Author's Note: Thought or Emphasis; Flashback; Thought or Emphasis in Flashback
I don't own K-ON! I do, however, own a beautiful bass... It's shiny, clean, kinda beautiful... it's a little scaly, though.
What? You thought I meant a bass guitar? No way, the fish! I'd hold onto it a little longer, but it starting to stink up the joint.
While I air this place out, you guys can read and review.
K-ON!: Hunters!
Part III
On the north side of campus, Yui and Azusa had already begun their battle. The junior's attempt to speak with them, after all, didn't go so well...
"Stop, yōkai! You have entered the world of the humans." Azusa stepped forward, staring up at the nearest immigrant; she was no Mio, but she mustered up a facade of leadership all the same. "Who are you, and why are you here?"
"You stand tall for such a... tiny creature." The one who responded, a piece of armor strapped to his left shoulder, stood just as proudly as another certain squad captain. This one was less muscled than the other, however; instead the blue bruiser was more a wall of bulk, his belly hanging over his belt. "We, little one, are of the Blue Oni clan of the Eastern Valley! My brothers and I will not stop until-"
"Ooh, so they're blue this time!"
Yui made herself known to the crowd. Apparently, her brain had finally sized up her opponent...
...and she was amused.
"He's like a giant blueberry!"
The monster gritted his teeth; he had heard similar names before from a few fools in the past—all of them currently deceased. "Y-y-you..."
"Senpai!" Azusa was flabbergasted. "I was trying to resolve this peacefully!"
"Well, he is..." Yui pouted. "And besides, I can see his evil." She spoke of his dark heart the same way she would if she saw spinach in his teeth—with unabashed honesty. "He's gonna try and kill both of us."
"You..." Meanwhile, the oni's anger had finally boiled over. "YOU WILL DIE!"
"See?"
Azusa sighed, her cat ears and tails sprouting, her nails shifting to claws.
"Darn it."
Her first few victims found that what Azusa lacked in size, she made up for in strength. The latest felt the sting of a leaping kick to the face; a swipe of her claw followed, slicing out the throat. She landed on all fours, he on his knees, the latter already doomed.
She had to thank her father for the fighting lessons. He had told her she might awaken other abilities, even explained that some of those like him could harness fire—but he was unsure just what her repertoire would be, since she was a rarity among her kind.
She was a bit afraid, she had to admit, of finding out just how deep the yōkai blood ran, of discovering what would happen if she pushed her limits just a bit too much. For now, however, as long as she kept striking vitals, she figured she'd be fine.
Besides, she had her senpai, who just so happened to be blowing enemies away arrow by arrow behind her. The explosions that followed her shots never shocked Azusa on the battlefield; she was too focused on keeping herself alive.
She cut hands and legs to slow mobility, leaped on shoulders and faces while they were distracted or stunned, shredded their heads and necks. It all was a little grisly, but the gag reflex never came, with them turning to ash at death anyway.
Unlike her junior's hesitance, Yui let her instincts take over. Perhaps something had passed down in her family as well, but all she knew was that, thanks to a certain bespectacled classmate's random suggestion, she found her niche.
"I don't know what you should pick, Yui! You could... uh..." Looking at the wall behind her old friend, Nodoka spotted a poster for the archery club. "...shoot arrows all day, for all I care! I just don't want to see you a NEET, okay?"
"Hmm... okay!" She pumped a fist, eye sparkling. "I'll do that!" Sure, Yui may not have known where the club was or even remembered what floor she was on, but she ran off all the same, certain to accomplish her mission.
"Wait, what?"
The club had kicked her out on the first day (after one of their targets exploded), but with a little guidance from Sawako, she found a new home with the light music club soon after.
Hearts, heads, stomachs, she did not truly see them—she only saw targets, spots into which her arrows could sink. Still, with her firing one at a time, they fell at a slower rate than Azusa's.
Said girl was finally facing the last one in her direction, one of the few with enough brains to be careful. The surprisingly lanky oni had held back, twin swords at the ready, just to face this intriguing opponent.
"You're mine!"
Before she knew it, she bared her teeth and hissed. Swipe met swipe, Azusa unable to get past the blue blade-wielder's guard; a high knife jab, chest slash, another swipe at the head, then leg sweep were all avoided. He returned the favor, forcing her to block a set of four... at double the pace.
He soon forced her onto defense, which she had to do in order to steer the fight away from Yui, but it pushed her ever closer to the battlefield's boundary...
Too fast! I can't block it all... I need an opening...
There!
In the slightest window, she struck, grazing one wrist and forcing him to use a single sword, but the other grazed her stomach, enough force behind it to knock her back. She thrust her claws into the ground to break her fall. She glanced down; her shirt was cut, but no blood emerged.
