Fly Away

Chapter 33: The weirdo has weird eyes

Rin fiddled with her sleeve, attempting to forget the shady meeting going on next door. Everyone was gathered near the lamp that sat in the center of the room, warding off the night.

"They're taking forever." Heisuke looked nearly as nervous as herself, though he was markedly worse at disguising it. "Whatcha think they're talking about?"

"Orders from the Shogunate, apparently ..." Shinpatchi's derisive tone was not hard to decode. He liked this no more than she or Heisuke.

Gen-san, ever the voice of reason, said:

"We've got Isami and Toshi. I doubt things will go poorly."

"We can leave things in their hands." A slightly less agitated silence settled over the group. There was a rustle of cloth as Ryunnosuke sat down in the door frame, on the edge of the ring of light. Souji looked over his shoulder just enough to throw one of his snide comments at the boy.

"Shouldn't you be massaging Seizawa's shoulders?" The kid took it in stride.

"He told me to stay here until they finished talking." In her mind, Rin gave the boy a good round of applause. He was learning.

A blood-curdling shriek tore through the night, sending every single one of the highly skilled and alert warriors into a frenzy. Shin bolted upright. Saito dove for his sword. Sano tugged Ryunosuke back from the door. Heisuke was assessing where the roar had come from. Souji dragged Rin behind him. Rin scanned the room for a surplus weapon.

Rin saw a forgotten kodachi lying not three feet away. She scooped it up on the way out. A silent agreement had been made; stick together.

Even the short blade weighed a metric fuck-tonne in her hand. She should really try harder during training.

Shin barreled through the locked door.

"Move in!" Shin directed, others followed. Saito told Gen-san to watch their backs. Souji said:

"Stay here."

"Do you truly believe I'm stupid?" She gave him a crooked grin.

Ryunnosuke tried to push forwards. Souji stopped him in his tracks:

"Ibuki, you stay here too. You'll only get in our way if you tag along." Then he ran off. Perfect persuasion tactic. Ryunnosuke growled and tried to push past again. Sano simply gripped his shoulder and shook his head.

Shockingly enough, that conviced the boy to stay.

Crashing and yelling emerged from the building. No overt shrieks of pain. No wounds yet.

Rin nervously flipped her blade between her hands. She wasn't ready to be back in action. Her right arm was weak and her left one was still clumsy. She might cause her own death or, worse, the death of one of her comrades. Maybe she would miss a blow and hit Sano instead. Or Ryunnosuke. Or Gen-san. She felt a hand on her shoulder. Ryunnosuke.

"You doing okay?" Rin forced herself to release her white-knuckled grip on the sword in her hand.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just not quite sure if I would be able to fight if I had to."

"I get it." She gave him an inquisitive look. "For me it's more of a mental block."

"Fair enough." An inhuman yelp sounded from the building and Sano motioned to follow him. They formed a barrier around the doors. Growling and the clashing of sword could be heard just beyond the doors. There was a deafening crash and Shinpatchi came fly through the door, landing flat on his back with a grunt. Rin assessed his condition for a split second, he was fine, then flicked her eyes to the dark entrance to the building. It was in times like these that Rin wished she had a naginata. Red eyes glowed in the darkness, demonic red eyes. They were unnervingly familiar, as if she'd seen something like them before.

"Careful, Sano!" Saito, though she couldn't tell where he was.

"There's something weird about him!" Souji, on her left.

The thing lunged at Sano, a blade in its hand. Sano sidestepped, parried and impaled the creature through the arm. One would think it would be, at the very least minorly inconvenienced by this, but it simply started laughing maniacally. It grabbed the spear shaft and threw Sano into a wall. That shouldn't be physically possible. Not in the least.

It pulled the spear from its arm and tossed it aside. It landed not three feet from her. A spear. Not her naginata, but something with a much better range. But she was injured, she could tear it open again. The monster turned to her and Ryunnosuke. She had a split second to make a decision. She ducked low, dropped the kodachi snatched up the spear. The thing pounced at Ryunnosuke and she shouted:

"Ryunnosuke, get out the way!" She stepped in front of him and thrust her spear forward in a motion she'd been longing to make for a long time now. The tip when right through the thing's abdomen. To her shock, she saw another blade sicking out. She looked passed the doubly impaled monster. Toshi.

"Hijikata! Get away from it! It can ..."

"It's okay, you can apparently kill those things by stabbing it in the heart or decapitating it." Sannan. How did he know ---

"If you lack the courage to kill a man, don't waltz out onto a battlefield." Toshi's tone was harsh. He was talking to Ryunnosuke, who was standing very shakily, his sword in hand.