Akamatsuverse The Merry Killers

EagleCeres

Well-Known Member
#51
Glad to see more of this story Ero-Sennin.

Villetta Nu... as in the smexy platinum/blueish blonde brown gal from Code Geass? I approve!

"Cartoons and costume dramas are not intelligence data.
You could be surprised Admiral :p

Wait... does that make Kaolla is the team Otakon? :snigger:

also from the past snippet
“The start of the Momo route!” Su replied with her big smile.
Dang it Kaolla, stop being so well versed in tropes and Genre Savvy! ^_^

Keep up the good work!
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#52
Merry Christmas, from the Merry Killers!~

= = =

Disclaimer: Big shouts to Lord Raa for giving more character to Molmol than any writer before, and big shouts to Chojomeka for the worst excuse for the worst joke ever.


The Kingdom of Molmol, approx. 18 Months Ago…

"General Nu, how good it is for you to join us on this auspicious day," a Molmolese Scientist, Dr. Shayla Bu, cheerfully greeted the highest ranked officer of Molmol's great Air Force, General Villetta Nu. The short, dark skinned and blonde Molmolese bowed respectfully to her tall, light blue-haired counterpart as she walked up to the tables set up at the edge of the Air Force's largest firing range, which occupied one of the Molmol Archipelago's many small islands.

"Auspicious you call it? Doctor, I've been called away from important business regarding the construction of the Amallan Kaollan for what?" the no-nonsense woman asked. "What is so important that it supersedes the most advanced warship ever built?"

"A weapon that will put an end to our greatest enemy in no time, General." Dr. Bu gestured out to the middle of the firing range. "It is completed."

Her amber eyes narrowing, the General followed where the Doctor gestured. "What is it? I don't see anything."

The Doctor smirked. "Exactly."

Before their eyes a massive shape materialized. A towering humanoid mecha painted black and gold suddenly stood where there had been nothing. Twenty meters tall, the mecha turned and stared towards the scientists proudly showing off the device.

"I present to you, the Kaollan Gear Zero! The most revolutionary weapons system ever devised!" Dr. Bu declared.

General Nu was not impressed. "Is that all? A giant target?"

"Target nothing, this is the absolute Zenith of current Molmolese technology. A humanoid fighting robot with combat capabilities that far outstrip even the most advanced weapons systems currently fielded. With this, we will defeat the Great Enemy in no time."

General Nu was even less impressed. "Our 'Great Enemy' is a country that hasn't had a legal standing military in sixty years and suckles the American teat for anything resembling peace of mind. Who designed this thing? Who asked for this thing?"

"Well, it was asked for by His Majesty, King Lambda-"

"Of course," General Nu groaned.

"And it was designed by Her Highness, Princess Kaolla Su."

General Nu stopped. "What!?"

She was promptly kicked in the back and knocked on her face by the aforementioned Princess. "Heya NuNu!"

Twitching a bit in pain, General Nu slowly lifted herself up and looked back at Su, the young woman bouncing on her heels, dressed in her festive royal attire that was worn over with a white labcoat. "Your Highness… this was your creation?"

"Sure was! Bro wanted a big and powerful weapon that would scare the Great Enemy, so I built Kaollan Gear Zero! He's pretty cool, right? He has an onboard AI and everything. He even knows how to breakdance!" Su pointed over to the robot, which immediately began to dance where it stood.

General Nu shook her head. "Your Highness. While I reluctantly accept His Majesty's policy in regard to… the Great Enemy, I must protest this. It's one thing to have a technological superiority over the enemy in order to ensure political leverage, but it is another thing entirely to build such ridiculous things."

Su blinked several times at the General, puzzled. "But the Great Enemy is powerful, giant robots are a weapon they clearly fear more than anything else."

"Cartoons and costume dramas are not intelligence data. What is intelligence data is that their Self Defense Forces as a whole have no chance at even scratching our Air Force. Your Highness, I understand you want to please your brother, but please direct your energy towards practical pursuits?"

Dr. Bu looked out at the firing range briefly, then did a double-take. "Hey, Zero's spotted someone out on the firing range."

"What?" General Nu gasped as she and the other soldiers and researchers at the edge of the firing range looked out at the robot, which had turned around to face the tresspasser--a woman dressed in a tightly-fitting pink and black ninja gi and a featureless white mask except for two eye holes and a blue mobius strip on its right side.

"Huh? It's a ninja!" Su gasped. "Cool!"

General Nu gave pause. "A ninja?"

Doctor Bu was far more alarmed. "A ninja?! Oh no… it's a spy! An enemy spy!"

"Oh dear, Zero's going to eat her up," Su said as the robot immediately identified the trespasser as an enemy, and its blue eyes turned an ominous red.

The ninja took a step back as the robot extended from its right arm a long double edged sword. Raising the weapon, Kaollan Gear Zero lifted the weapon and promptly swung it down upon its intended target… and missed. The ninja had jumped away from the blade well before it struck.

"It missed?!" Dr. Bu gasped in disbelief.

Landing safely away from the robot's blade, the ninja stood up and held out her arms, inviting the robot to strike her. Lifting the blade, the robot lunged forward much faster than a machine its size should've been able to. Instead of striking, however, it attempted to stomp the ninja, who narrowly escaped from underfoot and performed several quick acrobatic flips away from it.

General Nu gasped. "Unreal! To have such reflexes and speed…"

Dr. Bu was getting nervous. "Your Highness, release the safeties. It has to kill that ninja!"

Su hummed as she pondered it… briefly. "Okay! Safety off! Kaollan Gear Zero, use your full might against the enemy!"

The gold portions of the robot's body began to glow brightly and the red in its eyes grew more intense before the robot leaped back from the ninja and lifted its sword above its head. An array of rocket thrusters on its back lit up and then flared brilliantly as it leaped intp the air for the ninja. On reaching her, it swung with such speed that there was a loud roar as the blade came down.

Instead of running, dodging, or dying, the ninja reached up and captured it perfectly between her hands--stopping it cold.

The jaws of the Molmolese on the sideline all but unhinged.

Wrapping her arms around the blade, the ninja strained briefly and then lifted the blade and the robot it was attached to off its feet and above her head. With a great heave, she threw it very high into the air. She then jumped, and ran up its sword arm as it reached the apex of its flight. Leaping directly over it, she swung a devastating kick to its chest, sending it crashing back to the ground onto its back with a tremendous, dust-cloud generating impact.

The dust cloud rolled outward, engulfing the researchers and soldiers on the sideline even as they were trying to make sense of what had just transpired.

"She… by herself… on foot…" Dr. Bu sputtered.

"No way… was it a cyborg?" She looked towards Su. "Your Highness, you were once there. Do the Japanese still have cyborgs?!" Su wasn't there. "Your highness!"

The wind began to blow the dust away, revealing another ninja, this one wearing a fox kabuki mask and more modern, camouflage-pattern equipment including tactical armor around her torso, arms, and legs. She also had Su over her shoulder as she ran off into the trees.

General Nu did not hesitate for a second. She quickly raised the alarm. "The Great Enemy is here, and they've taken Princess Kaolla!"


Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Operation Desperado

[6.]


Running as fast as she could through the jungle, the fox-masked ninja vaulted over tree roots and weaved around many of the thick trees to put as many obstacles between her and her pursuers. Over her shoulder with her hands bound behind her back and her ankles tied together, Su was helpless to do anything but let the Ninja carry her off and talk.

“Hey, hey Ninja!” she asked.

“Yeah?” the Fox Ninja replied.

“Are you Japanese?”

“Of course.” The Fox Ninja replied as she vaulted over a log with the finesse of a parkour runner.

Su gasped. “That’s amazing! You must be really brave!”

The Fox Ninja just laughed as she ran up another toppled tree leaning against a sheer slope. “Nope, just really stupid.”

At the top of it she jumped and landed hard, just as a bright spotlight illuminated her. She turned and looked up at the source of the piercing light, the flagship of the Molmol Air Force’s 1st Mobile Fleet the Yulan Lollan.

“Or crazy, it depends on if we make it out of here with you,” she added before turning and running again.

Aboard the Yulan Lollan, Villetta was getting into her seat next to the Captain’s as Dr. Bu set up one of her computers at an open console on the ship’s busy bridge. Hologram windows showing the flight of the Fox were plastered in front of the thick glass of the airship’s window, presenting a panoramic view around them.

Colonel Alpha Mu, a young man but an experienced commander, looked to Villetta. “Who are these guys? There was no way these Harbor Bombers should’ve been able to get into Molmol, let alone close enough to the Princess!”

Villetta grimaced a bit at her subordinate. “Captain Mu, please show some professionalism!”

“Aye, ma’am.” The Captain ran his fingers through his platinum blonde hair and smirked as he watched the Ninja’s run take her into a thicker canopy of the trees, blocking out the view from above. “Damn, we’re losing track of her.”

“Units on the ground move in and surround her, do not give her a single chance to escape!” Villetta commanded.

Jogging to a stop, the Fox Ninja checked her wristwatch as she landed on a tree stump. “Almost time…”

“For what?” Su asked.

“The rendezvous,” the Fox Ninja replied.

“Will there be snacks?”

Her captor laughed. “You know what? I think you’re okay, Princess.” She then looked around. “Where the hell are you, boss lady? Was it that hard to find a getaway car?”

“Not really, no.”

The Fox Ninja stopped and turned around to see her boss lady, Haruka Urashima. Unlike the well kitted out Ninja, she was more modestly dressed in blue coveralls and a cap, and she was leaning against a 1969 Dodge Charger painted bright orange and bearing a livery that even the modern Japanese girl under the fox mask recognized.

“Is that the fucking General-”

“You say one more word. Ask. Anything. About this… And I will smack you,” Haruka cut her off.

There was a rustling in the trees overhead, before the Mobius Strip-masked Ninja dropped from above and landed next to Haruka. Lifting up the mask, Naru nodded to the Manager of the Hinata-sou. “Everyone is here, good.”

Haruka lit a cigarette. “Did you take out that robot?”

“It’s not going anywhere, trust me,” Naru reassured her before looking to the Fox Ninja. “Nice moves, Kitsune.”

Kitsune lifted up her mask and grinned. “Are you kidding, you were the star of that show.”

Sitting in the back of the car on the passenger side, holding her sheathed sword tightly, Motoko leaned over the Driver’s Seat. “Can we go now?”

Kitsune nodded and handed Su to Haruka, before running up and sliding across the Charger’s hood to dive in through the passenger window. “I always wanted to do that!” she cheered.

Rolling her eyes, Haruka opened the driver’s side door and unceremoniously tossed Su in next to Kitsune, before pushing the driver’s seat forward to allow Naru in. Seeing this sacrilege, Kitsune gasped.

“It’s not even accurate!” she lamented.

Haruka climbed in and started the engine, which came to life like an animal. “But it has a Hemi,” she calmly replied.

Kitsune bit her lower lip. “I will forgive this.”

Haruka threw it into first gear. “Let’s go, then.”

A hundred meters ahead, just outside of a clearing, three Molmolese Main Battle Tanks and several squads of soldiers reached the tree line and readied their weapons. The Yulan Lollan was circling around, trying to find the Ninja in the trees with more of its search lights.

“I want all soldiers on the ground to be aware that there are more than one of them and the one in pink is the more dangerous of the two. Shoot on sight if the ninja in pink is encountered, don’t take any chances with her,” Villetta ordered. “The ninja with Her Highness is to be restrained non-lethally. We need to find out who sent these people.”

“General Nu, there’s movement in the trees. Something is approaching at very high speed, orders?” the commander on the ground radioed.

Villetta stood. “Stop them. They will need to fly to get past you!”

At that very moment, the bright orange Charger shot from the tree line, hitting a convenient incline and going airborne directly over the stunned soldiers and their supporting tanks. As it flew over their heads, the opening bars to “Dixie” played from its horn.

Landing on all four tires, the Charger didn’t slow down, kicking up dirt and grass as it powered off and onto the access road the tanks took to reach this point.

Alpha blinked several times, slowly. “What in the heck.”

Villetta just kind of stared at the image of the fleeing car, feeling faint. Her hands clenching into fists, she took a deep, calming breath, and gestured forward. “All ahead to flank speed. Do not let that car out of sight.”

As the Charger raced down the paved road wih the Yulan Lollan turning to pursue, Kitsune pulled out a map. “All right, we want to head east to the beach, that’s where the Americans are waiting to extract.”

Between her and Haruka, Su leaned over and looked at the map, nodding assent.

“Yes,” Haruka said, prompting Su to look towards her.

“At the next intersection we’re going to make a right and it should be a straight shot to the evac point, but there lies the problem. It’s a straight shot,” Kitsune said as she studied the map.

Su closed her eyes and hummed, agreeing that that was a sticky situation.

“They won’t risk harming their Princess, so they won’t kill us outright. We have a chance to defend ourselves,” Haruka replied.

Su nodded in agreement to that.

“Oh, then you brought it!” Kitsune said eagerly.

“It’s in the back seat,” Haruka drolly replied.

Kitsune leaned over Su and kissed Haruka on the cheek. “You frosty bitch, I love you!”

Naru then leaned over. “I have a question.”

“Does it pertain to where, why, and how I got this car?” Haruka asked.

Naru chewed her lip briefly. “No.”

“What is it then?”

Naru was quiet for a moment as she tried to think of how to word this. “Where did you get the General Lee from?”

Without looking back, Haruka reached up and smacked Naru’s face. “That was for asking.” She smacked her again, even harder. “That was for lying.”

A bullet struck the ground in front of the car, Kitsune quickly catching sight of the puff of dust and smoke from the shot just before Haruka passed it. Her eyes opening wide, she scanned the sky to the right of the car as it made its turn. Sure enough there was the Yulan Lollan, coming about on their right. Darting around in their sockets, Kitsune’s eyes searched the ship and immediately spotted a line of sharpshooters standing atop it, trying to zero-in on the Charger’s engine and wheels.

“Snipers!” she yelped.

Haruka nodded. “Deal with them. Motoko? Drop the top.”

Su looked back at the swordswoman, who nodded and slowly began to unsheath her sword. A second later there was a flash of light and the shearing of steel, before the roof of the Charger came completely off, turning it into a convertible. As the Confederate Flag painted roof came off, the sharpshooters atop the airship zeroed in on the occupants… to find Kitsune standing in the passenger seat, and lifting up a massive, wooden stocked rifle equipped with a drum magazine but no scope.

“What the hell gun is that?” One of the snipers asked before the his rifle was hit and destroyed. Even as he was thrown onto his back, the other sharpshooters similarly had their guns shot from their hands by the terrifyingly accurate gunfire.

On the bridge of the ship, Villetta again couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “From over a kilometer out? What kind of monsters are we up against?!”

Standing with one foot on the door and the other on her seat, Kitsune smiled broadly as her rifle made short work on the snipers. “This is the best gun in the world.”

She fired again, disarming another sharpshooter. “I hit.”

Another shot, another sharpshooter neutralized. “Every.”

She fired once more, shooting away the rifle of the last sharpshooter. “Mark.”

Lowering the weapon, Kitsune hugged it to her chest. “Hellsing ARMS, I am your loyal customer for life.”

Su was in awe. She looked from her to Naru, who had effortlessly defeated Kaollan Gear Zero. These people, they were amazing! They were better than that! This was becoming the coolest. Day. Ever. How many Princesses could say they got kidnapped by Super Ninjas?!

Kitsune dropped back down in her seat, giddy as a schoolgirl. “Haha, I love this gun!”

Haruka nodded. “It’s coming out of your rent.”

Kitsune turned and looked at her, aghast. “Noooo!”

“You asked for it and I got it, but did you think it’d be free?”

“She has a point,” Naru and Motoko said together.

Kitsune sighed. “Just tack it onto next month’s.” She looked over to Su. “Sorry about that, I did my best not to hurt them. We’re only after you.”

Su smiled big. “Thanks!” She then leaned close to Kitsune. “Why are you after Su, anyway?”

“Insurance,” Haruka answered for Kitsune.

“You’re a Royal Hostage,” Kitsune clarified. “We’re going to hold you prisoner in Japan, and your brother won’t try to invade.”

“Or you’ll kill me, right?” Su asked.

Naru leaned over. “No one’s going to kill you, or even try to hurt you. We just need you to stay with us, so a war doesn’t break out.”

Su stared at Naru for a moment, before smiling to her. “Oh, then that’s fine!”

Kitsune and Motoko both looked at Su in surprise. “That’s okay?”

Haruka repressed a smirk, as Su nodded. “If Su is going to be held hostage, then it should be by really cool ninjas!”

“Yeah, we are going to get along just fine,” Kitsune said before the entered a thick grove of immensely tall trees, blocking view of the Yulan Lollan. She looked down at the map. “We’re almost at the extraction point. Let’s just hope they didn’t beat us to it.”

Back aboard the ship as it turned to pursue the getaway car from behind, Villetta cursed. “Damn it… are there any units able to cut them off?”

“The jungle is next to impassable for armor. It’d take too long to get in position.”

“Reinforcements from Myuh Myuh are on their way, but they’re fifteen minutes out.”

Villetta clenched her fists. “Is there anything we’ve got that can stop them?”

Dr. Bu then clapped her hands. “General, don’t worry! I’ve already sent the orders and he is on his way to intercept!”

Villetta looked to the short doctor for a moment before realized what she meant. She nodded appreciatively. “Do what you absolutely must, Doctor.”

Down below, Kitsune’s eyes opened again and she looked out at the trees. Through the gaps in the dense canopy, she could see the Yullan Lollan’s approach, but that’s not what bothered her.

Next to her, Su looked at Motoko. “So! What is your superpower?”

Motoko looked at Su, and then coolly away from her. “I do not have a superpower. I am only a swordswoman.”

Su looked down at the sword. “But you’re a really good one, right?”

“My skills are adequate,” Motoko replied. Like Kitsune, she was dressed in tactical gear, though with noticeably less body armor.

Su pouted at Motoko’s chilly reply, and turned back around. “She’s not very fun.”

“Oh Motoko is a barrel of fun, she just opens it when she wants to,” Kitsune reassured her while watching the trees. She swore she saw something moving through them, getting closer…

“Wait a second…” Her eyes then shot wide. “Haruka! Go left!”

Haruka swerved to the left as an intense ray of light blasted through the trees to the car’s right. Through the ensuing explosion of flames, Kaollan Gear Zero flew out and landed on the road before breaking into a run after the car.

“That damn robot, it still works?!” Naru gasped in exasperation.

“Of course, it’s rated to fight a Kamen Rider!” Su argued.

Kitsune whistled. “Usually I’d ask for dinner before being so completely and thoroughly screwed.”

Naru peered down at Su. “Who did we piss off, anyway?”

Su looked up at Naru. “What do you mean?”

“Why do your people hate Japan so much?”

Su let out a wizened hum. “Because my Big Bro hates Japan.”

“Yeah, but why does he hate Japan?” Naru asked.

“Because he lost it.”

Kitsune and Naru looked to each other and then back at Su. “Lost what?”

“Incoming,” Haruka and Motoko droned together as Kaollan Gear Zero fired missiles at them. Haruka weaved out of the paths of the missiles, but they shot far past them, blowing apart the road ahead.

“Do they even care we have their Princess?!” Kitsune gasped before she noticed the robot gaining on them. “Oh, I see.”

“It’s useless,” Haruka replied as she expertly avoided the craters left in the road by hitting the shoulder.

