This happens mostly parallel to the Senshi's battle against Talon, if you haven't figured that out yet.
Usual OOC and over-the-top warnings apply.
---
We finally manage to ... err ... separate the two, and the song stops.
Rather, it feels as if that not-taste of ozone in the air simply vacates the premises. Exit, stage left, leaving two very confused young people with serious wardrobe malfunctions and a crowd of equally confused onlookers.
The former quickly scamper, the latter need to be politely, or not so politely, convinced the get the hell back to whatever it is they should be doing. Or just be somewhere that isn't here.
Leaving us both to deal with some badly damaged upholstery in an otherwise classic 1968 Toyota convertible, and two pairs of sticky hands.
"That's one for the list of things I'd rather not have to do again. Ever," she says.
I have to agree. Though ...
"How did you talk me into helping with this again?"
"Helping with _this_? Oh no, I'm not letting you out of my sight until you help me get rid of that mess. It's mostly your fault!"
"How is _that_ my fault?"
"If you hadn't been there last night ..."
"You still would have been drunk enough to need to leave the car here, and you would have had to pull those two out of it by yourself."
"..." Haruka glares, then lifts her hands up and holds them in a threatening manner. "I'm armed, and not afraid to use them, so no arguing."
I look left.
I look right.
I grin. "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!"
"Ssssh! Shut up, dammit!" She hisses, turning her glare around at some few onlookers, who promptly decide to be elsewhere. "Alright, I'm willing to let you crash on my couch if you help out with this."
Shrewd. Exploiting my lack of accommodations to save herself the cleaning costs.
... which, as she owns two sports cars and an fairly roomy apartment in a country where space is at a premium, means I'm not seeing the whole picture here.
"At a guess, ripping it out and setting it on fire, then getting the whole thing fumigated and reupholstered is out of the question?"
"Yes. Now ..." she looks at her hands and grimaces at the sticky strands of half coagulated ... well, I'm sure I don't need to paint you a picture.
"I'm thinking, restroom?"
I incline my head towards that foggily familiar bar. She follows the direction of my head-movement with her eyes. Sighs.
We start walking.
It's late enough for the bar to be open, meaning we got up fairly late as well ...
Make of that what you will.
***
"Evening, Hiroto."
"Ten'ou-san, back again today? Isn't that a little ..." which is when the bartender stops because I've come through the door.
It may be evening, but only on a technicality. The bar is still mostly empty.
"Don't worry, we just need the restrooms," Haruka says, and keeps walking.
I follow.
I realize that he did look somewhat worried, even before he noticed I was there.
So, he's worried about Haruka being here two days in a row? Strange.
I shoulder open the door to the men's room, knuckle the water on ...
Wait, couldn't I have just burned this off my skin?
Then I realize this probably would have resulted in setting my clothes on fire and abandon that train of thought, and move to continue my impression of Lady MacBeth Lite.
I'm interrupted by ... something, on the edge of my consciousness. I'm not quite sure what, but the sensation concerns me.
It's both familiar and tinged with a faint note of caution.
I'm moving before I really know what I'm doing, leaving the water still running behind me and wiping my hands dry on my jeans.
Haruka barges out of the ladies' room a moment after I pass that door, eyes flickering left and right.
I 'feel' confusion from her, as well as an odd sense of alertness.
This is when I realize that I'm not 'feeling' anything at all from the bar.
Crap.
Unfortunately, the realization comes too late to stop me from coming out the small corridor leading to the restrooms and into the main room.
The few patrons who'd been sitting in one of the far booths are slumped over their table, with their glasses and bottles overturned and spilling their contents.
The bartender is on the ground behind the bar, in what appears to be a dead faint.
And there are two men in ill-fitting suits standing beside the body, also behind the bar.
One of them is holding and sniffing on what I recognize to be my missing third wallet.
With which, I now recall, I paid for my drinks last night.
One of three I'd taken off the dead bodies, or what passed for them, of a youma I'd thought were playing at being yakuza a while before that.
