The Vapor of Haruhi Suzumiya
A/N: Hello all, hope you haven't been waiting in suspense for too long…..(holy crap, almost 2 weeks! Bad author, bad!)
Anon6: Combat butler: check and check. Nagato is supposed to have skewed views of everything, because she's just as altered as everyone else (notice how she even starts referring to Koizumi as "that other guy" because no one gives a shit about Koizumi)
The Layman: Well, if she gave it over without a fight this wouldn't be much of a chapter, now would it?
Chapter 12: Float like a butterfly, sting like a multi-directional laser
So it was pitch black inside the pseudo Death Egg. Our breathing echoed back in on itself, and the hatch slammed short behind us.
"Alright you bitch, where's my cheese?" Tsuruya yelled into the blackness, which responded by being wiped away by a series of extremely bright lights.
It illuminated us from far above, and gave me the impression that the egg was larger than it had appeared to be from the outside. The laws of science haven't exactly been super strict around here lately, if you've noticed. There were multiple levels of walkways stretching around the perimeter of the room, which had doors along them spaced at regular intervals. The very top of the room, in between the lights, was a glass floor. Above that glass floor, a figure was sitting in a reclined position.
"So you came, just like she said you would." A cold voice emanated throughout the entire space, seemingly magnified by the very metal itself.
Haruhi stepped out of the light, which in turn followed her, and she stared up to the glass floor.
"Renji Ono, we're here to arrest you! Are you going to come quietly, or are we going to have to kill you for what you've done?"
Haruhi's words were brave, but we had no real way to get up to the walkways, which were at least three times higher than head height.
"You talk big girl, but do you have the brute force to back it up? We'll soon find out…"
At that, the entire room illuminated itself in a uniform, glowing light. Standing on a walkway above us, was none other than Asakura Ryoko. She was wearing the standard North High uniform, but was wearing metal gauntlets. In her right hand was a large, orange wheel of premium smoked cheese, but it had a collection of bite marks on one side.
"You know Tsuruya, this cheese is really good. How does that make you feel?" She threw the cheese into an open door, which closed after the cheese was inside. She then vaulted over the railing and landed gracefully on the floor in front of us.
I looked to Tsuruya, who had turned a nice shade of red, and was gripping her SPECULAR Gun very tightly. Her eyebrow was twitching profusely, and her hang was attempting to gnaw through her bottom lip.
"Guards, kill them now! The girl too! She's useless to us now!" Renji's voice echoed through the ball, and nearly all of the doors opened and black clad guards appeared en masse, armed with a motley array of weapons, mostly daggers and muskets.
"You betrayed me Ono! I'll get you after I claim the cheese….permanently." Ryoko was actually less enraged than I had assumed she would be. I had calculated beforehand that if Ryoko was in league with this lowlife, it would be a short and rather unhappy relationship. No, not like that. Asakura may be clinically insane and fruitier than a cucumber and all, but she's not a whore.
I'll say in advance, this is when everything went to shit. And that's saying something.
We all moved to begin fighting the trash mobs-er, guards that is, and Tsuruya responded by doing the most irresponsible thing possible, which was firing the SPECULAR Gun directly at Tsuruya. Asakura not only managed to dodge the supersonic beam, but also managed to kick the Gun out of her hands and knock Tsuruya over, ironically shielding her from a musket ball that whizzed by at that exact moment.
On my part, I ran at the nearest guard that jumped down to fight us and stabbed him in the gut with my daggers. He went down without so much as a whimper; not that I could hear it over the screaming of guards, which really weren't that great at guarding much of anything, as they were mowed down by our group.
About that SPECULAR beam that Tsuruya fired: it was now ricocheting off of the sleek metallic walls, and was now bouncing around hitting just about everything. Except for Tsuruya and Asakura, of course.
They were currently engaged in hand to hand combat; exchanging blows faster than one could blink. Both combatants were grabbing guards to use as both cover and weaponry; Asakura snagged guard who was down already and flung him at Tsuruya, who batted him out of the way with a high kick and lunged forward to headbutt Asakura in the nose, sending her reeling back.
