And here we go! Reading back through it I'm amazed how much has gotten into this chapter, even though it's not near my longest. There are just so many little things... I hope you enjoy the detail.
Love, lore, action, pretty girls abound...
Chapter 23 – Love and a Pretty Girl"Stop pouting like that, Miyakko," Reina scolded. "It doesn't suit you. And when did you start being so lame? I thought you were actually competition for me. And I wouldn’t believe you’d actually get this way over a
girl too.”
“She’s not just a girl,” Miyabi mumbled angrily.
“Oh?” Reina responded, actually pulling herself up straight in the armchair. “Could have fooled me. She looks just like a little girl to me.”
“And what about you, great Captain?” Miyabi shot back. “What about you and her
little friend? I’m sure that’s just a completely different situation?”
“It is!” Reina replied with a prickly voice. “
I haven’t let myself become emotionally attached.
I’m not the one sitting around here moping because I got ditched for shopping with friends.” She may have gone on, but the next thing she knew she was face flat on the cold stone floor.
Miyabi stood above her seething, with her fists at her sides, one of them throbbing with the force of impact, but in pain she hardly noticed.
“Yeah?” she growled, admittedly maybe a little crazily. Well, Reina was quite good at pressing buttons, hers more than others’ it seemed. “And how’s that working out for you? If Airi hadn’t taken her away I bet she’d be all over you right now with not a thing you could do about it.”
Reina’s face turned up, and she held the back of her hand to a bleeding split lip. Despite that, a wide grin was blooming on her face. “Now
that’s the Miyakko I know!” She climbed back up onto the recliner, opening her mouth slowly and carefully as if testing whether anything was broken. “As for that, I’m sure it’ll work itself out in time. We won’t be here forever.”
Miyabi continued staring in her riled state at the girl who was still working her jaw. If Okai was anything like her friend, which would be easy to believe, she wasn’t sure about Reina’s confidence that it would just “work itself out”. Plus, she was a Skull. Reina of all people should know by now not to underestimate one of their own.
“Speaking of which,” Miyabi said finally, spinning and un-tensing herself. “I hate that we’re just sitting here while who knows what’s going on outside. I mean, we haven’t even heard anything from the Circle since they ran away from Seishin.”
“Oh get over it. You just want to go out and stalk down Suzuki so you can pull her into some dark alley and have your way with her…”
Miyabi stared at Reina, her anger flaring again. “It’s not like that,” she growled through gritted teeth.
“Whatever,” Reina said lazily, but that was enough for Miyabi, and she stalked out of the room, slamming the thick wooden door behind her.
She really was getting some kind of cabin fever in here. Wandering through the hallways, she tried to remember where the front door was, not like she’d know where to go once she was outside anyway.
“Hey! I’ve been looking for you. Where are you—” Mari said as she passed her at one point in a crossing hall, but she paid no attention and quickly ducked around another corner. She wasn’t feeling too sociable at the moment.
Apparently lost in the ancient house, she was beginning to get frustrated when she walked through a doorway into a large room, where at the other end some other girls were entering… except these were not the Skulls she expected to find around here.
“Miyakko!” Koharu waved, and ran over to Miyabi to hug her tightly.
“What the…” Miyabi said under the attack, trying to keep her balance with her arms out at her sides.
“We were so worried when you were taken to that prison… That was really serious!” Koharu pulled back and looked up at her. “We just went home to our families, but…”
Recovering from the shock of getting hugged by her Skulls kouhai, Miyabi looked over her shoulder to focus on the other girls who had entered. It looked like all of the group that was left from before, with the two Chinese transfers and Sugaya at the head, the last girl still carrying that scary-looking flail over her shoulder.
“We thought you were gone for good!” Koharu said, almost tearing up. “You, the Captain and Okacchan are all I have… It wasn’t a pleasant experience at home…” She shuddered as if terrified at just the memory.
After exchanging a seconds-long glance with Risako, who at the end of it smiled for one of the few times since the battle, Miyabi focused back on the girl in front of herself. “What? Do you think a few bars would hold us? Do you have so little faith in your Skulls senpai?” She set her hands at her hips, looking as if she was scolding the girl, but despite it Koharu giggled.
“Of course!” she said gleefully. “I don’t know what I was thinking…”
The leaders of the rest made their way over to the two of them, and Junjun spoke in a serious voice, “There’s a nationwide manhunt on for the four of you, you know.”
