Author's notes:
Finally something new. If I would not spent that much time on watching Bleach (again) I'd be able to update more often, but oh well. (I hope it doesn't have such a big impact on my writing, but that's for you to judge.)
I had fun writing this chapter, especially the middle part so I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.
Enjoy!
Chapter 10 – Distraction
Everything was dark. There was nothing, just a very bright light not bigger than a star in the night's sky. Everything else was pitch black. Not even the slightest trace of anything else but the small and bright light was there, all on it's own.
Suddenly other lights began to appear in some distance, one after another popped up. Some brighter, some fainter, some smaller, some larger. That went on for a while until there were more than five-thousand lights to be seen. They roughly had formed a cross.
Five lights caught the former sole light's attention. One of them was small as a star in the night's sky and far brighter than the sun, it seemed as if it was quarreling with another light that was far bigger but couldn't match the luminance of the one it was fighting. Close by there were three other lights that were only slightly more lucid than the moon and also had about it's size. They seemed to be totally fraught.
Without warning the brightest light suddenly grew to half of the size of the biggest one and due to it's beautiful brightness nearly swallowed up the lights around it. Soon the brightest light returned to its original size.
The big one was stirred up to the core and gave the impression of being about to explode at any second. And then the bright one disappeared completely. The size of the already big one grew by a lot again and for some reason it calmed down to only being a bit wavy.
Then two of the other lights vanished completely in an instant and another one shrunk to the size of a mere dot. It suddenly was so small that even though it was quite bright it could barely be seen anymore. Then the really big light started moving away.
###
Her eyes instantly opened to replace the ravening darkness of her dream with the sunlight that had begun shining into her room. She sat up and rubbed her face with her right hand. 'That stupid dream again' she thought slightly annoyed. For nearly two and a half years it had returned several times. To Jacqueline it even felt like the intervals it returned in were shortening.
She had never given it that much thought but couldn't help herself but wonder about having it over and over again. The lights in that dream clearly were Yoki, two of them of extraordinary quality, that much was certain. And one of them seemed to awaken during the dream.
"Good thing it's just a dream" she mused. "A thing like that to exist..."
...would be dangerous you think?
"You again..." she sighed enervatedly. "I've just woken up, now give me a break, will you?"
You always act so cold towards me. You know, you'd be an all-devouring monster if it weren't for me.
"They were still alive if it weren't for you" she shot back a little louder but still without a visible expression.
I'm not that nice of a person to help anyone without proper consideration. Was it not you who said something similar to the General earlier this day?
"Oh shut up, will you?" she complained while getting up and beginning to attach her armor.
How come you began sleeping in beds, anyways? I always thought that you disliked it.
"You tell me, mister know-it-all" she replied after a while while sheathing her claymore to get ready for her job. "After all," she continued while leaving and locking her room, "you have full access to my memories and my feelings. You can even see my dreams more clearly than myself." She then went down the stairs leading down to the reception while continuing: "So why don't you tell me why I began doing that?"
The inn's owner as well as the other guests there gave the tall woman suspicious looks while asking themselves who she was talking to. After Jacqueline had left the innkeeper said: "Those warriors surely are strange."
###
It's not like I can read your mind or something like that. I just experience everything you experience, so basically whatever you sense, feel and dream. Simple thoughts as well as things you decide and do unconsciously, however, are just too less of an actual experience for me to get to know about them, too.
"And still," Jacqueline sighed while drawing her blade, making everyone around her step back in fear, "you don't understand me in the slightest."
An unmotivated vertical swing of her blade to the right beheaded a man whose corpse, while falling down, turned into that of a Yoma.
"She's here! A Silver-Eyed Witch!" a man shouted. He wanted to turn around and run, but before he even knew what had hit him he already was collapsing in a sea of violet blood.
21 to go, then?
"I can count myself" she blankly stated before leaping over the counter of a merchant who was about to sell a fish to a customer just to ruin all the fish he had with his blood.
At that the other Yoma on the street, four more, turned into their demonic forms and began attacking Jacqueline by extending their fingers, only to find their enemy gone basically the moment they had started their attacks.
"Lame" she said as two of them got horizontally split in half by yet another unenthusiastic swing of her blade.
The remaining two were grunting some incomprehensible curses and, before they had even made the decision to strike again, suddenly felt their blood and life precipitately rush out of their bodies.
Fifteen to go.
"Five of them are at the marketplace" she stated calmly and began sprinting to the heart of the prospering town. "And stop that already."
Make me.
###
The five Yoma that were on the marketplace had already grouped together. They thought that so they might have a better chance to win against the Claymore that had entered the town.
