10391 Part 3: Hawke in Heavenly Host
By Ghrathryn
Article: 7/19/1953I spoke at great length with the children again today. They're so full of life, and growing up so fast… The younger students are quiet and respectful, too. It's clear their parents love and care for them very much, and have taught them very well. But I won't be left behind! I intend to raise Sachiko with just as much love and devotion as any of them. Today is her seventh birthday. We're meeting after school and going out for dinner. I hope she likes the stuffed cat I got her. Had to sort out some documents in the reference room before meeting up with Sachi. While I was working, the principal dropped by. After he and I talked for a bit, he suddenly came up to me from behind. He grabbed me and forced me down, then began unbuttoning my blouse. He'd always been so kind, lending a sympathetic ear to my problems… but today, he didn't even seem like the same man. His eyes were cold and empty. I was in such shock; I'm not even sure exactly what happened to me after that. I slipped away somehow, but he was right behind me. I only made it as far as the landing on the stairs. Just as I turned the corner, I felt him push me… The floor came at me fast, and suddenly, I found myself unable to move. I was slumped across the ground unceremoniously… and I was dead. Buckets of blood spilled out from my head. I'm sure it was hell to clean up later. I also lost control of my bowels – embarrassing, to say the least. I was slipping away… but I was pulled back by the sound of a very dear voice. Sachiko saw everything. I guess she'd come to find me… The principal closed in on her. What was he planning to do? I yelled with every ounce of my strength for him to stop… but I was dead. I had no strength. Sachiko tried to run, but she had the stride of a 7-year-old. He caught her easily. And then, before my very eyes… he strangled the life out of her. What a cruel man… He rebuttoned my shirt, then took Sachiko to the basement and buried her. He'll probably say my death was an accident, and report her as missing. I'm not a bad person. I don't deserve this. There is no redemption for what he's done…
7/20/1953
It's just as I suspected. According to the official report, I slipped and fell…and nothing's been said to anyone about Sachiko yet. The other teachers and students are all mourning me. They're so kind. I'm in mourning too…
7/21/1953
There's a stranger sitting in my chair. The new nurse, no doubt. But no one's come to see her. She mustn't be very popular. I hate her.
7/26/1953
Little by little, I'm losing my mind. Bit by bit, I'm fading away. A dark will, not my own, has begun infiltrating my being. Make it stop…
7/12/1973
Sachi is my pride and joy. She'd do anything for me. She'd even kill lots of people to keep me company. She sends me so many children. I love them all.
7/15/1973
I have to make her stop. This won't make me happy. Sachiko, please stop.
7/16/1973
His family is just as guilty as he is. I'm going to curse the entire line, forever. I'll burn some sense right into their brains.
7/17/1973
How did this happen? Sachiko, who died alongside me twenty years ago, has a flesh-and-blood body once more. She kills children and sends their souls to me. But I don't want that! That won't make me happy! Sachiko… please, come see me! Talk with me!
7/20/1973
Sachiko killed six more. And when they die, it's like every trace of their existence is removed from history. It's 'spiriting away,' in the truest sense of the term. But she's not capable of abducting and killing children on her own… She makes that man do the kidnapping for her. Sachiko… Please, stop…
7/23/1973
Sachi is no longer killing for my sake. Now she's just killing because she likes it. I don't know when this change happened… but it did. Living beings are such fickle, easily-angered creatures. They killed us, after all. I can't forgive anyone who kills another human being. I'll kill them all. I'll kill them for what they've done. I'll show them no mercy.
7/24/1973
Kill more
7/25/1973
Kill more
8/15/1973
Bring m
9/18/1973
Thanks to Sachi, I'm no longer alone. She sent me three more adorable little children today. Sachi is my pride and joy. I don't think she even recognizes me anymore. But I still love her with all my heart.
11/18/1975
The school's been closed down. And the principal jumped off the roof. Serves him right. I think I'll sing with the children. Something fun and happy. What a pitiful way to die. Serves him right!
11/23/1975
Sachi's been wandering the halls. These empty halls… She kills anyone who enters. People who've heard rumours, or are just curious. She and I are both so desperately thirsty… But there's nothing we can do about it.
Sachiko closed her mother's diary swallowing hard. If anything, it looked like her mother had fallen harder and deeper into madness and bloodlust than she had, not that reading about her murder or her mother's from her mother's point of view had been easy either.
Gulping, she barely noticed as Nicki, Saki, Tokiko and Yuki all hugged her tight. Before she realised it, tears were trickling down her cheeks and wetting Nicki's top. "M-mommy… MOMMY!" she cried, gripping Nicki as tightly as she could.
"Let it out, Sachiko," Nicki said gently, rubbing the ghost girl's back. "Let it go," she murmured before starting to hum, letting the girls snuggle against her.
"Here," Naomi said softly, drawing Sachiko's attention. It took her a minute to clear her tear blurred vision before she gasped at seeing her cat doll. "I found it just up the corridor; I think it's the one you mentioned."