As I dodged around their intense fight, I saw the rest of the SOS Brigade engaged in combat, each just barely holding their own.
Kyon, with his lighter armor, was running around with his massive sword walloping people this way and that, had a 32-man mob following him, trying to swamp him with sheer numbers.
Asahina-san was being slightly more impressive, keeping more than arm's length space between her and the nearest enemy combatant…..though there had to be a reason for that. It most likely helped that her longsword was curved and extremely light, allowing her to attack at angles that were awkward compared to a standard blade. Her elaborate outfit made her seem to shine in the light as she danced around her enemies, attacking when it was safe and retreating when it was unsuitable to do so. Her attackers seemed almost sorry to be attempting to attack someone who looked so innocent, then were promptly cut down when they let up even an inch. Her red face and whimpering made it almost cute….almost. Just like a blood-stained sword is cute…..almost.
Koizumi was slightly different in his methods. He was focusing on taking out the guards that were trying to snipe us with muskets. He was running along the walls notching arrows and then snapping back to shoot an arrow directly into the barrel of a musket at the instant they attempted to fire, causing the old-timey rifle to explode in their hands, causing shrapnel to shoot into their….well….everything, to put it nicely. If whoever designed those rifles is still alive, they're going to be receiving a beating.
Emiri was bludgeoning her way through a crowd of guards with her rifle, swinging around in broad circles, using her inertia to plow through the much larger adversaries, stopping to fire a round into the mayhem when she could, to great effect. Her ammo bag, which was also heavy, swung from her back and hit anyone trying to hit her from behind. I jumped up to get a look from amidst the chaos, only to almost get an early haircut from a laser that flew by.
It had appeared that Tsuruya's Gun's laser that it fired had a limited half-life, after which point it degraded…..into smaller lasers. Yes, that's lasers, as in plural. These were now pinging into and off of whatever surface they hit, creating a deadly green disco ball effect. You know, almost like the walls are the disco balls, the lasers are the blacklights, and we're the ravers who dropped acid one too many times this morning.
Landing back amongst the chaos, I was pushed aside by Tsuruya herself, who was pushed into me because she was holding Asakura's foot, which was covered in pulsating energy and attempting to blast Tsuruya out of the way. She responded by flipping her bodily over her soldier, using her adversary to clear the surrounding area, before getting kicked in the face by Asakura's other foot, causing her to go flying into the crowd of guards that were just now starting to thin out after several minutes of absolutely one-sided fighting.
They were ill-equipped, wore almost no armor, and their sheer numbers did not make up for their poor combat training…..though, to be honest, anyone who tries to fight Haruhi better have a few Chekov's Guns, just in case. Not that it would matter, anyways. Being pseudo-God-like, she'd erase said person from existence, or turn them into a clown. Haha….clowns are funny.
The pile of bodies on the side of the room was slowly starting to overflow onto the lowest walkway, so I did the safest thing and ran up the pile of dead and/or sobbing man-flesh, snapping few fingers along the way, vaulted onto the walkway, and started opening the rooms one by one, until I found what I was looking for.
A curved walkway full of even more guards, but at the end an elevator could be seen. Bingo. Or maybe even cribbage! Bridge, then?
They all locked eyes with me as one, and I knew this was going to be fun.
A tonfa that lodged itself in the wall half an inch from my face further confirmed this statement.
"So we meet again, my young grasshopper." An old dude in a brown robe stepped out from behind the curve in the hallway.
"Wait, you're not Bruce Lee!"
I cocked my head to the side. "Who the hell is Bruce Lee?"
He shakes his head in dismay, turning to the guards behind him. "Are we on the wrong movie set again?"
The guards just shrugged, and I realized they were all Caucasian men wearing large amounts of makeup. How in the hell…? Whatever. I've got some ass to kick!