And the two toughs' suits? They're not really ill-fitting in a manner badly tailored or off the rack ones are. It's more like the suits are ill-fitting to what I can almost imagine under their skin.
The realizations come one on top of the other, but it's the spike of alarm coming from right behind me that just makes me react.
Not quite in the way I should, since it's gut impulse driving it.
I realize I should have gone with the desire to hurt, maim, and kill things instead at around the instant my hastily thrown punch takes the closer one in the face, throwing his head back in a spray of brackish-red that might just be what passes for his blood and having him slam into the mirror behind the bar.
And the alcohol bottles set on the shelves in front of said mirror.
He leaves a nice set of spiderweb cracks on the mirror's surface, too.
I'm honestly amazed it did that much, but chalk it up to another benefit of the Dark Kingdom health plan, before realizing the other is ...
On the ground, looking loopy and confused from where Haruka just brained him with a barstool sneak-attack to the head.
I don't know if it's some kind of instinctive recognition of what he is, but seeing as it actually takes him a few seconds to collect his wits and start picking himself up, I'm guessing she put her all into that swing.
That the 'victim' is not currently either unconscious or dead from blunt force trauma to the cranium only gives the vibes I'm getting from these guys a name.
Youma.
Haruka is looking down at her hands in mute disbelief, shocked at what she's just done and not quite believing the person she did it to is still moving.
I take a firm hold of hurt, maim, kill this time, and go with that.
***
Any possible feelings of doubt dissolve with the door going to splinters.
Last time, there'd been a pack of five, and I'd run into them at random. Some memories from Zoisite's bad old days tell me they hadn't been all that powerful, in the grand scheme of things. They hadn't looked nearly as silly as what the other set of memories tell me youma in this setting should look like either.
They'd still knocked me around something fierce because I didn't really know what to do and how to do it, before I'd had a sudden, sobriety inspired moment of enlightenment and decided to plagiarize Kuchiki Byakuya.
So, knowing they'd come after me for ... borrowing ... some booze from one of the stores they'd offered protection to, and knowing that they know those five were not seen or heard from again ...
Two made no sense.
Any possible feelings of doubt dissolve with the door going to splinters, allowing bad suit #3 to storm in.
He's met by suit #1 and #2, flying.
The Dark Kingdom health plan and sheer desperation have those two hitting their compatriot with enough force to take him back out the door.
I try something.
I snap my fingers, at the same time whipping that hand in direction of the door and thinking hot thoughts.
Hot, as in fire, not as in Haruka in hot-pants.
The gout of flame isn't anything to write home about when compared to what I can recall of the local fire-slinger's, but it serves as a follow up.
It also ignites the alcohol soaking into bad suit #1's suit from his encounter with the gantry and the bottles that'd been standing upon it.
See?
Hurt, maim, kill works!
Or so I think to up until I step through the door myself.
Haruka curses. It's something particularly vile, inventive, and memorable at any moment except for that.
I'm too focused on the fact that the street is bereft of pedestrians who _don't_ make the hair at the back of my neck rise in alarm.
Some of them are wearing what the piles of ash formerly known as the bad suit trio were, some just look like random street toughs, and some you'd walk by in the streets without as much as a second glance.
"You have been a very, very _rude_ guest, Mr. Zoisite," I hear. "Particularly bereft of manners even when compared to your associates."
"Would you believe you met me at a very strange time in my life?"
I pin down the speaker as I reply, and find myself ... unsurprised. By the general look of him, if nothing else.
A little bigger, a little burlier than the rest.
"You have forfeited the luxury o..."
"CHIRE!"
Light flares and scatters in flash, leaving the barest impression of a sphere being crushed in my hand.
Senbonzakura turns him into sashimi and ground meat, even as it expands into an arc, its pink crystal faux-petals scattering past him and into ...
Oh, hell.
I am made aware just how pale a shadow my false Senbonzakura is. The crystals, despite their hardness, despite their beyond-razor-edges, still chip and still shatter. And my control is still far from perfect.
Not enough focus, and not enough volume.