Dr. Bu huffed as the robot locked onto the car again. “Don’t think that you can just escape Kaollan Gear Zero that easily!”

Two more missiles fired, forcing Haruka to take evasive maneuvers around the craters created in the road. Seeing what was going on, Villetta nodded. “Main cannons, destroy the road ahead! Don’t give them a chance to go any further!”

The 16-inch main cannons atop the back of the Yullan Kaollan swiveled upward slightly and fired, the two one ton shells hurtling far ahead of the Charger and exploding, creating a deep nigh-impassable crater in the road.

“Uh oh, trouble!” Su said.

Haruka sighed and began to slow down, allowing Kaollan Gear Zero to close in. “One of you take care of it.”

Naru got up in her seat, ready to jump out. “I got this.”

Kitsune turned around and aimed her rifle. “No, I got this!”

Motoko stood up on the back seat and turned to face the advancing robot as it closed the distance on them. “No… It’s my turn.”

Naru and Kitsune both plopped back down in their seats and began cheering. “Go! Go! Motoko! Go! Go! Motoko!”

Su turned around to watch as Motoko, her hair flowing in front of her, slowly drew her sword and closed her eyes. Exiting the dense thicket of trees, the car immediately fell under the spotlights of the Yulan Lollan. Seeing the car and its occupants up close, Alpha grew surprised.

“They’re just a bunch of girls, high schoolers!”

“No, they’re monsters,” Villetta said.

Dr. Bu was proud in her vindication. “Do you see now, why we can’t hold anything back against them?”

Kaollan Gear Zero fired two more missiles, which flew low and close to the ground to pass the Charger on either side. Without opening her eyes, Motoko raised and moved her arms, turning the sword into a blur. The two missiles then suddenly turned straight up, and raced towards the Yullan Lollan in out of control spirals.

Alpha stood from his seat. “What did she do?!”

“CIWS! Shoot down those-!” It was too late for Villetta to give the order, as the missiles crashed into the wing-like flight surfaces behind the main gondola and exploded, severely damaging the ship. More explosions quickly followed, and the Yulan Lollan’s bow dipped downward, forcing everyone on the bridge forward in their seats.

“I don’t… I don’t believe this…!” Alpha gasped as the crew began shouting numerous damage reports around him, Villetta, and Dr. Bu.

“Kaollan Gear Zero! Don’t let them get away!” a livid Dr. Bu yelled.

The robot obeyed, charging faster towards the slowing car as its gold pieces glowed brightly and its eyes turned a deep red. Closing its right hand into a fist, Kaollan Gear Zero leaped forward to punch the back of the car and stop it once and for all. But then Motoko opened her eyes, and moved.

She leaped from the back of the car, and became a human saw-blade, racing up and around Kaollan Gear Zero’s arm all the way up to the shoulder before leaping off it and into the air behind the robot. In her wake, pieces of the robot’s sliced arm scattered everywhere.

Turning herself around Motoko threw a grappling line at the back of the robot and yanked herself back towards and swinging herself around it, slashing it all over its body as an almost untraceable blur except for the sparks and flashes of her sword cutting into it.

While Naru and Kitsune broke into cheers, Su just stared with her mouth open and growing into a bigger and bigger smile as her eyes sparkled.

Swinging herself between Kaollan Gear Zero’s legs, Motoko spun around and prepared to pull herself back towards the robot, when its left hand grabbed the line and suddenly swung her around like a mace on the end of a chain. Before it could slam her into the ground, Motoko cut herself free and was sent hurtling up towards the crippled Yulan Lollan, coming to a hard landing atop the airship as fires began to spread across its upper half.

“She’s aboard the ship…” Villetta gasped, before she heard something far more alarming.

“Kaollan Gear Zero, stop! Blue on Blue! Blue on Blue!” Dr. Bu was crying out into her computer as the damaged robot ignored her and charged the beam cannon mounted on its head, while aiming at Motoko.

Holding her sword at her side, Motoko broke into a run for the bow of the ship as the light from Kaollan Gear Zero’s forehead grew brighter, darting around the eruptions of flame that broke through the airship’s skin.

Reaching full output, Kaollan Gear Zero fired the beam cannon as Motoko jumped off the bow of the ship and fell straight for the robot. Upon hitting its target, the beam split down the middle, diverted away from the damaged airship, all the way back down to Kaollan Gear Zero.

Landing on the ground, Motoko slid a fair distance and came to a halt behind the robot. Twirling her sword to flick off the dirt and fluids, she sheathed the weapon as the perfectly bisected halves of Kaollan Gear Zero fell away from each other.

The bridge on the Yulan Lollan was eerily quiet except for the emergency klaxons. Speechless, they could only watch as Motoko calmly walked to the Charger and climbed in before the car pulled off and drove away. It was a few more moments, as the ship’s fire suppression began to finally make a difference, that Villetta finally spoke.

“All units, break off pursuit,” she quietly ordered into the radio. “Princess Kaolla is lost.”

Not a soul on the bridge protested.


Japan, the Present…

“And that’s the story of how Su came to Japan!” Su declared to Shinobu as the two sat on the roof of their school for lunch. Su, as usual, was snacking on bananas while Shinobu was enjoying another one of the fruit smoothies Su made.

Shinobu nodded and lowered the straw from her lips. “That… Sounds like what would’ve happened, but… I’m confused about a few things.”

“Like what?” Su asked.

“Where did Haruka get a Hemi-powered 1969 Dodge Charger… in Molmol?” Shinobu asked.

“Oh, everyone in Molmol loves the Dukes!”

Shinobu nodded slowly. “My other question… Um… Won’t your Brother try to rescue you? I mean, if he really hates Japan so much, what’s stopping him from invading?”

Su smiled. “As long as Su is here, he won’t try to fight. That’s good, Japan is such a nice country with nice people and yummy food.”

Shinobu smiled back to Su and hugged her. “Thank you, Su-chan, I like having you here too. The only other person my age I have to talk to is Red.”

Su nodded and returned the hug tighter than Shinobu was used to from the wild girl. “Su will stay here in Japan forever, everything Su wants is here.”

Shinobu laughed. “Oh, Su-chan…”

Over a kilometer away, as the two girls embraced, a woman in a brown trench coat with long blonde hair watched through the eyes of a ninja-style helmet she wore over the top half of her face that bore the three-eyed symbol of Molmol. Zooming in on Su’s face the woman compared it to the databases of images of the Princess… And immediately received a positive match.

“This is KG-02. I have located the Princess.”

On the darkened bridge of a Molmolese airship, Villetta sat on the commander’s chair with her legs folded, her golden eyes narrowed in disgust at the image of their Princess hugging a filthy Japanese girl.

“Well done, KG-02. Track her back to where they are keeping her,” the General ordered. “We will be taking her back when the Red Moon is full.”

Turning around, the woman walked towards the opposite edge of the roof, as optical camouflage activated, rendering her invisible.

“Understood.”
 

EagleCeres

Well-Known Member
#53
The Ero-Sennin said:
The Fox Ninja stopped and turned around to see her boss lady, Haruka Urashima. Unlike the well kitted out Ninja, she was more modestly dressed in blue coveralls and a cap, and she was leaning against a 1969 Dodge Charger painted bright orange and bearing a livery that even the modern Japanese girl under the fox mask recognized.

“Is that the fucking General-”

“You say one more word. Ask. Anything. About this… And I will smack you,” Haruka cut her off.
and
The Ero-Sennin said:
Kitsune nodded and handed Su to Haruka, before running up and sliding across the Charger’s hood to dive in through the passenger window. “I always wanted to do that!” she cheered.

Rolling her eyes, Haruka opened the driver’s side door and unceremoniously tossed Su in next to Kitsune, before pushing the driver’s seat forward to allow Naru in. Seeing this sacrilege, Kitsune gasped.

“It’s not even accurate!” she lamented.

Haruka climbed in and started the engine, which came to life like an animal. “But it has a Hemi,” she calmly replied.

Kitsune bit her lower lip. “I will forgive this.”
The MUDDAFUGGIN' GENERAL LEE!
Bravo Sir... Bravo. *golfclaps*
[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAKksqKR3pI[/video]

Wasn't that sure on the particular Hellsing Arms...
for a moment there I thought you referenced Seras' Harkonnen, or Alucard's Cassul; but I like what came out instead... and the vixen's reaction too :snigger:

Keep up the delicious LULZ sir!
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#54
It was the 13.7mm Anti-Midians Rifle. Because Kitsune wanted something she could kill God with.
 

EagleCeres

Well-Known Member
#55
Ah... Seras' original (manga) Harkonnen... very awesome.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#56
Preview time...

= = =

"You're looking better," Kitsune chimed merrily as Motoko exercised on the patio of the Hinata Inn, swinging a heavy iron bar over and over. Regarding her elder housemate with a cool look, Motoko swung the bar harder, a loud whoosh sounding with each swing. Kitsune smiled in amusement and leaned against the railing to watch quietly.

"Keitaro took some real good care for you, too. It was so sweet," she added.

"I thanked him for his assistance, if that's what you're attempting to get at," Motoko replied.

Kitsune smirked a little. "Oho? Did you apologize for trying to kill him all those times, too?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

Now Kitsune mock-pouted. "Oh come on! It's not supposed to work like this!"

Motoko smirked in turn. "That's because I know what gets you off."

"Oh you tease," Kitsune purred. She was already liking this less murderous Motoko. "So what is your plan now, since you can't kill Keitaro."

Motoko stopped swinging the bar. "I honestly do not know. I suppose I will have to accept the reality that my sister is happy with that disgusting, horrible man."

That was bound to never happen, Kitsune knew this. "So, what's with all the extra training? Are you making up for what you missed while bed-ridden?"

"I'm getting ready for a Kendo Club trip," Motoko matter-of-factly replied. "We will be going on a weekend trip to the woods."

Kitsune gave pause. "Wait, you're going on a trip… overnight?"

"Yes, I will be gone for the entire weekend." Motoko smiled, albeit nastily. "As usual, I leave Su in your capable-" She stopped when Kitsune suddenly vanished from where she stood, and let out a small, haughty laugh.

Like the wind, Kitsune galloped down the hallway, jumped down the stairs, and sprinted completely out of the Hinata-sou. Her flight took her all the way down the stairs to the tea shop, where she burst in on Haruka as she was coming out of the back carrying several thick black plastic bags with her.

"Just what I needed, a pack mule." Haruka held up the bags. "Can you help me take these up to the incinerator?"

Kitsune regained her composure, and even smiled. "Gladly, in fact I'm looking to make a little more money this weekend, so if you need anything or anyone done…"

Haruka regarded Kitsune with a bit of surprise. "Well, if you want to kill a weekend in Tokyo, I've got a job for you but you'll have to take Red-"

Kitsune took the bags from Haruka. "We'll take it! Thanks boss lady."

As Kitsune charged out of the shop, Haruka lit a cigarette and let out a small laugh. Anything was better than having to deal with Kaolla Su for any length of time without Motoko there to control her. Going back behind her counter, Haruka took a seat and turned on a small TV that sat at the end of the Tea Shop's counter.

"This weekend's going to be special, everyone," the weather lady reported on the local news. "Winds blowing up from the south-southwest will be carrying a great deal of sand from the Kingdom of Molmol. So expect spectacular sunrises, sunsets, and of course a strong possibility for a red moon all this weekend along with this unseasonably warm weather."

= = =

Some real shit's about to go down.
 

Prince Charon

Well-Known Member
#57
Ooh. This will be... interesting.

I do kind of wonder if the Red Moon will affect Shinobu/Red (though if Tokyo isn't under the Molmolese sand, that might not be an issue).
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#58
Here ye, here ye!

New Chapter.


= = =


Disclaimer: This is not a good story for good people. In fact, you can say it's a story for... bad people.


"You're looking better," Kitsune chimed merrily as Motoko exercised on the patio of the Hinata Inn, swinging a heavy iron bar over and over. Regarding her elder housemate with a cool look, Motoko swung the bar harder, a loud whoosh sounding with each swing. Kitsune smiled in amusement and leaned against the railing to watch quietly.

"Keitaro took some real good care for you, too. It was so sweet," she added.

"I thanked him for his assistance, if that's what you're attempting to get at," Motoko replied.

Kitsune smirked a little. "Oho? Did you apologize for trying to kill him all those times, too?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

Now Kitsune mock-pouted. "Oh come on! It's not supposed to work like this!"

Motoko smirked in turn. "That's because I know what gets you off."

"Oh you tease," Kitsune purred. She was already liking this less murderous Motoko. "So what is your plan now, since you can't kill Keitaro."

Motoko stopped swinging the bar. "I honestly do not know. I suppose I will have to accept the reality that my sister is happy with that disgusting, horrible man."

That was bound to never happen, Kitsune knew this. "So, what's with all the extra training? Are you making up for what you missed while bed-ridden?"

"I'm getting ready for a Kendo Club trip," Motoko matter-of-factly replied. "We will be going on a weekend trip to the woods."

Kitsune gave pause. "Wait, you're going on a trip… overnight?"

"Yes, I will be gone for the entire weekend." Motoko smiled, albeit nastily. "As usual, I leave Su in your capable-" She stopped when Kitsune suddenly vanished from where she stood, and let out a small, haughty laugh.

Like the wind, Kitsune galloped down the hallway, jumped down the stairs, and sprinted completely out of the Hinata-sou. Her flight took her all the way down the stairs to the tea shop, where she burst in on Haruka as she was coming out of the back carrying several thick black plastic bags with her.

"Just what I needed, a pack mule." Haruka held up the bags. "Can you help me take these up to the incinerator?"

Kitsune regained her composure, and even smiled. "Gladly, in fact I'm looking to make a little more money this weekend, so if you need anything or anyone done…"

Haruka regarded Kitsune with a bit of surprise. "Well, if you want to kill a weekend in Tokyo, I've got a job for you but you'll have to take Red-"

Kitsune took the bags from Haruka. "We'll take it! Thanks boss lady."

As Kitsune charged out of the shop, Haruka lit a cigarette and let out a small laugh. Anything was better than having to deal with Kaolla Su for any length of time without Motoko there to control her. Going back behind her counter, Haruka took a seat and turned on a small TV that sat at the end of the Tea Shop's counter.

"This weekend's going to be special, everyone," the weather lady reported on the local news. "A typhoon blowing up from the south-southwest will be carrying a great deal of sand from the Kingdom of Molmol. So expect spectacular sunrises, sunsets, and of course a strong possibility for a red moon all this weekend along with this unseasonably warm weather."


Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Chapter 7: Red Moon Over Paradise 1



Naru tapped her pencil against the right rim of her glasses as she examined Keitaro's latest practice score. Biting her lower lip, she ran the pencil through line after line, going down the answer sheet before she reached the bottom. She looked up from the paper and at Keitaro, who was fidgeting nervously in anticipation.

"47."

"What?"

"You scored a 47 on this practice exam." Naru tapped her pencil on the sheet. "My God, Urashima. It's been almost a month and you're actually showing progress."

The way Keitaro heard it, Naru would've sworn she told him he aced it. He threw up his hands and let out a cheer, before falling backward in relief. She let out a sigh and twirled the pencil on her thumb. "With that said, you're still a miserable failure."

He sat back up.and scooted closer to the heated table they sat at. "But I'm getting better and it's because of you! I'm definitely going to make it into Toudai with you!"

Naru twirled her pencil, and smiled warmly. "Well of course it's because of me. It's not like God is on your side."

Keitaro returned the smile with a lot more heat, before he crawled around the heated table and joined her side. Taking off his glasses and then hers, he set them both on the table and cupped her face to give her a deep, affectionate kiss.

"What do you think you're doing?" she playfully asked before Keitaro kissed her again. “Mm…”

"I'm thanking you, Narusegawa," he whispered back huskily, causing a pleasant tremor to run through her.

Naru bit her lower lip, and nuzzled the side of his head. "Then be thorough in your gratitude, Urashima." She moaned softly when he kissed her neck, and broke into a small laugh. “You pervert…”

“I know!” he whispered in her ear as he grabbed her butt. “You like it though.”

Naru let out a soft moan. “Yeah.”

He slipped a hand up her skirt, and nibbled her neck even as a loud thumping came down the hall outside. Neither of them paid it any mind, until the door to Keitaro’s room was slammed open by Su. She was wearing a large backpack connected to a large rifle by a heavy duty power cable. Both turned and stared at her, as she pointed the rifle at him.

“Hey, NaruNaru! Could you move aside?” she asked as the backpack let out a whine and the rifle’s large caliber barrel began to glow.

Naru stared blankly at the rifle for a moment, and then scooted aside, pushing the table and their study materials on it out of the firing line of the rifle. Keitaro watched Naru move aside, back at the barrel, and then stood up with a resigned sigh. He held out his arms. “Go ahead.”

Su nodded. “Okay!” Molmol Mega Maser Rifle! DEAD END SHOOT-O!”

Kitsune had just made it up to the top of the stairs when there was a terrific roar and flash of light. Blinking, she watched as an energy beam surged out of the side of the house and into the distance. “So it begins.”

Back in the dormitory, the air shimmered around Su as she lowered the weapon. Naru was sitting in front of the heated table, looking from the gaping hole in the wall to Keitaro, who was standing in the middle of the room unharmed but completely naked.

Su pouted. “Well, Maser doesn’t work… Maybe I should try Plasma? Positrons?”

Naru stood. “Maybe you could try it when we’re not in the middle of studying, Su?”

“But I had to check something to be sure!” Su replied as she bounded over and hugged Keitaro.

Keitaro tried to take a step back from the short Molmolese, but she held onto him with peculiar strength. “Uh, S-Su?”

Su then buried her face into his chest and inhaled. “Mmm… Yes this is very, very interesting data.”

Keitaro blushed. “Er… Su?”

Naru suddenly picked her up by the back of her shirt. “And what data would that be?”

“That even when bombarded with high energy rays, Keitaro even still smells really good!” she brightly replied. “Also, Keitaro’s got a very nice banana.”

Keitaro yelped and tried to cover himself, as the door opened again and Motoko and Shinobu burst in, the former with her sword drawn and the latter holding a submachine gun.

“We heard the explosion-” Motoko stopped and both girls stared at Keitaro. “What.”

“Oh my…” Shinobu breathed after dropping the submachine gun..

Growing flushed, Motoko promptly whacked Keitaro over the head with her sheathed sword. “GET DRESSED NOW!”

“Ow! Okay! Please, Shinobu-chan, don’t look!” Keitaro pleaded.

Honestly Shinobu would be taking pictures if she had a camera. Instead, she shyly averted her eyes as did Motoko, who turned away with her own cheeks burning a bright red.

“Su, what did you do?” she demanded.

“I thought to give the MMMR a try.” Su sighed. “It didn’t work.”

“So energy weapons won’t work, damn,” Motoko muttered just short of under her breath.

“I heard that,” Naru said.

Motoko gave Naru a blank look. “It was a joke.”

Naru dropped Su and folded her arms. “Bullshit, you don’t even know what a sense of humor is.”

Keitaro finished putting on a bathrobe to conceal what modesty he had left. “Goodness, Su… do you make stuff like this all the time?” Even as he spoke, the hole in his wall was repairing itself, regenerating the damage down to even the glass of the patio doors that had once stood there growing back into place.

Su nods. “Yes, I make all sorts of cool stuff. Weapons, armor, robots, even clothes!”

Keitaro raised an eyebrow. “Even… wait, clothes?”