"Pretty nasty bitch over there" one of them stated.
"Yeah," another one answered, "killed eight already."
A third one just shrugged his shoulders: "Just a warrior, no need to make a fuss."
Like a mirage said warrior appeared amidst them in a crouching stance, having her blade stretched out behind her, saying: "How very nice of you to group up, saves me time."
Just at the moment the Yoma became aware of Jacqueline's presence close to them the latter spun around two times at a speed not comprehensible for the normal Yoma they were. And, just as fast as she had appeared, she was gone.
"You... monster!" one of them shouted before all of them crumbled to three pieces each and a huge fountain of blood spilled all around, leaving the residents of the town similarly shocked as the Yoma had been.
###
Honestly, sleeping for hours like a baby and as soon as you've started the job you make it an 100-meters race.
"Ts," she sizzled shortly before effortlessly jumping onto the rooftop of a two-story building, from where she directly leaped towards an open window in the local church that was roughly twelve meters above the ground, "I just don't waste time on unnecessary things."
The room she had landed in was a small study filled with books, papers and writing things. The monk in that room reacted very calm. He stopped writing, turned around to Jacqueline and said: "So you are finally here. I do not plan on resisting, just do your job, but please pay attention to not soil any of my work."
A gust of blood sullied the bookshelf left to him as Jacqueline effortlessly cut through his chest.
He managed to stutter "What was...?" before his upper as well as lower body fell to the ground.
Jacqueline stepped towards the door but stopped for a moment to look back at the Yoma, disbelievingly stating: "You can't really have thought that I'd let my guard down because of you surrendering?"
###
After finally the last Yoma had fallen, Jacqueline did not lose any time, got her belongings out of her room and went straight to Escala's bastille in order to claim her reward.
General Stark was obviously surprised by the speed Jacqueline had taken care of the job since the sun had not even set then. Seeing faint hints of skepticism in his face she explained: "There were 23 in total of which eight lie in the street leading to the marketplace, five in the marketplace, two in the church, one in the town hall and seven at the docks. As far as I remember every corpse was seen by the townspeople. That should be evidence enough."
"I see" he stated with closed eyes, opened them again and placed three golden rods of thirty centimeters length and a diameter of two centimeters each at his desk. "There you go."
She blinked a few times, before, slightly puzzled, stating: "That is not the amount we agreed on."
"Please take it all."
Jacqueline considered it for a moment. That surely was a nice amount of money in front of her, it could have fed a normal human for roughly three years – eating only the best of the best. Still she felt bad abut taking that much money.
What are you waiting for?
"I'm sorry," she said, "but that is not the way I handle things."
Out of a little pocket that was attached to her belt she took two rods of twelve centimeters length and a diameter of roughly one and a half centimeters, placed them on the table, took one of the three rods lying there and said: "I won't take a single pellet more."
Imagine me, facepalming.
"No, I insist! You have done your job without a flaw and way faster than we expected, please consider it a bonus-payment."
"I'm done considering" she said and turned around. "Ah, I nearly forgot... If an actual warrior of the Organization comes here to take care of the job, tell them, that the jobs has been taken care of by another warrior already. I'd rather not have you use terms such as unofficial or deserter."
Without another word she left. What she was there to do she had done so she headed straight for the town's gates.
You don't expect someone to come, do you?
"Nah. I just wonder why they won't send someone."
Well, you will find out in the future, I guess.
"Do you know something?"
Who knows...
"As useful as ever..."
###
Nothing more than an empty dream was accompanying the frail warrior's short periods of sleep. A mere two hours a day, more was not affordable due to a trainee that had graduated just a few weeks before. Within her there was resting an amount of Yoki that the Organization had never seen before. They held high hopes on her, there was but one problem: the little warrior was absolutely unable to restrain herself once even the slightest ounce of her Yoki slipped out. That nearly led to her Awakening a few times and could only be prevented by the Organization's number 10, Risa the Brainwasher.
As the Organization's number 10 she was the only one of the warriors who had received special training to fight other warriors. And, to counter a warrior, messing with her Yoki and her senses was the most effective way. Risa, however, was able to develop her abilities to a degree that enabled her, even if only temporarily, to delete or alter the memory of a warrior, hence earning her her nickname. Things like fooling a Yoki user's senses or mending Yoki were like breathing to her.
However, having her rank and her unique skills, her sole purpose was to stay at the Organization the whole time in case other warrior's would attack it. In her whole life – and, considering that she was a warrior, 35 years were a long life – she had had contact with but two other warriors.
