundred chances to apologize to him, to start over and in better control of her own actions, to really start appreciating him for who he was rather than pushing him away for what she had so desperately wanted to convince herself he was supposed to be.
To admit to him how she really felt, and had been feeling, toward him for some time now. And now she really couldn't, because she knew who he was with, and it wasn't Naru Narusegawa.
She didn't need to be told now that it was much too late, that she'd waited too long to make a move. She didn't need to hear the words she'd secretly dreaded to hear, who for so long had been unwilling even to admit to herself that she dreaded to hear them.
She now knew, without a doubt in her own mind, that he was with her. He was with Mitsune.
More importantly, he was not with herself. He was not with Naru.
Now, all she could feel was numb. She was vaguely aware that the base was under attack; weren't they expecting that, though? She didn't care anymore, couldn't bring herself to care. Keitaro, clearly, could handle this, much as she hated to admit it; what was she supposed to do about it? She wanted to blame him for all of this, but how could she now? It was her own damn fault for treating him like she had, for refusing to tell him that she actually cared for him. Now, she'd reaped exactly what she'd professed to want, hadn't she? She should be happy; she was livid, and sad, and confused instead. Of all people, why did it have to be Kitsune? Did it have to be her best friend that took him? Was it really so simple as that, that she'd never even seen it coming?
Now, as she found her self following two of his friends down a crowded and noisy organized chaos of a corridor, both marching self-importantly in their ridiculous garb and gear, she couldn't bring herself to react as she normally might have done. Sure, her contempt told her to bang their heads together like so many coconuts, and her bitterness urged her to pick up a weapon herself and destroy anything and everything she could. She simply couldn't find the energy to fuel that contempt, that bitterness in her now; she'd lost it somewhere in that crosspath moments earlier.
She didn't know what to do, or how to react, or exactly what she should feel. If she had been Sarah or Su, she might have been scared or exited, or both, at all that had happened and that was about to take place. The latter of the two was practically bouncing off the ceiling, with the former not far behind. If she had been Shinobu, she'd have every right to feel as worried, as fearful, and as morose about the current state of affairs and that of their kanrinin as the young cook herself no doubt felt; poor girl never had a chance, either, did she? Naru didn't know if the young, innocent girl had picked up the same signals she had, or had come to the same conclusion yet; she would eventually, though. Then, maybe, she would grieve openly. She might have hidden her feelings, too, but at least she hadn't denied them the way Naru had with her own. If Shinobu wanted to cry about it to anyone, they'd readily understand and accept how she felt, would try to comfort her as best they could.
Not Naru, though. Only two people she knew of really even comprehended how she had felt toward him, even partially; one of them was now in his arms, and the other (she bitterly thought) might have been just as likely to have ended up in the same place, if not even more so, had circumstances been a little different.
Even numbness didn't make these pains go away entirely.
She barely noticed when they arrived at their destination, a guarded and barricaded room full of civilians, mostly unarmed in spite of the protective gear being handed out. She saw more of the local militia about, no doubt organizing to fight off the bastards at the doorstep. Keitaro's pals seemed to be joining them now, looking as idiotic and confused as ever; she didn't really care that much, and decided to ignore them. She saw Kaolla Su's sister and "brother" speaking with the young girl quickly in their own tongue, a strange and beautiful language indeed; the latter was already armed for battle himself, his appearance in full battle garb reminding Naru all the more of Keitaro now than ever before. Had she not seen as many outlandish and dangerous devices come out of the young tenant's room as she already had, she might have been more than mildly curious about the unusually tank-like version the girl was obviously putting the finishing touches on now, much to her nearest relations' apparent (and voiced) doubts about letting her take it into battle. It explained, at least, why they had seen so little of the MolMolian girl since they'd arrived just a couple days prior.
"They say it would be wise for everyone to wear these, just in case," a familiar voice addressed her suddenly half a moment before a large, surprisingly heavy, and very shirtlike object fell in her lap, jarring her numbed mind out of its numbing stupor just enough for her to take notice. She looked down to see a suit of the same riot armor she'd seen so many people running around in lately, and to her surprise her mind used the object's advent as an excuse to begin functioning normally once more. Logic immediately kicked in, as her brain quickly digested and saw the truth in the statement she had just heard.
