It's been about an hour since we departed from the shore, and the only words I'd been able to coax out of her was a reluctant admission of her name, Kiri. She had led me -at this point- far from Kitsuji, at least a few miles from its outskirts. We had been following the same rock-laid path for about an hour, tall chutes of bamboo towering far above us on either side, and the occasional red Tori Gate rearing its false wooden frame. Kiri's silence bothered me to no end, and I had grown increasingly skeptical as the rush of sexual thrill, that was at this point hours old, began to wear off. Did I really trust this girl with my life...?
Up ahead a clearing began to unfold, and within seconds we had come to a full stop. We stood in the center of... an odd arrangement. The until now endless path of stones had unfurled into a circle, several dozen feet in circumference, forming a solid, rounded stone floor. Uniformly, eight of Kitsuji's notorious red tori gates stood encompassing this circle, each one leading down a different unknown path. Kiri still hadn't moved. Still as a statue, she loomed, back turned to me. Her demeanor had entirely changed now that I had begun to actually pick it apart. There was an almost tense air about the entire situation.
After some another minute of silence, I speak tentatively. "Are we waiting for something... or?" Suddenly, Kiri whips around. Her face is twisted with confliction, cheeks flushed, lips pursed. My face burns a bright red. I had no clue at all what I was supposed to say. Taking an unsure step forward, I stammer. "If there's something wrong, we don't need to follow through with this..." Without warning, Kiri falls forward, wrapping her arms around me.
Her lips embracing mine.
I wriggle for a moment- entirely taken aback- but then the reality hits me. She's kissing me. With a fair bit of tongue action too. Just as I begin to lean into it, she draws back, detaching us from each other. She twiddles her fingers behind her back, looking away. I just stand there, jaw slack and eyes wide. Had that really just happened? Through shaky breaths, she confesses, "I-I just had to get that out of the way..."
I continue gawking, undecided on what I should do next...
Wait.
Something wasn't right.
My back was.... wet? Where Kiri's hands had rested just moments ago, a patch of warm wetness had sprung up, and it had only continued to spread. Kiri's demeanor had again changed as well. Almost as if a switch were flipped, her blushing and bashful facade had entirely dropped- her face was devoid of any emotion now. My heart nearly skips a beat as the reality of the situation sets in. With trepidation, I take a step toward her, but my legs give out as I crash to the ground. Intently, Kiri crouches down to my level, leaning in till our faces are but inches apart. "You can rest now."
--
The altercation had drawn on long enough. Shinimaru was beginning to grow tired. Suspended in the and air propelled by his flames, Shin launched himself after the Commodore, as he had been doing for a rather lengthy stretch of time. It was akin to a game of airborne tag; occasionally he would catch up, sure. But their squabbles in close range would be over in moments as Aileen's coordination in the sky far outshone Shin's. She was trying to drag it out into a battle of attrition, he assumed. Shin was exerting far more effort to stay afloat than she was. So assumedly, he would grow tired and make landfall, allowing her to pick him off in moments- or she would simply wait till his tank ran low enough for her to finish the job whilst he was still midair.
Whatever it was that she had planned, Shinimaru couldn't let it happen. Burning his Discord midair would be a death sentence- he had decided that when the fight began. His flames would extinguish her energy, sure- but straining his body like that would mean he would be left without the power to make a safe landing. His only option now was to land a ranged attack, but Aileen's constant whirling and coiling made landing ANY hit a challenge.
Maybe he just needed a better vantage point. The realization hit him like a truck. It was perplexing how he hadn't thought of this sooner. As it was now, Aileen soared about a hundred yards ahead of Shin, her form barely a speck in his strained vision. He weighed his options for a moment: at their current distance, taking a second or two to propel himself higher might eliminate the entire point of his plan and just allow her to escape his range- but if he kept up the chase as it was, there was a very, VERY low chance that he ever caught up.
Extending his burning arms before him, Shin came to a stop. For the moment, Aileen didn't seem to notice, so he adjusted his trajectory, and shot straight up into the sky. The further he flew, the further the air in his lungs thinned, and the smaller the city below became.