One of them was still a trainee, a girl in her teens that had been decided to one day become Risa's successor. Like Risa she underwent anti-warrior training. She even was able to practice her skills on a really dangerous warrior, a ticking time bomb. The second warrior Risa had met in her life.
It was a little girl of a mere six years that had been given her rank despite having trained for only a few weeks. At that moment she was the Organization's number 3 but she had never been on a job before. She needed an anti-warrior to watch over her twenty-four-seven to make sure that she did not use her Yoki by accident. Having her awaken would practically have meant to have an Abyssal One close to the Organization. An Abyssal One with the mind of a child.
At that time it was Risa's only task to watch over that warrior 22 hours a day. During her time sleeping her future successor, Raftela, took care of that job. She was still young and had to develop her skills and endurance, so she could not handle much more.
Three strong knocks tore Risa out of her dreamless slumber. It was time again. She arose, said "on my way," attached her armor, sheathed her sword and left her room to accompany the Man in Black waiting for her.
###
While walking through the halls of the Organization's headquarters Risa inquired how Raftela was doing.
Her guide answered promptly: "She is all sweaty and her breath has become heavy, so we decided to wake you a little earlier than usual."
"I see," she answered. "Lets hurry, then."
"As you see fit."
###
They left the Organization's headquarters and, after a few minutes of walking, entered the ruins of a small village. Everything was the same as always: Raftela's Yoki was stirred up a little, but the Yoki of the one she watched over was nearly non-existent.
"She's doing well as always" Risa said with signs of a smile on her face but her guide did not comment on that.
The two of them stopped in front of a building that was more intact than the other houses. Next to the door was leaned a man wearing black cloth trousers as well as a black cloth waistcoat. A black headscarf hid his left eye that he had lost a long time ago.
"Cheers Marco" Risa greeted him. "I'll take over now."
"Good" he said and the both of them went inside.
Inside there was standing Raftela, having her eyes directed at the small, sleeping girl that was lying at the opposite of the room, curled up like a cat. She looked at her relief for a second before stating:
"Good morning, Risa. You are early today. Please sit down for now, I can still keep going since Lillaine fell asleep."
Without saying anything at first, Risa examined Raftela's condition: She was breathing heavily, her whole uniform as well as her face and hair were wet from sweat, her eyelids were twitching and her nose was bleeding.
"Like hell you can" Risa lectured her. "Get out and go to sleep or I'll kick you out."
"But..." the girl began to complain, as an adamant rap on her head drove teardrops into the corner's of her eyes.
"You are twenty years to early to complain, brat" she berated Raftela with a monotone voice.
Raftela complained about the pain and rubbed the aching spot on her head with her right hand while cleaning the blood off her face with her left sleeve. Before she was finished another rap hit her head and Risa, visibly angry, shouted: "And don't do that with your sleeve, goddammit! What did I give that blowrag to you for?"
Meanwhile holding her aching head with both hands Raftela angrily shot back: "Meanie! Old hag! Pervert! Meanie!"
"Old... hag?" Risa said while trying to stay calm. It did not work, however: Her fists were clenched, her body was shaking and a few veins had began to show on the sides of her forehead.
"Er... I'll go to sleep!" Raftela quickly said and began to dash towards the Organization's headquarters.
"Where do you learn such words, meathead?" Risa yelled after her while gesturing wildly.
Marco leaned over to the other Man in Black and whispered on the quiet: "I'm pretty sure I know from who she learns those words." His colleague nodded in accordance."
Lillaine, who had woken up from the commotion Risa had caused, sat up and rubbed her eyes while yawning.
"Nap time over already?" she asked sleepily.
Then, the moment she spotted Risa, she suddenly was fully awake, leaped to her feet, dashed over to her and jumped towards her, cheerfully shouting: "Risaaaaaa!"
The latter caught her and, while embracing her, also greeted her: "Mornin' Lilly. Had a nice nap?"
Marco and his colleague left the moment Lillaine had become aware of Risa. They knew that the both of them hated nothing more than being watched over all the time. In addition to that, as long, as Lillaine was with Risa, there was nothing to worry about.
###
"Are you sure that you know were you are going?" Hitomi asked her comrade who was determinedly walking through a forest of seemingly infinite proportions while nosing the air every now and then.
"The scent got fresher. We're catching up. Roughly five days old."
Hitomi sighed. Walking through the forest, led by someone she barely knew who decided their path based on smell felt to her like being led by a stray dog. In her arms she still tightly hold the package with Jacqueline's old uniform. Of course only because she wanted to give it back to her.
"Author, are you implying something here?"
Never ever.
"Ts" Hitomi sizzled. "Why am I trying to talk with you anyways?"