“It was in all of the papers this morning!” Linlin followed in a perkier voice. “They’re calling it the Seishin Massacre…” she continued, abruptly more somber. Miyabi looked at the three of them. Only Sugaya stayed silent, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Well we’ll just have to tell them the truth of it,” Miyabi said, still with her hands on her hips. “We can be quite persuasive, after all.”
“That you can,” stated Mari as she strode into the room smiling, flanked by Masae. The eyes of the older Nakazawa girls widened as they recognized the former Skull captain with her fiery-colored hair. “I wonder if you girls know you stand in the presence of royalty? Nay…” she corrected herself, peering intensely at Miyabi. “…divinity. Even if it may be divinity that doesn’t pay attention when her host is trying to tell her she has visitors.”
Not this again… Miyabi frowned, her face reddening slightly as well, and turned on the shorter girl. “Hey, I don’t want you to keep going on about that ridiculous myth of yours. Nobody in here is royalty,
or a god for goodness sake! I can’t say I understand what’s happening to me, but I know what I’m not.”
“If you say so, Highness,” Mari said, with a slight hint at a smirk. Miyabi wondered if she could get away with slugging this woman too…
“And Miya, speak for yourself!” Koharu spoke up, beaming. “
I’m going to be a princess some day after all!” Her eyes adopted a dreamy look. “All I have to do is marry the emperor’s son…”
Sugaya raised an eyebrow to Miyabi, and the two of them shared a soft laugh. “The day you do that, I’ll tell anyone I meet that I’m the Amaterasu’s daughter!” Miyabi teased at the girl. Some of the others joined in the laughing, but Mari and Masae didn’t.
For her part, Mari’s eyes seemed to shine as Miyabi looked into them. “Well you’d be close…” the woman pondered. “I’d guess you’re more a distant granddaughter of Tsukuyomi though…” Miyabi stared at her, and she wasn’t the only one. Did the girl think she was actually being serious?
“Speaking of which,” Mari continued. “Do you have any idea how you’ll claim your throne?” she asked, almost idly. “It looks like one of you has some initiative, but for the rest staying in here isn’t exactly going to get you anywhere… I know everyone loves my house, but after all it’s just a house.”
Miyabi stared at her a bit longer before turning away, taking a moment to look Sugaya up and down as she’s always enjoyed doing. The girl was much cleaner than she’d last seen her the morning after the battle. She wore an outfit nearly befitting the Skulls – baggy shorts with a shirt that even had some embroidered skulls in it. She also wore a cross pendant beneath her sleek baby curls. The only other girl she’d seen styling one of those was Reina.
She looked around at the others. They all appeared quite different actually. Junjun and Linlin both wore a rather formal plain blouse with a long skirt, looking nearly like professionals. Koharu’s outfit wasn’t too unlike Risako’s, but without the pendant. Instead, she touted a white bracelet set with skulls instead of beads. Her hair was knotted at the top before flaring straight down the back of her head.
Koharu apparently noticed her appraisal of them, because she smiled and said, “We thought that since we were your special forces now, we should have fully appropriate appearances too. Wearing black seifuku at Seishin was all and well… but you deserve something more.”
“Special forces?” Miyabi frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Generals need an army,” Mari said quietly with a faint smile. She gave a brief scan of all the girls as well, from the ones in front to Nakazawa’s Kamei and Michishige and the younger ones in the back. Miyabi wondered how the younger ones were even able to come along. Didn’t they have concerned parents? “And even though it’s small, and quite young, many would be proud to have yours.” The collection of girls beamed at her words.
“Generals?” Miyabi said, still frowning. “If you keep trying to make us out to be celebrities like this I might start to believe it…” she grumbled.
“You are what you are,” Mari responded cryptically as the girls looked expectantly up to Miyabi. “My words are not that powerful.”
After grumbling something unintelligible, Miyabi brushed past Koharu and out a door in a side of the room away from the girls. Here she was just so happy to see them and… She sighed. Reina would have a field day with this.
Resigning herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to find the front door, she sat down in a loveseat that happened to be in the room she currently passed through and stared at the dizzying patterns of the Chinese woven rug below her feet. She tried following the twists and turns with her mind, a mind which had without her bidding opened up to things she could never before have imagined. After a minute the patterns seemed to meld together for her, and she felt like they were trying to tell her something… like they were a code that only she could decipher…
With her concentration, she hadn’t even noticed someone take the seat next to her. A clang finally brought her out of her semi-trance, and she looked up to see Sugaya calmly considering her, her sleeve falling back as she rested her chin upon it. As her wrist bared, Miyabi noticed she too had a similar bracelet as Koharu. Hers looked different though. More authentic… as if whoever picked it out had a deeper perspective on things than the one who chose Koharu’s.