Dangerous situations, after all, were always good for focusing one's attention on something other than one's own problems for a while.
Her mind also recognized the voice behind the statement, and though it already knew of the presence of its owner at the compound, it never would have expected to hear what it had out of said owner's mouth. Naru looked up to see the smiling, somewhat concerned visage of Mutsumi Otohime hovering over a very ill-fitted bulletproof jacket of her own.
In spite of herself, Naru had to stifle a chuckle at the absurdity of it. "I…guess so, huh?" she said aloud instead, examining the modern armor in her lap.
Mutsumi nodded. "Indeed! It would not be fair to the ones trying to defend us if we didn't at least make it harder for the ones trying to hurt us to do so."
"Hmph. Just so long as they don't expect us to come save their sorry asses," Naru said a little more bitterly than she intended to sound.
The thought seemed to worry her anemic friend. "You don't suppose we will, do you?" she asked, a small amount of trepidation in her voice.
"Tch. I sincerely doubt it," Naru replied, pulling the riot gear on and instantly beginning to hate its weight. It reminded her of wearing a bookbag around her entire torso. "Hell, there's only two ways in, and they've got Motoko and her sister at one end and that ba-…that hen-…ugh…him...at the other." She scowled in frustration, the mere thought of Keitaro sending her emotions back to the forefront of her consciousness.
"You look perplexed, my friend. Is something the matter?" the woman inquired of her, her voice full as ever of the same, genuine concern she always remembered hearing in his voice when he sensed that something was amiss.
Naru sighed, frustrated and tired. "No, Mutsumi, I'm…I'm fine, thanks. Just a bit stressed," she tried to lie to her friend, but it didn't work; the glaring untruth of her own words now grated on her own ears even worse than before, and she couldn't bring herself to let them stand. "Actually…no, I'm not fine at all. I feel horrible," she found herself saying, her voice quieter than before.
"Oh, dear! Are you injured…?" Mutsumi asked, but Naru shook her head and looked away. "No? Are you falling ill…?" she pressed, gaining the same response. "No, not ill? Are you afraid?" Naru gave her only a disbelieving glare. "No, I guess not, huh? Well, has something happened, then?" This time, there was a pause, and a reluctant nod that barely made the points of Naru's antenna-like partial bangs sway. "What happened?"
'What didn't happen is more like it!' Naru thought to herself sullenly. "Where do I start…" she began aloud, and proceded to tell her kindly anemic friend all that she could, ignoring all else that went on around them.
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The parking garage had become a much different place since the previous night, Keitaro thought to himself as the elevator doors opened. He and Mitsune were pressed up along the left hand side, clear of the opening doors, along with about a dozen fully armed Guardians (which were, he'd finally found out, the official name of the on-base guard forces); Haruka, who had joined the group only moments earlier, stood similarly on the right with Seta and a dozen more. The Guardians fanned out as soon as the doors opened, each carrying and wielding two or three weapons apiece. Most had drawn their primary guns, the H&K MP7A1. Seta had told him a bit about the relatively small weapon before they'd gone up; apparently, its bullets were small but high-powered, making them quite good at punching through body armor. The type the Guardians wore was good enough to stop a few such rounds at most, but wouldn't hold up against more for long (which, primarily, was why they used them).
As they followed behind the well-trained men, Keitaro noticed immediately how much smaller the place seemed to be, as though the walls had closed in and swallowed every car in the lot.
Essentially, they had. Thick concrete and steel barriers had risen from panels within the ground, enclosing each parking space on all sides and making for a much narrower, manageable arena in which to fight. More Guardians were moving about everywhere, setting up the defensive perimeter and erecting barricades at every strategic position possible. They moved toward one of the nearest tunnel entrances, marked 07 across its thick steel-gate doors. Keitaro already knew from the alarm klaxons and continuous announcements being made that this was only one of three tunnels being breached at the moment. Vaguely, he wondered to himself how long it would take them to get through those doors, and what they might use.
