Destined To Die

Chapter 14 - Collapse

-14-

-Collapse-

Akane instinctively stepped forward, a sword held out towards each of the advancing men, his eyes flicking back and forth between them. The ridge they stood along was barely twenty feet across at its widest point, the far side sloping down into a wide bank of snow that descended steeply into another wide valley below.

"You'll get in the way," Akane hissed to the pair behind him, "Run!"

"We're not leaving you," Abigail argued, pulling the knotted wooden staff from her back and standing by Akane's side, "You'll die."

Akane rounded on her, staring her dead in the eyes, his voice low. "Get out of here. Keep Maddy safe. She's not ready for this."

Before either of them had time to argue Akane shoved the witch forward over the edge of the cliff, down into the snowbank below. The connecting rope immediately went taught, dragging Maddy along with her, both tumbling down into the snow down the steep decline. Akane barely had a moment to register a sharp yowl from Sabbath before they both went tumbling down below. Akane turned his attention back to the attackers advancing on either side, standing stock-still, and waiting to see where the attack would come from first.

He saw Jun's eyes flash down to Abigail tumbling below, immediately barrelling forward, towards the swordsman before he had any chance to pursue the others. Jun brought up his blade with a simple flourish, dashing Akane's initial sword thrust aside with ease and swaying out of the way of the second. His gaze snapped up to meet Akane's, a savage gleam in his eyes.

"So, this is where you were hiding the witch?" Jun snarled, taking measured steps backwards to avoid Akane's sword strokes with unnatural speed, "You've made my hunt so much easier."

The thunderous footsteps of Bastian advanced swiftly from behind, forcing Akane into action. He blocked an overhead slash from Jun with a growl, a gale-force wind from above pushing him to his knees beneath the force of the blow. Jun's boot quickly found its way into Akane's chest, sending him spinning backwards into the Palatine's raised shield with a heavy crack. Akane saw stars as the shield was brought down, slamming him into the rocky peak of the mountain, dissipating into smoke moments before the secondary blow from the maul that would have crushed his spine and the stone alike.

The smoke curled up around behind the Palatine, reforming on his back with boots planted firmly on his shoulders. A sword raised high to arc down towards Bastian's neck, but Jun was already moving, taking a running step up from the face of Bastian's shield and blocking the blow with a quick flourish, forcing Akane to leap backwards or be impaled by the following strike.

The helicopters thundered overhead, arcing low over the mountainside, heavy forward-mounted guns swinging to level on his position in a pincer manoeuvre opening fire as soon as he'd gained some distance from his attackers. Tracer rounds lit up the peak, tearing up the rock and lancing all around him with heavy cracking that echoed into the valleys below. Akane reacted quickly, launching himself directly upward, dispersing his form so that the tracer rounds passed through harmlessly, using his upward momentum to carry himself high into the air between the oncoming choppers.

Black chains launched out from the inky black cloud when he reached the apex of his leap, barbed ends biting into the glass of the nearest helicopter's cabin and drawing him in at full speed. His boots impacted the glass with enough force to crack the reinforced glass, and he was already moving along the side of the great machine as the pilot peeled away at speed. One sword dug in deep into the metal along the side of the helicopter's chassis as he propelled himself forward. The other helicopter, upon seeing this, peeled away to get a better angle.