Miyabi’s eyes flickered to the flail the girl had set on the floor at the foot of the couch as she pulled up her legs to hug them to herself, still peering at Miyabi. “Hello,” Miyabi said dumbly. Her eyes were drawn to Sugaya’s wrist. Her skin was most definitely too pale. It was actually creamy…
“Why don’t you like the idea of being a leader?” the younger girl asked.
“What?” Miyabi responded, feeling stupid.
“Why don’t you like the idea of being a leader?” Sugaya repeated, not sounding the least bit put off by having to do so.
Miyabi stared at her. She really didn’t know what to say. The girl had never really talked to her since… Well, she’d never really talked to her. She remembered running into her and Airi in the corridors sometimes before any of this ever happened, and the girl usually just blushed and ran away or hid so quickly that Miyabi didn’t even bother to try and beat her up – even though privately Miyabi thought her too pretty to beat up.
And then, since her and Airi had been together, the girl had avoided both of them at nearly all costs. She still seemed to have that shyness, except there was more thoughtfulness in it now. It got to the point where Miyabi began to suspect about her previous relationship with her friend. Airi of course was too innocent and honest ever to have had something like that happen though…
Still, since the battle it had been different. Miyabi of course didn’t know what all the girl had been through, but she knew she somehow obtained the weapon she now was hardly ever seen without. Idly she wondered if she dragged the whole thing home with her before coming here.
“Um…” she began, trying to think of something to make her not sound like the thug that was all most Seishin students gave her credit for. “I just don’t like blazing trails. I’m more comfortable letting someone else do the work of being creative, and then taking credit for it.” She finished with a lopsided smile at the slight joke.
“Is that why you’re not the Captain of the Skulls?” Sugaya asked calmly.
Miyabi’s face flushed. “That…” she began. “That’s totally not how it is at all! It’s ‘cause Reina’s older. She has the seniority. Plus she’s obviously not bad at it.”
“Oh,” Sugaya responded, looking forward and resting her head on her knees. “You just seem stronger sometimes, more composed. Tanaka-san seems insane half the time. Of course, I’m not a Skull so I suppose I don’t know your rules and ways…”
While she stared ahead, Miyabi looked carefully at the side of her face, and after a short silence between them asked, “You and Airi are like best friends, right? Why have you been so completely ignoring both of us lately? Someone finally snatch up your pretty little head and start telling you to keep away?”
Without looking over, Sugaya smiled mysteriously after a moment. “It doesn’t matter,” she responded.
“Sure it does!” Miyabi insisted. “I can’t have my girl’s best friend suddenly fall out of her life. She’s been through a lot lately and needs all the support she can get. Okacchan is trying, but…” She frowned again. “She has enough on her own plate.”
“Okacchan?” Sugaya asked, furrowing her brows. “Oh, you mean Chisa.” She set her chin back in her knees. “You’d be surprised at the resources that little girl can pull on.”
Miyabi almost cracked a laugh at that. “You’re calling
her a little girl? You’re both second years, aren’t you?”
“We both were second years, yeah,” the girl responded. Miyabi was struck by her choice of words… in the past tense. “But you’ve actually looked at her, right?” she asked in mock disbelief. “The girl is a midget!”
Miyabi did laugh at that and grinned. “I guess I hadn’t noticed.” Then her grin faded in her stubbornness. “But you still haven’t answered my question.” This time Sugaya turned and gave her a long look.
“You have pretty eyes,” Miyabi blurted out, and immediately blushed. Apparently Sugaya did too.
“Uh… thanks,” she replied awkwardly, then looked up at the ceiling.
“Do you hate me?” Miyabi asked, serious again. “I’m sorry if I… stole Airi from you…”
Sugaya turned to look at her again before returning her eyes to the ceiling. “Do you remember the beginning of last year, when my class had just arrived for our first year?” Miyabi nodded. “You were mean to most of us. Called it our ‘initiation’.”
Miyabi smiled at the memory. “Yes, I remember that,” she said. “
Flight of the First Years is what we like to call it. It’s an annual tradition.”