A loud but muffled booming from just behind the thick barriers was answer enough. As smoke began to seep through the cracks around the edges and center, his wonderings changed; this time, he found himself pondering what the hell they'd made the doors out of!
Next to him, he heard Haruka curse under her breath. "Sounds like they didn't use enough explosives on the first go. They won't make that mistake twice, though."
"Why not?" he asked.
"The first blast was a test to see how thick they were; they used a small amount to limit the distance the had to fall back from the explosion, in case they got lucky. It'll take time for them to set up again on this door, but…oh, hell." In one swift motion, Haruka hit her radio's send key and practically yelled, "All units! They're gonna blow 3 and 10! Brace yourselves and hold your—!"
She was cut off by a pair of enormous, metal-grating explosions resounding some distance away on either side of them. Barely seconds after the echoes finally stopped reverberating off the hardened walls, Keitaro heard the first reports of gunfire following closely behind.
It was fortunate that every tunnel in the complex was similarly barricaded and defended, Keitaro thought as he chambered the first round in his Desert Eagle; as it was, they were already being attacked through two of them. The radios came alive with chatter as the fight got underway; fortunately, the defense seemed well prepared for the onslaught and was holding its own—at least for the moment.
Then a third, much closer massive boom knocked into him with enough force to rattle every bone in his body almost painfully. The massive doors in front of them bent and warped severely a split second before they tore out of their framework, flying forward toward the defenders like massive walls of iron. Nearly two seconds later, they hit the first row of barricades, driving several back as they tumbled forward.
Within seconds, bullets began to sail in both directions through the dark fog of smoke that followed the ruin of the iron gates, and the fight was finally on. Keitaro fired quickly and carefully, using his heightened senses and awareness to direct his fire. He aimed to incapacitate where and whenever he could; though the others around and before him were shooting to kill, he had more of a choice in the matter by virtue of skill and superior protection. Keitaro's compassion for life extended to his enemies almost as much as it did toward his friends, even under such dangerous conditions.
Even so, with sword and gun and armor to bring to bear Keitaro did much more to counter and answer the incoming fire than he did to interfere with the outgoing volleys. His main concern was keeping those on his side alive and unhurt as much as possible, and that meant taking the fight to the enemy rather than hiding behind defensive lines. He rarely sought cover, using his swift movements and unusual appearance to draw fire away from those on his side toward himself. His armor proved incredibly resilient against the smaller fire that struck him, though the bigger bullets hit hard enough to bruise him more often than not. Within moments, he had crossed the narrow firing zone to land himself among the attackers, many of whom had to turn away from their original targets to face the sudden threat within their ranks. By the time they had, two found their guns (and more than one finger) sliced in half, and three had dropped to the ground, clutching the new holes that had appeared in their limbs.
Two more fell to a single shot of a third, each hit near the hip as the two halves of one lead slug angled away from the business edge of Keitaro's blade as he sliced it vertically. With the same cut, he felled the shooter himself, destroying weapon and splitting the gunner's arm.
Still in motion, Keitaro swung his own gun upward sharply as he ejected its empty clip, sending the spring-loaded lump of heavy metal into another enemy's temple with the force of a punch. Four more moved to attack him immediately, two with machine guns and two with swords of their own. The gunners fired at his head, aiming for the only exposed area on his body, while the swordsmen went for his legs, trying to cut him down near the joint of his knee. Keitaro somersaulted over the swords, dodging the fresh streams of lead in the process, bringing himself to land his foot squarely into one of the gunmen's chest with bone-snapping force. As the other tried to re-aim, a thin ripple of heavily distorted air seemed to pass directly in line with his ears; unfazed by the presence of his skull, the high-caliber sniper round that had created the distortion emerged in a small, quick red spray out the other ear, not stopping until it had embedded itself in a wall just past (and through) another enemy's neck. The suddenness of the double kill distracted the remaining swordsmen for the smallest of moments, slightly delaying their smooth transition into their next coordinated attack. Keitaro, however, wasn't so distracted, and both fell to his blade.