"Th-thank you," Sachiko sniffled, blinking as Nicki's fingers ruffled her lank hair. "I… w-why?" she asked, pulling the doll to her chest.
There was a flash of blue on the edge of her vision, drawing Sachiko's attention. "Child, even one that fell as far as you doesn't deserve this," the ghost, Takaomi said. "I've been here longer than any apart from you and your mother, the toilet I was in, I haunted when this was a real school." He shook his head, doffing his felt hat. "From what I saw, your mother was a good woman, someone that both her peers and the students liked. You did not deserve to see her killed any more than she deserved to meet that fate. That she has fallen as far is something both more horrifying than the deaths here and more pitiful than the actions of that… man… who killed her and killed himself to escape."
Sachiko sniffled as Nicki hugged her. Once again she found herself wondering what Nicki brought that caused so much to change. Even without being appeased or regaining her tongue she could feel herself shifting back towards the girl she had been, if not completely. She sniffed again, blinking away a fresh wave of tears. "I-I think I'll be okay for a while. We-we should finish this. At least if we can destroy this place, my mom might know real peace… and maybe those I killed will get a chance to be buried and remembered." She blinked again, sniffing. "Uh… we might need Satoshi and his sister, but we shouldn't get anyone else. Someone needs to keep watch on Naomi, just in case, but without Yoshikazu that shouldn't happen."
Getting to her feet, Nicki held Sachiko close, sending out a couple of marines to keep a watch for anything that might cause trouble while the group headed back through the halls.
Watching the marines from Nicki haul corpses out of the pool of stagnant fluid, Yuki shivered next to Sachiko. With everything that had happened, they had found another half-dozen alive down here, though some only barely, one of which, surprisingly, had been Naho's 'friend' Sayaka.
At the time, it had been a fun game, being able to hurt the big kids, scare them, do things to them. Of course there had also been the eye Sachiko had stabbed until it burst and the tongue that she had cut out and hidden driving her. Now seeing the bodies brought her shame.
There were so many dead and for what?
Even taking bloodlust and murderous intentions into account, could they ever make up for the number of people they had slain for no reason?
"That the last of them?" Nicki's voice sounded, drawing Yuki from her reverie. Looking up, she found Nicki talking to one of the men that kept going in and out of her. Marines she called them. The strange thing, even being a spirit, was that while Nicki understood them, everyone else just heard the word 'oi' in different lengths and volumes… tones… pitches? It was one of those words anyway.
After one of those verses of 'oi', Nicki nodded. "We're moving out kids. Be ready though, I don't know if things will try to stop us getting the last two bodies."
A couple of rooms later, Yuki gasped as they found a tiny room with a chair and the still hanging body of Yoshikazu. Feeling a flinch from her side, she glanced over at Sachiko, who had been withdrawn for her since they had come into this building and seen her killer's death on repeat, more so than after reading her mother's diary.
Reaching out, she slipped a hand into Sachiko's and squeezed while Nicki cut down the corpse, wrapped it and stored it inside herself somehow. Even having gone aboard, she still wasn't sure how the ship and the person equated.
A few minutes later, they stepped into the last room to find the grave of Sachiko.
"You shouldn't be here."
Yuki blinked, looking between the suddenly open grave (how had she missed that?) where Sachiko stood wearing a white or pale yellow dress, and her side, where Sachiko also stood wearing red. Looking around, she blinked again, seeing another version of her, Tokiko and Ryou in three of the four corners of the room. "Somehow… I don't think this is supposed to happen," she muttered as Tokiko manifested from Nicki, looking curiously at her other self.
"I don't…" Sachiko trailed off, looking at her copy. "How is this possible?"
"As a guess, it's either that you're divided at present or the closed spaces duplicated you somehow," Nicki commented, walking up to the other Sachiko and kneeling down, causing that Sachiko to recoil. "I'm not here to harm you further," she told the girl. "We found what Takamine stole, your other is going to get it back as soon as we're outside and meet with the survivors, but I don't want to leave your remains here."
"Why?" asked the Sachiko at her grave. "Why did you save people? Why stop them dying or fight the darkening?" She looked around at everyone, particularly the other her. "Why do you have me with you?"
Nicki shrugged, holding out a hand towards the others, the three ghost girls coming up to her. "Because I'm that type of person," she said. "To be honest, this place, yeah it's a shite show, but compared to my life these days, it's not that bad. People here need help, I think you more than any of them. You don't have to hate others for what one person did. You don't need to hold to something more than half a century past. Even without justice under the law, your killer has suffered for far longer than anyone, and I think you suffer more for your own actions than anything else caused by him or your mother."
"Mom…" the graveside Sachiko whispered.
The version closer to the teens shook her head. "Madness and despair worse than us," she whispered. "Our killing didn't help her; it only drove her further into madness until she was consumed by the dark here. Nicki… had to forcibly send her on." She shook her head, wincing as she remembered the fight at the infirmary, which only Nicki and Satoshi had managed to enter, and Satoshi had been forced out quickly, though the open door let them see what happened. "I-I don't know which of us is the true Sachiko, if either of us are, but please sister, if you know what Nicki has done, let the others join their selves and come back to me, or let me come back to you." She held up the plushie. "Do you remember? This was ours; we played with it a lot and had it with us when we died."