And there are many, many, _lots_ of them.
Too many by far.
Fortunately, I'm not as dim as to just stand there when I realize this.
Another Senbonzakura tears into the already weakend part of the group, the petals punching a hole in the encirclement this time and scattering to the sides to sting, hurt, and repel, and I take advantage of the momentary confusion to grab Haruka around the wrist and pull her after me.
We dash through the momentarily empty space, and down the street, to the tune of angry and wounded roars echoing at our heels.
***
There's a limit to how long a person can run. Even someone in Haruka's physical condition on adrenaline.
Meaning that the mob of youma nipping at our heels will eventually catch up.
I don't know if there's a limit to how long a Dark General can run, but I'm betting yes. I'm also betting they can be faster than Haruka.
I do know that I still have enough of a conscience left to not try and throw my pursuers some bait and make a runner.
Yes, I pleasantly surprise myself daily.
Also, I have no idea if it would actually work, or if it would give me enough time to just outrun the bastards. Considering what Zoisite remembers about even the least of the hunter youma, which these seem to be close enough to to make a comparison, they'll _still_ be my problem, even if I manage to shake them here and now.
"Not that I'm complaining," Haruka says, hands on her knees, breathing deeply and slowly, "but why are we stopping?"
"Because we can't outrun them," I reply, taking a look around our position. Looks as good as it'll get anytime soon. "They'll run us down eventually, so better to stop now rather than when we're exhausted."
Also, I really wish I could figure out how the hell I teleported that one time.
...
No, no sudden epiphany.
Damn.
And I don't feel like taking the risk of turning Haruka into a fine red mist by trying to make Senbonzakura into a perimeter defense. As far as I've managed to figure out, I can control it relatively to where I am, and not having an instinctive understanding where _she_ is at a given moment in time and using it would be asking for a nasty accident.
Limit angles.
Make it so they can only come at me from where I _want_ them to come at me.
Hence the alley. None of them can fly, or they'd have caught up by now. With vertical movement restricted to jumping, and maybe, if they're inventive, coming down from the roof, that makes three directions.
Two directions too many, but as good as it's going to get right now.
I feel them closing ...
And the sound of wood breaking has me turning around to where Haruka is breaking off parts of a crate and making them into crude stabbing implements.
"I'd ask what you think you're doing, but ..."
"Don't tell me you expect me to just stand there and look pretty," she shoots back at me.
Glare.
Glare.
I have about enough time to realize how attractive anger looks on her, before we're interrupted by someone trying to be innovative.
Reflexes I didn't know have me stepping to one side, lifting one arm, and thrusting the tip of a green gem shard about the length of a sword into a youma trying to surprise us from above.
It's starting, I can feel it in my bones.
The realization that I'm playing actual, honest to goodness hero here is enough to have my lips quirk in a sardonic smirk all on their own.
They don't look like they don't fit anymore, I realize after the first youma enters the far end of the alley at a dead run.
All spindly limbs, spikes and teeth.
And the others similarly revealed, having shed their human guise.
Quantity has its own quality, and there's only so quickly that I can spam the next Chire.
I promise myself to actually practice with it if I live through this.
Not quite balanced. A few stragglers about to try coming down from the roof, but there is definitely more of them coming to one end of the alley than to the other.
Then ...
No, that's insane.
Actually, didn't we go right past insane a few days ago, do not pass go, do not collect 200Ç?
"Alright, if you want to fight, you can fight!"
There's a faint hum, more a suggestion of power being there someday than real power.
"How?!"
It's bad when even she admits she needs to ask, but it's pretty obvious to both me and her, and particularly to _them_ that I can't hold off this kind of sustained assault for much longer.
"Doing something colossally stupid!"
"What, like I did last night?"
"Hey, I resemble that remark!" I manage a snigger. "Yes or no, Ten'ou?!"
"Will it make seeing tomorrow more likely?"
"If not, the at least the failure will be spectacular!"
She doesn't even hesitate.
"What do you need me to do?"