Vectra stopped short for a moment, took several looks around and then asked Hitomi: "Do you happen to have an invisible friend?"
"Just what are you talking about?" the latter asked with a raised eyebrow.
The both of them continued their job directly afterwards and, after roughly another hour of seeing nothing but trees, reached an open field with a fairly high hill roughly ten miles ahead of them.
"Finally!" Hitomi called out to no one in particular and stretched herself. "That forest was on my nerves."
"Be quiet for a moment" Vectra demanded, earning a puzzled look from her comrade.
She had closed her eyes because a familiar sensation had stroked her mind. All her focus lay on her surroundings at that moment. Two bright but small lights were directly where she was standing. They were nothing for her to be concerned about. The one that got her attention was ahead. It was an Awakened Being, a rather strong one at that. It was engaged by four other lights, warriors, as she could tell. And it looked bad.
Her eyes opened instantly before she considered their possibilities. If they just left things as they were, the Awakened Being was likely to kill all of its opponents. However, running ten miles would have taken them roughly ten minutes, five when using a lot of Yoki.
"What's the matter?" her fellow warrior asked, as she suddenly was told to run. So she did, easily keeping up with Vectra's pace.
"Ahead there is an Awakened Being, engaging four other warriors. It doesn't look good for them. We have to hurry and assist them as fast as possible. I hope we can make it?"
"Directly ahead?" Hitomi asked.
"Yeah, approximately ten miles" she was answered.
"I do not consider a minute long" she stated, seeming puzzled a little, and, leaving an afterimage every twenty meters, began to rush away at the speed of sound.
Vectra slowed down until she stopped her movement completely and stared ahead, having her jaw dropped, not believing her own senses.
"That is definitely not supposed to be possible" she said to herself, being more than just bewildered.
A few moments later she snapped out of it, shook her head a few times and began to run again in order to help her comrades.
###
Directly after hitting the bottom Liara's body rebounded just to break through a trunk with a diameter of half a meter, making the tree it supported collapse towards the Awakened Being they were fighting. The monster effortlessly "slid" to the side a little and avoided the falling tree completely.
"Captain!" one of Liara's comrades, a tall girl with pointy ears and straight, nearly white hair, shouted at her, but got no reaction.
The scorpion-like Being tried to sting the girl with pointy ears but got its tail impaled by another warrior who suddenly shot out of the sky, much to the Awakened's surprise.
"Space off another time, Irene!" the one who had just saved her shouted. At that Irene saw how much her comrade Anna had to struggle to keep the monsters tail from moving and impaled it, too, to assist her.
"Now! Teresa!" Anna yelled out to the fourth member of their hunting party who had been on the defense for nearly the whole battle due to a lack of openings.
The moment there was one she parried one attack of the beings claws and leaped over to her comrades to cut the monsters tail, a "really bugging thing" as Teresa had called it herself, clean off. Their enemy struggled with all his might but in the end got his tail severed.
By a small movement of his nearly invisible, insect-like wings, his four feet rose only a few centimeters over the ground, moved his whole body back and made him land, letting it appear as if he was sliding over the ground.
Anna carefully was taking a close look on the new situation. Their opponent was a male Awakened Being, something far stronger that a normal Awakened One. He was frail overall, like an insect, but his dark red skin was a shell that only Teresa was able to cut. His legs were long and each had feet with five claws with the length and edge of a dagger each. On his back there were two transparent insect wings as well as several limbs that basically were nothing more than arms with one jolt each that had, instead of a hand, a sting. They could be cut by others than Teresa but the monster was able to rapidly regrow them.
It probably most fearsome weapon, its tail that was about twice as long as itself – roughly eight meters – ended in a sting itself and could be used to swipe or to sting opponents ad a high speed.
One of those tail sweeps had sent Liara flying and led to a rather unpleasant encounter with a tree. Slightly coughing she picked herself up, snarlingly complaining about the pain in her back. She took her blade and walked over to her comrades who were thinking on what to do next, complaining: "Yo Anna, why do your tactics nearly always involve me flying through the air and / or crashing into hard things?"
"Easy," she explained as Liara had placed herself next to her, "you never follow them and screw up."
"Is that so?" she mused. "So what now?"
"Oh you can still stand?" the Being mocked Liara, getting her attention instantly. "You looked so frail, and your brainless way of completely abandoning your defense for the sake of being able to attack made you seem like a newbie, but at least you seem to have stamina, I'll give you that."
"Huh? No defense, you say? If that were the case your stupid tail would have pierced through my chest, dumbass!" she unmotivatedly commented.
"Liara, distract it on the ground, I will do so from above, Teresa go for the head at the first opening, Irene, you cover her" Anna explained the only tactic that made sense to her rashly.