White Sachiko looked up at Red Sachiko, studying her face for a moment before turning to Nicki. "I don't know if I can free the others from the spaces," she whispered. "But I can at least give them back everything they should have. Mom…" she swallowed hard. "I saw her die and I was scared, then I was killed and I was hurt and angry. I think part of me still wanted to go back, to be loved. Did… did Mom say anything?"
"She asked me to free her daughter, and to look after the kids here, which I intended on doing." Nicki cupped White Sachiko's chin, tilting it up. "I don't know if I can free Sachiko Shinozaki from these spaces, but I intend on taking your body back and hopefully once you're no longer a murderous spirit, I can take your soul in or send you to the right afterlife in a gentle way."
White Sachiko nodded, waving her hand as the blue-tinged spirits of Yuki, Tokiko and Ryou shifted, the boy fading away while the girls seemed to merge with their duplicates. "Even if nothing else happens, thank you, for trying," she said before facing her counterpart and walking to her. The pair wrapped their arms around one another, fading in and out as they merged before finally only the white-clad Sachiko was left.
Taking a breath, Nicki let it out, giving all three girls a hug before closing the box containing Sachiko's body and taking it into her hold. Turning to the others, she looked at them all. "Let's get out of here," she said before raising a hand to her ear. "Guard 1A; evacuate everyone to the forest area near the covered walkway. We are leaving."
The two ghost girls each gave Sachiko a hug before jumping into Nicki's crew quarters while Sachiko herself was swung up onto Nicki's back, the pair leading the way through the tunnels to the sealed door in the school.
"Sachiko we beg of you," four voices sounded for the fourth time since this group had started.
"Sachiko we beg of you," time number five.
Waving her hands at the group, Sachiko waited, frowning as the group put the remnants of their Sachiko doll together. A minute later she burst out swearing more fit for someone in their teens or twenties than her apparent age. They had been trying since she had gotten her tongue back, different groups, different areas, and different tempos. They had even had everyone use the ritual at the same time, for everyone present.
She continued swearing up a blue streak as the bell tolled for the seventh time signalling the end of their time to get people out. Why had it not worked? Every time she remembered there being a group managed to get out, it was that ritual, generally after they had appeased her and they made it out. Granted there had been a few times she had needed to stop other spirits but still, they'd never had things just not work like this.
"No luck, huh?" asked Saki, getting a frustrated groan from Sachiko.
"Even with my corpse out on full damn display and with everyone doing the ritual for everyone, it didn't bloody work." She sighed, moving to sit on one of the railings and rubbed her face. "If anything, it should have been easier the way things are. Many of the spirits were appeased or destroyed; they had a lot more people get through in one piece, I'm actually counting things off. Kuso… we even pulled Naho's notes and had her go through them. Fuck all. Not one group got out. The only thing I could think of is that it might need every one accounted for, even the dead, but that shouldn't allow others through when they've lost people, unless Nicki's being here counts for them being here somehow."
Saki shook her head. "It shouldn't, not that it matters now. The seven bell peals are done. We're all stuck until someone comes up with a way out."
Sachiko sighed again, rubbing her face. "Just… awesome…" she sighed. "I know if it was before this, I probably would have been celebrating, but now…" she trailed off into silence for several minutes before something brought her head up, twinging on the back of her mind. She didn't get a chance to say anything though, because a scream from one of the girls dragged everyone's attention to where the girl, wearing a beige uniform, stood, pointing up at the building where some sort of fleshy growth was starting to cover it.
Sharing a look with Saki, she hopped off the railing and the pair ran for where Nicki was gathering everyone back together, her marines forming a perimeter around them.
"Saki, Sachiko," Nicki nodded at them. "Any idea what's going on?"
Saki shook her head. "I've never seen this, but it's not good."
"No clue, but I'm still connected with the school enough to know there's a bunch of people just showed up, both living and dead," Sachiko responded. "I don't think this is the normal ritual. It might be another space somehow bleeding in, but I don't think the people arrived the same way, and some have power, though not on your level."
Nicki grimaced and sighed, watching as more fleshy tendrils crawled over Heavenly Host. "Lovely, just fucking lovely," she sighed. "All right, fuck it," she muttered, closing her eyes. Reaching inside herself, she caught hold of the spiritual flame of her ship form and pulled, forcing it to manifest, forcing her will on the closed space.
With a crashing of uprooted trees and a shattering of their trunks, the earth in front of the school bubbled and boiled, great chunks of it tearing away or collapsing into a rapidly filling pool. Slowly, ever so slowly, as the new pool filled, a massive warship emerged into the perpetual twilight, four large, three gun turrets running along its centre while its sides had scattered twin turrets, some looking like they could have a person behind them, others big enough to cover people. Four sets of torpedo tubes scattered the hull, two per side.