Another swing, and she jumped back—right into the wall, causing her to gasp.
He was on her, weapon held high. Her reflexes would be her only salvation.
"I won't let you!"
At the flash of metal, Azusa moved.
"AGH!"
Slipping out of her deadly zen state ever so slightly, Yui destroyed another opponent and glanced back at her teammate, chocolate eyes widening at the sight.
"AZU-NYAN!"
Both she and the swordsmonster were frozen in place, locked in a deadly clash of strengths. The kitten kōhai's muscles strained to resist the blade, blood already trickling down from between her palms, while the other pushed ever harder to split her skull in two.
Azusa might have been able to catch it, but not hold it back for much longer.
Another oni saw this, and chose to act. The human's aim was true, he knew this. She was strong, just like their leader, and was not to take lightly; his eradicated team was proof of that. Still, even if he did fall, he would at least drag the other with him.
As soon as the one before him fell and the explosion died down, the last monster pulled back his spear... and threw.
Yui fired and made him disappear, but what he launched was a different matter, heading on a collision course with her twin-tailed teammate.
Now two targets lay before the amiable archer—in two different directions.
She had to make her choice: the projectile, or the partner?
Azusa, meanwhile, was nearing the end of her rope—and her patience, as her enemy claimed how he'd take her skin as a trophy. Still, while her arms were getting weaker, her spirit clutched onto a glimmer of hope. If she could just hold him for a few more seconds, her senpai could finish off that wave and-
In an instant of cunning, the yōkai pulled his sword back, causing her surprised form to lose balance and grip.
Now on one knee, she could only watch as that flash appeared one last time before her eyes...
She shut them.
She was not ready to face the end, to disappear like many of her father's family, to face a similar fate that she dealt this very night.
To be on the other side of the finishing blow, after finally understanding why she always felt different, after meeting friends who accepted her, tails and all...
After meeting someone like...
No!
Then a sound crashed into her ears, a sound she knew well.
POP.
She opened her eyes. With a tiny thump, the sword hit the ground behind her would-be killer, slipping right out of his opened hands. His head was gone, his body soon turning to dust in the wind.
Azusa sat in a moment of relief. Claws receded to their proper place. Thanks to her inheritance, the cuts on her hands closed slowly, and painfully, but surely.
Her part of the battle was over—for now, at least.
"Thank you, senpai." Her heart began to calm while she huffed for breath... "You sa-"
...Then it skipped a beat.
She gasped for a different reason than oxygen when her sight finally settled on a certain someone. The person's legs had begun giving up on her as she vainly reached for something in her back.
"YUI-SENPAI!"
The half-nekomata caught her before she hit the ground, removing the spear and remains of her quiver without hesitation. A closer look revealed the jacket's left side soaked in blood. A crimson gash formed a line starting near the collar bone, moving down the shoulder blade, and ending a few centimeters from the spine.
Yui wouldn't be wearing this jacket anymore.
The life-carrying liquid stained Azusa's hands, and soon her own uniform as her fallen teammate's face leaned on her breast.
She had never seen so much before...
"Hey, Azu-nyan." Yui slowly forced herself back upright. A line of red started to leak from her mouth, but a tiny smile still appeared. "You doing okay?"
"Am I doing okay? You have a hole in your back!" Azusa dared not look down at the evidence, as her tears already began clouding her vision. "Don't move, okay? I'll call Mugi-senpai..." She tapped once on the miraculously untouched talisman in her jacket pocket, opening the channel for communication.
"This is Homeroom-"
"MUGI-SENPAI! Yui-senpai is..." She heard the clamor of footsteps; more were coming her way. "JUST HURRY!"
"I dreaded this..." A pause signified her steeling her will with a breath. "I'm on my way."
"I feel really tired, Azu-nyan." Yui's eyes lidded, her posture wavering.
The junior clutched her senior's hand, a desperate lifeline for the both of them. "No, stay awake!" She would have cursed if not for her own formality. Why didn't I learn any medical techniques?
"Kay, Azu-nyan. I'll try." She really was; her brow furrowed with all she could muster, but her eyes just weren't the same tools now as they were moments ago.
Why is Azu-nyan so fuzzy?
And why does she sound so far away?
"But it's really hard..."
The brunette's grip slackened.
"Just keep trying, Yui-senpai. Just..." Anything to keep her awake... "Let's talk!" The brunette only faintly heard the choking in the mixed-blood's voice.
She sleepily tilted her head. "Talk about what?"
"Uh..." Azusa's sharpened hearing could still detect the threat in the distance, but that didn't matter right now. All that mattered was the hand loosening just a little bit more in hers. "Anything you want!"
"Okay."