Sugaya gave her an exasperated look. “It wasn’t funny,” she said seriously, tilting over to knock her shoulder gently against Miyabi’s. "
I was one of those first years you sent flying that time.”
“Really?” Miyabi pondered, scratching her chin. “I don’t remember… You sure there wasn’t another Sugaya there?”
“It was me,” the girl responded bitterly. “But the occasion did have quite an effect on me. Do you remember the times you ran into me for the rest of the year afterward?’
“Yeah,” Miyabi responded, certain of her recollection this time. “You were always with Airi, but always hiding behind her or running away from us…”
“From you,” Sugaya corrected, and Miyabi’s eyebrows drew down.
“Why from me?” she asked, confused. The Skulls were supposed to be equally feared. She of course knew she was something to be reckoned with on her own, but it was unusual for…
“Because I had a crush on you,” Sugaya said, carefully keeping her face forward, though Miyabi noticed a light blush come to her cheeks. Miyabi kept her mouth closed, not quite sure what to say. The girl turned to her, an earnest look in her eyes. “Because I like you… I think I may even love you.”
This time Miyabi turned away, trying to keep her own face from heating. The girl had felt like this for that long? Then why did she always run away from her? Surely it couldn’t be true, and in any case… “I’m with Airi,” she said, perhaps a bit more bluntly than she would have liked.
She heard a sigh from beside her. “Then you see why it doesn’t matter.” Suddenly, Sugaya quickly rose and grasped the handle of her weapon. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you. Like you said, she is my best friend.” With that she left, Miyabi not even looking up to see her go.
Seriously. Was this “let’s fuck with Miyabi” month? She has women bowing to her and calling her royalty. She found a girl she thought she might be able to love, but who she can’t understand for the life of her and has a power even more inscrutable that honestly scares her.
Then the girl she thought was perhaps the prettiest in the school before Airi said she might be in love with her… And to top it off, she has three insane former house heads with incredible powers that want to take over the world loose and who knows where. Not to mention her own powers, even though she thought she was beginning to understand them at least.
Through all of that, she searched with her mind for the only one she completely trusted to turn to.
Airi… where are you?…
“What’s the matter, Osuzu?” Chisato asked, giving Airi a concerned look, even though her face had been nearly permanently set that way since they met up after she bought her new clothes.
Airi stared into the distance at something that wasn’t there. She thought she heard something, a voice in her head, but it was faint. It sounded almost desperate though…
“It’s nothing,” she said, and walked on, pulling her friend with her. Chisato hadn’t dared to let go of her hand since Daikanyama.
“I’m worried about you…” Chisato said slowly, looking up at her from time to time as they walked the remaining distance from the station to Mari’s house. Huge structures that looked forbidding with their wrought iron gates and generally high hedges loomed around them in the fading light.
Airi pondered as she walked. Her parents would never let her walk around the city alone this late at night. Her parents… she wondered if they knew how she was doing. They must be terribly frightened after hearing in all the papers today about their escape from the prison. She could almost hear her mother being interviewed by the police.
“But I don’t know how she could have done something like that, officer! She’s such a good child, with only the best grades. She would never…! It must be those friends of hers,” she’d say with a tight face.
“I don’t know why that school ever let them stay, and now we’re seeing why. They’re corrupting such a good, innocent…” After all that happened, Airi wondered how innocent she really was. Surely she couldn’t be anymore. She raised her white-gloved hands. She swore she could almost see an illusion of blood soaking through the pure fabric. Suddenly, she nearly tore the gloves off and stuffed them into the bag in which she carried her old clothes. She had no business wearing something so pure. The memory of the kiss she’d just shared with her sworn enemy, and how hot and excited she’d felt during it, flashed hard in her mind. No business at all.
She felt a hand tighten on hers, and although she didn’t say anything, Airi turned to notice that Chisato’s expression seemed to be evolving into ever more serious worry. Presently she smiled and reached her hand over to tap the one that held her other comfortingly. “I’m all right. Really.” She looked ahead again.
“I think we’re almost there. That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, pointing to a house that was set a bit further back from the others, seemingly as if trying to hide itself among all the trees shielding it.
“Yeah,” Chisato responded, looking at it too. “What... are you going to do when you get back?”
“Hmm, I thought I might have dinner. It’s a bit late, but I’m starving.” Her friend nodded as they pushed a button and entered the gate as it opened for them.