As gangplanks were pushed over the sides to the ground, Nicki waved at the teens standing in awe. "Alright, everyone get moving, get on board now!" she ordered. "Sachiko, Saki, with me."
Marines and sailors swarmed down the ramps, herding groups of students, many of whom were still watching in awe, up onto the ship.
With only three moving through the school, and two of them dead and able to hop aboard, it was a lot faster to scour the area, grabbing several rocks with abilities, keys, notes and numerous corpses along the way.
The last thing any of them expected to find, however, was a girl in a black, sack-cloth dress beating on an older girl in the entrance hall. While Nicki pulled the still living older girl away from the younger, Saki used her abilities to wall them off and Sachiko pounced, wrestling the girl down and forcing the axe away before getting a good look at the other's face.
Pitch black eyes looked back at her; with a mouth that looked more like someone had simply slashed open a ball of plasticine with a knife. "What are you supposed to be?" Sachiko asked, pinning the other down. She only got a growl in response.
"Alright, girly," Nicki said, once Saki and Sachiko had the likely enemy in hand. "Who are you and what are you doing in this shithole?"
"M-my name is Aiko Niwa," the girl responded, straightening her purple robe. "I was looking for my friends, Naho and Sayaka along with a boy called Haruyuki, but we got separated." She paused for a moment. "I was also looking for something called the Book of Shadows, I thought Ayumi might know about it or if we could find this girl…" she trailed off, passing Nicki a greyscale photograph of a ruined hallway with a girl in it, one with a black hole for an eye, an axe in one hand and a book in the other.
Nicki scowled at the photo, ignoring the wisp as Yuki manifested herself. "With a name like that, I presume it's both something witchy and in need of shoving where the sun don't shine."
"That ain't me," Yuki added causing Aiko to jump and yelp. "Some bitch took my form, but that isn't me. She's the wrong height, and the picture is bloody awful. They could be wearing anything, plus I've never used an axe. Even if I'm a ghost, you need arm strength and room."
Aiko swallowed at finding the ghost so close to her. "H-how?" she asked. "Is she possessing you somehow?"
Yuki snorted then started giggling. "Possessing Nicki?" she looked up at Aiko. "If there's one person in this place that none of us could possess, it's Nicki. Not even getting into what she can do, she's a ship, there's like a million people on board, most of which could squash us. I doubt even Yoshikazu could get far."
"It's less than twenty thousand with every crewmember from my hull's service life," Nicki responded. "Most of the time it's around a thousand to fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand with modernization and the like." She turned to Aiko. "Nicki Calhoun, the ship girl HMS Hawke, Minotaur-class cruiser in the Royal Navy."
Nicki ignored a burst of swearing from where Sachiko was and the thud of someone kicking the wall. "Two things I want to know right now," she said, looking Aiko over. "How do you know Ayumi and do you know how many people are in the school right now?"
Aiko frowned. "Uh… I think I know of three? I got in here through the use of Everafter Stones with Haruyuki, but someone stole them from me while I was unconscious. With regards to Ayumi, she came here before me, didn't she?"
"She did," Yuki said, "but she came here with the Sachiko charm, not any stones and since Nicki has been here, she hasn't been back to your world yet."
"B-but that's impossible," Aiko stammered. "She was in her class with my sister not too long ago."
Yuki shrugged. "Sachiko might know better, once she's done with the bad knock-off over there." She pointed at where Sachiko had started beating the black dress wearing girl with her own axe.
"Sachiko, what are you doing?" Nicki called.
"Getting… ugh… rid of… this… ha… bad copy… of me…!" Sachiko responded, the axe finally slamming home hard enough to crack the monster's skull. Dropping the axe, she stood, panting as the thing dissolved before looking up to see Aiko watching with wide eyes. "I'm a murderous spirit, even appeased I still know how to kill, I'm just not going to do it like everywhere." She pointed out.
Nicki rolled her eyes. "I can still spank you," she pointed out, getting a flinch from Sachiko. "Right now though, bigger issue. Aiko here said she'd seen Ayumi probably in the time that things have been happening here. Any ideas?" she asked.
Chewing her lip, Sachiko frowned. "Time's wonky in here; I said this with regards to Naomi hanging Seiko while darkened. Normally if people get out, they'll get out to around the time they came in at. If they get out," she emphasized as she came over. "It's possible, with the spiritual weight you've got, along with how the reverse charm fucked up that maybe this is a completely new space and Ayumi did get out, on a 'good' run, which is why we couldn't, along with just how many seemed to be alive again and everything." She shrugged, wiping some of the blood off her face, sniffing it and grimacing in disgust. "Besides, I have no idea what Ryou tried doing to kill everyone you were protecting, so it's possible he did something or whatever the darkening itself is did. The way that thing acts, you pissed it off rotten. With how your water seems to resurrect the darkened or something, I'm not surprised. Thing's gotta be starvin'."
Nicki frowned thoughtfully. "Any idea on people?" she asked.