When Shin finally leveled himself, he granted himself a moment of respite, scanning the landscape below. He drew bated breaths as he gazed in awe... he could see the curvature of the earth. He could also see, however, the soaring form of the Commodore below. In a flash of emerald green, Shin's body burst into flame. He would end all of it in one fell swoop. In a shower of fire.
A deafening, uproarious noise ripped through Shin's ears as he tore through the sound barrier, tearing through the air like a missile. It was jarring, horrifying even. But as he drew closer and closer to the earth- and possibly his death- a great sense of crazed exuberance washed over him.
50 feet.
Alerted by the noise of space bending around Shinimaru's light-speed descent, Aileen's head whipped up in surprise.
20 feet.
Aileen, hardly a fraction of a second after she noticed her rapidly hurtling foe, jerked to the side frantically in hopes of escaping her certain doom.
With a crunch, Shinimaru's blazing form punched a cauterizing hole through Aileen's stomach. She cried out in horrible pain, twisting and writhing. She remained airborne for but a moment, before beginning her plummet toward the streets below.
With awesome force, Shinimaru continued his path to the ground. At this speed, contact with the city below could potentially result in the obliteration of the plateau entirely- and it would CERTAINLY result in his death. His mind working as fast as it would allow itself to, Shinimaru spun midair, facing his feet toward the ground- as jets of green flame sprung up from his soles, pushing against gravity, and allowing him to level himself moments before he would have slammed into the earth.
It was mere seconds before he landed, safely and steadily stepping onto the cobblestone streets. Aileen, however, had not been quite so fortunate. Just as shin turned on his heel, running his hand through his hair, a sickening splattering noise shot through the air. But a few feet before him laid the remains of the Commodore. To any average passerby, the mess of a woman would seem like little more than roadkill, strewn gorily across the street. He gazed at the mass for a few moments - he wasn't ENTIRELY sure she if she had the potential to come back from this- but eventually he was resolved and turned away.
In their standoff the two had seemingly come full circle, the alley this all began in was just a dozen or so feet in the distance as Shinimaru turned his attention away from the remains of Aileen. What had moments before been a confident saunter picked up to a tense jog as Shin approached. Locked in combat for what had felt like forever, Shin had almost forgotten why he'd confronted the officer to begin with: she had been talking to someone. Slowing to a stroll as he ducked into the alleyway, Shin cursed to himself quietly. If this person wasn't of at least a modicum of importance, he had just drawn a vast amount of unnecessary attention to their little rebellion effort. Attention that could easily cause their entire plan to fall through.
A noise quickly jostles Shinimaru's senses. It had come from deeper in the alley, from the alcove he had first confronted Aileen, probably. Not giving it a second thought, Shin picked up his speed again, headed for the disturbance. The sound was... indistinct at best. It had sounded like a sneeze- maybe a cough- to Shin's untrained ears. As he reached the alcove and peered inside, he gawked. A man- no, a boy- crawled toward him, pulling himself forward with his arms in a sort of army crawl. his legs were limp, and a trail of blood snaked behind him as he moved. He couldn't have been any older than 16, with white hair and surprisingly casual wear for his situation.
The boy's head immediately snapped up as Shin entered his line of sight. His face was pale and sickly, probably from blood loss, and his eyes were sunken and hopeless. He lit up for a moment as he locked eyes with Shin, but his demeanor quickly dropped again, as if it was a struggle to even maintain a relatively chipper expression. Instinctively, Shin rushed over to help. The boy's face contorted, and he spoke in a raspy tone. "You... I know you." Kneeling down, Shin cocked his head to the side, confused.
"I'm sorry- have we met before?" Shinimaru inquired genuinely, as he truthfully had no idea who this kid could have been. The boy let out an exasperated sigh. "Your friend," he said. "I know a friend of yours. Short, red lighting. Ringing any bells?"
Shinimaru's eyes widen.
"A few bells have in fact been rung."