“Su made all of our clothes. Well, more that she modified the ones we bought.” Naru explained.

Keitaro then looked at his bathrobe, as the belt adjusted itself automatically to ensure maximum shame protection. “Huh.”

“I make special equipment for when the others go on missions, too!” Su revealed. “I’m just like Q!”

“Is that a James Bond reference or a Star Trek reference?” Keitaro honestly did not know for sure.

“Yes,” Su replied.

“At any rate,” Motoko said after taking stock of the room. “Since everyone is here, I have an announcement to make. I will be gone for the entire weekend, and leaving shortly.”

Su looked aghast. “What? Momo’s going away?!”

Naru and Shinobu’s reactions were more dramatic, as the two of them quickly looked to one another in alarm. Keitaro didn’t catch this at all, he was actually rather pleased that Motoko was at one hundred percent and that she wouldn’t be around to menace him for being a man in charge of a girl’s dormitory.

“What’s the occasion?” he asked innocently.

“I will be going on a Kendo Club training trip.”

Keitaro couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? Good as you are?”

Signs of being flattered colored Motoko’s cheeks again, as she turned aside. “It is purely for keeping appearances, with the added benefit of being fun.”

“Well, um… Have fun then, Motoko-san,” Keitaro said with a short bow.

Motoko just nodded. “Naru-senpai, please keep your lover preoccupied while I’m gone?”

Keitaro brought a hand to his cheek, feeling the sting of that verbal backhand. “Ow.”

Naru rolled her eyes as Motoko turned to leave out the door, and looked to Keitaro. “Don’t worry lover, she won’t find out about the orgy.”

Su brightened. “Oh! What’s an orgy? Will it have bananas?!”

Motoko stuck her head back in the doorway. “Don’t joke like that, Senpai,” she said before darting back out.

“Don’t joke like that, Senpai,” Naru mouthed mockingly, prompting smiles from Keitaro, Shinobu, and Su.

“Well, the wall’s done,” Keitaro said as he reached over to the heated table. “Shall we get back to work?”

“Yes, please. We have more studying to do,” Naru said before Kitsune walked in. “Oh hey Kitsune.”

“Hey Naru-chan, hey Ronin,” Kitsune said as she strolled in. She then waved to Shinobu and Su. “Hey Shinobu, hey Su.” She smiled when she saw Keitaro in his bathrobe. “The Hugh Hefner look, appropos.”

Naru rolled her eyes. “Is there something you want-”

“I’m going to Tokyo for the weekend,” Kitsune abruptly answered.

Keitaro was surprised. “Tokyo? Is it a job?”

Naru’s suddenly horrified eyes darted over to Su, before back to Kitsune… who was smiling in her direction. “No.”

Kitsune’s normally-closed eyes cracked opened to halfway.

Naru shook her head. “No…”

They opened to three-fourths.

“No…!” Naru groaned.

Kitsune’s eyes fully opened, and she was suddenly carrying a surprised Shinobu under her arm. “YeahandI’mtakingShinobuwithmehavefunbye!”

All of Naru’s darkest fears were realized, as Kitsune suddenly kicked open the balcony doors and leaped out over the railing of the balcony. Keitaro, confused as all hell, watched as Kitsune and Shinobu fell out of sight. He could hear their feet hit the ground a split second later, and then their rapid footsteps towards the stairs leading from the Inn.

“Uh… What?” He turned to Naru, but Su was sitting directly next to him, staring intently at him like a cat ready to pounce. He almost leaped out of his skin. “S-Su!”

Naru palmed her face. “Oh Lord, I knew I should’ve seen this coming. We’re stuck with her.”

Keitaro had become momentarily lost in Su’s wide, deep blue eyes, before he managed to snap out of the trance and look towards Naru. “Huh? Stuck with her? Su’s not bad.”

“Aw, Su likes you, too!” Su replied as she immediately hugged him. She then looked at Naru. “And Narunaru, Su’s not even mad.”

Naru rolled her eyes. “Su, please don’t latch onto him. He’s got a lot of studying to do.”

Su looked to Naru, while still cuddling Keitaro. “Yes, it’ll be fine! You won’t hardly notice Su!”

His face flushed, Keitaro endured the hug gracefully. “She’s not bothering anyone when she’s not wielding death weapons, it’ll be fine.”

Naru’s skepticism was all over her face. “You have no idea what you’re in for.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Keitaro clarified.

Letting Keitaro go, Su got up and went to the door. “Well, Su has more work to do. Study hard,
okay? Bye bee!”

With that, she closed the door and as soon as they heard her tromp off down the hall, Keitaro looked over to Naru. “So, what’s the problem?”

“Su is…” Naru’s gaze drifted from Keitaro to Su as she trailed off momentarily. “Exhausting. Motoko’s the only one of us with the stamina to keep her entertained.”

Keitaro just brushed it off with a laugh. “I think after the last month? I can handle anything Su can throw at me.”

He said this now, but Naru knew better, her sardonic smirk saying as much. “Sure, we’ll see about that. Now come on, enough distractions! We have three more practice tests to go through.”

“All right, but can I at least put on some clothes?” Keitaro asked.

Naru let her eyes roam over him in his bathrobe. “No, this pleases me.”

Keitaro blushed and picked up a practice test..

- - -

“Don’t you feel the least bit guilty that we’ve left Naru-senpai and Keitaro-senpai alone with Su?” Shinobu asked as she and Kitsune jogged for their lives down the Hinata-sou’s long stairs.

Kitsune looked over to her left at the youngest assassin of their messed up family. “Do you?” When Shinobu opened her mouth to speak, Kitsune added, “Think long and hard about the last time Momo left us alone with her.”

It took Shinobu only a second. “Nope.”

“I think it’ll be good for Keitaro, really. Certainly a better test of his mettle as a manager than any of us trying to kill him.”

Shinobu smiled. “He’ll do fine, if death can’t stop him, what can?”

Kitsune had something appropriately witty to fire back with, but she stopped and jogged to a halt as she looked past Shinobu and into the trees. Shinobu jogged to a halt likewise, and looked back as Kitsune opened her eyes fully, scanning the trees.

“Kitsune…?” Shinobu asked as Kitsune’s expression and she focused on the trees. After a few moments, Kitsune shook her head and turned to walk on.

“I thought I saw something.” She was pretty sure she saw something, and she wasn’t one to just see things that weren’t there. She pulled out her phone and rattled off a quick text, before she turned and continued walking. “If it’s something that’s not supposed to be here, it’ll be dead by the end of the day.”

She smiled. “Come on, let’s go.”

Both young women continued on their way. Stepping from behind a tree and abandoning her optical camouflage, KG-02 turned and followed the retreating forms of the two. Inside her visor, the images of Kitsune and Shinobu appeared side by side.

“Mitsune Konno: Age 18 years, Height 164cm, Blood Type O, BWH Measurements 87-58-83, Color Green.” she recited before analyzing Shinobu. “Red Maehara: Age 13 years, Height 147cm, Blood Type O, BWH Measurements 68-52-72, Color Black”

On the still darkened bridge of the heavily refitted Molmolese Battleship Yulan Lollan, Viletta grimaced. “That little girl is a Black? KG-02, where are they headed?”

“Ordinance and equipment loadout implies that they are deploying for an extended period of time, overnight at the earliest.”

“Understood. Survey the area, what are we looking at for a reception?” Viletta asked.

Turning invisible once again, KG-02 crouched and then leaped, rocketing through the trees and shooting above them. Traveling an arc, she landed atop the tallest tree on the hill leading up to the massive estate. Her flexible, prosthetic feet gripped the top of the tree much as a monkey’s would, allowing her perfect balance as she scanned the house.

Her helmet’s visor scanned the building for any possible defenses, and what it saw was staggering. “The building is reinforced with advanced blast shielding, laser-based CIWS, surface to air missile batteries, automated 30mm cannon turrets, and a self-repairating armor system. Furthermore, there are numerous traps and explosives, tripwire, pressure, and motion-triggered strategically placed to inflict the maximum amount of harm to any intruders… these are only the defenses I have detected.“

Villetta shook her head. “It’s better defended than the JSDF headquarters and the Imperial Palace. How could they have pressured her Highness to construct this system for them?”

Beside her, seated partly in the bridge’s shadows, Dr. Shayla Bu held up a tablet. “There are many forms and methods of coercion and manipulation available to the enemy. A sample of pop culture media and internet traffic alone suggests a great fondness of forced coercion through physical and mental torture.”

On the screen in front of Villetta, various images of pornographic media appeared, prompting the normally stoic general to look away, ashen with disgust. “Enough! These damn Japanese…”

Shayla grinned. “It’s okay, General. Even if all of the girls were here, KG-02 is more than a match for any of them. Tonight we’ll recover our Princess…” Her child-like expression, not unlike Su’s, twisted into something more bloodthirsty. “… And wipe this eyesore of a country off the map as His Majesty desires.”

Villetta nodded wholeheartedly in agreement. “KG-02, seek out the power connections of the compound, and we will deploy the MKGs to sever them. The moment the red moon begins to shine, we will begin the operation.”

“Understood,” KG-02 replied, before leaping from the treetop.

- - -

It was just after nightfall as Haruka left her Tea House, following another long and uneventful day without business. At this rate, she was probably going to have to start advertising before someone found it odd that this place stayed open without customers. Shrugging it off, she leaned against the front door of her tea shop and watched as a plain white box van pulled up and a tall, muscularly built middle-aged man climbed out.

“Hey there, Haruka,” the man, who shared Kitsune’s perpetually shut eyes, light brown hair, and gamely smile, called to her. “I heard Mitsune-chan was going up to Tokyo. Did she leave yet?”

“Hours ago, sorry Itachi,” Haruka lamented.

The man nodded, disappointed a bit. “I see, what’s the occasion? She normally doesn’t head off in such a hurry.”

“Motoko left for the weekend,” Haruka coolly answered. “So Kitsune didn’t want to deal any of Su’s shit.”

Itachi went around to the back of the van. “How has she been, otherwise?”

“Rock solid, you raised a good kid,” Haruka called back to him. “She’s pretty much the only thing that keeps them all from killing each other.”

“I don’t remember teaching her to do that.” He came back out, carrying a large metal suitcase, which he set down before Haruka.

Haruka looked down at it. “You’re not going to carry it inside for me?”

“What, because I happen to be a man who takes care of his physical health, I’m expected to do all the heavy lifting?” He turned around and walked back to his van. “So sexist.”

Haruka glared after him.

“And stop staring at my butt, it’s demeaning!” he called back at her before he climbed in. Smiling big, he waved to her. “Have a good night, Haruka.”

Rolling her eyes, Haruka picked up the suitcase. “No wonder we couldn’t beat that sense of humor out of her,” she muttered of Kitsune and her relationship with her Father as he pulled off and went back down the driveway.

Turning right around, she went back into the empty shop, and made a beeline to the backroom. Shuffling past the narrow shelves filled with supplies for the Tea House, she unlocked and opened a large, heavy door and walked into a sterile, white-tiled room lit by fluorescent lights, complete with an operating table set in the middle and a neatly arranged tray with autopsy tools.

Setting the suitcase down in front of the table, and letting out a huff from the exertion, she unlatched and opened it–revealing a woman bound and gagged lying inside. The woman winced from the sudden bright lights, and then looked wide-eyed at Haruka.

Haruka stared back down at the woman. “Someone must really hate you, huh?”

She reached over the woman and removed the manilla envelope included with her. “It’s not every day I get to work over a woman.”

As Haruka skimmed the file, the woman looked over and saw the medical equipment beside the table. She promptly began to scream and struggle in her bonds.

“It’s no use screaming, no one’s going to hear what I’m going to do to you. The walls are soundproofed, because what I do is pretty loud.” She set aside the folder. “Do you want to know what I do…” She looked at the file again. “… Kikuchi?”

She hooked her finger in the woman’s gag and removed it. And a flood of words came out. “Please, I’ll talk! I’ll talk! I know where the others are, just please don’t hurt-”

Haruka put it back in place. “Yeah, I don’t care. That’s not my job.” She turned around. “If you’re here, then they don’t care either. They pretty much want you to die in the most horrific fashion possible and that just happens to be the thing I’m into at the moment.”

And then the lights went out, plunging the white tiled room into darkness and Haruka into silence. Kikuchi, whimpering, watched as a flame flickered to life to light a cigarette. The smoldering red glow crawled up the cigarette, before Haruka breathed out sigh.

“Well fuck,” she murmured.

- - -

If there was one thing Keitaro loved about studying with Naru, it was when she got bone-tired of looking at books and put her head right in his lap. He sighed contentedly, as he cleaned her ear with an ear pick while she relaxed peacefully and watched a cat video on her computer..

“You are really good at this,” she praised, feeling more like she was made of jelly than pure destruction.

Keitaro smiled. “Thanks, I used to do this for my sister all the time before she left with Granny.”

When the video ended, Naru closed her eyes and sighed. “I wish I had such a good relationship with my sister.”

Keitaro’s smile became a little strained. “No, you don’t.”

Naru just dismissed it with a laugh, and luxuriated in Keitaro’s attention. “Ah… this is almost as good as soaking in the hot spring…”

Keitaro’s smile became much more at ease. “And you said Su was going to be a handful.”

Naru laughed again, well half laughed, she stopped abruptly and became very still. “Wait.”

Batting Keitaro’s hand and the ear pick away, she held up the laptop and gawked at the time on the clock. “It’s been five hours?!”

“Yes, we were studying extra hard then you decided to take a nap on my lap-” Keitaro’s explanation as to where the time went was cut off by Naru grabbing him by the bath robe and staring at him with wide panicked eyes.

“Keitaro, what part of A Hyperactive Molmolese Princess who builds highly destructive gadgets and weapons hasn’t made a single sound for the last five hours bothers you?” Naru asked.

It dawned on Keitaro. “All of it.”

She got up. “Come on, let’s go see what’s going on.”

After adjusting his bathrobe to protect his decency, Keitaro followed Naru out his door and into the hallway, where they stopped at a chilling sight. The entire hallway was illuminated in an ominous, deep red light that poured through the long corridor’s windows. On looking outside, both Keitaro and Naru gasped in surprise–the entire sky was the same red, illuminated by a bright, full red moon that hung in the sky like a bad omen.

Keitaro actually fell back against the wall. “W-what the heck is wrong with the sky?!”

“I heard the news say the sky would be weird tonight but this… this doesn’t look good.”

Naru helped Keitaro back up, and gestured down the hallway. “Let’s go and-” She stopped. “Wait. The lights are out.”

Keitaro stopped right behind her, and again quickly caught onto her concern. Like nearly every other maintenance process, the Dorm’s lights were all automated. While they went out at a set time, that set time was over two hours away, still.

“Maybe Su turned them off for something…” he began as they rushed for Su’s room, quietly .

“God, I hope so…” Naru whispered back.

When they reached the door, however, they found it not only unlocked but wide open, revealing no sight nor sound of Su.

Keitaro peered into the jungle and computer themed room, and then looked to Naru. “She’s not here, now what?”

“Start looking. I’ll check the hot springs, and the first floor, you take a look around here on the third floor and the roof.”

A more mortal man would be scared shitless about the prospect of wandering the dormitory alone on a creepy night like this. Keitaro was just mildly jittery. “O-okay.”

With that, Naru disappeared into the dark, leaving Keitaro alone. Taking a deep breath, he turned and headed the other way, heading for Motoko’s door, somewhat reassured by the creaks in the flooring with every step. A tried and true security system: mansions and castles from the Tokugawa Period featured floors that would creak with footsteps.

He reached Motoko’s bedroom and cracked open the door. “Su-chan? Are you in here?”

Motoko’s already Spartan bedroom looked emptier without her in it, with everything neatly stashed away. Closing the door, he quietly slid it shut and listened for any sign of movement.

Nothing, just the eerie silence of a dark and empty house. Keitaro already missed everyone.

Heading out onto the terrace, he stopped to look upon the moon overhead in the clear, red night sky. It was so unsettling, but in a familiar way that made it even worse than it was earlier.

“Jeez… I hope no one’s flipping out in town. This is too weird,” he muttered before he heard something coming from the roof. Music, from a setar in fact.

Quickly, Keitaro hoisted himself up to the roof of the inn and made his way towards the source of the music, stopping when he saw the person playing it.

It was a beautiful Molmolese woman, close to his age, and dressed in the what Keitaro quickly identified as traditional attire used often during religious ceremonies on the island. She was dancing with a fairy’s grace, the fabric of her long skirt and the shawl she wore atop her head trailing behind her as she played a song that sounded sad.

When she stopped twirling, she noticed him, her bright blue eyes widening in surprise before she smiled to him.

“Hello, Kei-kun,” she said.

Keitaro blinked. “… Do I… know you?”

Downstairs, Naru shone a flashlight out into the darkened Hot Springs, and swept the beam around, illuminating the steam that rose from it. Dear God, this house got creepy without any lights, and the blood red sky did not help it. At least Shinobu wasn’t here, no telling if this would trigger Red and she wasn’t ready to find out.

“Please don’t be drowned in the spring,” Naru murmured. Last thing she wanted to do was explain to Haruka that she was too busy making out with her boyfriend to watch the little maniac closely.

She waded out into the spring and stopped. To her relief, there was nobody face down dead in the hot waters.

Yet.

Shutting off the flashlight, Naru lifted her head up, and glanced around before her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know who’s dumber: the people who paid you to invade this castle… or you for taking the job,” she said to the black skin-suited, helmeted men who abandoned their optical stealth atop the rocks of the spring–the three eyes mounted in their visors flashing green as they drew High Frequency Knives and leaped to attack.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#59
Oh snap a preview already.


= = =


Disclaimer: It’s amazing how we as a people can condemn violence yet consume it with such fervor that it rivals religious zeal. Then again, I’m a producer of violent media so who am I to judge?


In the courtyard of an old temple, moonlight glittered and danced as two blades whipped through the air, their wielders striking with such speed and force that the displaced air left the thinnest of grooves in the ground. The two swordswomen circled one another, their blades never making contact with one another nor their targets–such a thing being invariably fatal.

As beautiful and terrifying the battle was, it was over in short order and the light of the moon reflected solidly off Motoko’s blade as it came to a perfect stop, the fine edge resting at the base of her opponent’s neck.

She was fortunate. Had Motoko not the skill to use anymore ki than she had, the displaced air would have sliced clean through her anyway.

“And that’s when you would die,” Motoko said before pulling her sword back and sheathing it.

Her opponent, a blonde-haired tomboyish girl, whistled loudly, and rested her hand where Motoko’s blade touched. “Are you sure you’re Shinmei Ryu, senpai? That was some Mujushin shit right there.”

Motoko snorted. “That television nonsense is nothing like real Mujushin, and real Mujushin can’t hold a candle to Shinmei Ryu. Though your attempts at trying to look cool while you attack makes more sense now, Tenoh.”

The Lieutenant of the Mugen Academy’s Kendo Club, Haruka Tenoh, laughed and sheathed her sword. “Did I look cool, though?”

Motoko smiled slightly as the two began walking towards the living quarters of the temple. “I’ll say that the one who would kill you would at least have an interesting story to tell.”

Tenoh chuckled at that. “You’re so cold, senpai.” She bumped her hip to Motoko’s. “But not as frosty as you usually are.”

Motoko found that interesting. She wasn’t oblivious to the distant air she put on, it was what she did to keep people from getting too close–such was the duty of an assassin. “You suppose so?”