"You?" I'm interrupted by the need to scatter some more petals in the wind. Go ahead, call me a hippie. "Just act natural in _that_ direction."
I point to the end of the alley at which I feel more of our pursuers.
"What the hell does _that_ ..."
Block it out.
Block everything out.
And try to recall. Try to remember. Try to call up the memory of not-ozone in the air.
There.
So faint, I can barely feel it.
And busy.
Roiling.
It's like a cloud in the distance, with faint wisps reaching outwards.
I don't really think about it.
I just grab one.
Hear a gasp.
Open my eyes to see Haruka, extended in a lunge, holding one of the splintered bits of wood in her hand.
The sharp end has pierced through the mouth of a youma, and out the back of its neck.
In my ears, I hear guitar riffs.
It's time to butcher a song.
"
As a young girl chasing dragons, with your wooden sword so mighty."
The sharp piece of wood is ripped from the youma's mouth, even as Haruka spins around rams it into its back.
"
You're Jean d'Arc, you're Atruria, and you always kill the beast!"
Blood spurts into the evening air, even as she stabs down again, and again, and again, before reversing her grip and slamming it back, blindly, right between the ribs of the one lunging from behind her.
I snap my fingers, think fire, and reach to either side of her.
"
Times change very quickly, and you had to grow up early, a house in smoking ruins and the bodies at your feet!"
It's like a pyrotechnics display, when it lights off _something_ in the small piles of junk lining the sides of the alley. Or maybe lights off nothing at all.
Unnaturally thick smoke fills the air for a moment.
"
You'll die as you live, in a flash of the blade, in a corner forgot by no one!"
I rip a crystal shard from thin air and toss it, javelin-like. It skims just over her shoulder, through the smoke, and stops when it's sticking out of a youma she'd been about to skewer.
The wooden ersatz sword goes flying.
"
You live for the touch, for the feel of the steel! One girl, and her honor!"
And the smoke is gone.
And she's there, the sword-shard in her hand, moving forward.
"
The smell of resined leather, the steely iron mask, as you cut and thrust and parried at the fencing master's call."
It's not a dance. You'd never call it a dance. There's too much economy in the motion, and almost no flair.
It's brutal, direct, and effective. The most possible damage at the least possible cost.
I'm watching Ten'ou Haruka literally slaughter her way forward through the youma, the very tip of the blade she wields carving fine lines into the alley walls with every wide swing.
"
He taught you all he ever knew, to fear no mortal man."
And suddenly, it's like a switch that's been thrown. The way she moves smooths out even further. Becomes even more streamlined.
More lethal.
Zoisite is an expert swordsman. I remember this. I know this, in the abstract sense of the word, and I've even used bits and pieces that come naturally.
But seeing?
Seeing that skill being put to use with abandon?
It's awe-inspiring.
"
And now you'll wreak your vengeance in the screams of evil men."
I follow in her wake.
I keep those attempting to come from behind and above busy.
But mostly, I have my hands full just trying to keep up with her as I belt out the lines of the chorus and we clear the alley exit.
And the song breaks.
***
Haruka ran.
She ran until her muscles burned and her veins pumped battery acid.
Then she ran some more.
The sounds of fighting grew faint behind her, her heart hammered in her chest, and every breath was an effort in and of itself.
She ran on.
***
I'm backing up.
The not-ozone is gone.
There is no cloud.
There's not even a hint that it was ever there in the first place.
Senbonzakura swirls around me like a thing alive, tearing into pavement and enemy alike, even as the shard-sword in my hand flickers outwards time after time.
Hell to backing up, this is as close to running away as retreat gets without the actual running part.
Bridge?
What the hell did she mean by that?
I don't have time to wonder right now. It's taking all my concentration to keep moving.
Flicker. Lash out. Faint. Parry.
I let the body do its thing, and focus on trying to keep the swarm of crystal petals around me as dense as possible.
Draw them out.
Evening slowly gives way to night as I frantically backpedal down the empty street.
I don't know how many it was originally, but they're down to less than half that number.
It also means these know what to expect.
