It had been only a day following the departure of Inoshishi and Hattori by the time Andrei woke up to the cloud-free sky over his head once more. With a grunt, he fell out of his makeshift bed of boxes and emptied sacks, hitting the ground and causing the chain on his chest to clink quietly. He rose to his feet, then rubbed his head out of reflex, proceeding to brush off his dirty pants. Looking around, Andrei realized now that his hair was covering his eyes, and the rest of his face by proxy, and he sighed.
Roaming over to where his sword had been sitting, he yawned and then blinked. Wiping tears that had formed in his eyes, he unsheathed it part-way and hefted it up with both hands. Adjusting his grip to hold it with one, he realized now that he was able to wield it without the usual burst of adrenaline that came with fighting... perhaps his training had been paying off after all. After cutting away the left half of his hair, leaving it at a shorter length, right below his eyes. As he got to work on the other half of his head, he heard Saionji approaching. "Yo, Saiji... wanna' lend me a hand?" He asked, his voice gravelly with waking.
She seemed almost surprised by Andrei's detection, but after a moment she seemed to have forgotten her shock. Offering him a hand, she held up a finger as Andrei turned to face her, and she turned tail for a few minutes before returning with a pair of hand-crafted scissors, and the nice fox-beastkin that she had saved that fateful night they met the Merchant Company. "Sorry I took so long, 'Drei. This is Mother... I figured she'd be more helpful, since she's good with her hands..." Saionji chuckled to herself awkwardly, a face Andrei had never seen before from her.
Mother-Hand, the nice-looking fox-woman stepped forward, her child wrapped in a spare fabric and clinging to her without her own help. "It's true... I've been taking care of the Swords like my own child since they washed up at our caravan."
A smile on her face, she approached Andrei, an air of understanding about her. Receiving the scissors from Saionji, Mother sat Andrei down on the boxes he had been sleeping on and began to cut the sides of his head a little more cleanly. For once, Andrei felt as though somebody didn't quite hate him as her careful fingers weaved through his hair. "You've got a lot of tension about you, Andrei was your name?" She said, receiving a nod in return.
Giving a soft laugh, she patted him on the back, leaving the back of his hair long and pulling a small rope off of her sleeve. Tying his hair up into a short ponytail, she nodded at her work, then offered a smile to Andrei. "Alright, I hope you don't my little... artistic taste. I believe I overheard that 'machine' woman looking for you both too, she was very polite about it."
After a slight worry drew onto Andrei and Saionji's faces, they both thanked Mother and rose to their feet once more. With a wave, the pretty woman remained sitting for a few more moments to console her waking baby, flapping her foxy ears in order to draw out a laugh from the child. "I'll be seeing you both I'm sure! It was a pleasure meeting you Andrei!"
Finding Alpha.1 pacing impatiently, both Saionji and Andrei seemed to be worried. It was Saionji who spoke, Andrei still pondering the generosity that Mother had shown him. "Alpha... What is it? Did something happen to Shimoda... or is there something else?"
The android's eyes shifted, and that only grew the pit in both of their stomachs. Blinking and adjusting herself, Alpha mimicked the motion clearing her throat. "It's about your companions, and the possibility of attack. I witnessed them leaving the village yesterday alongside those of a 'Bounty Hunters Guild...'" She trailed off, then picked it back up.
"I've been picking up traces of chimeric energy... and nothing of Andrei's suppressed levels." Alpha's stare seemed to grow more serious with her cold tone, and the weight of her statement.
The mention of Chimera caused Andrei to snap out of his trance, and he raised his brow. In his head, Ra's whispers picked up, and he almost flinched... but he managed to hold firm and unmoving. "Chimeric... could it be that..." He blinked, and in that moment, he could've sworn that he saw Ra laughing at him from the porch of that house he had seen in the alley-world in his mind. It was then that he realized it.
It was Alpha who finalized his thought though. "The probability of a reading this large... it's not impossible that the Chimera we fought before survived. Just how though, I am not sure. It certainly seemed defeated when we finished it that night, and..." Her stare became grave, and what they had thought was a cold tone became truly chilling. "I have never known a Chimera to flee. That worries me."
Saionji quietly gasped, and she looked around at the village, Kochi. Her stare became one of a thousand miles, and she could've swore she saw the bones of Scavver's Guild deep within this town. "Inoshi... Hattori, they both left already. We should find them, and soon. Andrei, you've got the senses for people." She locked eyes with him, and he nodded. "Alpha, remain here, guard the village, and tell Shimoda and Hirano the situation when they're finished with their training for the day."
The android gave a complicit nod, turning and holding out her arm, her sword recalling itself to her in that instant. Andrei had already turned tail to find his sword, and Saionji headed to her own space, donning her grappling kit and attaching the primary piece to her hip.
Only minutes later, both Andrei and Saionji blew through the town in an instant, Andrei sprinting like a pseudo-animal, his ponytail like a black streak in the wind and his chain billowing from his exposed chest under his unbuttoned shirt and undone jacket. Overhead, Saionji looked down at the ground, her grappling blade making a rhythmic firing and retracting sound as she bounced from wall to wall, her Wind magic at her back to carry her even faster.
The grapple kit striking the log spikes which walled off Kochi from the rest of the world, Saionji's boot struck the bark and she pushed off into the woodlands beyond the clearing around the village. Andrei scrambled up the wall with his hands and feet, his shoes tearing bark from the walls as his sword carried him extra over the wall, allowing him to hit the ground running. "Keep an eye for tracks, 'Drei!" Saionji called out.
Rather soon, they both honed in on one familiar set of footprints. His legs carrying him as fast as Saionji's grappling tools, they both tore through the wind and the woods in order to give chase to the careless Inoshi and Hattori.
After a lengthy search, they broke through the woodlands with a force, Saionji cleaving through a hefty limb of a tree with a whip of her grappling blade as she hit the ground with a roll. Andrei skidded to a halt behind her, using his sheathed sword to dig into the ground and stop just short of his friend. They both stared into the yawning mouth of a cave, from which fire faintly lit around a turn, and on the very surface banners of the Inu Clan bandits coated the cave. Muddy tracks led up to the place, four sets of boots. "Looks like the place." Andrei muttered between breaths.
Saionji nodded, and both drew their blades. From the mouth of the cave however, a number of leather-clad wolf-men appeared. "I think you might be right." She said, looking over to Andrei. "Looks like they won't give up Inoshi and Hattori though."
Andrei reciprocated the motion, his head tipping as he saw his new haircut billow in the wind. With his 500-pound sword over his head, he flicked it downwards, unsheathing it in full. Saionji's rapier glinted as she removed it from its sheath, and both kids seemed to be in mutual agreement. "Then we'll have to take 'em." He said, bluntly. "I won't kill these people though."
She looked to Andrei, her eyes drifting to the side. His face was filled with determination. She then remembered that he had never fought a person to the death before, and she nodded. "Then neither will I." Saionji shouted, mana imbuing itself in her blade and causing green to flare up in her eyes. "Hyacinth...-!"
Andrei took a stance, holding out his hand and clenching his fist. "Breaker...-!"
YOU ARE READING
CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD
Action- BOUND THE WORLD - After falling from the sky in a blaze of glory, without so much as a memory to his name, and cleaving a path through the whole of the Tokyo Dead Zone with the discovery of his nature as a half-human half-Chimera, a monster from a...