A few minutes later they walked into a large sitting room that seemed just full of people. Chisato cried out and released Airi’s hand to run over to Risako, smiling and hugging her. Airi smiled too. She was glad, despite all else that happened, that her two friends had become closer throughout it all.
She looked around at the assembly. It seemed everyone was there, and no few of them were staring at her new outfit. Some even burst into random, awkward giggling before thinking better of it. Then one burst out of the crowd, and Airi felt glued to her spot as the girl, seeming to somehow suddenly have quite a remarkable presence, marched up to her. A second later, she was being squeezed tightly and kissed for all she was worth.
She had a hard time returning to the real world, but eventually she could hear enough to know some of the other girls were cheering and whooping at the display. Eventually she was released, which she was grateful for since she had almost completely lost her breath, and Miyabi held her eyes firmly and strongly.
“Don’t ever do that again…” the girl told her in a low voice, but one that was also unbelievably warm and loving.
Airi tried to look away, but for some reason couldn’t. It was like a spell had been cast on her.
“Do what…?” she breathed, in what she decided had to be barely audible.
“Leave me,” Miyabi responded, and Airi felt something squeeze within her chest.
“I…” she said, and she somehow wiggled herself out of Miyabi’s grasp and walked a few steps away.
“So the prodigal goddess has returned!” came a voice from across the room, and Airi turned slightly to see Mari sauntering in. She had to look past Miyabi to see her, who seemed to have eyes for no one but her. She cast a glance off to the side at her friends, and Chisato was babbling excitedly, if unsmilingly, while Risako just listened quietly with her head bowed, not seeming to want to see anyone. Airi sighed internally. She’d thought the girl had come out of her shell somewhat since the battle too.
“Now that you’re all together, you can decide what to…” Mari began. “…What on earth are you wearing, Suzuki-san?”
Airi turned to the woman who owned the house she’d invaded. “Don’t you like it?” she asked, spinning to show how the dress flared. “I look quite the part of the Princess now, don’t I? I even had gloves, but I took them off…”
She saw Miyabi blink too as if she just now realized what Airi wore. Then her face flushed.
“Oh my god, I must look like a pedo…” she mumbled under her breath, but loud enough for Airi to hear. Airi smiled. Well, at least perhaps the girl wouldn’t be kissing her like that anytime too soon again. She wasn’t sure if she could handle any more of...
Mari continued staring for a moment before adopting an expression of wonder. “So you do,” she said with a grin, and turned to Miyabi, as well as Reina, who Airi noticed was just now also loping out of the crowd to join them. Airi frowned. She wished she could do something about that leg, but knew that it wasn’t within her capabilities.
Mari bowed to her.
The woman actually bowed…! Then she continued on as if the Princess was being obstinate. “Is there anything you wish for? I’m glad to see you didn’t seem to run into any trouble while you were out. After the papers today… Well, it seems they’re quite intent on finding you.”
“I wouldn’t say there was no trouble…” Airi said, stepping to a couch to drop her bag next to it, smiling at the slightly older girls who sat there. Konatsu blushed, but Maasa and Anri smiled back as if thrilled to see her again. “We did run into Maimi.”
It was like she’d just let a viper loose into the room.
“Yajima?!?!” Miyabi shouted out suddenly, and she ran to a window to look outside. It was too bad she wasn’t likely to see much through the trees.
“They’re in Tokyo?!” Kamei cried, and Michishige clutched tightly at her arm. Junjun and Linlin hurried over to join Miyabi at the window.
“You don’t think they followed us, do you?” Junjun asked, in a surprisingly dignified voice.
“They couldn’t have!” Linlin protested. “I was as careful as I could be.”
Erina cowered along with Michishige and Kamei also, and even Reina’s eyes sharpened as she straightened up, her sore leg seeming forgotten for the moment.
“Guys!” Chisato yelled, trying to calm a suddenly very alert Risako, as well as her sister and Mai who were nearly clinging to the two of them. “We saw them in Shibuya. I’m sure they’re nowhere near…”
Suddenly the house shook, and through the ensuing screams Airi forgot everything else as well and ran to the window.
“I was so stupid,” Miyabi spat, scolding herself harshly. “I thought we were safe here, so I let my guard down again.”
“What is it?” Linlin asked, just to her side.
“There’s someone here,” Miyabi said, concentrating. “I can’t tell who yet, but we’re surrounded, so it’s not just the three of them.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Airi said finally, and everyone turned to her. Her eyes widened as she looked around at all the expectant faces. “They’re different now. They have… power.”