"Good luck then" the Awakened Being said with played honesty and then nonchalantly got airborne by flapping his wings at a frequency high enough to not even be audible for dogs. Leaving his opponents surprised he prepared his next attack by pointing the limbs on his back towards Irene. The moment Anna became aware of what was about to happen she called out for Irene, but was too late, as one sting after another were shot at Irene at an astounding speed. The latter could not react anymore but, suffering only one hit in her left shoulder, got pushed away by a quick-thinking Teresa. Her thinking was too quick, though, because she got her body penetrated by roughly twenty of the stings, collapsed to the ground and suddenly had to struggle with her consciousness.
Irene instantly kneeled down to her and began to pull the stings out of her body so that she could regenerate properly. None of the hits was fatal and Irene was thankful for that, because she would have felt even guiltier for having her comrade and former classmate killed due to her trying to save her.
"How cute, jumping between her comrade and danger to protect her" the meanwhile hovering Being mocked the warriors send to kill him.
"That scumbag makes me sick" Liara snarled to herself. Unfortunately, with their opponent flying, only Anna could reach him easily. Still, with Teresa down they then had no one capable of cutting him. Or so she thought, as she noticed something.
"Anna, leg-up!" she suddenly shouted, leaping towards Anna from behind. The latter had barely time to react but still managed to give Liara enough momentum to get her up far enough to reach their enemy. The Being was about to knock Liara away, as Liara suddenly cut off the Being right hand.
"I knew it!" she said with a satisfied grin.
Her joy was not supposed to last long since the monster suddenly turned around very fast, using the remainders of its tail to smash Liara straight to the ground. That time, however, she was not able to properly defend herself and therefore took a considerable amount of damage. The pain that came from all her broken bones and damaged intestines were enough to make her pass out.
Anna growled "Shit!" as she got the unconscious Liara away just in time to avoid another salve of the Awakened Beings stings.
"Too bad," it said chuckling, "just as she found out how to cut me."
"I wonder," a voice from behind it suddenly said, "if she though, that, since an exoskeleton has to have lesser armored parts to stay agile, it would be wise to attack there."
"Who...?" he began its question but was interrupt by a bunch of slashes completely invisible to him that not only destroyed most of the limbs on his back but his two wings as well, making him fall to the ground.
The warrior that had just cut everything on his back landed next to Anna in a cat-like fashion.
"Who are you?" she said puzzled.
"No worries," the woman with straight hair answered, "I'll take over now. Tend to your comrades."
While the abradant sound of a blade being drawn was heard, Anna's eyes widened as she instantly recognized the symbol of the warrior that had just arrived: three vertical bars and three horizontal bars, all of them of the same length.
'Why is someone like her here?' she wondered.
"Bitch, who are you?" the Awakened One, that now had problems standing, demanded.
"Just a warrior on a mission passing by. That's it for chatter, be prepared," were her words. However, her opponent did not stand a chance at the amazing speed of his opponents movement. One by one he lost his legs and the remainders of his tail without a real chance to counterattack.
As the woman was about to chop his head of he said: "I am Tuturis, the Organization's third number 3. Please, at least tell me your name."
She sighed: "Hitomi, number 5."
"I see. Sou you warriors have indeed become stronger" were the last words he could say before Hitomi's attack beheaded him.
She sheathed her blade again and took a look at her comrades: Two of them were severely wounded with one of them being unconscious. However, neither of them had lethal wounds, so everything was fine.
Anna stepped towards her and, offering her hand, said: "I am Anna, the current number 7. Thank you a lot, you saved us."
Hitomi took Anna's offer and stated, that she was heading in their direction anyways and that she just made a little stop.
"Ah, well," she added, "since I am here, why not introduce the others, too?"
Anna then introduced the other warriors to Hitomi: "The two over there are number 19, Teresa and number 21, Irene. They are very talented girls but lack experience, so they are often sent on difficult hunts with more experienced warriors. And," she continued, pointing at the passed out Liara, "this is number 6, Liara. We often are on hunts together because we are a good team."
At that very moment Vectra arrived at the scene, breathing like she had ran a marathon in less than an hour.
"And this is Hentai, the current number 2," Hitomi stated with an honest expression.
"It's Vectra, Vectra!" she shouted, ending up coughing.
Author's notes:
And again, we are done and again, I threw new things into the story (honestly, I have to finish all the threads sooner or later... a lot is still to do.)
I hope you enjoyed it!
Next time we will have a little more of Risa and Lillaine, Liara might flip a little and... nope, enough spoiler already.
kstefan88