Somewhere, further back on the defensive line, Haruka snorted with content and chambered her next round. In front of her, Seta was swiftly moving to join Keitaro and a few of the more aggressive of the Guardian squad members, all but two of whom were still standing; to her side, Mitsune was aiming for any on the opposing side that tried to do the same.
A nearby explosion announced another tunnel's breaching, and the battle raged on.
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In spite of his (and his friend's) oft-professed self-confidence, Haitani wasn't afraid to admit to himself that he was nervous as all holy hell about what was going on.
He'd kept a brave face on the entire way back to the safe area nearest the armory, a trip that could have been much worse normally considering just who they were escorting. After all, Naru's fists had become legends unto themselves, and he was secretly relieved that Keitaro had somehow stalled their wrath for the time being. Though he didn't often see her outside cram school, he'd never seen the girl quite so…quiet, maybe? From what he'd heard from Keitaro, he doubted there was any reason for it other than damaged pride. As far as anyone could tell, she didn't seem to share the same interest in Keitaro that he (not to mention a large number of other guys) had in the hot-tempered young woman. He felt confident—mostly—that technique had been Keitaro's biggest problem, but then again technique didn't count for a lot where Naru was concerned. He'd have to get Shirai to back him up later in asking her out, now that they both knew their mutual friend was no longer quite so taken with the girl and they didn't have to worry about hurting his feelings quite so badly in making the attempt. Hard hitting or not, she was still damn beautiful, after all; it couldn't hurt to try at least once.
Could it?
At any rate, even after they'd parted company with the girls Haitani could still feel the pit of dread steadily growing in his stomach. He tried not to think about what the two of them were about to go do. The shotgun in his hands, cool as it seemed to him, was still quite heavy and dangerous; he'd seen his dad shoot a deer with one before, and still remembered the rather disturbing sight of the animal's shredded flesh where the many pieces of buckshot had hit it. He knew enough to realize how much larger the shells for the one he now carried were than that 20-gauge hunting weapon had used, and had enough imagination to picture just how much worse such a wound would look on a human body. Suddenly, the glory of volunteering to go use it, even against what was arguably a truly evil force, didn't seem quite so appealing to him as it had less than an hour ago.
Did the fighting have to start so soon? Couldn't he get used to the idea first, or go on guard duty, or something? The distant rumble of explosions seemed to mock his wishful thinking. He kept glancing at Shirai, at the oversized oddity on his back. At least he didn't have the worry of knowing what his weapon could do; his friend didn't even know how to use the thing yet. Then again, at least Haitani had a little practice with his type of gun, both in real life and in the virtual world of gaming. Shirai held a weapon of unknown practical power, barely described usage, and no instruction manual to learn either property in any detail. How could he expect to defend himself with it, let alone anything else? Sure, they both wanted the same thing: to help their friend, to fight and win, and to get joint copyright on the codenames they came up with.
The reality was that neither of them was really all that well-prepared to do it, at least not offhand like this.
Next to him, Shirai muttered and cursed. "Crap! I can't figure this thing out for the life of me. I'm pretty sure this is the trigger, but nothing I try with anything seems to make it do anything."
Haitani's nervousness increased. "Uhh…you really sure you should try messing with that so much? I mean, shouldn't you ask someone that knows how to work it?"
Shirai looked indignant. "Hey! I'm being careful, you know! I've already found the trigger, anyway…I think."
Haitani winced. "That's what you said the last time we tried playing Halo! Instead of shooting an unshielded enemy with the flag, you stuck me in the head with a grenade and blew up half our team!"
"Hey, that ain't fair! Someone switched my button layout and didn't tell me," Shirai argued. "That's what you get for using my profile instead of your own!"
"Like hell I did! I don't even use that kind of setup! Inverted-Legacy-Default buttons, remember? All it changes is the sticks!"
"Tch, whatever, man. It was your fault for standing where you were, anyway."
"Yeah, right, dude!"
"Whatever. It's not like I'm totally clueless about how this thing works, you know. Everything's labeled pretty clearly on it, actually; I just I can't seem to figure out why I can't turn the damn thing on!"