“You’ve been smiling more, at least. And just now you cracked a joke,” Haruka replied.

Konno was beginning to rub off on her, damn.

“It’s pretty cute.”

Motoko’s cheeks flushed slightly, when her friendly rival gave a very friendly smile. Seeing that made Tenoh’s eyes grow large at the wonderful reaction. “… Oh?”

She swung closer to Motoko. “Has Spring finally come for you, senpai?”

Motoko stopped and stumbled back from Tenoh, her face now completely red. “W-what are you saying?!”

The other girl didn’t expect such a passionate reaction. “Wow… whoever’s gone through your armor must’ve have gone deeeeeeep.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Motoko quickly said. “I don’t have a crush on anyone nor would I require one to develop a sense of humor.”

Being a good sport, Tenoh relented. Besides, the thought was in her head and she could tease her about it more later. “Oh, whatever you say…”

Motoko, still unable to banish her blush, pouted at the other Haruka in her life and looked away. She didn’t have a crush on anyone, she’s just been in a better mood and it was hard to avoid such a thing with the way things were at home. Everyone was just happier with their new manager, that’s it, that was all.

Maybe before bed she should call, and check on them. To make sure their manager wasn’t being lewd towards Su.


Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Chapter 8: Red Moon Over Paradise 2


The blades of the four Molmol Special Operations Soldiers came down and created a tremendous geyser from the force of their combined impacts. When they stood back, they found only the shredded remains of Naru’s clothes resting in the roiling water. Quickly they looked around and found her, standing underneath atop the tallest boulder in the spring with her arms folded–clad in her black and pink ninja gi.

“Let’s get this over with,” Naru said before the two halves of her white mask slid from the sides of her head to over her face and connected with a metallic click.

Two of the Spec Ops soldiers immediately attacked, leaving great splashes behind them as they rushed Naru’s position. Naru jumped off the rock and landed in the spring before lifting her hand and clenching it into a fist.

SPAK!

And in an instant the two soldiers were gone from the waists up, completely torn apart by the force of Naru’s backhand. She looked to the two remaining soldiers as a fine red mist rained upon her, expecting an immediate reassessment of how fucked they were, but instead they simply twirled their knives and charged her with the same lack of hesitation.

One slashed at her, and had its arm captured by Naru before she kicked him in the chest, severing him from his arm as he went flying back. As he crashed into a rock, Naru narrowly avoided the strikes of the second soldier, reassessing them as she moved. These guys literally had no fear, at all!

Backed against a rock by his attacks, Naru stood stock still as the soldier lunged a final time to stab her, when she took his arm, bent it, and then drove it straight up into his own gut just under the sternum.

The soldier grimaced, before blood bubbled from between his lips, then let out a gurgled gasp when Naru twisted the knife. She let him fall into the spring, and looked down at him.

“These guys…”

She heard a splash and quickly turned to see the soldier she kicked rushing towards her, another knife in his remaining hand. Looking at the three-eyed visor, and the sparks that shot from his destroyed arm, she quickly couldn’t believe it.

“Molmolese!” she gasped before the soldier slashed with all his might.

He missed when she ducked, and then Naru’s hand erupted from his back, clutching an artificial heart.

Ripping her arm free, she looked at the mechanical heart and then around at the men she’d destroyed. No… these weren’t men at all…

“Machines?” she asked aloud.

She hardly felt bad about these guys showing up before, now she felt absolutely nothing at all aside from the dread at what Molmol’s move represented.

“You’re not getting her back,” she growled before heading into the house. She had to find Keitaro, find Su, and get her to where they won’t find her.

Of course, as she leaped from the springs to the second floor corridor, she found even more of these robot men waiting for her, brandishing knives and polearm weapons. Looking amongst them, she snorted and readied her fists. She hoped Keitaro was keeping Su safe.


Keitaro was confused. The mysterious woman knew him, and even called him by Kei-kun. “Seriously, do I know you? Are… are you Su’s older sister?”

If she was then this was a bad thing. He knew full-well why Su was here, and what it meant if Molmol was able to take her back home.

The woman giggled. “No.”

She began to play the setar again, walking past him as she did. He followed her with his gaze, when she passed him, she spun on one foot, the warm breeze that brought the sand from so far south catching her clothes as she faced him again.

“Do you love Naru-chan?” she suddenly asked.

“Of course I do!” Keitaro quickly said, what kind of question was that?

She smiled a bit bigger. “Are you going to go to Toudai with her, and marry her, and have a lot of babies with her?”

Keitaro blushed at that question. “I-I am, of course… when she’s ready to have kids at least…”

The woman stopped playing, her fingers resting against the strings of the instrument. Her smile dimmed, becoming sad but not disappearing entirely. “Don’t.”

Keitaro blinked. “D-don’t have kids?”

She laughed. “No, have lots of kids! But don’t just love Naru-chan. Love everyone! Love Kitsune, and Motoko-chan, and Shinobu-chan… find Mutsumi-chan and love her too like you said you would.”

“M-Mutsumi, too?” Who was this girl?!

She walked up to him and patted him on the chest. “Love all of them.”

Keitaro looked down at her hand, then to her face. “What about Su?”

She sighed, still smiling sadly. “Love Su, too.”

“You’re not here to take her away?” he asked, uncertain.

She shook her head as she drew her hand back.. “No, Su loves all of you. Su would never want to leave.”

Keitaro stared at the mysterious woman, looking straight into her eyes. A thought then suddenly flickered in his head. “Wait…”

The roof then split open underneath him, and a chainsaw shot up, his front and clocked him in the chin knocking him onto his back from the force of the blow. “GAAAH!”

Laying on his back, Keitaro immediately clutched at his crotch. The chainsaw had hit him there first. “God damn it! THAT HURTS!”

The chainsaw proceeded to do what it was designed best for, carving through the roof until hitting Keitaro–again in the crotch. Instead of barreling through him like physics dictates, however, the chainsaw created a shower of sparks as it dragged Keitaro along the roof and towards the front of the house.

“OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!” Keitaro yelled before he was launched off the roof and went plummeting to the ground. “AHHHHHHH!”

Tumbling end over end, he tried to remember the proper landing technique for situations like these, but just as he remembered it, he hit the ground on his back with a heavy thump and a light shower of debris rained on him.

With a groan he grabbed a board that had landed over his eyes and lifted it up, and the first thing he saw was the blade of the chainsaw barreling towards him and the trenchcoat and helmet wearing woman that wielded it like a sword.

“Oh man…” Keitaro moaned before the chainsaw met his face.

- - -

“Something is... wrong...” Dr. Bu said with a confusion-born hesitation as KG-02’s chainsaw smashed down into Keitaro’s face and sparks began flying.

Villetta couldn’t look away from the screen. “That’s blatantly obvious. Have the MKG Teams located the Princess or any of the Ninja?”

Dr. Bu quickly checked on the teams of Mass-Produced Kaollan Gears that had been searching the house. “Teams One through Seven have been wiped out? The MKGs aren’t cutting it against that girl!”

Villetta pursed her lips briefly. “Where are eight, nine, and ten?”

“Engaging the-”

The second floor wall suddenly exploded outward, and one of the MKGs was sent flying out the house, crashing to the ground next to where KG-02 had Keitaro pinned. From the dust, two more of the MKG soldiers leaped out, one holding a spear ready as the other tried to raise his arms to block as Naru came out after them.

Grabbing the blocking MKG by his foot, Naru swung him around into the other, the force of the impact causing both to break apart. Dropping down, Naru landed behind KG-02 and slowly stood up, her mask opening and folding to the sides of her head to reveal her face.

“GET OFF!” she yelled angrily.

KG-02 pulled the chainsaw from halfway down Keitaro’s throat, and rose to her full height before turning around to face her. “Naru Narusegawa. Age 17 years, Height 163cm, Blood Type B, BWH Measurements 83-56-86, Color Red.”

They knew about colors? Naru immediately bristled. “And you are?”

“I am Kaollan Gear Prototype KG Zero-Two,” she introduced.

Naru narrowed her eyes, this one must be a heck of an improvement if they figured it better than the giant target she and Motoko trashed. Still…

“No,” she growled before her mask slid closed again, “you’re scrap.”

She jumped at KG-02, the force of her landing fracturing the ground beneath their feet. As the shockwaves radiated out, Naru shot forward with her punch, a crack of thunder sounding as the air rushed to move clear.

But to her disbelief, KG-02 leaned backward, avoiding the punch while at the same time swinging the chainsaw around straight for her side. Yanking her fist back, Naru sprang back from KG-02 and tumbled backward as she landed.

KG-02 jammed the chainsaw into the ground, and carved a half-circle around herself. “Executing target.”

She hurtled at Naru, much faster than the MKGs that she’d made short work of earlier, forcing a yelp from the other girl as she narrowly dodged her chainsaw. The robot didn’t let up, her blinding speed allowing her to smother Naru with sweeping attacks before she dove out of the way of a rolling slash that turned KG-02 into a giant circular buzzsaw.

Landing after the attack, KG-02 stood and turned to face Naru, who got up panting.

Aboard the Yullan Lollan, Dr. Bu analyzed the data KG-02 was sending her. “Is this correct?”

“Is what correct?” Viletta asked.

“The target is tiring earlier than her performance projected.” Dr. Bu hummed. “Interesting! Interesting!”

Pointing the chainsaw at her, KG-02 became a blur once more, approaching Naru in a wide zig-zag pattern that left her darting her head from side to side before suddenly lunging at her with the saw swung in a wide arc.

Naru vaulted over KG-02, but the faster machine woman turned around with her vault, and stabbed her cleanly in the chest

“Naru!” Keitaro shouted in horror–only to stop when the chainsaw suddenly jammed to a stop. “Eh?”

KG-02 stared at the chainsaw, which appeared to be stuck in some kind of resin-like material, before she saw Naru’s fist come down to smash the weapon. The faster KG-02 quickly leaped back, ripping free the chainsaw and pulling much of the front of her gi clean off.

“Damn it!” Naru hissed, having missed her chance to completely destroy the weapon.

Keitaro stared as Naru’s destroyed gi proceeded to repair itself–the resin-like material spreading across her stomach and chest before sealing back into place and even adjusting itself for comfort. He was immediately reminded of his bathrobe adjusting itself.

“That’s the Princess’s Regenerating Armor!” Dr. Bu cried out. “She had only proposed it before!”

“And she’s made it for them…” Villetta murmured.

The chainsaw choked again and died, unable to overcome the gunk that gummed it up. Naru let out a relieved sigh as she caught her breath. She hadn’t been able to destroy that damn chainsaw, but it had brought her a much needed breather. Still, she didn’t have the stamina for this to keep going.

It had to end with this next attack.

She lowered her left arm and let a handful of throwing stars slip down her sleeve and into her hand. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she whipped the stars at the Molmolese soldier. KG-02 quickling swept the chainsaw in a figure-eight pattern, deflecting the throwing stars, and in the time the blade swept past her face, Naru closed the distance and punched much closer to her target than before.

KG-02’s free hand came up with the same great speed, and caught Naru’s devastating punch. Almost immediately, the cyborg’s entire arm disintegrated from the force of the blow, but it had done enough, leaving Naru wide-open for KG-02’s kick to connect with her side and launch her into the front of the house, right next to the front door.

“Ah… sh-shit…” Naru coughed as she looked up to see KG-02 turn towards her, holding the chainsaw in her remaining hand.

“KG-02, kill her but bring the body back as intact as possible, I need to study this,” Dr. Bu commanded.

“Understood. Limiter off.”

The chainsaw fired up again, struggling against the gunk, before it began spinning so fast that the teeth heated up red hot and burned away the material jamming it. When lowered towards the ground, the heat from the teeth melted the cobblestone underneath it.

KG-02 began walking towards Naru as clouds passed in front of the red Moon, lifting the chainsaw up and away from her, to prevent the heat the weapon gave off damaging her. Stopping in front of her, she lifted the weapon over her head to plunge it into the top of Naru’s.

And struck instead Keitaro, who yelled in pain as the weapon’s heat burned into him. Despite the high speed and heat, the chainsaw only managed to burn away the part of the bathrobe it was cutting through, creating a shower of sparks as it ground futilely against his shoulder and chest.

“Keitaro!” Naru gasped as he screamed louder than the shriek of the metal of his skin. Even with his durability, he still felt the pain of the heat searing through his skin.

KG-02 stared at him, as the young man continued to resist her, and pushed down on the blade. Keitaro resisted, grabbing her arm and planting his feet, but it was clearly obvious that he could not resist her strength as his knees began to buckle under the force of her one arm.

“I won’t let you hurt her!” Keitaro stopped screaming loud enough to yell.

KG-02 just pressed down further, and Keitaro fell to one knee under the pressure.

“Do you really think this is enough?”

Keitaro stopped screaming entirely, his breath hitching when he heard the voice in his head.

“You’re weak, she’s going to realize that and toss you aside. There’s no way you can actually stop her.”

KG-02 indeed continued to press down, but not with as much effort.

“The only way to stop her, is to kill her… and you can do that.”

Keitaro’s eyes widened. “N-no…”

“Just say it, and I’ll give you what you need to save Naru.”

He saw the needle-toothed grin in his head.

“Do it one last time, for the one you love.”

Keitaro closed his eyes as his footing began to finally slip. “No…!”

Before his footing could slip, however, every light in the Hinata-sou and on its property came back on–brilliantly illuminating the front of the house and briefly blanking the night vision of both the KG-02 and the Yullan Lollan.

Pulling back her chainsaw, KG-02 leaped back and landed away from Keitaro as she switched to normal camera viewing.

The pain quickly receding, Keitaro opened his eyes and winced at the bright lights, before he turned and saw Su walk out of the front door. She looked over to him and Naru, and then smiled big.

“I got the power back on!” she reported cheerfully.

Villetta gasped. “The Princess!”

Dr. Bu didn’t hesitate. “KG-02! Recover-!”

Neither did Su, who pointed her finger like a gun at KG-02 and winked. “Bang.”

KG-02’s remaining arm exploded violently, showering the ground around her with blood Next to Su, the optical camouflage concealing Haruka fell, revealing her and the heavy Anti-Material Rifle she held aimed at KG-02.

“WHAT?!” Dr. Bu screamed.

“KG-02, tell Lambda that Su is not coming home, ever!” Su declared. “Su likes it here in Japan, and everyone here is Su’s friend and Su loves them very much!”

“Princess, you have betrayed Molmol?” KG-02 asked.

Su shook her head. “Su still loves Molmol, and Lambda. But Japan… the Hinata-sou is Su’s home.”

“KG-02! Disregard the Princess’s words, she’s been brainwashed-!” Dr. Bu shouted, before Villetta raised her hand, silencing her.

“Withdraw, KG-02,” she said as Dr. Bu became acutely aware of the numerous target lock warnings blaring on the bridge. The house’s security system had come back on as well, and could easily see through the airship’s stealth.

KG-02 nodded, and turned to walk away. “Understood.”

The blood leaking from her ruined arms, KG-02 walked to the top of the steps, and then jumped into the night, optical stealth activating as she departed.

Keitaro fell to his hands and knees, relieved. “Oh God… that… what the hell was that?!”

“That was someone signing their own death warrant,” Haruka said as she set down the rifle and walked over to the remains of the arm and the chainsaw left behind. Removing the chainsaw from the hand, she held it up and examined it.

“Someone signing their own death warrant?” Keitaro repeated like Snake.

“They know about colors, she even called me a red,” Naru said as she got up and embraced Keitaro from behind.

“How troubling,” Haruka said as she started up the chainsaw briefly, and then stopped it. “Looks like there’ll be some meetings about this one.”

She picked her rifle up and slung it over her shoulder. “Everything all right here now, Su?”

Su saluted. “You betcha!”

Haruka nodded. “Then I’m heading home. Button up the house good and tight, and Keitaro…?”

Keitaro blinked. “Y-yeah?”

“Good job,” Haruka replied before she went on down the stairs.

Keitaro watched her leave, wondering what she meant by that when Naru turned his head and kissed him. “Mm?”

She broke the kiss, and smiled amorously. “Keitaro…”

Keitaro blushed, and then yelped as he was lifted off the ground and into her arms, bridal style. “Um…”

Naru kissed him again, and then carried him off into the house, Su quietly watching them go. Walking over to KG-02’s arm, and picked it up off the ground as the clouds that blocked the moon passed, it and the night sky now its normal color.

She examined the arm. “KG-02 isn’t a robot… this is a cyborg arm.”

She sighed. “Shayla… Su told you that was unacceptable.”


Taking a drag from her cigarette, Haruka sat on the spotless operating table of her cleaning room, her phone held to her ear. “Yeah, it was a Spec Ops force, complete with a battleship. I just got off the phone with the Defense Forces and they didn’t detect anything unusual.”

“It looks like Su-chan will have to update their systems again,” Hina replied.

“It’ll get her out of the house for a few days, I’m sure she’ll love that, but I’m more concerned about who could’ve ratted us out. Since they know about colors it has to be one of the Emperor’s other dogs.”

“Don’t be so hasty, Haruka. Treason accusations are nothing to take lightly, and making them without definite proof is foolish.”

“I know, Granny.”

“I will contact the Soe and we can go from there.”

Haruka hummed. “Funny you should mention them…”

“Like I said, Haruka-chan, making them without definite proof is foolish.”

Haruka hummed again. “Anyway, there’s another curious bit of news I should relate to you. Kana-chan isn’t around, is she?”

“No, she’s in the arcade playing video games.”

“Keitaro got involved in the fight.”

There was a long silence. “Did he-?”

“No, he used himself as a human shield and that was it.”

There was a chuckle from Hina. “I told those parents of his that they should’ve named him Mamoru.”

“Keitaro fits better.” Haruka took another drag of her cigarette. “Anyway, it’s been a long night and I’ve got one more long walk up the stairs before I can turn in.” She looked to the side, at some neatly piled trash bags. “One last load for the incinerator.”

“Already? After all the work we went to finding her, I thought you would’ve played with her for a little longer.”

“I would’ve… but I got a brand new, Molmol-made chainsaw and I just had to use it.” She looked at the chainsaw hanging over a sink with most of the blade sitting in a cleaning solution, modified with a sword grip sticking out of its back end so it could be used as such. Surprisingly crude and simple for a Molmolese weapon, really.

“All right dear, have a good night.”

The call ended with a beep, and Haruka got up to pick up the trash bags. As she lifted them up, a thought occurred to her, and she looked back at the chainsaw. “… It couldn’t be.”


Naru lay in the near complete darkness of Keitaro’s room, cuddled up close to Keitaro and watching him sleep. It was, admittedly, tough for her to comprehend life as Keitaro–to be capable of taking any hit but lacking any killing instinct of his own. He made up for it a lot though, in all the ways he was a good person… if next to hopeless academically and somewhat inept socially.

“Even if you didn’t make it to Toudai, that’d be okay,” she whispered as she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his palm. “I’d still love you.”

She smiled as he just slightly shifted in his sleep, and then looked at his palm in the moonlight shining through his window.

And there in the moonlight she recognized the unmistakable mark of a scar right across the width of his palm.


= = =


Psyche, full chapter.
 

MastaofBitches

Well-Known Member
#60
Well, someone's been telling porkies about their supposed invincibility.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#61
An actual preview, the next coupla chapters? They're gonna be Kitsune centric.

