Sorry about the long absence, I was doing stuff. Important stuff. Really. (Okay maybe not so important, but it was rather more time consuming than I'd thought it would be.) For those of you who don't know this already (one picks it up rather fast if one listens to any kind of mythical or supernatural anime with English subs instead of a dub), oni is a very loose term that basically translates to "evil supernatural being". I think it depends on what context it's in, because I've seen it translate to ogre, demon, devil, monster, so on and so forth. So really, take your pick on what it is. I dunno. *shrug*
Prompt: Fingers touching glass.
Heinkel watched quietly as the ghouls' shambling steps sagged, came to a halt, and the groaning undead toppled and fell into gritty piles of ash.
She touched a lighter to the cigarette in her mouth, blowing out a long stream of smoke as she unconsciously smoothed a hand over the carved surface of the stone roof.
Looks like Yumie finished the job.
She bent her knees and lightly jumped over the edge, landing perfectly on one of the many gargoyles perched, crow-like, on the walls of the sanctuary.
She jumped from there to the window, balancing easily on the thick sill.
She pressed her gloved fingers against the stained glass, tapping gently.
Through the colored tiles, she saw her partner hacking and slicing blindly through more of the ghouls, the ones that must have been made by a chipped vampire in the same group as the one they had just eliminated.
She tapped the communicator in her ear on.
"Yumie, job's done. Let Yumiko out."
The figure in the blood-spattered habit did not respond, wobbling slightly and giggling as it looked around for another target.
"Yumie! Now!"
A scuffle of movement caught both pairs of eyes, and Heinkel gritted her teeth as a small boy huddled closer against the pew he had wedged himself under.
Yumie instantly moved towards the sound, flicking her blade slightly to throw off the gory spatters of blood staining it.
"Yumie stand down!"
Yumie was a berserker.
A human predator.
Predators did not distinguish between "innocent" and "guilty".
Yumie, the predator, had seen and heard movement.
Movement meant prey.
Prey meant enemy.
Enemy meant kill.
Heinkel bashed her fist against the glass in frustration, calling louder into the radio.
"YUMIE!"
No response.
"YUMIE LET GO! LET YUMIKO OUT!"
The nun's pace picked up as she began to blur at the edges, and Heinkel pounded on the glass with both hands in frustration, calling out both names in helpless fury.
A crack interrupted her frantic shouts, and she slowly looked up to see the crimson, emerald, and sapphire glass splintering and fracturing, the cracks spreading outwards slowly.
OH SCHEISSE!
The window shattered, and she barely saved herself by grabbing onto the sill.
"YUMIE STAND DOWN RIGHT NOW!"
The blur stopped, and the nun's head turned as the rose-red eyes softened and turned brown.
"H…Heinkel?"
Heinkel steadied herself, then nodded and jumped down into the now abandoned chapel, hearing racking sobs as the boy fled God-knew-where.
Yumiko turned towards the sound, feeling the urge to soothe and protect, but Heinkel rested a hand on her shoulder.
"C'mon Yumiko. Let's go home."
She nodded slightly, and they walked out, squinting slightly as the sun peeped over the edge of the dark buildings.
Another job finished.
Another sleepless night.
Prompt: I feel like...
The first conscious time had been equally, the most terrifying and the best of her life.
Yumiko had been sweet and shy for all her life, and her thick glasses stayed perched on her nose every waking second, no matter what.
Her parents had insisted, although she was never suspicious why.
After all, she was probably as blind as bat without them, judging from how sturdy they were.
But they had died many years ago, and now, as a young teenager, she was studying to be a nun in Italy.
Her father had been from Wales, her mother a native of Japan.
Like a good wife, she had insisted that he take her back to his home country, and there they had stayed, until Yumiko was about five years old.
She didn't remember anything about the incident, only the fact she had woken up in a pool of blood, her glasses askew on her nose and her parents lying dead, cut to pieces.
She had been sent to an orphanage in Wales, but she hadn't fit in there.
People had pointed and whispered about what happened at home, and one of the matrons had remembered a place in Rome where the head priest was kind and understanding, and all the children were given loving homes.