"That's because you aren't looking for the right switch!" a boisterously loud, strangely accented voice suddenly boomed behind them. Both jumped about a foot in the air, but only Haitani seemed to land. Turning, he saw the reason why: an unusually large, somewhat hairy-looking hand had grabbed the large pack, holding both it and a panicking Shirai in midair over a foot off the ground.
When Haitani saw the size of the owner of said arm, he nearly did the same. Standing behind them was a man who, by the looks of him, might have been half-bear and part-lion. A head ringed with a mane of wild, bristling black hair sat with a mouth wide open in boisterous, deep-throated laughter on his tall, barrel-chested and thick-limbed body. With a casual flick of one thick finger, the man flicked a small switch near the bottom of Shirai's outlandish equipment. Instantly, a rising hum emanated from the device, and several lights on it flickered on in sequence as the miniature subatomic accelerators within it came to life. "Hah! There, see? Won't get very far with one of my protoblasters if you don't even turn it on, my boy!" The man threw his head back again with laughter, his half-foot long beard jutting out as he casually dropped Shirai back to his feet. "Good thing I know my own work at a distance, or you'd be a quark short of an atom out there."
Finally recovering himself, Shirai stood up again and said in a less-than-confident tone, "Uh…t-thanks, mister. I hope you don't, uh, mind me using it, or anything, uh…" He looked to Haitani pleadingly.
"Er, what he means, uh, sir, is that, well, he's not exactly all that good with a gun or anything, and we heard from Professor Noriyasu that this might work better, you know, for someone that isn't—"
"Ah, well, that makes more sense already!" the man chuckled. "You two know my friend Seta in the Archaeology Department, then?"
Both of them nodded. "Y-yes, we do, sir," Shirai said. "Er, does that make you…?"
"The Professor Heihachiro Hoshiti of Tokyo University, and quite damn proud of it at that!" the man responded jovially.
Both Haitani and Shirai looked at each other in disbelief. This was Toudai's resident expert on theoretical physics Seta had told them about? Somehow, they had both been expecting him to be a much older, more geeky-looking professor in goggles and a lab coat, if anything; that he would be a nearly seven-foot, booming voiced behemoth in oversized, heavily laden battle fatigues and a somewhat undersized lab coat hadn't crossed their minds. Yet there was no mistaking the mug and name in the photo-I.D. nametag pinned to his coat; along with the marks of his identity, Hoshiti wore a "protoblaster" of his own on his large back as prominently as he wore his cudgel.
He wore said large, cast-iron, club-shaped, spike-covered cudgel on his belt as casually as one would a set of keys, in spite of the way it strained against the loop strapping it on.
"So," Hoshiti continued, a hint of curiosity in his voice, "what are two fine young lads such as yourselves doing mixed up in this mess?"
"Well…we're kind of here because a friend of ours is supposed to be some secret badass fighting machine," Haitani explained carefully, "and since it's pretty much fight or get blown up we're looking to help him out if we can. Not sure how much help we'll be, but we ain't leaving him to stand all alone against this. It wouldn't sit well, you know?"
"Hmmm…I see. That is excellent news, indeed, then!"
"Why's that?" Shirai asked, confused.
"My good fellow! Every man worth his weight has good, loyal friends behind him! When one fights to defend his friends, he fights at his best! Tell me, which front has he taken?"
"He went to the car tunnels up above us, I think," Haitani responded.
"Good, very good. Then we shall have little to worry about, I think!" Hoshiti mused. "Since one of you has taken such interest in my invention, I think it best that you join me and the others from my department in conducting the field tests!" Again, he laughed with almost manic glee as he patted both of them on the backs hard enough to turn them back around in the direction they'd been traveling. To their mild surprise, about a dozen and a half more people stood ready before them, many armed with protoblasters of their own (among other weapons). At the same moment, a fresh deep rumbling of an explosion sounded off in the distance, accompanied by the rattling of the ground beneath their feet. "COME! FOES KNOCK WITH LEAD AND STEEL AT OUR GATES! LET US KNOCK THEIR HEADS!" Hoshiti bellowed, a wild warrior's look as he began a surprisingly swift lumbering charge down the hall.