"Bitches, I have logic!" I uttered these words of vast amounts of sense as I lunged for the group of guards, who unfortunately parted at that exact moment and I got a mouth full of old man-foot.
"You have much to learn, young one! I am a master of karate!" I bit down on his foot, fighting back my gag reflex and feeling my eyes tear up as I did so, and watch the heavily beautified men form a circle around me.
"For HONOOOOOOOR!" They all shouted in unison, practically deafening m as I backed up to the ring of suits, trying to look over them to the elevator, not wanting to lose sight of it.
Of course, as soon as I did this I was shoved to the ground by said suits and roughed up a bit before I snapped my leg back and broke a guy's leg, who fell to the floor while screaming in agony. I was allowed to get up while a couple more guys dragged him away, out of sight and hearing distance.
They backed away even more after that, apparently terrified that I just broke a bone in one kick.
The old man drew a bad-ass sword from underneath his robes, settled into a defensive stance.
"You may be powerful young one, but that will lead to your ultimate undoing. Now, fight me, in an honorable duel! Winner takes all….including the other's life. Do you accept, young one?"
I nodded, unsheathing my chakram, because, shit, if I'm gonna murder someone today, mine as well do it in the coolest way possible. Though, if what happened in the last hour is any indication, I'm gonna need a goddamn mass grave dug to bury all the poor bastards I offed today I think I'm in the 60ish range now? It's pretty bad. Oof, and imagine how my back is going to feel after that?
With all of my daydreaming, I almost didn't catch the sword rocketing towards my face, deflecting it to the side with a chakram while spinning and crouching to the ground, sending the blade off course. I jumped up as I rotated, coming up and slicing at the man with my other chakram. He rolled backwards out of the way, using his blade as leverage and managed to land a kick into my gut as I descended.
I hit the ground on my back, rolling to the side to avoid the next swing, which would have bisected me vertically if I hadn't moved. Oh, I don't think I mentioned, by "bad-ass sword" I meant a goddamn great sword. Like, somewhere, a museum is wondering who stole the leg bone to their T-Rex. Instead of attacking again immediately, I backed up a couple feet and the old man did the same. He looked to be in prime condition, but I was breathing hard. Then I thought "Hey, I'm not gonna get shown up by this old sack of fiber bars, lets crank this up to eleven!" And crank it up to eleven I did.
I began to hum the tune "Happy Birthday", which confused everyone significantly. Perfect.
I proceeded to throw my chakram at the old man, who dodged one but took a cut to the cheek from the second one, and I lunged forward and began to launch a flurry of punches against him. His big-ass sword was useless this close, so he dropped it and attempted o block my blows with his large, muscular forearms. I wasn't going to have any of that though, so I jumped up (remember the 8 inch height difference) and headbutted him in the face, getting the oh-so-satisfying CRUNCH from his nose snapping, along with the trickle of his blood into my hair.
Well, I'll need to wash extra-thoroughly to get that out of there.
I finally finished my rousing rendition of Happy Birthday while kicking him in the stomach until he puked, OG style. He was trying to run away from me at this point, crawling through his guards and attempting to get to the elevator.
"Hey, winner takes all, right? Don't run away now, you could still win!" I didn't do much to reinforce this though, because I ran up to him while he was still crawling on the floor and crushed his fingers underfoot. At this point he was bleeding and broken, but still going. I grabbed him by the foot, snapping both of his big toes backwards, eliciting a girlish scream this time, and dragging him back to where my chakram were. I dropped him there, and he didn't even try to move. He looked up to me and forced a weak smile.
"Jokes….on you….girl…." Blood trickled from the corners of his mouse, and he coughed up a nice spatter of blood onto my shoes.
I grabbed him by the throat and forced him to his feet.
"Yeah, and how's that? Don't say the blood on my shoes, because I know a really good cleaner who'll make that shit like-new."
His robes fell to the ground, revealing a bomb strapped to his chest, with an analog clock slowly ticking towards zero. There was less than 20 seconds left on it.
