"C'mon, guys! We gotta get her outta there!"
"Mia!? Mia if you're there say something!"
The strongest of the five boys, along with their honorary 6th member, strained fruitlessly against the collapsed concrete rubble. Or more accurately, Yuli strained fruitlessly to lift one of the crumbling slabs, while Kento had single-handedly shifted what may have been a half ton knot of steel rebar.
It wasn't nearly enough to make a difference though, as an entire skyscraper had been toppled directly onto the underground entrance.
Only moments prior, the ronin's had celebrated routing the Warlord of Cruelty with their coordinated counterstrike. It wasn't until his unexpected retreat that they noted the full extent of the kusarigama's explosive force hadn't been directed at them, apparently claiming an apartment complex as collateral.
When the five returned to the makeshift campsite where Mia and Yuli had been instructed to remain, they saw White Blaze pawing at the rubble and Yuli's frantic leaping about, which finally drew their attention to the fact that the lovely assistant professor from Sengoku University, who had been helping them ever since day one of this incredible misfortune, was nowhere to be seen.
"Well?" Cye doffed his armor to assist Kento with the excavation, "What are we waiting for!?"
Rowan and Sage's attentions were elsewhere. The base of the collapsed building was still smoldering, an unusual sight for the Warlord of Cruelty's signature strike. It wasn't until Ryo joined their inquisitive inspection that the reason became clear. Part of the stone had been liquefied, and the stench was unforgettable to the avatar of Wildfire, "Sekhmet was here. This reeks of his poison, no doubt about it."
As Sage postulated the obvious question of why Anubis would've retreated with backup having arrived, Rowan noted the direction of the collapse, and complete lack of any additional collateral damage to the surrounding buildings. It was a precision strike deliberately designed to bring down the apartment block in a specific direction.
"What I don't understand is why they gave up so easily. With this pincer maneuver, they really had us in a spot," Sage wondered aloud.
"It's because they weren't after us," answered Rowan with an unhappy certainty.
Both Ryo and Sage paused only for a moment before their collective realization struck, and each turned their attention to Cye and Kento's ongoing efforts.
"Alright that's it, I've had enough of this pussyfooting around!" Kento declared in his usual boisterous fashion. Armor donned and Vajra at the ready, he was mid-spin before Cye could call him back to reason.
"What if she's hurt on the other side of this rock pile? You'd be blasting her to Kingdom Come!"
"Huh!? Oh! Right…" When it came to friendly fire, Kento was no stranger to the consequences of his haste. The young warrior's frustration was palpable, and only overshadowed by the incredible sense of helplessness that now seemed to grip him with the dismissal of his armor.
"We'd better hope that's the case, I don't want to think of what the alternative is."
"What're you saying!? You hope she's injured and trapped under a bunch a' rocks!?"
Sage and Kento were already in a back-and-forth as Cye tried to console the now very distraught Yuli. Rowan looked from the petty argument, back to the direction of Anubis' retreat, then to the collapsed building and its melted foundation, before returning to the ongoing and intensifying arguments between the other four.
"This is why…" Rowan muttered to himself, watching the effects of their, for lack of a better word, chaperone's absence, already taking its toll.
"Listen everyone! We're getting nowhere like this! For all we know Mia could be hurt, or worse! Shelve the arguments and let's find another way down, fast!" Ryo, ever the unifying voice, led the charge to the nearest connecting station stairwell.
Memories of Ryo's first encounter with Anubis, and subsequent escape from the active caldera of Mt. Fuji, came back to him in a rush of adrenaline. Too many times he'd seen Mia and Yuli escape death by the skin of their teeth. It was a perverse strategy, cowardly, and left a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Whatever the Dynasty's reason for targeting Mia, he wouldn't allow it to succeed.
He couldn't.
Far away from the buried subway tunnel entrance, Mia Koji had awakened in complete darkness, the sound of battle completely muffled by the rubble that now sealed off the stairwell to the surface. Calling out for Yuli and the others yielded only her own echo, and then an unsettling silence.
Mia used the wall to guide her, and soon arrived at the massive transfer station of Otemachi. Surely every exit couldn't have been similarly caved in. She hoped to make her way to the surface a few blocks down, and thus moved quickly, quietly, and prayed that the Dynasty would remain busy with the battle no doubt raging above.
Though her body ached and head throbbed from the initial fall, she knew staying in one place, alone in this Shadow Land, was the surest way to end up at the end of a Dynasty foot soldier's spear. This close to Talpa's castle, the very air seemed to whisper its secrets to the Dynasty, ensuring she and the boys never had more than a few hours of restful seclusion.