= = =


“Is everyone all right?” a visibly and audibly worried Kitsune asked via cell phone as she exited the elevator to the lobby of the lavish hotel room the JSDF put her and Shinobu up in after their mission in Tokyo the night before. .

“Everyone’s fine, the house is good as new… lotta blood everywhere but Keitaro’s been on that since before dawn. Did you know Molmol’s using cyborgs, now?” Haruka asked.

“Those psychotic idiots,” Kitsune growled.

“Granny’s looking into who may have tipped them off to Su being here, but they’re not going to come back. The JSDF’s going to get upgrades to spot them sneaking in again, and Su’s going to coordinate setting up defenses throughout Hinata City. By Christmas the whole town’s gonna be a fortress. Some real Geo-Front shit if Su can get a big enough excavator.”

Kitsune relaxed some, and opened her eyes. “I’m glad everyone’s safe and sound.”

“Well, thank Keitaro for that when you get back.”

“I’ll bring him back something nice,” Kitsune said. “Maybe something sexy for Naru to wear for him. He’d definitely appreciate that.”

“Don’t be too enthusiastic in your gratitude,” Haruka teased.

“Enthusiastic would be me wearing something sexy for him.”

Haruka chuckled. “I don’t know what any of us would do without you, Konno. Which reminds me, your old man brought me some trash to burn earlier today.”

Kitsune blinked. “My Dad?”

“Yeah, he wanted to check up on you and see what you were up to, but you’d left.”

Kitsune looked a little crestfallen at that. “Aw… I should’ve stuck around.”

“Give him a call. He’ll probably be in town a few more days before he heads back west.”

Kitsune brightened at the suggestion. “Yeah, thanks Haruka. I’ll give him a call after we check out”

“All right, see you when you get home.” The call ended, and Kitsune smiled.

“Dad’s in town, huh? I wonder if Mom threw him out again,” she said with a chuckle as she stepped up to the front counter. She looked to the lovely dark-skinned, blonde-haired young woman behind it and flashed her a smile. “Hey, Konno checking out of the Penthouse.”

“Oh! Hello Miss Konno!” the young woman, whose nametag read Mihoshi, replied. “Did you enjoy your stay?”

“Loved it! Me and my little sister slept like royalty, ne Shinobu-chan?” Kitsune looked to Shinobu, who nodded assent. She looked back to Mihoshi. “I’m recommending it to all my friends.”

“Well I’m glad you enjoyed your stay.” Mihoshi’s bright blue eyes then widened as she appeared to recall something. “Oh! I just remembered, an acquaintance of yours stopped in earlier and left your phone for you.”

Kitsune’s eyes cracked open slightly. “My phone?”

“Yes.” She reached under the counter and pulled out what was clearly a prepaid phone. “He said you left it with him last night and he dropped it off with you before coming to work.”

“Is that so? Well, thank you,” Kitsune said as she took the phone carefully between two fingers while handing Shinobu some money. “Pay the clerk would you?”.

As Shinobu complied, Kitsune stepped aside and set the phone down on a table in the lobby, before slipping on a pair of nylon gloves and picking the phone up properly. She turned the phone over in her hands, examining it carefully, before safely asserting that it hadn’t been tampered with.

“Not a bomb…” she whispered. She pressed the power button and the face lit up, revealing a single contact. Calling the number she held it to her ear just as someone picked up. “Hello?”

A man’s icy and stern voice answered. “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you, Mitsune Konno. Your father, Itachi, is in our custody and in thirty-six hours he will die.”

= = =

Chapter 9 of the Merry Killers is entitled FOXHOUND.
 

Prince Charon

Well-Known Member
#62
Oh, dear. Some bunch of bad guys has bitten off more than they can chew.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#63
Here you all go.


= = =


“I like you, please go out with me Mitsu-chan!”

It was the end of the day, and children were getting ready for the final bell of class so they could head to their extracurriculars, clubs, or home. fourteen year old Mitsune Konno, however, was experiencing her first spring on the second floor landing of her school.

The boy who had just confessed to her was at first glance not much of a catch. Kosuke Amagasaki was shorter than she was, overweight, and kind of hurtin’ in the looks department thanks to puberty. But he was the funniest guy she knew and he often exuded confidence and self-esteem to the point that no one even bothered with him for the shortcomings.

It was why she harbored a crush for him, so having him just out and out confess to her threw her for a loop.

“Eh? This is a joke, right? You’re putting me on.” She desperately hoped he wasn’t.

Kousuke smiled and adjusted his glasses. “No way, you’re the coolest girl I know. You’re smart, and cute, and you even hang out with Narusegawa when everyone else picks on her. Who wouldn’t like a girl like you?”

He had her at cute, launching an arrow that plunged into her heart. Her hands came up to her cheeks and very nearly swooned. “C-c’mon, guy… I’m only being a decent person. I mean, you want me to be your girlfriend…?”

“Yeah?” Kosuke asked, curious if she could even understand him what with her being from Kansai.

Kitsune covered her face with her hands in a desperate effort to hide her blush. “Geez… o-okay, but I’m warning you. I get really embarrassed so no lovey dovey stuff in public okay?”

“Not even holding hands?” he asked.

“Maybe…”

“Can we at least make out at my house after school?” he suddenly asked, and Kitsune’s face turned a deep red, steam rising off her head.

“Y-yeah, that would great,” she managed to stammer out.

Kousuke pumped his fist. “Yes!” Then in his best impression of a manly voice he declared, “Wealth and glory to the winner!”

Behind her hands, the blushing girl broke into giggles. She was walking on air now, oh she couldn’t wait to tell Naru! This was the-

SPAK!

Kitsune’s laughter stopped in a choked rattle, as the sound echoed in her head. It drowned out everything else, even Kosuke’s confused “What was that?” sounded muffled to her as her hands fell slowly from her face, trembling.

Then the screams followed, the cries of literal bloody murder.

Kitsune remembered, before it all became a merciful blur, running towards the screams with ice already beginning to form in her veins.


= = =


Chapter 9, FOXHOUND, is next.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#64
Let the hunt begin.


= = =


Disclaimer: Can I go three for three? Probably not!


“Is everyone all right?” a visibly and audibly worried Kitsune asked via cell phone as she exited the elevator to the lobby of the lavish hotel room the JSDF put her and Shinobu up in after their mission in Tokyo the night before.

“Everyone’s fine, the house is good as new… lotta blood everywhere but Keitaro’s been on that since before dawn. Did you know Molmol’s using cyborgs, now?” Haruka asked.

“Those lunatics,” Kitsune hissed.

“Granny’s looking into who may have tipped them off to Su being here, but they’re not going to come back. The JSDF’s going to get upgrades to spot them sneaking in again, and Su’s going to coordinate setting up defenses throughout Hinata City. By Christmas the whole town’s gonna be a fortress. Some real Geo-Front shit if Su can get a big enough excavator.”

Kitsune relaxed some, and opened her eyes. “I’m glad everyone’s safe and sound.”

“Well, thank Keitaro for that when you get back.”

“I’ll bring him back something nice,” Kitsune said. “Maybe something sexy for Naru to wear for him. He’d definitely appreciate that.”

“Don’t be too enthusiastic in your gratitude,” Haruka teased.

“Enthusiastic would be me wearing something sexy for him.”

Haruka chuckled. “I don’t know what any of us would do without you, Konno. Which reminds me, your old man brought me some trash to burn earlier today.”

Kitsune blinked. “My Dad?”

“Yeah, he wanted to check up on you and see what you were up to, but you’d left.”

Kitsune looked a little crestfallen at that. “Aw… I should’ve stuck around.”

“Give him a call. He’ll probably be in town a few more days before he heads back.”

Kitsune brightened at the suggestion. “Yeah, thanks Haruka. I’ll give him a call after we check out”

“All right, see you when you get home.” The call ended, and Kitsune smiled.

“Dad’s in town, huh? I wonder if Mom threw him out again,” she said with a chuckle as she stepped up to the front counter. She flashed a smile to the lovely dark-skinned, blonde-haired young woman behind it. “Hey, Konno checking out of the Penthouse.”

“Oh! Hello Konno-san!” the young woman, whose nametag read Mihoshi, replied. “Did you enjoy your stay?”

“Loved it! Me and my little sister slept like royalty, ne Shinobu-chan?” Kitsune looked to Shinobu, who nodded assent. She looked back to Mihoshi. “I’m recommending it to all my friends.”

“Well I’m very glad.” Mihoshi’s bright blue eyes then widened as she recalled something. “Oh! I just remembered, an acquaintance of yours stopped in earlier and left your phone for you.”

Kitsune’s eyes cracked open slightly. “My phone?”

“Yes.” She reached under the counter and pulled out what was clearly a prepaid phone. “He said you left it with him last night.”

“Is that so? Well, thank you,” Kitsune said as she took the phone carefully between two fingers while handing Shinobu some money. “Pay the clerk would you?”.

As Shinobu complied, Kitsune stepped aside and set the phone down on a table in the lobby, before slipping on a pair of nylon gloves and picking the phone up properly. She turned the phone over in her hands, examining it carefully, before safely asserting that it hadn’t been tampered with.

“Not a bomb…” she whispered. She pressed the power button and the face lit up, revealing a single contact. Calling the number she held it to her ear just as someone picked up. “Hello?”

A man’s icy and stern voice answered. “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you, Mitsune Konno. Your father is in our custody and in thirty-six hours he will die.”


Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Chapter 9: FOXHOUND


“Whew, finally done,” Keitaro said as he finished tossed the last blood soaked cleaning implements in a barrel destined for the Hinata-sou’s incinerator. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he surveyed the now spotless hot springs–all sign of the attack from the night before completely gone. Even the water looked pristine, like it had not been a blood and viscera stew that cooked throughout the night.

He looked over to Naru, who was just as relieved.

“Finally!” she said as she unzipped the white coveralls she and Keitaro both wore for the detail, revealing that she had neglected to wear anything underneath it. She then tossed them into the barrel. “That took way too long.”

As Naru lathered up and began scrubbing herself, Keitaro disrobed of his own coveralls and discarded them, revealing himself similarly nude. “It would’ve taken longer if you didn’t help out, so thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Naru replied before Keitaro sat down behind her, and began scrubbing her back. “Mmm…”

For the first time since he’d arrived at the Hinata-sou, Keitaro and Naru finally had the entire house to themselves–Haruka had taken Su off to meet with the JSDF first thing in the morning–and they’d been spending the entirety of this alone time cleaning up what Su’s self-repair system couldn’t.

He kneaded her shoulders, eliciting a very pleased sound from her. “It’s really amazing how strong you are. Those guys were everywhere.”

“I know you’re just saying it for hot spring sex, but I’mma let you,” Naru replied.

“I really mean it, though.” He hugged her soapy body to his and rested his chin on her shoulder. “How strong are you?”

Naru hummed. “I don’t really want to know.”

“Why?”

“Because as long as I don’t know my limits, there’s nothing I can’t attempt.”

How poetic of her. “I like that.”

“It’s something you can live by, you know,” she noted.

Keitaro’s face, already blushed from the heat off the hot spring and Naru’s closeness, darkened a little more in color as the comment struck home. “Live like there’s nothing I can’t do?”

“Yeah, stop doubting yourself so you can get into Toudai, dummy.”

She turned around, began lathering him up as well, starting at his chest, before working down his his right arm. She looked from his face to his right hand, and watched it intently, as he turned his palm down away from her gaze. Feigning curiosity, Naru turned his hand over, and gave a start when she saw it again, the scar that crossed his palm.

She stared at it. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?” Keitaro asked, even as his hand tensed in her grip.

Her gaze darted upwards. “Keitaro… this is a scar.”

Keitaro fell silent, and avoided her eyes.

“Keitaro, when… how did you get this?”

Keitaro pulled his hand away from hers. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Naru paused, and then smiled. “What, are you worried about Motoko finding out? Don’t worry, I won’t tell her, why would I tell her?”

“It’s not that,” Keitaro, distressed, quickly said. “I really don’t want to talk about it...”

Whatever it was it somehow got under Keitaro’s thick defense. She immediately pulled back, surprised by this heretofore unknown trauma. “Oh… I’m sorry…”

“It’s all right,” he said with a wan smile, before he picked up a bucket and dumped the water over himself to rinse to soap off.

The mood gone, Naru sighed and picked up her own bucket and rinsed off. Opening her eyes after the cascade, she looked in surprise to see Haruka standing by the door. “Haruka?”

Keitaro looked over to her, surprised she’d be back so soon. “Auntie?”

Haruka gave Keitaro a brief, annoyed look. “Get dressed and come to the living room. We’ve got an emergency.”


- - -

“As you all know, Kitsune likes to take up jobs on the side,” Haruka said in the living room of the Hinata-sou where everyone was gathered–even Motoko was home early from her trip and none too pleased about it.

“This is fine,” Haruka continued, “we even do a little extra to make sure Kitsune doesn’t get tracked down. However, it looks like we all got careless and someone wants some payback.”

“What happened?” Naru asked.

“These particular pigs figured out who Kitsune was and kidnapped her Dad. Now they’re holding him hostage,” Haruka replied.

“That’s awful!” Shinobu cried.

Keitaro looked over to Kitsune, who was sitting on the couch with her arms folded and her expression the very picture of amused nonchalance, all things considered. He was pretty sure, however, that there was something going on underneath it that she didn’t want anyone to see.

“Those bastards!” Motoko snapped. “Who are they?!”

Haruka hummed. “Haven’t found that out yet, whoever these guys are they’ve taken a lot of steps to remain hidden.”

That said, it wouldn’t take long given that Su was sitting next to Kitsune, hunting them down via the internet.

“So what do they want?”

“They want Kitsune, of course, and all of her employers in her history of wet work.” Haruka wished she had a cigarette to smoke for dramatic effect. “But the Urashima clan does not negotiate with terrorists, we exterminate them.”

All of the girls nodded in agreement with that.

“Su is finished!” Su declared before handing the laptop to Haruka.

Haruka read the information.. “The phone was purchased from a convenience store in Minato City. It was paid for by credit card, too and not a prepaid one. The card belongs to Minase Takada, an AV Actress who works with the Brilliant Glow Talent Agency.” She handed the laptop to Su. “Which is a business run by the Takimaru Group…”

Kitsune sighed. “Man, I was hoping I got some real fans, like the Yamaguchi, or Hotel Moscow.”

Keitaro became uneasy, while not the largest syndicate in Japan, the Takimaru Group was known for its vast wealth and technological sophistication, and it still had thousands of men to fight for it. “What’s going to happen?”

“Standard Yakuza procedure, kill the leaders and their families and install people who won’t fuck up so hard,” Haruka replied plainly as she returned Su her computer.

Keitaro cringed. “Harsh.”

Haruka shrugged her shoulders. “When establishing dominance, killing the strongest in the herd encourages the rest to follow you without question,” she replied.

“Where do they want you to meet with them, Konno?” Motoko demanded.

“I’m supposed to go to Shimbashi Station and call the number on the burner from a pay phone. Further instructions would follow.”

Haruka took a drag of a cigarette. “The sooner we act, the better. Got a plan?”

“I’ve got one but it’s risky.” She turned towards Keitaro. “It will rely on an untested variable.”

Keitaro gave a start, as everyone else looked at him. “… M-me? What do you need me for?”

- - -

Shimbashi Station, in the city of Minato. Kitsune, dressed in a black hooded jacket, blue pants, and sunglasses, carefully walked down the stairs and made her way over to a payphone. It was early evening, and people heading home for work provided plenty of concealment for her movements as she reached the booth.

Picking up the receiver and pulling out a piece of paper, she quickly dialed the number listed on it and waited for an answer.

It rang twice, before a voice answered. “Konno. There is a blue delivery van parked down the street to your right, go to it and get inside.”

“U-understood,” she replied softly.

“See you soon,” the speaker answered smugly before the call ended.

Kitsune let the phone dangle off the receiver for a moment and made her way through the crowds of people coming up and down the street. Sure enough, a blue delivery van was parked with its side door slightly ajar. Taking a deep breath, Kitsune walked up to it and opened it.

Instantly, she was grabbed by the front of her coat and yanked in, the van peeling off even before the door slammed shut.

Thrown to empty rear compartment floor, Kitsune yelped as several men in suits set upon her, one pinning her down and lashing her hands behind her back with zipties while another placed a gag in her mouth. None let their hands off her, one man even firmly placing his knee on the small of her back to keep her from moving.

As Kitsune squirmed feebly, the Yakuza who had zip-tied her hands stood up. He pulled out a cell phone and quickly made a call. “Izu here, we got her in the van. We’re taking her to the rendezvous now.”

“Good. What’s your time of arrival?” she heard the voice from before answer on his phone.

“We will be there in ten minutes,” Izu replied smoothly.

“Good. Have fun,” the speaker over the phone said.

Izu grinned sickly, and looked down at Kitsune as he ended the call. “Hear that? We’re gonna be having a good ol time in the old town tonight. You, me, and a few friends.”

He leaned down close to her and lewdly licked her cheek. Her face turned to a disgusted grimace.

“Mmm… you taste good, I can’t wait to help myself to some more,” Izu whispered quietly to her as the other Yakuza either rolled their eyes or laughed darkly with him.

- - -

Close to Tokyo Bay a closed high school sat nearby an under construction apartment complex. The school, Jindai High, had been closed for several years now–its demolition long lost in Tokyo’s bureaucratic mess. The school building and its parking lot was entirely fenced off, while what was once an athletics field was now occupied by the skeleton of a high rise.

In the building’s gymnasium, a number of Yakuza were hard at work, setting up cameras and lights for what would be quite a show, the broadcast execution of one of the Takimaru Group’s greatest enemies.

“So big bro, have you seen the pic of her? She’s freakin’ hot for days,” a fresh-faced, spiky-haired young man checking the viewfinder of their main camera asked his partner and senior, a buzz-cut sporting older man who insisted on wearing his sunglasses even at night.

“Big Bro” let out a snort. “I’ve seen her, Seki, she’s just a freakin’ kid.”

The younger Yakuza eyed the viewfinder again. “There’s no way a body like that is a kid’s. She’s gotta be like nineteen, twenty tops.”

Big Bro had no interest at all in how attractive she was, and he let it be known by his sneer. “Stop thinking with your dick, you piece of shit. You don’t know what that thing is.”

Reassured that the viewfinder was in place, Seki stood upright and looked back at his partner. “She’s knocked off a few of our guys in Hinata City, yeah-”

Big Bro grabbed Seki by the collar of his suit and lifted him off his feet. “A few of our guys?! Remember you piece of shit, each and every one of those ‘guys’ was a brother! She didn’t just kill them, she turned them on each other, tricked them into killing each other and then finished off anyone who was still alive after!”

He dropped his “little brother” and glanced towards the gymnasium’s exit, where a man in a trench coat, hidden in shadows created by malfunctioning lights, silently oversaw the construction of the set. “That thing, it ain’t human. That’s why the old man went all out, six hundred million yen to hire the best there ever will be to make sure it’s dead.”

Seki’s eyebrows lifted up in surprise. “Really? Damn.”

“So get focused and keep your hand close to your piece. Until that thing is dead, we’re all corpses who don’t realize it yet, got it?” Big Bro said before he noticed flashing headlights outside. “Damn, they’re here…”

The sunglasses-wearing yakuza looked back towards the man in the trench coat, he was stomping out his discarded cigarette and leaving.

Outside, the delivery van pulled up to the back parking lot, and flashed its lights twice. The gate to the parking lot opened, and the van pulled in before backing up to the school’s receiving dock. Sitting on her knees near the back of the van, Kitsune jostled around as the van bumped against the loading dock.