“We know they have power,” Reina said, joining them. “That’s the whole problem.”
Airi shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. They…”
“Look!” came a shout from across the room. Some type of strange smoke was beginning to drift through the doorway. The Nakazawa girls, who were closest to it, ran quickly away still hugging each other tightly, and took refuge behind Mari and others who had just arrived. It looked like the house was being put on alert.
“It’s tear gas!” Mari yelled out. “We need to get out of here!”
“Oh they’re not going to make us go where they want us to like good little sheep while I have anything to say about it...” Reina growled, and she stepped toward the gas, her arms tensing at her sides.
Airi felt a breeze, and suddenly the window behind them flew open, provoking a sharp yelp from Linlin which oddly itself elicited a reprimanding look from her Chinese friend. The trees outside began to sway with a sudden strong wind, and the next thing Airi knew she was having to hold her ground as it blew into the house past them and around Reina, pushing the gas back through the doorway.
Barely had the gas gone though before men in black armor and gas masks started appearing in the adjacent room, each carrying a wicked-looking firearm. Someone screamed again, and when they noticed the girls through the wind that was nearly knocking them back, they leveled the guns at them.
“What the…” Reina said as she stared out at six guns that were now pointed straight at her.
“I was trying to tell you!” Airi said. “They don’t need to do everything themselves now! Somehow they’ve infiltrated the police… or the army… and have them on their side!”
“She’s right,” Miyabi said soberly. “This isn’t a bunch of schoolgirls. It’s the Special Assault Team.”
“This could be bad,” Junjun said in a low voice that Airi could hardly hear over the wind, which had only strengthened even further. She could tell that the sky outside was blackening as well – her Sun was shrouded over, and it saddened her.
In the space of barely a second it felt as if a typhoon was blowing in on them. The curtains whipped around the girls who remained at the window, and anything loose flew across the floors and slammed into walls.
“So this is how it’s gonna be, huh?” Reina said in an even voice, still staring down the armed men, which were doing their best to creep against the wind toward her.
“Fire at will!” they heard a voice say from beyond the men, and the air was filled with the sound of discharged bullets.
“Reina!!!” Airi heard Chisato yell, and she broke from Risako to launch herself toward her Captain.
No, you idiot! Airi thought as her eyes widened at the girl’s action, and she dove to intercept her. However, halfway through her leap it felt like the world exploded, and she went deaf as her ears rang, blind as light flashed through her vision. She thought she screamed, but she couldn’t hear it, and then finally she felt herself come into contact with her target, and she and Chisato fell to the floor in a tangle.
When they were able to start feeling something again, the room was full of smoke that was quickly blowing out through the doorway and what was now a gaping hole in the wall of the room it gave access to… and where the men had been. Airi had her arms tightly wrapped around her friend, but Chisato was doing her best to push forward, mumbling,
“Reina… Reina…” When they looked up though, they saw the Captain standing in the same spot she’d been in, with not a scratch on her, and staring grimly at the hole. Oddly, clanging came to their throbbing ears as bullets fell from apparently the ceiling of that room down onto the floor.
“What…” Chisato said, her jaw dropping. “What just happened?”
“I’m sorry about your house, Mari,” Reina said. Airi looked up at her. It felt like her skin prickled as she appraised the girl, as if she could feel the power emanating from her. She smiled. It seemed her sister awoke at last.
Mari looked around, wide-eyed herself, as she rose from what was apparently a crouching position. Masae and the other adult Skulls did the same behind her. “Er… It’s okay…” she said. “I’m just glad you’re… all right.”
Chisato was still staring at Reina, and Airi thought she detected some fear in the girl’s face, but she was quickly pulled away from her friend.
“Are you okay?” Miyabi asked, scrutinizing Airi as she held her shoulders tightly. “I saw you dive, and I couldn’t react myself before…”
Airi looked down at herself. Her new dress was torn, and covered in spots with dust. Her heart sank. “My dress…”
Miyabi pulled her into a hug and stroked her hair. “Don’t worry about the dress. I’m just glad
you’re all right. You can’t be replaced…” She spoke in a very hard voice, as if she had just almost needed to face that very situation.