Yui's stare was still distant, but not due to her current state; they instead looked to an earlier time.
"I remember when you first came, Azu-nyan. You were so shy when you showed us your powers. Heh he-hak!" A giggle turned into a bloody cough, which she ignored. "You were so cute, I couldn't help but pet you."
"I remember that." Azusa certainly remembered that, and probably always would. "That was when you gave me that name." Even in this situation, her cheeks flushed.
"But you looked kinda scared, too." Yui's smile wilted ever so slightly. "You thought we'd get rid of you 'cause of your yōkai blood, didn't you?"
The half-human stiffened. The archer's observant eyes did their work on more than targets, it seemed. "You... saw that?"
"Uh huh." She tried to nod, but only succeeded in falling onto her kōhai's shoulder.
"Stay awake, senpai!" The twin-tails tried to shake her awake (gently), but the brunette's body was nothing more than weight.
"I always believed in you, though." Her voice was a whisper as her breath shortened. "You're a... you're... a good monster girl."
"Yui-senpai, please!" Her begging was in vain, Yui's eyes already closed.
"I'm glad we're... friends... Azu..."
Then, quiet.
"Yui-senpai?"
Nothing.
"Yui-senpai?"
The hand holding her own was already slack. Azusa lifted it, then released.
It flopped to the ground...
...lifeless.
"No."
She gripped her skull, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
It can't be.
"Senpai..." The tears in her eyes scattered everywhere with the shaking of her head. "...senpai..."
It CAN'T!
"No, no, no!"
Yet, there she lay, in her lap, head on her shoulder, unmoving.
And just this once...
Azusa embraced her.
Blood be damned, body be damned, boundaries be damned, she held her close, desperately trying to ward off that cold, to fill that void quickly opening up in her heart.
It didn't work.
Soon, it was all she felt. She had only known Yui for a year and a half, yet losing her made her feel like this...
And she knew who to blame.
Yui-senpai would still be here if Azusa was faster... if she was stronger, if she had enough power to beat him... and somehow, her senpai believed in her? Trusted her?
Ui had known of her sister's ability, and of her sister's friend; the younger Hirasawa trusted her too.
"Onee-chan has a very special gift, but she isn't always careful, Azusa-chan. I won't always be able to look out for her." Ui's gentle smile dimmed, her eyes tilting away from her sibling's teammate. "With the path she's on, I don't know if I'll have the strength. But..." She took a breath. "But I think you do! So please..."
To the twin-tails' shock, Ui bowed.
"Be there for her."
Even if Azusa survived the night, how could she possibly face the girl tomorrow?
Now, a new feeling entered: Guilt, gnawing at the edges of that hole inside like a worm in an apple.
"Azusa-chan."
Finally, Tsumugi was here. She had entered with her clothes littered with cuts, obviously the result of strikes both dodged and received. Even her curls were intermittently splotched with blood...
...yet her skin at the points of attack was unscathed, looking fresh even, and the liquid in her hair turned into vapor.
It was a manifestation of her power, and a self-appointed duty; to be not a deliverer of death, but a restorer of life. Like Yui, she had no idea if the gift was from her wealthy family's ancestry or a simple twist of fate, but ever since she healed her "sister" Sumire's hand, the Kotobuki heiress had found her calling.
Azusa perceived the arrival, and expressed herself to the only one around.
"It's all my fault."
The blonde reached out. "Let me take her-"
"NO!"
Mugi felt an object cut across the air and pulled back her arm. The cat kōhai was on edge now: her fangs bared, dark whisker marks on her face, her slitted eyes bloodshot from the crying, and one hand's claws extended. "She's like this because I was weak! She sacrificed herself to save me! I won't leave her alone!"
"She won't be alone, Azusa-chan." The scratches on the blonde's forearm were already fading away. "She'll be with me, remember? I just need you to-"
"NO ONE TOUCHES MY SENPAI!"
"AZUSA!"
Smack.
She snapped out of it, if only barely, from the sting on her cheek.
"I'm sorry about that, but I needed you to listen." Tsumugi felt a bit dirty after making someone hurt, but moved on. "I may be able to save her, but only if you let me take her."
A moment of silence, then,
"Please... help her."
"I will." Mugi stepped over to Yui's side. With a breath and a bit of mental focus, her hands gave off the slightest white glow before she laid them over her now-levitating patient.
Azusa backed away. She would give Yui up, for now; to get her back, she knew she'd do anything.
"HUMANS!"
Her cat ears twitched. The enemy was here; still blue, still bloodthirsty. To the twin-tailed teen's eyes, they all shared the face of the one who almost killed her, the one Yui-senpai risked her life to kill.
It was then that Azusa realized something. It wasn't simply her weakness that led to the hollow feeling in her chest... something else, someone else made things turn out this way.