Power remained out for the entirety of the city, but small battery powered signs declaring "Open" and "Welcome!" were enough to provide the faintest navigable light through the darkness, casting everything in harsh red and blue.
"If separating us was deliberate… and I had been tracked to the initial collapse, I'd be trapped there with no way out. The next stairwell is just a little further."
That was the hopeful reminder she had to speak aloud as doubt and fear continually crept into her thoughts while passing the abandoned shops and walkways that should have been overflowing with commuters at this hour.
Suddenly, there was a warm sensation against her cheek.
The surprise had her stifling a genuine shriek as her hands flew to either side of her face.
It wasn't any foreign touch, or unexpected drip from the steam pipes above. She could now feel a wet patch in her hair, and warm liquid running down the side of her head. In the dim red and blue lighting, she couldn't be certain, but the scent soon confirmed blood. Mia breathed deep and in even intervals as she slipped into one of the many shops that lined the subway station, each having been frozen in time since the Dynasty's invasion.
She didn't feel faint, but Mia supposed that's what most people likely thought before fainting. And down here was the last place she wanted to be lost to unconsciousness. All she needed was water and a pack of disinfectant cloth wipes, that would be enough to ensure the last hundred meters or so to the station exit. There was no reason to panic as long as she stayed calm and-
"Ahhh~ Such a sweet scent…"
Every nerve in Mia's body froze at desperate, attentive alertness. Too fearful to even breathe, her ears strained for a confirmation, a rejection, anything that might remind her she was still alone in this abandoned station.
There were no words, but instead a slow, deliberate clack of greaves striking polished floor. The echo seemed to come from everywhere, just as it had before on the icy slopes of Hokkaido's Mt. Daisetsu.
Mia had never breathed so shallowly. Indeed, that had been the same voice that haunted her quiet moments of sleep and brought back the painful physical sensation of bludgeoning under tens of thousands of gallons of icy water. She shuddered, unable to suppress the memory of crushing suffocation as she stared out through the ice at her future eternity before blacking out.
"I'm hurt! No touching speech for me this time?"
Again, Mia felt her chest pounding in her ears. Please, please let this be just a horrible vision. A hallucination from her head wound. Perhaps she was still out cold at the base of the subway stairwell. Anything but the reality that now cupped his hand across her mouth, catching her shriek before it could escape.
She was squeezed bodily against cold metal, and felt the dangerous press of three blades now resting against her neck. Mia strained only briefly before Cale drew her tighter, threatening his full strength should she continue. His voice shuddered through her body as he leaned in close with a mocking sneer.
"My master wishes your presence. And be grateful, girl," his words snapped like the teeth of a growling wolf. "Were it up to me, you'd be drained of life by now…" His expression softened in unnerving fashion as he inhaled deeply, savoring the aroma of the fresh blood matting her otherwise silken hair.
"And pale as the snow from whence first we met..."
Cale felt the change in his voice, unsure where the strangely sentimental thought had come from. He dismissed it, and only then realized, with a disappointed tut, that the Koji woman had fainted dead away in his arms.
His lip curled in disgust.
"So frail…"
"Mia~!"
"Miss Koji!"
"Miiiaaaa~!"
"Big Sis!"
The five, plus the ever-dynamic team of White Blaze and Yuli, had split up at Otemachi station. Each taking a different subway line to search, and all throwing caution to the wind as they called out for the lost woman. Speed was of the essence, and it was better to risk discovery themselves in hopes to draw away potential dangers to their compatriot lost in this labyrinth of shadows.
It was this faint hope that snuffed out like so many embers scattered to the wind as Ryo rounded a corner only to see the familiar outline of Cale turn to face him, with Mia Koji slung over the warlord's shoulder.
"I'll be sure to give your regards to Master Talpa, whelp! Ahahahaha!"
Cale then disappeared into a curtain of shadows, his laugh still echoing through the darkness.
"Did you find her? What is it, what did you see!?"
Yuli pleaded in the way children usually do when left out of a conversation, but Kento held fast. He didn't want the boy to see what the rest were now gathered around. Tiny drips of red that led to the spot where Mia had been spirited away by the Evil Dynasty. The five were silent, probably for the first time since their initial meeting on the streets of Shibuya. That's right, they owed the very nature of their unity to the woman now stolen out from beneath them.
Cye, Sage, and Rowan had turned away from the small pool of blood left behind, each in silent contemplation in one sense or another.
Ryo wouldn't look away, though.
He couldn't.