So little Yumiko had gone, and to her delight there were pictures and statues of her beloved father's religion everywhere.
She had brought but one thing from her mother, and that was the katana she had passed down from her seven-times-great-grandmother.
Mother had told her it was pure blessed silver, and her clan had used it many times to defeat oni and other evil creatures.
Yumiko had never been sure, until that night, of whether or not her mother had just been telling bedtime stories or the sword really was a relic from warlike ages.
The night had started out normally.
Yumiko had finished praying in the chapel, and was heading home through the streets to her dormitory.
She had brought the sword to Father Anderson, if only because her roommates were getting suspicious of the oblong box she kept under her bed.
He had calmly told her to keep it, saying that it was very important to her family, not his, and so she carried it home, locked firmly in the mahogany case so that passerby would not be alarmed by her going armed amongst them.
She didn't know how to use it of course, but it still wouldn't stop people from being alarmed.
Suddenly the warm night air seemed off, and she stopped uncertainly.
Dark chuckles echoed around her as her eyes widened behind her thick glasses, and she clutched the sword case to her body worriedly.
Seven men and women slipped out from the alleyways and dark doors around her, all holding some kind of weapon.
"Softly now. No struggling."
Of course, panicking, she did exactly that as they grabbed her, and her sword case fell from her arms as her eyes widened further in horror.
That was Mother's!
They mustn't harm it!
She reached for it, but her arms were wrenched around and pinned behind her back as one of them inspected the case with a nasty grin, and her knees went weak with terror.
Were those fangs?!
"Wadda got here?"
She squirmed uncertainly, not sure of how to answer.
"Just a case…"
They all laughed, and the man by her sword case made a motion with his hand.
She yelped as she was thrown into a crowd of them, and in the jostling, pulling, and grabbing that followed, her glasses slipped from her nose and shattered on the ground.
The first thing she registered was feeling the now-chilly night air as if for the first time in months, breathing a long draft of it in desperately.
Then something strange happened.
She felt angry.
These people were groping and grabbing and they had her mother's sword, one of the few things she had from her family.
No, not her sword.
Yumie's sword.
Yumiko wasn't there anymore.
Yumie was angry.
Yumie was very angry.
These people had dared to take her katana!
Hers!
Not theirs!
Hers!
She elbowed free of the two men holding her with a feral snarl, and lunged for the case, snatching it from the hands of the stunned leader and breaking the flimsy box over her knee, lovingly pulling her blade from the splinters.
She grinned at them, pulling the blade free of the sheath and flicking her sword a few times as she reassessed the balance and weight.
Yes, it was the same as it had always been.
The family had taken good care of it for her.
She crouched with a grin, her eyes sparking.
Now, who was ready to take the punishment for touching her beloved sword?
More oni to send to hell.
Prompt: Did you see?
"Father Anderson! Father Anderson! There's a doggy!"
Anderson looked up from his book, seeing Mark and Nepis with their faces pressed to the window, eyes wide with awe.
He got up with a theatrical groan, cracking his neck.
Sometimes he had to pander to himself a little, feeling his age.
"You both know what the dorm mother says about pets." he chastised as he moved to the window, and their faces fell in identical disappointment.
"But look! He's probably cold and lonely!"
His rolled his eyes, scanning the darkening world outside, and a muscle in his jaw tensed as he saw the lupine form lurking just outside the light of the orphanage's windows.
Those eyes were far too intelligent and far too crimson for comfort.
And that body was far too big and dark for an ordinary dog or wolf.
"So do you see him Father? Do you see him?"
He nodded tersely, managing to wrench his features into a smile that felt more like a grimace.
"He's still far too big to keep here. Why don't you two run along, I'll see what I can do to see him off."
They pouted a little, but scampered off in search of a playmate to boast of their discovery to.
He adjusted his grip on the handles that slid into his hands, and went out to do battle with the demon outside.
Several hours later, he was still trying to get the blood from his clothes.
Vampire blood was notoriously difficult to get out of fabric.