Sachiko scowled. "No one we already had, but there feels like… five to fifteen living, maybe more and around eighty or ninety corpses that were not there earlier." She paused for a moment. "At least as long as the corpses stay corpses, with you around that's not guaranteed."
Nicki nodded, frowning slightly. "Right, then let's get going, I'd rather at least meet the living before them going aboard my hull."
Sachiko spat and spluttered, blinking water out of her eyes. "What the…?" she asked, wiping off the remnants. Looking up, she found a lilac haired teenager, probably the late end, holding what looked like a phial and wearing a red on white uniform. "What was that for?"
The girl blinked, taking a few stumbling steps back. "W-what…? B-but that should have cleansed you…" she stammered. "Holy water cleanses or destroys spirits, especially evil ones."
Wiping off her face, Sachiko glared at the teen. "Okay, one, I'm wearing white in case you hadn't noticed. If you know anything about how people get away from here, you'd know that's a sign that I'm not hostile to them. Secondly, I think you got swindled… her holy water burns like hell, yours just felt like normal water." She pointed at Nicki, who was coming up with Aiko and Saki.
Once again, the girl spluttered, stuttering something about where she'd gotten the water from and how a priest couldn't swindle someone.
Sachiko rolled her eyes at her. "Uh huh, and teachers always love and look after children, right?" she asked. "Fucking Takamine, I hope wherever he goes after this is worse than constantly repeating his death."
"Uh… you are the Sachiko that's been murdering everyone that comes to this place, aren't you?" the girl asked.
"Yeah… and got spanked, showered in blessed water – on my own volition – and saw Nicki turn the person that was more or less my puppet into bug spray more effectively than any trap I've used," Sachiko returned. "She also threatened to turn one of the kids I'd killed, who was as bad as me, into divine dog food, and had Fenrir and Amaterasu show up, plus she must have saved about a hundred, two hundred people trapped in here, including resurrecting people lost to the darkening." She gave the girl a look that asked plainly if she was crazy. "I'm a murderous child ghost, not stupid. No way in any hell am I fighting that."
There was a chuckle from behind her as Nicki joined them. "Finished scaring the newbie, Sachiko?" she asked dryly. "Nicki Calhoun," she offered a hand to the girl. "You've met Sachiko Shinozaki; the other girls are Saki Akagiri, Yuki Kanno and Aiko Niwa."
"Ran Kobayashi," the girl introduced herself.
"Oof, your parents must've not been happy about you if your first name is spelt the way it sounds," Nicki commented. "And I'd bet some of the Trekkies have other names for you as well."
Ran grimaced. "Yeah…" she sighed. "I don't mean to be rude, but have you seen another girl dressed like me? My wifey Azusa Takai is here somewhere."
"You mean that?" Yuki asked, pointing towards another passage where someone in white stumbled along bent over backwards. "Darkened… though I've never seen it do that before," she added.
Sighing, Nicki motioned to the three spirits, sending them after the girl, though before they got far, she tossed Yuki a bottle of blessed water, causing the brunette to hiss as it stung her hands through the bottle. Drawing her laser SMG, she followed them, watching as they caught the girl, fought her down and drenched her and themselves in the blessed water resulting in a fight between the three of them while Nicki shot the cloud of darkness.
"Pack it in you three," Nicki called, causing all three to freeze. Walking up to the stirring girl, she offered a hand up. "Hi, Azusa Takai I'm guessing," she commented brightly.
Sitting up, Azusa nodded before taking the hand and yelping as she was hauled upright. "Th-that's me," she said. "How did you know?"
"Friend of yours?" asked Nicki, indicating Ran.
Azusa looked over and grimaced. "Yes, not that I wanted her here," she replied. Looking around, she blinked seeing the three spirits. "Why are they not attacking?" she asked.
"Because neither of them wants to end up in Fenrir's gullet," Saki commented. "Not that I blame them for that, or for wanting to avoid being spanked again."
Sachiko grumbled something before moving to look Azusa up and down. "I think you've been here before… well, not this space. I had… a birthday where the group from Kisaragi Academy, I think you two, and the trio in beige were." She frowned. "I think she was there as well, along with her missing friend, the dumb bitch that put the Sachiko Ever After ritual on the net, her friend and her obsession." She indicated the three living girls with Nicki. "There might have been another one, brown hair and the same bibbed dress as the girl who acts my physical age when she's twice that."
Sachiko paused and frowned. "Actually, I think that one is in here, she's… odd, and this is me saying that."
Nicki nodded, frowning herself. "If you can figure out where, then let's get them and get them back to my hull. They should be safer there."
Yuki winced at the loud clang from Nicki where the ship girl had blocked a scythe with her arm while using the other to hold up a blue-haired boy like this was something she dealt with every day. Now that she thought about it… Nicki had never been particularly worried about things in Heavenly Host.
Dodging away from one of the 'knight' things, she ran up another's back when it got its sword stuck, leaping off it to stab a third in the eye repeatedly with a knife – so much better than scissors, why had she stuck to them for so long? A grinding of metal drew her attention as the knight went down, making her look over at where Saki was crushing another knight with her powers.