Both Haitani and Shirai stared and gaped after him. The others seemed to hesitate as well; all but a few seemed more or less better suited for Toudai's physics department than Hoshiti, including the situation they were currently facing. Somehow, the large man noticed they were hesitating and stopped about twenty feet away. Looking over his shoulder, he rolled his eyes in almost comic exasperation and called out, "Well, come on! Don't just stand there! We've got work to do!"
The two friends looked at each other, then back at Hoshiti, then back at each other. Finally, with a somewhat helpless shrug, they both took off after him in a similar manner, both simply glad to have someone that clearly knew what he was doing with them.
Less than half a moment later, the others followed with somewhat less enthusiasm.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At the loading docks, things were already hectic. The fighting was mixed and fierce on both sides; the earlier gunfire had slowly begun to give way to close quarters combat, a mixture of blades and firearms exchanging blows back and forth across the increasingly blurring divide.
The Aoyama sisters were in full-force combat mode, their own blades a pair of steel lightning bolts darting through the oncoming criminal army in front of them. Many of their opponents were mixed fighters, it seemed, and quite a few were fairly decent; so far, though, none could match either swordmaiden with gun or blade, though it seemed there were plenty more of them to fight than there were defenders to fight back. Still, the Guardians and the Shinmei-ryu warriors together were holding back the tide, albeit with some difficulty.
Motoko was hardly unused to blood and battle, having been raised to face both her entire life. A part of her mind was free to analyze even as she fought, sending slashes and volleys of her stronger secret-technique ki blasts alike at her opponents. Her sister was even swifter and more deadly; at one point, a whole group flew to pieces like ragdolls as she passed them.
It was only during a brief lull in the fighting between waves of increasingly better-armed and trained enemies, however, that Motoko began to understand the nature of a much greater enemy to both of them. Fatigue was slowly beginning to rear its head, its tendrils snaking out and wrapping through her mind and muscles just beneath the numbing influence of adrenaline in her system. It was slow at first, but as the small scrapes and bruises she couldn't quite avoid receiving began to multiply, she was slowly running out of energy to fight at her fullest. Her sister was faring better, it seemed, but only somewhat.
Even for two of the best, dodging and blocking so many bullets and using their talents so heavily was not something that could be humanly maintained forever. Unfortunately for the both of them, things were about to get worse.
Suddenly, it seemed the enemy fire fell off in front of them, as though briefly held back by something. Curious, Motoko glanced at the enemy ranks, noting a slight parting in their forces as they moved off to the side.
Then, and only then, did she feel the full force of the malevolence gathering in the shadows of the battle-scarred tunnel. It hit her in a way she had never expected, assaulting her senses with painfully intense harshness all at once. She felt it like spines grating through her nerves, like the rank stench of burnt and rotting flesh in her nostrils and stingingly bitter tastes on her tongue. Even her vision and hearing seemed affected, as though horrific sounds beyond the range of human hearing were slowly vibrating her skull and warping her perception of everything else.
Motoko had less experience with what she now faced than her sister did, and knew that fact clearly for the first time. Now, she could see for the first time just how far off the mark she had been in her judgment of Keitaro, in whom she had (mistakenly, it now seemed) perceived a low form of evil expressed in his human nature. She had thought that a constant level of vigilance on her part was necessary to spot any such evil, in any form.
This, however, was evil she would have felt if she had been blind, deaf, and fast asleep. It did not provoke her to the righteous anger she had expected to feel, the fuel behind her strongest attacks; it filled her instead with a terror she had not known she could feel, a sense of dread that reached to the unshakeable core of her being.
"Ane-ue! Oni! " she cried to her sister, but Tsuruko was already by her side.
"I know," the older sibling replied, her own eyes glowing white with power as she faced the opening before them.
For the first time in her life, Motoko heard her sister curse as first one, then three, then three dozen pairs of hellishly glowing crimpson eyes opened in the darkness before them.