It was-
"YOU!"
Something within her... snapped.
"ALL OF YOU!"
A wind whipped around the young girl, building with her rage; an aura of spiritual energy, blue with strips of black, leaked from her very pores.
She felt it now, that other side; like a body of water she hesitated to dip into, taking out cups at a time; now she let herself bathe in it. The power she feared at first, she now happily accepted.
The oni perceived it as well, a unique sight for their race.
"What... that power!"
"But Leader said they were just humans?"
Her hair snapped out of the bands, unleashing and flaring with the aura. Her posture shifted to all fours to brace for the next changes.
The bones in her face shifted as well, black fur covering up the furious, feline visage, and soon the rest of her enlarging body. The darkened marks on her face had disappeared under the fur; actual whiskers replaced them. With another burst of energy, her ripped uniform vanished.
"That's no human..."
A five-foot-long cat, as dark as a starless night, stood between the yōkai and her teammates. The tips of her tails exuded a soft blue and black flame. Growling, she bared her fangs once more; like whips, her tails snapped at the air, azure arcs leading to a tiny explosion.
CRACK!
"That's a nekomata!"
The two-tailed monster cat formerly known as Azusa Nakano glared, garnet gems aglow.
"You hurt Yui-senpai... my senpai... you tried to take away my heart..."
Twin fires surging, she launched at her prey...
...and roared.
"NOW I CLAW OUT YOURS!"
"GAAAH!"
"YAAAH!"
"DAMN YOUUUUUUU..."
Mio sheathed her sword as three more demons became dust; they were a few wanderers from outside, it seemed.
With each step closer to that power she sensed minutes ago, the opposition had grown much thinner, practically nonexistent. She wondered whether she had simply been lucky all this time, or if Sawako had broken her promise to be a mentor only and handled a few.
Moreover, the power hadn't even left the area.
It must have wanted her to find it.
She obliged, ending up at the door to the auditorium. As she contemplated cutting the door down in case someone was willing to surprise her, a calm voice advised her.
"The door is unlocked."
She entered the room, senses alert for an attack from behind. Feeling nothing, she focused what was before her: the figure hanging in the shadows, standing just outside one of the ceiling's lights.
With a flick of her thumb, Mio let show a sliver of Elizabeth's skin. "Show yourself!"
"Of course! That was the point of all this, you see... to test your skills."
"Our... skills?"
"Them?" By tone of voice, it was as if the figure had forgotten about the others. "Oh, no, not their skills, your skills. I knew that you of all people would be the one to reach me."
The noirette's eyes squinted. "You... know me?"
"Of course I know you! I'm only..." The adversary stopped, and sighed in realization. "I can't believe you don't recognize my voice anymore. After all we've been through together... after what happened the last time we parted..."
The figure stepped into the light.
"How could you forget me?"
Mio froze.
"It can't be..."
Her uniform was marred with dried blood, the remainder of her jacket now something of a cape draping her shoulders. The ribbon that indicated her year in school was long gone.
Her hair seemed a shade darker, the winds of the other world adding a fine layer of dirt she did not care to clean before her arrival. The red hairclip that used to hold a bang back was gone; resembling her junior's style, brown locks fell freely down her spine, the bang now hanging squarely in her forehead's center.
Her eyes no longer possessed the calm Mio knew.
What replaced it was something the ravenette had only seen in fleeting instants, like sparks of a starting fire. When they trained, there was just enough of it to make Mio put up her guard, just enough for her fingertips to grace Elizabeth's hilt. On the field, her grasp of it was even vaguer, since the source had never pointed it in her direction.
Now, however, she could see it, could feel it nipping at her very form.
"Hello, Mio-chan."
In the girl's eyes...
...was the intent to kill.
"Hello, Megumi."
To be continued...
Whew, now THAT was a workout. Didn't think it'd take me this long to crank it out, but hey, life happened... well, life, and Samurai Champloo, and The Last of Us. That game, guys, that game... wow.
But I digress. It's not about me. It's about the girls of Afterschool Monster-Hunting Time, and about your reactions. Did you see any of this coming? Did you like what I did to the YuiAzu Project? Heh, I doubt people like that kind of thing happening, but at least you now know what Mugi does, right?
Speaking of the bodacious blonde, when this story was merely a cluster of daydreams, I initially thought to make her a vampire or some other kind of beastly woman under the heiress facade, but I figured that would have cut into Azusa's time and skill set a little too much. The "immortal vampire" a-la Hellsing would made things WAY too easy anyway.
Now that you've enjoyed the chapter, it's time to enjoy the wait, because the conclusion to this story is coming... soon? No, what's the word... ah, yes... eventually.