A volley of blue bolts rushed over her head, dropping the one she had used as a launch pad.
A quick look around let her see Tokiko stabbing another repeatedly one in the ass and legs as she avoided its grabs. Sachiko had gotten an axe from somewhere, probably that black knock-off, and was swinging it madly at another, treating it like a stubborn tree.
The four living were hanging back, out of the way of the fight. They had found the last, a white haired woman, while wandering the school hunting clues and corpses.
"Satsuki!" the scythe user snapped drawing Yuki's attention again. Her eyes widened as a brunette girl ran at Nicki, her head splitting open into a giant mouth.
A sword kissed Yuki's side, making her yelp as it managed to cut her spectral flesh. Throwing herself aside as the knight was shot down by another of Nicki's marines before it could follow up, she missed what happened. By the time she had a chance to look again; blue-boy was stuck in the ceiling, brown-girl – Satsuki? – was in a corridor wall, and Nicki had apparently broken the scythe.
Seeing Nicki palm something, she had just enough time to yell; "ware!" and cover her eyes before the thing exploded in a blinding flash and a shriek from the scythe user.
By the time she could see again, Yuki found all the knights down, dead or dying, she didn't know, while Nicki had retrieved the book that blue-boy had and was shoving it into a bag of some kind.
"Right then," Nicki started, dumping the book into her hold and reaching up to yank blue-boy out of the ceiling by his waistband. "I think it's time someone explained what is going on this time," she continued, tossing blue-boy to the ground before yanking the girl out of the wall and dropping her with the others.
Moving up to see what was going on, Yuki frowned at the burst of swearing from the girl in far too little to be practical, particularly in Heavenly Host.
Nicki snorted in amusement. "You know, the way you're dressing, one'd think you are actually desperate for that yourself," she commented dryly. "I'd imagine all the splinters you've picked up wandering around in here are pretty painful, huh?" She smirked at the growl from the girl, watching the three of them.
"Give me the Book of Shadows," the girl growled.
"Hmm… nope," responded Nicki. "I'm no mage, but I can tell that's bad shit. Soon as I find a good blast furnace or volcano it's going in."
Growling again, the girl pushed herself upright. "The members of Martuba's Tomb would hunt you to the ends of the Earth for such blasphemy," she snapped.
Nicki frowned slightly, watching the girl only to snap her hand out; grabbing the boy's head as he tried to sneak passed her to attack her companions. "Maybe they could," she admitted and crushed the boy's skull, letting him drop from her bloody hand. "But there are things far, far more dangerous than a cult that needs facing." She gave the girl a deadpan stare. "I'm sure I haven't encountered most of them."
The scythe wielder looked over at Satsuki. "Satsuki, now," she ordered, rushing at Nicki, in spite of what had just happened.
Yuki had just enough time to blink before Saki had Satsuki locked down in her powers and the other girl had run up and punched Nicki hard, only to yell in pain, holding her hand as it clanged against metal, probably snapping a finger.
"Really?" asked Nicki, only to receive another fist to the face. Something that resulted in another clang and another bout of pained swearing. Three more equally useless punches later, Nicki grabbed the girl's hands, holding them up.
"Argh! Just fall already!" the girl yelled, kicking out hard. This time, there was a definite crunch as she howled in pain.
Sighing, Nicki shook her head. Shifting her grip on the girl, she pulled her over to a table and laid her over her knee.
"W-what a-are you doing?" the girl asked before yipping as Nicki's open palm smacked her ass. "H-hey! I'm not into thaaaAAaT!" She yelped as she was spanked again.
"Yes and you're a naught young girl that obviously doesn't know right from wrong," Nicki commented. "Bad kids get spanked if the things they do are bad enough." She continued, ignoring the others watching wide eyed as she spanked the girl's rear twenty times, leaving the girl crying. "Now, are you going to continue being bad or are you going to behave?"
"Glad it's not us," Yuki muttered to both Tokiko and Sachiko, both of whom nodded.
"Bitch!" the girl sobbed, only to yell as she was smacked again. "Cunt! Argh!"
"You know, I'm starting to think your mouth needs washing with soap as well," Nicki suggested.
"Argh! Fuuuu… Alright, stop with the spanking. Ow, ow, owwie. Geeze," the girl managed. "I'll talk, alright? J-just let me up first."
Nicki frowned for a moment before letting the girl up, causing her to stagger away and fall onto her rear, something she immediately regretted if the yell of pain was anything to go by. "So…?"
The girl shifted, trying to take her weight off her sore ass, wincing as she did. "My name is Magari Midzuki, I was sent here to both try to find Azusa Takai after her mission went south and recapture the Book of Shadows before it can be used."
"You mean before someone else gets the jump on you," Nicki said flatly. "What about the stones we've been finding all over?" She held up one of the five they currently had.
"They're the sephira, supposedly they can make a new Book of Shadows, but they can also open the way to the core of this place and release it on the world," Magari replied.