From the darkness emerged the oni, the powerful and purely evil demonic spirits made physical flesh. They were large and variable in shape, akin to humans or animals in rough design only; some had extra limbs, some bore thick plates of bony armor on feral frames, and others were grotesquely formed of parts that had no business coexisting on anything living or dead. Where claws, horns, fangs, bladed joints and barbed spines did not cover their bodies, they carried weapons made for cruel, vicious bloodshed.
It was the destiny of all true Shinmei-ryu warriors to face such ogres and demons as these. A hundred of their best warriors might struggle for days with heavy losses against swollen clans of oni to wipe the malevolent beings out of existence. It was thanks to their efforts that, in modern times at least, to see more than a handful together at any one time was increasingly rare, provided one ever saw them at all.
Now, there were only about four or five that had been trained in her clan's arts among the Guardians still standing, aside from herself and her sister; standing before them was an entire clan of oni, already four dozen strong and growing in number. What few markings they bore told, in horrific symbolic imagery and words, of their centuries-long connections to one another as kin. The other Guardians would be of minimal help, she realized; few had the proper training, and bullets were as good as useless against such foes.
"I have a bad feeling about this," she said to her sister as both raised their swords.
From that moment forward, the battle became far more difficult. The oni were vicious, fierce opponents, and did not fall easily; it took the concentrated fire of at least ten Guardians to bring even one of them down, by which time it had already brutally butchered six others. The first dozen to fall multiplied the injuries and casualties of the defending warriors more than the first hundred human enemies had several fold, and forced the defenders further and further back as they pressed forward.
Perhaps given time to rest and recuperate, Motoko found herself musing, she and her sister might have been able to best the demons on their own, though it likely would cost both of them their lives to do so. With the dozen or so warriors from their own clan that had been standing at the start of the fight at their side, they might have both survived it as well. But they were both tiring quickly, the evil-eradicating techniques that served as their only effective weapons against such beings becoming more and more difficult to perform. Small injuries were beginning to multiply themselves on both of them, and their fellow warriors were already beginning to succumb to injuries of their own. Fewer and fewer of the other Guardians still lived to help, their attention increasingly divided between the human enemies they could match and the demonic ones they could not.
And then, quite suddenly, one of the oni nearly managed to kill her. She had just finished impaling another, axe-bearing oni with Shisui, channeling her swiftly dwindling reserves of strength into yet another ki blast to incinerate it from within when a large, almost lion-like beast oni leapt from behind a growing pile of bodies and debris at her. There wasn't enough time for her to move to survive, let alone retaliate, even as she attempted to do both. Time slowed to a crawl, though it hardly helped; she saw the dark, demonically mutated talon-like claws and jagged, razor-sharp teeth extending from the swift form of her soon-to-be killer, the look of hatred and hunger emanating from the thing's twisted expression. Inches away from her face, however, the beast lurched to a sudden halt in midair with a horrific shriek of pain, its body convulsing under the entangling power of a visible, unknown energy warping around its body. Too surprised and tired to formulate another ki blast so soon, she nevertheless used the opportunity to strike with her blade.
To her surprise, the simple cut penetrated deeply into the demon's flesh, cutting it the way it would cut that of an ordinary human. In one slice, she decapitated it, and the remains quickly incinerated themselves under the strange energies that had suddenly bound and stalled it.
Fortunately for her, the sudden, unexpected, and bizarre demise of one of their own caused the nearest of the oni to momentarily halt their assault as they backed away about a collective pace to regard the source of the new threat, allowing Motoko just enough time to safely do the same herself.
The smoking tips of a pair of strange devices immediately caught everyone's eye. The devices themselves were worn by two of the most dissimilar-looking newcomers imaginable. The nearest Motoko recognized, to her own chagrin: it was the shorter of the two friends that always seemed to hang around Keitaro, wearing a look of surprise and possibly glee at the power of the odd weapon he now wielded in both hands, his already small frame weighed down slightly by the large backpack component that apparently powered it. She recognized the device as the one he'd been wearing when she'd spotted him and his taller counterpart scarcely half an hour earlier.