Izu grabbed her by her coat, and hauled her to her feet. “On your feet.”

As the Yakuza in the back of the van moved towards the rear doors, the driver and passenger climbed from their seats. On stepping out, Kitsune saw the driver look at the receiving dock, and quickly reach into his jacket with a surprised look on his face.

A burst of bullets impacting his from his forehead to his throat stopped him. The passenger was similarly dispatched, and before Izu and the others still inside the van could react, the rear doors were swung open and the entire interior of the van was hosed with a fully automatic burst of fire from a suppressed Personal Defense Weapon.

Lowering the PDW, Kitsune smiled at Kitsune. She was in full combat gear, a low-visibility tactical uniform, a ballistics vest and helmet. She wore several more weapons, a holstered pistol, grenades, and a high powered rifle slung over her back. “They didn’t rough you up too much, did they?”

“N-no,” the Kitsune-disguised Keitaro replied, having freed himself of the gag.

“Good, I couldn’t imagine anything happening to my delicate flower,” she said as she pinched Keitaro’s cheek.

Blushing, Keitaro looked over to where Izu lay. “He was on his phone with his boss.”

Kitsune smiled. “Perfect.”

“He also licked me, it was gross,” Keitaro said with a shudder.

Kitsune smiled a little less. “Is that so?”

Lying at his feet, the grievously wounded Izu looked up in disbelief at the real Kitsune. “W-what in the…?” Even with his injuries, he was more shocked that the girl they captured was still alive, unharmed even! “How is that…?”

He would die not knowing. Kitsune reached down and relieved him of his phone. “Aw, are you hungry?”.”

Smiling, she pressed the barrel of the PDW into his mouth. “It’s time to eat~”!

She emptied the last of the magazine into his mouth with a long, satisfying squeeze of the trigger.

Keitaro managed to hop out of the van, and looked back at Kitsune and the grisly remains left inside.

Reloading her weapon Kitsune stepped out of the van and cut the zip-tie cuffs.

“Are you okay?”

Opening up Izu’s phone, Kitsune grinned. “Doing great so far, but the night’s still young.” She sidled up to Keitaro. “Wanna be my ballistics buddy?”

Keitaro gave her an uneasy smile. “Naru would find a way to kill me if anything happened to you so... sure?”

“Great!” She said cheerily before opening her eyes, their light color replaced by a pitch black. “Let’s go make more ballistics buddies.”

- - -

Tied to a chair, Itachi Konno looked like he had seen better days. The robust man’s face was bruised, and blood stains littered the collar and front of his shirt. Blindfolded, his head hung listlessly, as blood seeped from a bloodied nose and cuts on his forehead and cheek from the rings of his Yakuza hosts.

“… Good, have fun,” he heard a younger man say into a cell phone, capping off an ominous conversation pertaining his littlest girl, before he heard him approach.

The blindfold came off, and he found himself staring at the polished wood floor of a lavish office, and the feet of a man who was bold enough to wear a white suit and shoes, and skilled enough keep his ensemble stain free.

The man in white was Yuji Kitagami, Senior Advisor of the Takimaru group despite his age of twenty-five years. Intimidating by anyone’s standard, he was a lion-faced man whose ferocity and brutality matched his looks. He was not so high in the organization for nothing.

“I dislike being indirect so you’re going to tell me what I need to here with no fucking around,” he said. “Now tell me, who does your family work for?”

Itachi didn’t look up, keeping his gaze locked firmly on Kitagami’s shoes. “Boy I can tell we’re not going to get along; I dislike being direct.”

Kitagami let out a short, snorting laugh. “You have a good sense of humor for how bad your situation is; I can respect that. How about we put that humor to the test, huh? In ten minutes, my men are going to put on a show starring your daughter. I told them they could do whatever they wanted with her–torture her, beat her, rape her, just as long as there was something left for you to collect when we’re done here.” He grabbed the elder Konno by his short gray hair and tilted his head up. “So what are you going to tell me to make them stop?”

Itachi looked at Kitagami’s face, gazed down at his shoes, and then looked back up. “That is a nice suit, kiddo. Did you get it with your own money or did your old man buy it for you?”

The Yakuza’s expression darkened and he tightened his grip on Itachi’s hair. “You’re a heartless man, Konno-san.”

“And you’re a presumptuous one,” Itachi replied. He looked past Kitagami, and towards the large wooden desk situated at the back of the office.

Sitting behind it in a very large chair, was a man far older than him. Like Kitagami he wore a nice suit, but he sported an eyepatch over his left eye, adding a hint of menace to his aged, jowled face.

“Kids these days. Can barely dress themselves but think they’ve got the world figured out,” Itachi said to the seated old man.

Kitagami, baring his teeth, let go of the elder Konno’s hair and punched him viciously across the face. “Tell me who your connections are, where you get your intel and support from. You guys have the power to reach into China and America to take care of any ‘loose ends’ you have, so I’m really curious to know who gives you this power to act.”

Itachi his head turned to the right by the blow, closed his eyes and let out a low sigh. “There really is no hope for you, huh kid? Ask yourself this: if a bastard is willing to take his littlest girl and turn her into a killing machine, how much do you think that little girl really matters to him?”

Kitagami stopped and stared at Itachi, who smiled a little. “Daunting implications, huh? Let’s take it a step further: If a bastard is willing to take his littlest girl and turn her into a killing machine, how much do you think that bastard really matters to her?”

Realization struck the young Mafioso, and Itachi savored the shocked look upon his face with a grin.

“That’s right, you’ve only offered more meat for the beast to feed.”

- - -

Holding onto his back and staying slightly crouched behind him, Kitsune marched Keitaro down the hallway of the U-shaped school building like an impromptu riot shield. The interior of the school was dark and quiet, showing the building’s years of disuse in the thick dust, cracked walls, and dislodged ceiling tiles. The eeriness was unshakable for both Keitaro and Kitsune, who’d only ever known such buildings as full of life and light.

“I really do appreciate you doing this,” Kitsune reassured him, taking his mind off the creep factor.

Keitaro shrugged his shoulders as they reached the end of the hall and turned left at the stairwell, entering the south wing of the building. “It’s all right, it really is. Long as you’re safe I’m fine with this, I really am.”

“You really are the sweetest, I might convince Naru to give you something really nice for this,” Kitsune cooed back before they reached the walkway that connected the school’s main building to its gymnasium.

Keitaro glanced back. “Kitsune?”

Kitsune was looking up the stairwell of the school. She turned her attention back to their path down the windowed walkway ahead that connected the school’s south wing to the gymnasium. “I’ve just had the eeriest feeling that I’ve been here before.”

Keitaro looked back, and for the first time since he’d gotten to know the girl, she wasn’t smiling.

He then heard a shout from down the corridor. “Hey, who’s there?!”

He snapped forward and saw two men had emerged from the gymnasium. In one hand they wielded cheap pistols and in the other flashlights.

“Is that you, Izu?” one of the Yakuza asked before the beam of his flashlight created a green shine off Kitsune’s retinas, startling him. “What the-?!”

Kitsune unceremoniously gunned both down with quick bursts from the PDW. Though suppressed, the weapon was loud enough in the empty corridor to catch the attention of the Yakuza inside.

Another saw his brothers lying dead and quickly peeked out of the hallway–ducking back when he saw Kitsune aiming the gun at him. He narrowly avoided a burst of 9mm rounds that tore up the doorway.

“What the fuck?!” he shouted as he scrambled back from the door. “Hey Bro!”

Big Bro was already drawing a pair of revolvers from inside his sight as Seki pulled out a machine pistol. “Izu fucked up, didn’t he?”

“Shit, what do we do, Big Bro?” Seki asked nervously.

Seeing the machine pistol shaking in his hands, he gestured towards the door the trenchcoat man had gone out before. “Get the fuck out of here if you don’t want to die.”

Three more Yakuza joined the one still at the door, one pointing his gun around the corner and opened fire. The bullets impacted against Keitaro’s body, and when the shooter peered around the corner to confirm a kill, Kitsune ventilated his skull with three rounds.

“Hold this,” she said as she gave Keitaro the PDW. Taking a fragmentation grenade, she twisted and pulled the pin and tossed the explosive to the doorway.

“GRENA-!” the other Yakuza was cut off by the grenade’s explosion shredding him and the remaining two.

Inside the gym, Big Bro managed to shield his face from the debris and bits of human remains that rained on him from the explosion. He looked to Seki, wild-eyed. “Get the fuck out of here, you piece of shit! Go call for backup!”

The young Yakuza, feeling about as in over his head as a corpse on the Titanic looked towards the door where his late comrades now lay, and then back to him. “B-Big Bro…” he wept, before turning for the exit. “Don’t die!”

Big Bro grimaced and looked towards the door. “I told you… until it’s dead… we’re corpses who don’t know it yet!”

The moment it came around the corner, Big Bro didn’t hesitate, lifting both revolvers. “That’s why I’ll fight until we can all live again!”

He fired both guns so fast and wildly that the large-caliber weapons seemed to roar. Each round slamming into his target and knocking it backward. He roared with his weapons and kept roaring even after he expended both cylinders, finally tapering off into silence as he stopped uselessly squeezing the triggers.

But when the smoke from his weapons cleared from in front of him, he found Keitaro standing there, looking at his now bullet hole-riddled coatand brushing out the flattened rounds from under it.

He stared at the girl-dressed boy, numb with disbelief. “W-what?”

Kitsune stepped in behind him, and smiled to the last-standing Yakuza. “Man you’re dumb. Haven’t you watched Fullmetal? You can’t bring back the dead.” She pointed the PDW at him. “But you can join them.”

She squeezed the trigger, and a trail of red quarter-sized bullet holes appeared on Big Bro starting from his chest to his forehead.

Lowering the PDW, she patted Keitaro on the back as she looked to the gym’s exit. Narrowing her eyes to scrutinize it, she shrugged her shoulders and pulled out Izu’s phone. “Well, that takes care of them.”

She dialed the last number called and held the phone to her ear.

- - -

In the Boss’s Office of the Takimaru Group’s HQ, Kitagami’s phone rang, a boring ringtone that brought Itachi eyes to roll in amusement. Taking it from his pocket, Kitagami answered it. “Izu, is everything all right? What’s the situation down there?”

“All of your men here are dead,” Kitsune immediately answered.

Kitagami’s normally fierce eyes widened, as Itachi began to laugh.

Kitsune let her PDW hang off her shoulder as she began to pace in the gymnasium. “It didn’t take much, really. They were so excited that they had me, that they didn’t think for a second that I’d use a decoy and follow them to the little party you had planned for me.” She stopped and looked at the bodies of the Yakuza. “To be honest, I’m confused that guys as careful as you have been didn’t consider that.”

Kitagami growled softly. “So you’re cleverer than I thought.”

“Daddy calls me Kitsune for a reason. Speaking of, he’s still alive right? Not that it’s particularly pressing, I just want to make sure I didn’t come all this way for nothin’.”

“Your Daddy’s fine, sweetie!” Itachi called loud enough for Kitagami’s phone to catch.

“Super! I wouldn’t be too broken up about it if he was dead, but Mom would kick my ass if he died and it was my fault. You understand, right?” Kitsune stopped pacing and licked her lips. “I mean, that’s why you Chivalrous Men cut ties with your families when you enter The Life, right? So you don’t have to face your fam when you fuck up?”

Kitagami narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his phone. “Interesting how that works out for those who don’t.”

Kitsune resumed pacing, moving erratically back and forth across the gymnasium floor. Keitaro tilted his head, wondering why she was walking around with such randomness. “It works out great, really… guys at your level can’t hardly appreciate what family means.” She smiled and began walking back to Keitaro. “But don’t worry, we’re gonna learn ya some.”

Silent, Kitagami suffered Itachi’s snickering, and asked. “How many of my men did you kill?”

Kitsune stopped in front of Keitaro, and looked up past him at the windows of the gymnasium. “Fourteen out of fifteen. I let one get away, he left a trail of piss all the way to the door. Or should I say…”

Keitaro was hit square in the back by a sniper’s bullet. Were it not for his inability to be harmed, the trajectory of the bullet would’ve carried on into Kitsune’s heart, killing her instantly.

“Sixteen.” Kitsune looked past Keitaro’s shoulder, and her eyes widened in surprise before she turned and ran for the hallway door. Keitaro looked back at what had gotten her so frightened, right as a grenade launcher round smashed through the window and crashed into his face, exploding on impact.

Pulling his ear away from the phone from the explosion, Kitagami grinned and began to laugh. “Looks like she’s met our ace in the hole.”

Itachi lifted his eyebrows. “Ace in the hole, huh?”

“Mitsune Konno,” the old man at the table the eponymous man of the group known as Takimaru, suddenly spoke, “Nineteen years old, height is 164 centimeters, blood type is O, measurements are…” he stopped to grin perversely. “… 87-58-83…”

Kitagami let out a wolfish whistle. “Impressive…”

“… And her color is Green,” Old Man Takimaru finished.

Mirth vanished from Itachi’s face, replaced with a cold curiosity. “… Color?”

Kitagami looked back at the old man, who was still grinning as he picked up from atop his desk a cane and used it to stand up. In defiance of his advanced age, the Yakuza head made his way around the desk and walked to Kitagami, who placed the phone on speaker and handed it to him.

“Ordinarily with her speed she would just be a blue, am I using the terminology right?” Takimaru asked. “But she has an ability that makes her untouchable: Over Sight.”

Still holding the phone in her hand in the darkness of the hallway, Kitsune sat up with wide-eyes. “Well, that’s a twist.”

She got up and broke into a run, full-on sprinting down the woefully exposed walkway, as a full burst of automatic gunfire tore through the windows from her right, chasing her all the way to main building’s south wing.

Despite having the wall and the classrooms beyond it between her and her shooter she didn’t stop, charging faster as bullets continued to tear through the wall, until she reached the stairwell at the corner and rushed up them for the second floor.

“How many of them are there?” she asked before she saw something gleam at the top of the stairs. “Is that a-?” Her eyes widened. “Shit!”

At the top of the stairs, she jumped up past the top step and over the trip-wires of a claymore mine set up on the landing. Kicking off the wall, she landed on the adjoining stairs and dashed to the second floor of the school, narrowly avoiding another claymore mine with a jump to the top floor.

Her eyes scanning the hallway in front of her and to her left, Kitsune searched for any signs of traps. There didn’t seem to be any more on this floor.

“Are you still with us, Miss Konno?” Takimaru asked.

Kitsune brought the phone to her ear. “Don’t worry, I’m all ears now.”

“We’ve been waiting a long time to make this move,” Takimaru said, “Let me assure you, we took every possible contingency into consideration, and went over every piece of intelligence we could get on you and your family. It was a very hefty investment, but revenge is costly.”

Kitsune looked around and quietly got her bearings. She was in the south wing of the school, whoever had shot at her had done it from the north wing, the other side of the school. She looked down the hall of the school, and quickly darted to the corner going into the second floor’s south wing.

Coming around the corner from the north wing hall was an electric whine, like a very large remote controlled car. The source of the whine revealed itself sure enough, a tracked remote controlled vehicle that rolled into the open and turned towards Kitsune. It looked like one of the EOD Bots used by the Defense Forces and Police Bomb Disposal units… but was armed with a light machine gun instead of the manipulator arm.

Kitsune turned and dove as the robot opened fire, its rounds tearing apart the corner and punching through the corner. In a full sprint, she tossed back several disc-shaped charges onto the floor and dove into a classroom on her right, sliding the door shut behind her.

Pressing her back against the wall, Kitsune let out a sigh and slid down to the floor to finally catch her breath. Cocking an ear towards the door, she kept it on the approaching robot and raised the phone to her ear.

“I hope you got it insured,” she replied.

The classroom shook as the approaching armed robot met the devices Kitsune left behind, Su-made charges that exploded and took the robot with it.

Dust drifted down from the ceiling, and Kitsune stood up. As she looked around the classroom, that suffocating feeling of familiarity returned.

“Insured and ensured, rest assured,” Takimura said.

Kitsune walked towards the front of the classroom, scanning the room before she stopped at a display set up in front of the blackboard. Kitsune stared at the display and her eyes opened wide.

It was a shrine, a memorial for eight students a teacher.

Kitsune blinked, and slowly looked towards the back of the classroom. There by the doorway, were numerous bullet holes. She stared at the holes, and then over by the window at the front of the class.

“M-Mitsune…”

Her pupils dilated, and she looked at the shrine as she took a step away from it.

“I-I didn’t mean to!”

Kitsune took another step back. “No.”

The sight of Naru, her hair cut barely above her neck and her entire body splattered in blood, flashed in her mind.

“They were laughing… I! I couldn’t stop…!”

Kitsune shook her head slowly. “No…”

“Mitsune, where did you get that?!”

“Mitsune, please I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

“Mitsune! Put that down, don’t!”

“I DIDN’T MEAN TO!”

“MITSUNE-!”

Gunshots echoed like thunder, and Kitsune fell to her knees, the phone clattering to the floor in front of her as she grabbed the sides of her head and began screaming at the top of her lungs, trying to drown out the deafening roar of gunfire.

On the other end of the line, both Kitagami and Takimaru grinned as they heard her horrified screaming. Staring at the phone, his own eyes opened wide, Itachi lowered his gaze and grimaced.

“Mitsune…“ He looked up at the two yakuza, narrowing hisgaze. “I’ll admit, now I’m impressed. We’ve kept this dark secret very close to our chests.”

As Kitsune sat on her knees, rocking back and forth, the classroom door slowly slid open and a man stepped in.

“You know our history, you know our code,” Itachi said solemnly. “How?”

Takimaru looked down at Itachi, savoring the stony expression that concealed the anguish that the elderly man was certain was there.

“Six hundred million yen purchased all we needed to defeat you.”

The man leveled the barrel of a gun on the back of Kitsune’s head.

“Six hundred…” Itach froze.

A single gunshot sounded from the phone.


The last light from beyond the horizon faded, night had fully fallen on Tokyo. On the cold, windswept rooftop of a skyscraper adjacent to the Takimaru HQ, Naru and Motoko stood in their full combat attire. In her hand. In addition to her sword, Motoko held a suppressed carbine, which Naru was similarly equipped with.

Motoko keyed the headset she wore. “Haruka, we are in position.”

“Right on schedule,” Haruka replied, “Everyone else has been waiting for you to get this thing started.”

In the Roppongi District of Minato, the several Tokyo Metro Police SAT vans made their way around barricades and drove down the narrow footpaths of Yakuza-controlled pachinko parlours, bars, and soaplands.

A truck bearing “Urashima Confectionary Shop” quietly backs up to the loading dock of a large five-star hotel in nearby Ginza.

Out over Tokyo Bay, its rotors whisper quiet, a JMSDF helicopter carrying a cage underneath it flew out towards a cruise ship sailing towards Tokyo Harbor.

Back in the city, the clouds parted, and the pale moonlight shone down upon Haruka and Su standing atop the Tokyo Tower.

“When the dogs corner the fox, the wolves will come running. Takimaru Group Extermination Operation… start.”

= = =

They are the Food, we are the Hunters.
 

alansg

Well-Known Member
#66
You are an evil man, how do you dare to leave it right there!?
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#67
Happy Birthday, by the way.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#68
Chapter 10 Cold Open preview.