"OH SHIIIIIT!" I threw him behind me and ran for the elevator, prying open the gates with my bare hands, grateful that I had grabbed both chakram with one hand before choking him out. The doors shut and the elevator began to ascend oh-so-slowly, with the guards sprinting like hell to get out the other exit. As I was finally getting to the next floor, an explosion threw me from my feet, and the floor of the elevator got a bit hot.
I was now going towards an unknown location higher up, and therefore closer to that conniving motherfucker….I mean the target that's worth the same dead as he is alive. Keep that in mind. I find that to be an extremely comforting thought.
But really, a goddamn suiciding karate master who was tricked into thinking it was a movie set? What in the HELL is happening….though, if it Asakura was involved, it becomes just that much more plausible. On the A to F scale of Criminally Insane, she's an SSS+. Which is about 5 grades above A. That's REALLLLLYYYY crazy, even by my standards.
The elevator stopped moving, but the doors didn't open, so I said "screw it", and kicked them open. They weren't made terribly well, and kind of fell over out of their tracks.
I was in a hallway leading up to an entirely glass room. There were no guards, and it looked safe. Of course, safe is in the eye of the beer-holder, or something, so I threw a chakram out to test the waters.
I got LASERS in return. As in, lasers shot across the hallway and moved down the hallway slowly, first only horizontally, but then in different patterns, until they reached the end of the hallway. Then it started again. Watching it for a minute, I figured out that no more than 4 lasers were active at any one time, leading to a relatively safe method of traversing the hallway.
Halfway down the hallway, more lasers activated, making crawling prone not good unless I liked being sliced up into party-sized, edible Yuki-cubes, so I got up and began to run towards the lasers, at the last second lunging forwards and going right through the middle of the lasers that separated the hallway ino many, many small sections. I used my momentum to land in a roll, springing back up and running to the end of the hallway, where everything was glass. Even the doors.
The locked doors were made of glass. Good design choice. It might even be bullet-proof. But nothing is Yuki-proof!
Before the lasers came around again, I took out my corrosive poison bracelet and squeezed out a couple of drops on the lock mechanism, which was the only thing not made of glass on the wall. On the other side of the door, I could see a person lying on a couch facing away from me watching the chaos occurring below. Tsuruya and Asakura were still going at it, and the rest of the SOS Brigade was just kind of sitting there watching. The guards were piled two stories high. The person lying on the cough was being fed food from two women in chains.
Slaves.
Not on my non-existent watch. Deciding the corrosive shit had done its' work, I used my head as a foot and slammed it through the door, shattering the whole wall into a million pieces. I was wearing a hat, so I didn't give a shit about getting glass in me.
I ran across the room, which was actually suspended from the ceiling by thin wires, and kicked the asshole on the couch as hard as possible in the back of the head. He fell off the couch and hit the floor, and due to the very limited length of the chains restraining the emaciated young women, they were pulled forward too, resulting in a scrambling mess of limbs. I pulled the asshole up and sliced the chains off with one sweep of my blades, causing the two girls to scramble away to the opposite end of the room.
"Peek-a-boo, you son-of-a-fucking-bitch." My tone was cold enough to freeze a penguin in the middle of Antarctica, and the look in his eyes was one of pure fear. I lifted him even higher and pushed one chakram against his stomach; he wasn't wearing a shirt, which revealed a flabby physique, with little to no muscle tone. It cut into his stomach slowly, piercing just the first few layers of skin. He screamed in pain and writhed to get out of the grip, but I wasn't about to stop. I pushed it even harder, finally hitting some real flesh, and his screams echoed around the room, and I laughed.
A/N: This section has been moved to the M-rated story "Vapor: The Bad Bits",due to the excessive violence and gore depicted. A necessary evil, I promise!
I stood up after "playing with my food", so to speak, taking his heart with me, and looking back across the room to the dead slaves…..wait. Dead slaves? I didn't do that, did I?