“Miya…” Airi said into her shoulder. “We need to talk…”
Then suddenly Miyabi pulled back, and darted a hawk gaze to Reina. “There are more of them out there. You may have… taken care of those men, but you can’t imagine how many there are. I don’t know how they managed to do it, but they’re never going to stop coming. They’re never going to—”
Breaking off abruptly, her eyes flashed to the hole Reina still stared at, and she stepped forward to Airi’s side, an arm still tightly around her waist.
“Miya…” Airi repeated, her voice becoming more pleading. The girl’s arm felt like fire around her body.
She became completely distracted though as two girls appeared in the other room, making their way slowly across the littered floor. Reina’s fists tightened to where her veins began popping out.
“I must say…” Ai Takahashi said, looking all around her as if it was a fascinating research project. No longer in teenage fashion such as the seifuku Airi had gotten so used to seeing them all in, the girl’s outfit was black and armored at least as much as the men who had approached them before. However, she held no weapon. She ran a bare finger down a wall and looked curiously at the soot it had picked up. “You’ve done quite a good job with the place.” Her eyes rose to Reina’s.
Airi though had eyes only for the girl with her, who was staring back at her with just as much intensity and focus. Maimi hadn’t seemed to bother with the armor, and instead still wore the red suit from Shibuya. She took a few steps past Takahashi and toward Airi, but Miyabi lurched forward as well and the girl froze, stunned, and darted her gaze to the one threatening her.
“You stay away from us!” Miyabi shouted at her, and Maimi broke into a smile.
She looked like she was about to say something before Takahashi came up and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Now, now,” she said lightly, and with her smile it seemed almost cheerily too. “No need to become impetuous and provocative…” She turned her gaze on Miyabi too, and the smile faded slightly. “…yet.” Two more armored men crept up behind them, crouched low, swinging their rifles to point once more at Reina.
“You’re right!” Reina shouted to her, the wind still blowing her hair out around her face. However, any dust it picked up and hurtled toward the two Circle members mysteriously flew to the side as it reached them. “I
have done quite a good job! I’m surprised you dare come back to see me after I kicked your pretty little ass halfway across Seishin!”
Takahashi’s face darkened slightly, and her grip on Maimi’s shoulder tightened. “If I remember right you arrogant bitch, that’s not exactly how it went down.” She cut her free hand through the air before her, and a sharp counterwind flashed out from it and toward Reina, knocking her legs out from under her and making her stumble to the ground, her hand reflexively going to her injured knee. “I see my reminder is even still there.”
“If it went so well, then where’s your friend?!” Miyabi shouted at her, stepping forward and away from Airi. Both sets of Circle eyes snapped toward her.
“We know you were the one!” Maimi shouted, pointing at her. “And I swear I’ll kill you for what you did to her!”
Miyabi smirked. “I’d like to see you try. When I’m finished with you, you’ll be in even worse shape than she was…”
“Miya…” Airi almost whined now, reaching forward to tug on her sleeve.
“Not now, Airi,” she responded over her shoulder. “I’m going to give both of them what they deserve after what they’ve done to us.”
“But…”
Miyabi broke from her grasp and started forward as if she would literally hurtle herself at the two of them, but Airi dove quicker and caught her feet, making her fall flat and hard to the ground before the doorway. They heard laughter coming from the direction of the remaining Circle members.
“Airi, what the hell!” Miyabi shouted back at her, twisting her head which Airi saw now sported bruised cheeks and a cut chin.
“I can’t let you hurt Maimi…” Airi said quietly, feeling as if she was going to cry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen… Miyabi needed to know that she still loved her…
“But it’s just the two of them!” Miyabi shouted, seeming to miss Airi’s point in her rage. “Let me finish this so I can protect you!”
“Just the two of us?” they heard Takahashi say bemusedly.
“Yeah!” Reina shouted at her, having returned to her feet, if slightly wobbly on her seemingly re-injured leg. “Miya and I can take you both! We’ve done it before. And somehow…” She grinned, straightening up once again, the wind coming in from outside now swirling around her as if she stood in the middle of a tornado. “I feel stronger than ever.”
“Do you?” came a quiet voice from nowhere. Saki stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the hole behind the others in plain khaki shorts and a t-shirt, serving a stark contrast to the heavily accoutered other members of the Circle of Three.
“I hear you were wondering about me,” she continued, and when Airi moved her eyes to try looking into the girl’s face, their focus fled and she fainted, screams resounding in her head as she lost all concept of the world around her.
Topic: The Circle of Three [CONCLUSION: 28: Ascension] (Read 83979 times)