The other newcomer was a gigantic reminder of everything Motoko disliked in a male wrapped in a package that for all the world reminded her of a barbaric warrior king from some forgotten era. He wielded the identical contraption in one hand, and raised an iron cudgel that easily rivaled the weapons of the oni themselves in the other.
"CHOKE ON YOUR BLOOD AS WE SLIT YOUR GIZZARDS, DEMONS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHH!" he yelled, his surprisingly eloquent-sounding voice booming over the din of battle as he pointed the cudgel towards the oni. "TOUDAI QUASARS! FORWARD!" Firing up his bizarre weapon once more, the hairy giant of a man charged into the fray with all the fury and bloodlust of a demon himself, the powerful beam ensnaring another demon for him to quickly pummel into oblivion. Charging more or less as enthusiastically right behind him was a small group of fresh fighters, not more than twenty altogether (including Keitaro's two friends); interestingly, they seemed to move in pairs, with one wielding one of the energy-beam devices while the other used a more conventional weapon. The strategic arrangement was immediately clear to Motoko's mind: the devices were enough to weaken a given oni, but not kill it, while a normal weapon wouldn't take down the demons fast enough to be useful on its own…unless, of course, there was something else strong enough to weaken said demon's defenses. Such was the utility of her own ki-infused techniques, which amplified the power of her attacks to specifically damage the malevolent beings of the demons themselves with each physical blow. However sharp Shisui was, it would not inflict lasting wounds on an oni without such power to reinforce the strikes.
Whatever the devices were, they served much the same purpose as her techniques, and that made the oni ever so slightly less lethal and easier to kill. Even the likes of Keitaro's stooge friends, untrained in real combat as they were, could work together on one given oni, with one pinning and weakening it while the other blasted it with a few shotgun shells.
At any other time, Motoko might have both marveled at the ingenuity of the devices themselves and resented their ability to match an aspect of her hard-earned abilities. She might also have gagged on the identities of her saviors and acted on her sudden impulse to repeatedly bang her head against the nearest wall in utter frustration. 'Why did it have to be them!' she moaned inwardly to herself. 'Must I be honor-bound to owe my life in combat to THOSE idiots as well!'
In spite of herself, however, Motoko Aoyama the Shinmei-ryu swordmaiden was still grateful that they had, in spite of who they were. As she turned and fought with a renewed sense of vigor and hope, she could only be glad that the odds had been evened out in their favor. For her pride's sake, she would accept what help there was to be had for now; at the very least, she could be sure to defeat at least twice as many of the demons as they did in half the time.
The battle went on with renewed fury.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A.N.: Hot damn, things are cooking up. I know, this is only a relatively brief introduction to the fighting, but there was much to set up for later.
Major credit must be given where it's due here. First off, the new OC, Heihachiro Hoshiti, was inspired in large part by the actor/comedian Brian Blessed. He is well known for his brash, warrior-king like demeanor, and has the bulk to reinforce it; I got the idea after watching an old 1980 cult classic movie called Flash Gordon, in which Blessed plays the raucous and unforgettable Prince Vulcan, leader of the Hawkmen. For those of you that haven't seen this movie, please do so if you can; for everyone else, check out the episode "Road to Berlin" on Family Guy and watch for this character's cameo during the dogfight sequence (you'll know him when you see him, trust me). You can also check the first Blackadder series, in which he plays Richard IV. The name, meanwhile, is from a character in Onimusha 3, combined with a made-up name that made me think of what "oh, shit!" might sound like coming out of Jackie Chan's mouth. No joke, that's how I thought of it.
The title was inspired by a late level in Halo 2 that similarly describes the Arbiter's plans concerning a certain Brute chieftan and his own "size 24 hoof" in the nearest future. Everything else should be pretty obvious, unless I forgot something. Next chapter: more bloodshed and villainy, Keitaro finds himself pushed ever closer to epic, mythic action, and something bad happens to someone Keitaro knows that will cause them to unleash a Hell-surpassing fury on some unsuspecting henchmen…