I walked over to them, inspecting them. They both had collars on them, and upon inspection, I found vials of neurotoxin on them. They had been killed a few minutes after the proximity senor had indicated they were "away" from their owner. That's just sick. Well, actually, that's just par for the course at this point.
I got up from them, walking over to the door, where the rest of the SOS Brigade was coming down the hallway.
"Yuki, is…..what. In the HELL happened?" Haruhi surveyed the room, noting the blood absolutely everywhere, particularly all over Yuki, who was holding a mass of red in her left hand, and the body that had been ripped open in front of a shattered glass wall.
"What's that in your hand…..?"
Yuki looked down at the object. "Renji's heart. Do you want it?"
Everyone recoiled from it, except Emiri. She just laughed like there was no tomorrow.
"He's dead, in case you're asking." Yuki said this in an almost offhand fashion, waving at his corpse with the guy's own heart.
Everyone looked to his corpse, or rather, what was left of it. Tsuruya, who was more bruised than the rest of them, whispered to Mikuru.
"Are you sure she's okay? I just think she's a bit off…"
Mikuru quickly whispered back. "Well, yeah, but do you want to tell her that yourself?"
Everyone was silent at this. Yuki was humming one of the openings from Death Note while swishing her hair back and forth, totally oblivious to what everyone else was doing.
Everyone collectively sweatdropped, and they began to leave, telling Yuki to grab Renji's body as they left. She complied, dragging it along the floor in front of everyone, creating a thick stream of blood on the floor that they all had to walk over to get out. They took the elevator directly to the bottom floor, which looked like a bomb had hit it, with blackened craters everywhere and beginning to smell like a cemetery, because….you know.
Asakura Ryoko was gagged and bound on the floor mere feet from the wheel of partially-eaten smoked cheese, which Tsuruya picked up and waved in her face, much to Asakura's chagrin.
Tsuruya picked up Asakura in a fireman's carry, cheese in hand. Everyone else exited the now lifeless egg, Yuki going last. Everyone looked to the top of the ravine that they were now in.
"So, Haruhi….have you actually thought of how to get us out of here?" Kyon was looking none too happy about the thought of being stuck down in the middle of nowhere.
Haruhi walked into the center of the group and took out her spellbook.
"Kyon, you forgetful Fox!
Level 75: Teleport to Collection!"
A mystical blue light engulfed the entire group, and a split second later, they were inside a large white room that had a man standing at the end of it with a magnifying glass.
"Ah, Suzumiya-san, what assignment have you completed…oh dear, that's quite a grizzly specimen you have here."
The whole motley crew traipsed to the end where the man eyed the heart in Yuki's hand.
"I say Suzumiya-san, that's from that scoundrel from the Under! Five hundred thousand, dead or alive, indeed! Will I be making the payment payable to your club, or to individuals?"
Yuki suddenly joined the conversation.
"I want to keep the heart as a trophy, and I'll be taking half of the reward for myself, and the rest of it to Haruhi personally."
After that, she turned around and walked behind everyone else, standing behind Emiri, petting the human heart she held. Haruhi sighed.
"Alright then, you heard her. Thanks for getting this out of the way Alfred, I'll see you next time."
The man bowed, before turning and vanishing in a puff of smoke.
Haruhi held up her spellbook once again, saying with much less enthusiasm.
"Level 45: Group Teleport to Home!"
Everyone was returned to their homes, and Yuki was extremely tired, despite it only being about 3 P.M. She put her new prize in a jar of clear embalming fluid that Emiri had had for some reason, and washed up, changed into her pajamas, then promptly fell asleep upon hitting the pillows.
A/N: Okay, that was quite delayed, and quite f***ed up. I'm not even sure what was going through my mind as this point. Therefore, I have moved the section of conflicting interests to a new story titled "Vapor: The Bad Bits", which will only contain the scenes which are deemed too graphic for the main story.
Well, at least the chapter was longer than usual, right? The loose ends like Ryoko and the cheese and everything else will get tied up next chapter. This arc is over(more like mini-arc), and the next one is still a few chapters away…