Keep just out of my effective reach.
Herd me.
Try to wear me out.
I'd laugh if it wasn't for the fact that they could actually do it now.
Tired.
Worn out.
More than I should be, really, but maybe it was something about the song.
And suddenly, there's water on either side of me, concrete under my feet.
For a moment, as a particularly big and well armored looking brute forces his way through the Senbonzakura on what looks like sheer bloodlust, ignoring pain and injury.
The blow takes me in the ribs, claws tearing into flesh for a moment before it's power simply lifts me off my feet and sends me flying.
I leave my shard-sword buried halfway to he hilt in his head, too little, too late.
I tumble.
I roll.
The pavement comes up to meet me ...
... and stops.
The world wobbles.
I stare, disbelievingly, at the inch or so of space between my face and a very hard landing.
"Oh yeah, I can fly."
Which is when I suddenly can't anymore, and meet the pavement face-first.
Fortunately, I can feel that Senbonzakura still swirling around me, but it takes me precious moments to even get up on my knees, not to mention standing again ...
The wind roars.
I momentarily entertain the notion of Haruka having legged it entirely, and can't say I'd blame her if she did.
Then everything happens at once, as I feel more than see the onrushing shape. It's large. It's heavy. It roars around a corner at ludicrous speeds for something that big, almost fishtailing ...
I'm left standing there and staring as a semi-truck, sans trailer, misses me by inches and crashes into the youma.
Some are thrown aside like ragdolls, twisted and broken.
Others are left as little more than smears in the pavement.
Others still end up between the side of the truck and the side of the bridge, even as sparks fly from where the side barrier and rail meet the body of the massive vehicle.
I stare.
The survivors stare.
I manage to break out of the daze first, and manage to gather up enough for a last CHIRE.
Stretching into a long, thin ribbon of mystically enhanced, razor sharp thulite, it finishes the job.
Silence.
Yeah, we're done.
When I finally feel up to moving again, I half-walk, half-stagger toward the truck's cab.
Grab for the door.
Nearly fall over as I misjudge distance.
Manage to make the grab on the second try, and open it.
In the driver's seat is Ten'ou Haruka.
"Bridge. Just 'bridge', any you run off."
"Worked, didn't it?"
The blood is mostly dried, leaving a smattering of brownish-red stains over her formerly white clothes, and matting down her hair.
I imagine I'm just as much of a mess.
We stare for a moment.
"Well?"
She grimaces.
"I think I pulled something. No, wait, I think I pulled everything."
... so I'm guessing the song didn't cover for physical stress.
Or maybe it was all the running.
I'm slowly starting to feel better, but she doesn't have the Dark Kingdom health plan going for her.
It's not really a tough choice to make at this point.
"Come on, let me help you get down from there."
"Hey, ow, that hurts! Hands off!"
"Stop squirming or you'll make me drop you."
"I can walk ... ouch! ... on my own, thanks!"
"For a little while. Right before you collapse in the middle of the street, yes." I say as I help her down and pull one arm over my shoulders.
"I said I can walk on my own."
"I say stop complaining before I just throw you over my shoulder."
We wobble briefly, trying to catch our balance.
"Like you're in any condition to try."
She has a point.
We start walking. Slowly.
...
"So, how bad is it really?"
"... I hurt in places I didn't know I had places. You?"
"Nothing I won't get better from."
"That is so not fair."
"You wouldn't like the baggage."
...
"And I'm covered in this crud. Dibs on the bath."
"Like you are? You'd as soon cramp up and break your damn neck or drown."
"I am not going to sleep covered in dry monster guts!"
"Only way that'd work would be if you had help."
"... well, you've seen it all before."
"..."
"What? I really, really want to get this shit off me."
"You're a lot more out of it then you're letting on, aren't yo ... wait, why am I arguing against this? Hobble faster, dammit."
And so it goes.
Or, hobbles, like a one-legged, one eyed man, in the dark.
This might take a while.
---
it _is_ possible. Watch the awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J4KdQQIzW4