Sachiko scowled. "Letting it consume everything without having to coax people here. It already erases people from others' minds if they're not here when those people die." She shifted, scowling at the wall. "I feel like this first appeared while I was alive, before Takamine murdered me, my mom did something." She shrugged. "Maybe to do with dad… he died before we were murdered."
Magari shrugged. "I know of one, the Land of Corpses, it might be how the Nirvana came to be."
Nicki nodded. "Right, we're getting everyone out, meaning you lot need to get to the ship, then I'm going to see about getting into the core and destroying it. Is there any alternate ways out?"
"The Everafter Stones should work, at least for people. I know of four of them," Magari offered.
Nicki nodded, moving to haul her up. "Then we're getting that done."
Nicki scowled at the floating child in front of her. "What is it about hate filled hearts that so many turn out having clawed themselves from the abyss?" she asked, taking in the girl's white skin and glowing turquoise eyes. She looked much like abyssals, baring the armour shells and heavy weapons grafted to them, or the sirens with similar issues.
After a few moments of silence, Nicki took a breath, letting it out while ignoring the fleshy arena around them. "Alright then, let's see how well you handle the HMS Hawke! Launch!"
Light swirled around her, slamming into her back to form her funnels while four arms extended from the pack that latched onto her, each producing hollow booms as miniaturised triple BL6in turrets locked into place on them. Quad torpedo launchers and boot covers similar to her hull's fore locked onto her legs while a set of smaller turrets latched to her arms.
"ᛋᚲᛖᚹᛖᚱ."
Nicki blinked as she threw herself to the side to avoid set of metal lances, one of which clanged uselessly off her turret armour. "Fire!" she ordered, two of her main turrets opening up. Six inch shells whistled through the air and exploded against the abyssal-like being's shield, making Nicki's eyes narrow.
"ᛈᛖᛖᚱ."
Wait, that meant 'peer' in Futhark runes, meaning…
"Smile, bitch," Nicki snarled, "ᛋᛗᛁᛚᛖ."
A ball of energy appeared over Queen, or at least what Nicki thought was Queen only to be swept aside by another that Nicki found at her off hand and sent straight down her throat. Guns didn't apparently work against that shield, but from the way Queen flinched, that energy did.
"ᛋᛚᚨᚢᚷᚺᛏᛖᚱ" snarled Queen.
Nicki blinked, only to yelp as she dodged the energy bolt far too slowly. It shot from Queen, crossing the space between them in the blink of an eye and slammed into her chest, knocking her backwards. "Ugh…" she groaned as part of her armour heated.
"ᛋᚲᛖᚹᛖᚱ" Queen added, not letting up.
Nicki dodged the spears and frowned. That obviously meant 'skewer', so what was? Right, guard! As the Queen repeated the action, she grinned. "ᚷᚢᚨᚱᛞ."
The spears rocketed at her again, only to be bounced straight back into Queen's face, causing her to shriek inside her shield.
Looking up at Nicki with hate glowing in her eyes, Queen's lips pulled back in a snarl. "ᛞᛖᛈᛚᛟᚱᛖ," she snarled.
Nicki blinked. What was…? Fuck! Deplore, so, hug! "ᚺᚢᚷ," she snapped. Once again, energy began to gather around Queen, only for it to be crushed along with her as a pair of spectral arms appeared and squeezed, leaving her gasping in a flickering shell.
Seeing the flicker, Nicki aimed her main turrets and opened fire with all twelve guns, clouding herself in smoke for a moment. The shells flew true, Queen shrieked as she was hammered by the six inch rounds.
"ᚺᚨᛏᛖ," snarled Queen, a massive beam of energy lancing towards Nicki.
Nicki shifted aside, "ᚱᛖᚨᛋᛟᚾ." A giant mirror appeared in the path of the beam, sending it back into Queen's face as she screeched, the shield around her practically collapsed. "One more, just need one more of those and she should be done," Nicki muttered, bracing herself.
"ᛋᛚᚨᚢᚷᚺᛏᛖᚱ," shrieked Queen.
Hearing the same attack that had gotten her last time, Nicki was already moving, dodging away. This time, however, she recognised the word, "slaughter", meaning if she remembered right she needed to rebuke. "ᚱᛖᛒᚢᚲᛖ," she snapped out.
The attack reached Nicki just as her body gained a mirror sheen, bouncing it back at Queen and finally collapsing the shield around her as she shrieked again.
A moment later the area around them shifted and blurred, revealing a mist or smoke filled forest where there were two versions of Queen beyond the one collapsed on the floor. One crucified, her mouth staked, the other hung, burning as others condemn her for having powers, being a devil worshiper, and a host of other things, most likely only existent in their own minds.
Nicki looked around and sighed, "Fucking jack asses, not that it's changed much over the last centuries." She shook her head before walking up to Queen and crouching down, wrapping the now much more fragile looking girl in a hug.