= = =


Dressed in a simple white gi and sitting on her knees on the floor, twelve year old Mitsune Konno stared at the ornately designed tatami mats of the the candlelit room she sat in. Her father, similarly dressed, sat beside to her right. To her left, her mother sat likewise dressed. In front of all three of them, facing them, were three women.

One was an older woman of serene beauty whose silver hair complimented her features, the other was a middle-aged woman who bore the weariness of her lifestyle on her face, the third was Hina–who was so old she couldn’t sit seiza like everyone else. Instead she stood and leaned her weight on her cane.

Hina was the first to speak. “Mitsune-chan, the duty you’ve been entrusted with is dangerous and grim. At any given moment, you may lose your life, so you must be prepared to take a life in turn without any hesitation. Are you prepared for this?”

Kitsune nodded and in a soft, calm voice responded. “Yes.”

The tiny old woman stepped forth and set a picture to the floor before Kitsune, a picture of an eleven year old Naru. “This girl Naru Narusegawa, has the potential to be the greatest weapon of His Imperial Majesty, but the same potential exists that she may become a terrible disaster upon Japan and the world. If necessary, will you execute this girl without hesitation or fear?”

Kitsune nodded again. “Yes.”

SPAK!

The sound still echoed as Kitsune rushed down the hallway of her high school, shoving past the students either fleeing or approaching the classroom. Reaching the door and knocking over a screaming boy who stumbled out, Kitsune stopped and stared at the scene that awaited her.

Three girls were dead. Their bodies, laying in a rapidly spreading pile of blood and freshly shorn hair just ended from the shoulders up. The arm of one was lying at the back of the classroom, underneath a bloody splatter where it had impacted. Blood was splattered all over the windows next to the desk where they lay. It was everywhere, having been turned to a rapidly spreading mist by the force of the impact that destroyed the three bodies.

Their destroyer stood at her desk soaked in the majority of the blood, staring at her trembling hands and the the bodies she created. “… Naru.”

Naru Narusegawa was speechless, sounds trying to escape her mouth but locked in by her horror.

“Oh my God… N-Naru what the hell happened?!” Kitsune looked back at the overweight, bespectacled boy who had managed to get in after her.

Another student, a girl standing down the row from Naru, quickly pointed at her. “She killed them, Kousuke! They just cut her hair she punched them and… and…!”

The heavy-set boy looked to the girl. “Keiko?”

Naru slowly turned around, tears running down her blood splattered face, as she looked at Kitsune. “M-Mitsune… I… I didn’t mean to…!” She looked at her hands. “They… they cut my hair… they were laughing… I…! I couldn’t stop…!”

“Naru?” the heavy-set boy asked.

Kitsune reached into her bookbag, and quickly drew a semiautomatic pistol that she trained on Naru. Seeing the gun, the blood-splattered girl froze and took a step back. She stared at Kitsune, recognition joining and intensifying her horror.

“Mitsune, where did you get that?!” the boy, Kousuke, asked in shock as more shouting came up from the doors as students saw Kitsune’s gun.

“Mitsune, please, I’m sorry,” Naru quickly said. “I didn’t mean to!”

Kousuke looked back and forth between Naru and Kitsune before stopping on the latter. “You’re not going to…?”

“It was an accident! I couldn’t control it! I tried to, but I couldn’t!” Naru pleaded. “I’m so sorry! I couldn’t!”

“This girl Naru Narusegawa, has the potential to be the greatest weapon of His Imperial Majesty, but the same potential exists that she may become a terrible disaster upon Japan and the world.”

Kitsune rested her finger on the trigger of the pistol.

Kousuke reached towards Kitsune and paused. “Mitsune! Put it down, don’t! She didn’t mean to do it!”

“I didn’t want to kill them! I didn’t want to!” Naru cried out.

“Kill her, Konno!” Keiko shouted.

“I didn’t mean to!” Naru cried out louder.

“If necessary, will you execute this girl without hesitation or fear?”

She placed the sights squarely on Naru’s face. She had to do it.

“Kill her!” Keiko screamed.

This was her duty.

“I didn’t mean to!” Naru sobbed.

Accident or not.

“Mitsune! Put it down, don’t!” Kousuke begged.

Best friend or not.

“I DIDN’T MEAN TO!”

Tears ran down Kitsune’s face, as she stared at Naru with eyes open and awash with despair. Taking in a shaky breath, she turned and pointed the pistol in Kousuke’s face.

Kousuke’s eyes widened. “Mitsune…!”

“I’m sorry,” she wept before she opened fire.


= = =


Chapter 10 of Merry Killers shall be entitiled “FOXDIE”
 

Prince Charon

Well-Known Member
#69
OK, that falls into the territory of scary.
 
#70
Holy dangly crap. I'm hooked all over again. Looks like Naru owes Kitsune much more than just "friendship".
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#71
A dark, dark preview.


= = =



Opening his eyes, Keitaro let out a moan and rubbed the side of his head. Having a grenade explode against it always knocked him out for a bit, and this time was no different. “A-ow-ow… my head… What was that, thermobaric?” he asked as he got up.

When he stood, he remembered Kitsune. “Oh no, Kitsune!”

He looked around. No sign of Kitsune among the bodies in the room or in the hallway. That was an overwhelming relief-

Several gunshots rang out, it sounded like it came from upstairs.

“Crap!” he bolted down the glass hall, quickly following the trail of bullet holes and broken glass all the way to the main building of Jindai High School. Reaching the stairs, he tore up them without hesitation or thought, and promptly triggered the claymore mine waiting at the landing.

The blast and hundreds of steel bearings moving at high speed had thrown Keitaro against the wall, and shredded most of his clothes not destroyed by the earlier grenade attack. Stumbling forward, Keitaro groaned in pain and looked down at the remains of the mine. “Claymore…? Where did the Yakuza get a Claymore from?”

Brushing a few steel bearings from his hair, Keitaro slowly made his way up the next flight of stairs, and stopped when he saw the tripwire for the second Claymore. He narrowed his eyes and wisely stepped over it, before leaning down and making it safe with a skillful disabling of the arming mechanism. “Fool me once…”

He walked down the hallway, approaching the lone open classroom door, and stopped when he looked inside. “Kitsune…?”

Kitsune was sitting on the floor of the classroom, leaning against the wall behind her was a memorial shrine. In front of her, the Yakuza she had killed laid there.

“Kitsune?” he repeated as he stepped closer. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t respond to him, just tightened her grip on the pistol.

“Kitsune, we should get moving. There are still enemies around.” He stepped towards her, and knelt down to her level. When she didn’t move or react, he crept closer. “Kitsune…?”

He waved his hand in front of her face, and then pushed back her hair; her eyes were open, but her expression was despondent, and her gaze was entirely blank. Her only signs of life were her steady breathing, and the slight shaking of the pistol she gripped.

Keitaro lowered his hand from her face, before he gently took the pistol from her hands and set it aside. She didn’t attempt to stop him. Nor did she resist when he took her and pulled her into a tight hug, resting her face against his chest. He looked back at the shrine, and then down at her.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly, “It’s me, Kitsune, I’m here. What happened?”

Kitsune didn’t respond at first, before she buried her face against his chest. “We need to go, are you okay?”

“No I’m not…” Kitsune whispered back.

“What happened?”

“I’m… I’m just not, okay? I can’t right now… I can’t…”

This was an unsettling departure from the Kitsune he’d known to this point. She was deeply in shock, a complete shell of the vivacious tenant and ferocious killer that he’d seen to this point. This was not good, it was bad in every conceivable way.

Allowing Kitsune to rest against him, Keitaro noticed the burner cellphone lying next to her. He picked it up.

“I gotta call Haruka…” he whispered as he dialed her number.

At Tokyo Tower, Su perked up when she noticed a call incoming behind the visor of the complicated headset she wore. “Auntie, it’s Kitsune. Patching it to you!”

Haruka answered the call and brought the phone to her ear. “What’s going on?”

“Auntie it’s me, Keitaro, just like you said it was going to be a trap,” Keitaro answered.

Haruka rolled her eyes. “What did I tell you?”

“Listen to me for a second,” Keitaro said, “Kitsune’s messed up right now. The place they brought us to… it did something to her. She’s completely shut down!”

Haruka paused. “Shut down?”

“This place triggered it, I don’t know what…”

“Keitaro, where did they take you?” Haruka asked levelly.

“An old High School in Minato, close to the bay. It’s fenced off and abandoned, I think the sign said Jindai…”

“Shit!” Haruka hissed, cutting him off. “Those bastards know that much?! Keitaro, focus on keeping Kitsune alive; when we’re done here I will come for you. Can you do that?”

“Of course, but I don’t understand, what happened here?” Keitaro asked.

“I can’t talk right now. Just get Kitsune to come back around and get somewhere safe. Can you do that?” she repeated for emphasis.

After a moment to glance at Kitsune, Keitaro nodded. “I can. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Good luck, Keitaro,” Haruka said before ending the call.

She turned to Su. “Su-chan. Spread the word, wipe out the Takimaru Group. No survivors.”

Su beamed at the opportunity to give the order. “Okay!”

Back in the abandoned school, Kitsune remained listless, still offering no resistance to Keitaro as he pulled her into a corner of the classroom, out of the view of the windows, and sat down with her in his lap. He stroked her hair, as he held her, patiently waiting for her to recover from her shock, but still keeping his ears to the world around him. He didn’t know if there was more trap to spring, but if there was… he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to protect her like this.

“You act like that is a difficult question.”

He ignored the voice with all his might. He didn’t need that right now.

Sighing, he looked towards the shrine in the classroom, and blinked several times as he tried to understand it. He looked down at Kitsune. “Kitsune… do… do you want to talk about it?”

Kitsune didn’t verbally respond, she only tightened her grip.

He leaned closer to her. “Kitsune, I know it's hard… but I need you to help me. I’ve learned that talking about it helps.”

“No. Not to you.”

Keitaro blinked. “Huh?”

“I can’t tell you,” she whispered, “I can’t… I can’t…”

She began to whimper, muttering “I can’t” between her hopeless sobs. Hearing her break down again, Keitaro looked again at the shrine before looking back down at her.

“Did… did you go to this school, Kitsune?” he asked.

Kitsune stopped shuddering, even her breathing stopped.

Keitaro nodded, understanding. “It happened while you were here, didn’t it?”

It was quiet after that, before Keitaro heard her breathe out slowly. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” she replied with a voice barely above a whisper, before taking a deep breath, “I did it.”

Keitaro could feel ice in his veins all of a sudden, tickling the shock that flashed through his system after hearing that. He stared down at her, his eyes large with complete disbelief.

“I did it,” she said again. “I killed them.”

She let out a small chuckle. “I shot each and every one of them, clean and efficient. My classmates… my friends… the boy I was in love with… I killed them all.”

Kitsune let out a soft, hysterical giggling.

Keitaro couldn’t wrap his head around it, as so many emotions suddenly clashed with each other. He stared down at her, disgust and horror were winning.

“W-why…?” he asked.

“Because I’m a monster, Keitaro,” she whispered, before she finally looked up at him. A twisted grin was spread across her tear-streaked face.

“I killed them because I could.”
 

Prince Charon

Well-Known Member
#72
Oh, dear.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#73
Continuing immediately from where the last snippet we left off, we have this snippet.


= = =


She let herself fall backward onto the floor, and laid there with her arms splayed. Silently, Keitaro just watched as she jarringly wavered between laughing and crying, as if she couldn’t control either.

He closed his eyes, and sighed, before he slowly stood up. “Kitsune, I…”

He noticed something out the corner of his eye and looked to his right when he opened them. He saw out across the courtyard from the school, and saw in the opposite classroom a man in a dark suit and tie aiming a scoped M16 at his face. His eyes widened, just as the man fired his rifle right between his eyes.

On impact, Keitaro crumpled to the floor, falling over Kitsune and knocking the wind out of her.

“Oof! K-Keitaro?!” she gasped.

“Sniper,” he whispered to her as he glanced to make sure he was out of the man’s sight, “He’s across the way from us. He brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed the spot where the bullet struck. “… That felt like a 5x56… an M16?”

Kitsune looked towards the window. “… Did you get a look at him?”

“He was taller than me and wearing a suit and tie,” Keitaro replied before Kitsune covered his mouth. “Mph?”

She had gone completely quiet, straining to listen in the darkness.

She could hear footsteps moving deliberately down the hallway, towards their location. ‘He’s on the move… coming this way.”

Keitaro pulled away from her and stood up. “We need to get out of here, Kitsune, come on.”

Kitsune didn’t budge from where she laid.

Keitaro tensed. “Kitsune, we have to move!”

Kitsune took a deep breath, and sighed. “No, you go.”

That was the last thing he wanted to hear. He quickly knelt down and took her arm. “Kitsune, you need to get up, or I will pick you up.”

Kitsune listened. The gunman had come around the last corner, and was walking slowly towards their position. “I want to stay here,” she said quietly, “Just… just go and leave me, okay?”

Keitaro immediately pulled at her. “No, we’re leaving, right now!”

Kitsune yanked her arm away, and stared up at Keitaro. “You leave, or stay… I don’t care.”

She laid back. “I’m a monster, Keitaro. I killed them all, when I didn’t have to. I could’ve just let them be.” She closed her eyes and laughed, he was almost at the door. “It’s fine if I die now.”

Keitaro looking towards the doorway, and hearing the footsteps himself, swore loudly. “Damn it!”

The next thing she knew, she was suddenly and forcibly yanked off the floor and thrown over Keitaro’s shoulders. He had lifted her up with almost no difficulty, as if she were as light as Shinobu. “H-huh?!”

Then he ran, charging for the broken windows of the classroom and jumping through one of them to fall the two stories to the ground. Gasping, Kitsune braced herself for the impact, but still had the wind knocked out of her when Keitaro landed hard on his feet.

He then took off into a run across the courtyard at almost superhuman speed, entering the shadows before jumping in throw another broken window to land in another dark classroom. Sliding to a halt, he took several deep breaths as he set Kitsune heavily onto the floor.

Stunned, Kitsune lay on the floor, before she turned around and looked up at Keitaro. “Keita… ro…?”

Keitaro slowly turned to look at her, she could see that his eyes had changed. His irises now a luminescent dark red, with a horizontal red line across his sclera.

“You’re not… the only monster…” he said as the glow in his eyes faded away.

Back in the classroom, the man who shot Keitaro puzzled over the scene in front of him. There had definitely been three people in this room before, now there was only the one corpse who had been shot dead. His target, and the young man he shot were no longer present, which was the source of the man’s confusion.

There weren’t many in the world who could get up after a shot to the head.

He walked up to the classroom window and looked down at the courtyard, bare of any grass barring a few tall weeds. In the dry dirt, he spotted the footprints Keitaro left behind.

“…”

The man the Takimaru Group hired to ensure that Mitsune Konno was dead knew exactly what sort of people he was going up against and he prepared accordingly, but even now this new durable variable threw his plan off just ever so slightly. He wasn’t perturbed, however.

Like any other job, whether he completed it or not depended on if his target could escape his sights, and none ever did.

The man called Golgo 13 backed away from the window and melted into the darkness.

The hunt was on.

= = =

Surprise crossovers everywhere.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#74
And we're back!


= = =


Disclaimer: Why am I still writing disclaimers?


The phone clattered to the floor, the call ending, and Kitsune lay perfectly still on her back holding her smoking sidearm. In front of her, a man lay on the ground, blood quickly spreading from the massive gunshot wound in his arm. It was the Yakuza she’d chased off before, he had come back.

Why? She didn’t care. Lowering the smoking pistol, her eyes immediately darted to the door.

There was no one else. She couldn’t hear any other sounds or movements. Just her own labored breathing and the moans of pain from the man she just shot.

Standing up slowly, Kitsune struggled to steady herself, but even with the lungfuls of air she took in, she felt like she was suffocating.

“Mitsune what-?!” she heard a girl shout before gunfire cut her short.

Turning, and using the wall to support herself, Kitsune slowly shuffled over to the door with her head bowed.

“No! NO-!” another student yelled in her head before the thunder of gunfire ended it.

Stopping, she repeatedly curled her fingers around the grip of her pistol as she struggled again with her breath.

“Mitsune, why?!” an adult’s voice asked, gunfire answered.

Reaching the Yakuza, she looked down at him lying there, holding his wound. For a moment, she saw a slightly overweight, glasses-wearing boy staring up at her with tears in his glazing eyes as he clutched the gunshot wounds in his chest.

Lifting up her pistol, she pointed it at his head and fired until the gun was empty.

A younger Kitsune, holding the now empty pistol, let the empty magazine slide from the grip and hit the floor with a clatter. She slowly turned around, seeing the bodies of her classmates, and at a window splattered with blood… where in front stood a younger Naru–her hair cut sloppily short and her body covered in blood–staring in horror and disbelief.

“Mitsune… h-how could you…?”

The present Kitsune lowered her pistol and stared at the floor after she sat down next to the dead Yakuza, her gaze unfocusing.

“It was a mistake.”


Love Hina: The Merry Killers
Chapter 10: FOXDIE



Kitagami looked down at the phone when it made its call ended beep, and looked over to his boss. “It’s done.”

Takimaru nodded. “We can now return to the matter at hand.”

Kitagami turned towards Itachi, whose defiance had evaporated almost entirely.

“Now, now. You still have a family left, don’t you? Two more daughters? A wife, estranged as she is,” Kitagami said, “Tell us who your people are, and you won’t have to bury them as well.”

Itachi kept his eyes to the ground, his expression sullen.

Kitagami smirked. “Nothing to say now, hm?”

Takimaru’s elderly face contorted in another sneer, if but for a moment, before he nodded to his Senior Advisor. Like lightning, Kitagami punched Itachi across his face, knocking him down on his side.

Itachi rolled onto his back, fresh blood running from his nose. “Tell me, old timer, how does it feel to have wasted the last sixty years of your life?”

Takimaru tightened his grip on his cane. “I’ve wasted nothing.”

Itachi let out a long sigh “You’re old Takimaru, old enough to be my old man. So old you can barely hold that cane, let alone a gun. You’ve been running rackets since the occupation, and while you’re the biggest in Tokyo, better men have died passing on bigger things to their successors than you’ve ever achieved.”

Takimaru’s good eye narrowed at Itachi.

“Your work has never measured up to your ambition. You could never extend your reach past Tokyo, and you know it,” Itachi continued, “You don’t want to die with unsatisfied ambition, that’s why we’re here, not because my little girl made short work of your men; but because we have the power you need.”

Kitagami moved to strike Itachi again, when Takimaru held out his arm, stopping him. His cane shaking in his grip, Takimaru finally responded. “Yes, that’s it precisely. We did a lot of research into your family.”

He grinned. “To think that in this world, assassins like those from the days of old still existed. Genuine ninja!”

Itachi grimaced at the look of glee on Takimaru’s face, but said nothing.

“You’re not singing the same tune you were before, Konno, and that’s good,” Takimaru congratulated, “I want you to sing a new song. The names of the people you work for, the clients who’ve given you money to kill. I want to know who backs you up, and cleans up your messes… I want all of those secrets.”

To kill for money is the dirtiest of professions, but worse than hired killers were always the people who hired them. To know who hired the Konno and supported them in their work would give the Takimaru Group unparalleled control over them. Blackmail, extortion, influence anywhere from the street to the media to the Diet itself…

“Cough them up while you still have family to protect quickly, Konno,” Kitagami advised, “Otherwise your wife and daughters are going to wish we killed them.”