"Can you take it?" Queen mumbled, not looking up. "Have you ever been burned in the karmic fire of hell? Have you had your organs skewered?" she asked. "I'm lonely…" she admitted finally.
Nicki shook her head. "Kid, I spent nearly ten years in hospitals trying to figure out why my bones and organs didn't work right, why they would keep stuttering. It wasn't until I was ten before they found out my genetics were the cause, that there was some DNA that was broken, fractured, degraded or straight up missing. It took another two years before my parents learned of an initiative to try to save people in that situation and they found out I had Valkyrie ancestry, which was where bad DNA was from. They replaced it, but it hurt like hell because it reworked every cell in my body."
She shrugged as Queen looked up at her. "Only a couple of years later, my parents were killed by abyssals, monsters of the deep though even before that I was looking after most of the younger kids at the labs." She snorted, shaking her head slowly. "Get to eighteen and I find out I'm a ship girl, I'm supposed to fight the things that killed my parents and so, so many others. I've been shot with shells that can destroy city blocks, stabbed, lost my limbs and had them replaced or reattached, been hit by incendiaries, bombs and torpedoes alike, cut my way through literal hell and worse places, and that was before coming here." She sighed softly.
"Of course here, there's so many people died because one idiot couldn't keep it in his pants and caused the death of someone, then murdered her child when she found out." Nicki shifted slightly. "Girl went insane on bloodlust and hate, and there's so many in places as bad or worse."
Feeling a sob against her, she looked down; finding the abyssal-like Queen, once badly burned now looked like a more normal teen, though her eyes still glowed. Taking a breath and letting it out in a sigh, Nicki gathered the girl up, feeling the attachment she had gotten when each of the other spirits had connected themselves to her. She wasn't leaving one behind. "Let's go home," she whispered, turning to find a glowing portal. Her guns shifted around as her crew started firing, demolishing everything they could behind them.
Kneeling on the edge of Hawke's deck, Tokiko grimaced hearing a few people actually getting sick further down. "If I actually had something in my stomach, I'd probably be throwing it up," she muttered, getting a nod from Yuki, who was sitting nearby.
"I didn't even know ghosts could get sick," Yuki said, grimacing. "I'm glad to be out of the school though." She closed her eyes for a moment before looking over at where British marines were escorting people off Hawke. In the end, it had taken Jörmungandr to destroy Nirvana and Heavenly Host properly, while Fenrir and Amaterasu had escorted the ship through the void, a trip that had left almost everyone aboard feeling ill.
"Do you think we'll get the chance to find our parents?" Tokiko asked, "To at least see them again before passing on."
Yuki sighed and shook her head. "I don't know, Tokiko, I mean we were murdered in 1973, from what I heard it's like 2020 or later, even if we find our parents alive, they're going to be ancient. Mum was 30-something when I died, if she's alive, she'd be near or over 80 now." She sighed, shaking her head. "Maybe… maybe we'd be better off staying with Nicki."
"If you two do decide to stay, just be aware we'll need to discuss ground rules, alright?" Nicki asked, making both girls jump a little. "You think you'll be steady enough to join Sachiko, Saki and Queen?" she asked gently. "I need to talk to both my Commodore and the local admiral about getting everyone sorted out."
Tokiko climbed to her feet, wobbling rather severely until Yuki steadied her, causing Nicki to frown for a moment before picking the pair up and carrying them down to the dock, one in each arm.
Reaching the area Sachiko, Saki and Queen were, she placed the pair down before hearing a soft cough. Turning, Nicki found herself facing Megan and Sally, and snapped a salute at the pair.
"At ease, Hawke," Sally said, returning the salute. "Are these the kids you picked up?"
"Yes ma'am," Nicki responded, frowning slightly when Megan moved closer to look them over, causing them to shift back. "They shouldn't cause more trouble than a normal kid their age," she said.
Megan snorted softly. "They probably will just from having more abilities, Nicki," she said. "Just be aware that you will be responsible for them, so anything that does get them reported will be on you to clean up." She frowned slightly, looking Queen over. "Any idea why this one looks like an abyssal?" she asked. "She doesn't feel like one, but she's got some similar features."
Nicki shrugged, placing a hand on Queen's shoulder when the girl moved closer to her. "She had some similar experiences from what I saw, plus spending six or more decades as the centre point of a land literally dedicate to feeding on death didn't help. I beat her; I wasn't going to leave her to suffer any longer."
Megan nodded, getting up again. "Make sure they're aware of the ground rules for Plymouth, okay?" she asked, getting a nod from Nicki. "Good luck with being a mother," she smirked, both her and Sally waving before heading off.
"Anyone else feel like we just had a run in with something that could have slaughtered us?" Saki asked, getting nods from all four spirits.
Nicki sighed, turning to them. "She's the head of the Schattenjägers for a reason," she said. "Their aunt is probably even scarier than they are, but they're willing to let me handle you girls, so we'd best ensure their trust is well placed, right?" She got nods all around. Giving the girls a hug, she took a breath, dropping a couple of marines off to keep watch before going to find Commodore Glenn.