Itachi closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

- - -

Opening his eyes, Keitaro let out a moan and rubbed the side of his head. Having a grenade explode against it always knocked him out for a bit, and this time was no different. “A-ow-ow… my head… What was that, thermobaric?” he asked as he got up.

When he stood, he remembered Kitsune. “Oh no, Kitsune!”

He looked around. No sign of Kitsune among the bodies in the room or in the hallway. That was an overwhelming relief-

Several gunshots rang out, it sounded like it came from upstairs.

“Crap!” he bolted down the glass hall, quickly following the trail of bullet holes and broken glass all the way to the main building of Jindai High School. Reaching the stairs, he tore up them without hesitation or thought, and promptly triggered the claymore mine waiting at the landing.

The blast and hundreds of steel bearings moving at high speed had thrown Keitaro against the wall, and shredded most of his clothes not destroyed by the earlier grenade attack. Stumbling forward, Keitaro groaned in pain and looked down at the remains of the mine. “Claymore…? Where did the Yakuza get a Claymore from?”

Brushing a few steel bearings from his hair, Keitaro slowly made his way up the next flight of stairs, and stopped when he saw the tripwire for the second Claymore. He narrowed his eyes and wisely stepped over it, before leaning down and making it safe with a skillful disabling of the arming mechanism. “Fool me once…”

He walked down the hallway, approaching the lone open classroom door, and stopped when he looked inside. “Kitsune…?”

Kitsune was sitting on the floor of the classroom, leaning against the wall behind her was a memorial shrine. In front of her, the Yakuza she had killed laid there.

“Kitsune?” he repeated as he stepped closer. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t respond to him, just tightened her grip on the pistol.

“Kitsune, we should get moving. There are still enemies around.” He stepped towards her, and knelt down to her level. When she didn’t move or react, he crept closer. “Kitsune…?”

He waved his hand in front of her face, and then pushed back her hair; her eyes were open, but her expression was despondent, and her gaze was entirely blank. Her only signs of life were her steady breathing, and the slight shaking of the pistol she gripped.

Keitaro lowered his hand from her face, before he gently took the pistol from her hands and set it aside. She didn’t attempt to stop him. Nor did she resist when he took her and pulled her into a tight hug, resting her face against his chest. He looked back at the shrine, and then down at her.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly, “It’s me, Kitsune, I’m here. What happened?”

Kitsune didn’t respond at first, before she buried her face against his chest. “We need to go, are you okay?”

“No I’m not…” Kitsune whispered back.

“What happened?”

“I’m… I’m just not, okay? I can’t right now… I can’t…”

This was an unsettling departure from the Kitsune he’d known to this point. She was deeply in shock, a complete shell of the vivacious tenant and ferocious killer that he’d seen to this point. This was not good, it was bad in every conceivable way.

Allowing Kitsune to rest against him, Keitaro noticed the burner cellphone lying next to her. He picked it up.

“I gotta call Haruka…” he whispered as he dialed her number.

At Tokyo Tower, Su perked up when she noticed a call incoming behind the visor of the complicated headset she wore. “It’s Kitsune. Patching it to you!”

Haruka answered the call and brought the phone to her ear. “What’s going on?”

“Auntie it’s me, Keitaro,” Keitaro answered.

“Is everything okay?” Haruka asked.

“It isn’t,” Keitaro said, “Kitsune’s messed up right now. The place they brought us to… it did something to her. She’s completely shut down!”

Haruka paused. “Shut down?”

“This place triggered it, I don’t know what…”

“Keitaro, where did they take you?” Haruka asked levelly.

“An old High School in Minato, close to the bay. It’s fenced off and abandoned, I think the sign said Jindai…”

“Those bastards know that much?” Haruka muttered, “Keitaro, focus on keeping Kitsune alive; when we’re done here I will come for you. Can you do that?”

“Of course, but I don’t understand, what happened here?” Keitaro asked.

“I can’t talk right now. Just get Kitsune to come back around and get somewhere safe. Can you do that?” she repeated for emphasis.

After a moment to glance at Kitsune, Keitaro nodded. “I can. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Good luck, Keitaro,” Haruka said before ending the call.

She turned to Su. “Su-chan. Spread the word, we’re wiping out the Takimaru Group. No survivors.”

Su beamed at the opportunity to give the order. “Okay!”

- - -

“You’ve wasted your time,” Itachi finally said with a small smile. “Your money too, all on some very dumb decisions.”

Hearing his remark and finding his returned amusement annoying, Kitagami grabbed Itachi by his short hair and tilted his head back to look him in the eyes. “Repeat that, Konno?”

“We’re not allowed to betray them, or they would kill us all too,” Itachi replied.

Takimaru sneered. “What?”

“In case you don’t get it, let me make it abundantly clear: We of the Konno family are not seen as people in this country. We are property.”

Both men stopped, and stared at Itachi’s face as his smile became a grin. He let out a dark laugh.

“I understand your surprise, but it’s true. We Konno own nothing, control nothing. We are bound by blood to serve without question give all we call ours to our Masters. If we are ordered to die, we die. If we’re ordered to kill, we kill. If we must slaughter women, children, and even the ones we love to satisfy them? We do.”

He looked towards the old man. “We’re even lower than you burakumin. Just us, this one sole family. We’re animals.”

Kitagami took a step back, stunned into silence, before a furious Takimaru gestured to the window of his office, and the skyline of Tokyo. “Don’t joke with me! No power in Japan is greater than the Yakuza, we rebuilt this country, our influence spans from the gutters to the top of the Diet. The police, the media, the defense forces all of it have been bent to our will time and again. But you… you slaves exist in a world beyond that.”

He hobbled over and grabbed Itachi by his gray hair. He brought his weathered face close to his and bellowed like a beast. “Who gave you such power?!”

Itachi chuckled. “Tsk, tsk, what did I just tell you about defying our masters? We can’t.”

“Who is your Master, then?” Kitagami asked.

“Think about it, you whipper-snapper. Who in this country has power beyond even the Yakuza? The Diet? The Self-Defense Forces? Who in this country, commands power so great that all of Japan bends to Him? It’s not too difficult, the answer is on the tip of your tongue.”

Kitagami snarled in frustration. “Should I just kill him now?”

Itachi quickly shook his head. “Wait, not yet! I want to see the looks on your faces.”

Kitagami looked down at Itachi. “For what?”

Takimaru’s desk phone rang.

Looking from Itachi to the phone, Takimaru nodded for Kitagami to pick it up.

With a glare at Itachi, he did just that. “This is Kitagami, what is it?”

“Hello Yuji Kitagami, my name is Haruka Urashima,” Haruka answered.

When he heard the soft, deep voice of the woman who called him, Kitagami narrowed his eyes. ”Urashima?”

Haruka let out a slight huff. “We are the ones who own the Konno Family.”

“Hi Daddy~” Itachi replied in a high falsetto, like a prostitute addressing their pimp.

“Is that so?” Kitagami snapped at Haruka, “I’m curious how you were able to trace that phone back to us.”

“It wasn’t very hard. You really shouldn’t use AV actresses’ credit cards for such important purchases. Burners should always be bought with cash, it makes them harder to track.”

Haruka looked over to Su, who was practically coordinating an entire military operation with her thoughts alone. “Not that it would’ve helped.”

Kitagami tightened his grip on the phone. “If he ‘belongs to you’ then good; we have matters to discuss.”

“There is nothing to discuss. I just wanted to help you understand the scope of your folly, so you’re not confused by what’s about to happen,” Haruka said forcefully.

Kitagami was not intimidated. “Do you intend to wage a war?”

“A war implies you’re going to be able to fight back.”

Kitagami sneered. “Do you think we’re so helpless?”

“Absolutely,” Haruka reassured him, as she gave a nod to Su, “You have some incoming calls. I’ll call you back.”

She abruptly ended the call, and soon as she did, Takimaru’s phone began ringing, and the call waiting lights all came on one after another, flashing in their urgency. The normally fearsome Kitagami looked upon the phone with surprise before he pressed the button on one.

“Boss! Get the old man out of town, quick!” he heard an underboss yell in terror.

Kitagami tensed. “What is it?!”

“It’s the police! We’re being raided!”

On the other end of the phone line, an underboss in a cheap red suit watched from behind the bulletproof glass of his Night Club’s VIP box as before his very eyes, men who looked like they were dressed as Tokyo Metro Police SAT officers opened fire on every Yakuza they saw, skillfully avoiding the fleeing patrons and hitting the gangsters.

Several soldiers who fled for the doors with the crowd and outside quickly fell into the sights of SAT officers atop a roof, wearing a solid visor like Kaolla Su’s. On the screen on the inside, facial recognition software quickly identified the faces of the Yakuza members among the club patrons, before opening fire with rifles connected to the helmets by heavy cables.

“What the…? They’re just killing everyone?!” the underboss said before he noticed a SAT enter the secured front entrance of the club with a weapon definitely not in the Tokyo Metro Police’s arsenal, an RPG-7.

The underboss knew he was dead, the moment the launcher was pointed at him. “These aren’t cops, who the hell are these guys?!”

An incredibly loud sound followed on Kitagami’s end, and the line disconnected. He quickly pressed the next line.

“This is Kitagami! What the hell is going on?!” Kitagami asked, and only heard gunfire. “No…”

The underboss who called him was already lying down on the ground, dead from numerous gunshots as SAT officers made short work of the Yakuza occupants in the building, a soapland. They moved with trained efficiency from room to room, mercilessly gunning down the Yakuza in front of stunned clients and employees where they spotted them with suppressed weapons.

Outside the soapland, a young couple–a beautiful, feminine, long-haired young man in jeans and a matching vest, with two loops of rope hanging off his belt, and a lovely woman dressed as a miko wearing a straw hat over her long black hair–oversaw the operation quietly from the side of the SAT van that brought them there. Above the van, a yellowish bird set down on a power line and flapped its wings before watching raptly.

“What’s happening?!” Takimaru demanded.

Kitagami looked over, his shock becoming fury. “Konno’s people are on the move, they’re attacking our businesses.”

He quickly answered another line, recognizing the number as one of the organization’s cache of weapons. “What’s the situation down there?!”

“That’s what we want to know, boss!” another underboss in a shipping warehouse asked as his men tore open crates loaded with various weapons and ammunition. “I’m getting calls from my men that we’re being raided by the Police or the Russians or something. No one’s telling me anything! I got my guys arming up, but no one else is talking or answering their phones.”

Kitagami sighed in relief. “Get as many men as you can down to our places in Ginza. We are under attack and we need to fight them off! It’s all out war!”

“Who are they, the Russians?!” Takimaru demanded from Itachi.

“Oh man, Russians,” Itachi laughed, “You wish.”

The underboss then heard a commotion from his men, and looked back. “Hang on, there’s something going on.”

The fearsome Kitagami actually went pale, then. “Get out of there, now!”

Sadly, he went unheard as the underboss drew a pistol and went to confront the cause of the commotion in the warehouse.

“Who the hell are you?!” he asked before he froze where he stood, overcome with a paralyzing, smothering terror. Unable to move any other part of his body, his eyes darted around, looking fearfully at the other Yakuza. They too were unable to move from the fear that filled them.

At the entrance to the shipping warehouse was the source of their terror: a woman in a simple blue and violet kimono stood under the overhead lights.

She shrugged her shoulders, and the kimono seemed to melt from her to the floor, revealing an athletic body adorned with black flower tattoos on her arms, legs, sides and back, while her shoulders sported the tattoos of snarling demon faces. Underneath the kimono, she wore only lace bra and string panties, and leggings held up by a garter belt that also held several banana clips for the drum-magazine equipped Kalashnikov Rifle she carried in her right hand.

Lifting the rifle and chambering the first round, she pointed it at the Yakuza as the lights in the warehouse went out one by one until there was nothing but darkness.

The gunfire that followed from the receiver was ignored by Kitagami, as a bright flash illuminated the Tokyo Skyline. Turning to look at it, he watched as one of the Takimaru Group’s most expensive assets, a yet-to-open five-star grand hotel in the middle of Ginza District, began a tumultuous collapse after suffering several large explosions in its lower floors.

Takimaru himself saw the building’s collapse, and he promptly let his cane fall to the floor with a clatter.

“My, my, they blew that up? Haruka-chan, you’re vicious.” Itachi then hummed. “Wait a tad, hey old timer, don’t you guys run a casino cruise out in Tokyo Bay? Oh man, all those people…”

Takimaru and Kitagami both felt a wave of shock course through them, as they shared a disbelieving look.

“They wouldn’t!” Takimaru growled.

“They will,” Itachi said, “You see, you’ve gone and stepped into a world you don’t belong.”

At that moment, on the main deck of the casino cruise liner M/V Diamond Regalia, passengers and crew alike gawked in confusion as a helicopter hovered over its bow and slowly winched down a large metal container. When it touched down, the helicopter immediately and haphazardly cut the cable and took off as fast as it could into the night,with no running lights and a surprisingly quieter rotor noise than a normal helicopter.

“You’ve stumbled into the real Japan.”

A few moments after the helicopter was a safe distance away, an electronic lock disengaged and the doors slowly swung open. From inside the container, carrying in her hands a pair of modified automatic shotguns, Red stepped out and looked around at the people staring back at her.

She smiled.

“And you won’t escape so easily.”

And at that moment, the lights of the Takimaru Group’s building were shut off, plunging them into darkness. The blackout rolled down from the roof down, causing confusion and surprise among the Yakuza who occupied the building as their lights went out as well.

On the roof of the building, Naru finished securing her rappelling line and looked to Motoko. “Ready?”

Motoko, her line secured, nodded to Naru. “Yes, senpai.”

“Then let’s go.”

They both stepped onto the ledge, with their backs to the city below, before they kicked off it and began their descent.

- - -

Back in the abandoned school, Kitsune remained listless, still offering no resistance to Keitaro as he pulled her into a corner of the classroom, and sat down next to her. He stroked her hair, as he held her, patiently waiting for her to recover from her shock, but still keeping his ears to the world around him. He didn’t know if there was more trap to spring, but if there was… he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to protect her like this.

“You act like that is a difficult question.”

He ignored the voice with all his might. He didn’t need that right now.

Sighing, he looked towards the shrine in the classroom, and blinked several times as he tried to understand it. He looked down at Kitsune. “Kitsune… do… do you want to talk about it?”

Kitsune didn’t respond.

“Kitsune, I know it's hard… but I need you to help me. I’ve learned that talking about it helps.”

“No. Not to you.”

Keitaro blinked. “Huh?”

“I can’t tell you,” she whispered, “I can’t… I can’t…”

She began to whimper, muttering “I can’t” between her hopeless sobs. Hearing her break down again, Keitaro looked again at the shrine before looking back down at her.

“Did… did you go to this school, Kitsune?” he asked.

Kitsune stopped shuddering, even her breathing stopped.

Keitaro nodded, understanding. “It happened while you were here, didn’t it?”

It was quiet after that, before Keitaro heard her breathe out slowly. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” she replied with a voice barely above a whisper, before taking a deep breath, “I did it.”

Keitaro could feel ice in his veins all of a sudden, tickling the shock that flashed through his system after hearing that. He stared down at her, his eyes large with complete disbelief.

“I did it,” she said again. “I killed them. I shot each and every one of them, clean and efficient. My classmates… my friends… the boy I was in love with… I killed them all.”

Kitsune let out a soft, hysterical giggling.

Keitaro couldn’t wrap his head around it what he just heard. He stared down at her, disgust and horror threatening his worry for her, but not quite winning.

“W-why…?” he asked.

“Because I’m a monster,” she whispered, before she finally looked up at him. A twisted grin was spread across her tear-streaked face.

“I killed them because I could.”

She let herself fall onto her side, and laid there curled up into a ball. Silently, Keitaro just watched as she jarringly wavered between laughing and crying, as if she couldn’t control either.

He closed his eyes, and sighed, before he slowly stood up. “Kitsune, I…”

He noticed something out the corner of his eye and looked to his right when he opened them. He saw out across the courtyard from the school, and saw in the opposite classroom a man in a dark suit and tie aiming a scoped M16 at his face. His eyes widened, just as the man fired his rifle right between his eyes.

On impact, Keitaro crumpled to the floor, falling over Kitsune and knocking the wind out of her.

“Keitaro?” she gasped.

“Sniper,” he whispered to her as he glanced to make sure he was out of the man’s sight.

Kitsune coughed and rolled him off her. She could hear footsteps. Whoever had shot Keitaro, probably the same man responsible for all this high tech equipment, was walking towards them.

“He’s coming,” she whispered.

Keitaro got up. “We have to get out of here.”

Kitsune didn’t budge from where she laid.

Keitaro tensed. “Kitsune, we have to move!”

Kitsune took a deep breath, and sighed. “No, you go.”

That was the last thing he wanted to hear. He quickly knelt down and took her arm. “Kitsune, you need to get up, or I will pick you up.”

Kitsune listened. The gunman had come around the last corner, and was walking slowly towards their position. “I want to stay here,” she said quietly, “Just… just go and leave me, okay?”

Keitaro immediately pulled at her. “No, we’re leaving, right now!”

Kitsune yanked her arm away, and stared up at Keitaro. “You leave, or stay… I don’t care.”

She laid back. “I’m a monster, Keitaro. I killed them all, when I didn’t have to. I could’ve just let them be.”

She closed her eyes and laughed, he was almost at the door. “It’s fine if I die now.”

Keitaro looking towards the doorway, and hearing the footsteps himself, swore loudly. “Damn it!”

The next thing she knew, she was suddenly and forcibly yanked off the floor and thrown over Keitaro’s shoulders. He had lifted her up with almost no difficulty, as if she were as light as Shinobu. “H-huh?!”

Then he ran, charging for the broken windows of the classroom and jumping through one of them to fall the two stories to the ground. Gasping, Kitsune braced herself for the impact, but still had the wind knocked out of her when Keitaro landed hard on his feet.

He then took off into a run across the courtyard at almost superhuman speed, entering the shadows before jumping in throw another broken window to land in another dark classroom. Sliding to a halt, he took several deep breaths as he set Kitsune heavily onto the floor.

Stunned, Kitsune lay on the floor, before she turned around and looked up at Keitaro. “K-Keitaro…?”

Keitaro slowly turned to look at her, she could see that his eyes had changed. His irises now a luminescent dark red, with a horizontal red line across his sclera.

“You’re not… the only monster…” he said as the glow in his eyes faded away.

Back in the classroom, the man who shot Keitaro puzzled over the scene in front of him. There had definitely been three people in this room before, now there was only the one corpse who had been shot dead. His target, and the young man he shot were no longer present, which was the source of the man’s confusion.

There weren’t many in the world who could get up after a shot to the head.

He walked up to the classroom window and looked down at the courtyard, bare of any grass barring a few tall weeds. In the dry dirt, he spotted the footprints Keitaro left behind.

“…”

The man the Takimaru Group hired to ensure that Mitsune Konno was dead knew exactly what sort of people he was going up against and he prepared accordingly, but even now this new durable variable threw his plan off just ever so slightly.

The man known as Duke Togo, but better as Golgo 13, wasn’t perturbed, however.

Like any other job, whether he completed it or not depended on if his target could escape his sights, and none ever did.

The hunt was on.


= = =


On a scale of 1 to Golgo 13, how fucked is Kitsune?
 

rukia8492

Well-Known Member
#75
she's FUCKED!!!!!!
 
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