Alex feels wrong.
She’s felt wrong since they stepped foot into the 21st floor, and it's been getting progressively worse since. It’s not a headache, its something deeper than that, like a whisper that keeps getting louder and yet somehow still identifies as a whisper. It’s infuriating, it’s agonizing.
“I kind of feel bad for them” Sasha says “If they’re low on deliveries then they’re already making less than they should, there’s no reason to punish them further, kinda feels like the gangs trying to get them dissolved”
It’s a drum, beating to the tune of a madman. It’s a piece of her that’s pushed and pulled until it’s ragged and raw. It’s a mountain the size of a hill, shaking to the steps of giants.
“That’s exactly what they’re trying to do” Aki replies “Once they’re out of the picture, their greenhouses can be used by a different gang, one that meets the quotas;And if they survive the shitstorm that’s coming they’ll know not to fall behind”
There’s so much out there it whispers all you have to do is listen
“Thought you weren’t into gang politics”
She tries to listen, she tries so hard. But it's all just gibberish, just words with no cohesion or purpose, like a glitch in reality. Is she getting hacked? That can’t be, she’s got nothing to hack.
“If even you can sus out what's going on then It doesn’t excatly need scholar to understand”
Then it crystallizes, all of it gathered to one point, to one purpose.
Direction
“Hey! I’m plenty smart, thank you very much”
Her body follows the compass seared into her mind like a compulsion.
“You’ve failed almost every-” He cuts himself off “Alex? Alex! Where are you going!”
She doesn’t hear them, she’s too focused on the direction. Right, Left, straight for a few blocks-
A hand grabs onto her shoulder, trying to stop her, she grips their wrist, wraps her other arm around them, like a hug, then she throws them into the ground.
She keeps moving.
Eventually, after about a minute of walking, she reaches her destination, staring down at a child sleeping in an alley. They’re a gaunt thing, she can see their bones struggling against the confines of skin. Their breath is shallow, little rasps, quick like a machine gun. The shorts and shirt they wear are dirty in the way that only time can cause.
There’s a few bruises on what’s visible of their skin, and presumably of what's covered as well.
“Alex what the fuck”
Suddenly their words register, and Alex realizes that she’s not in a trance anymore, but she doesn’t respond. Instead she kneels down and shakes the child awake, it takes a few seconds, and they yawn a yawn that would be adorable in almost any other setting. They blink their eyes open and realize that they're not alone. Then they see the weapons. Slowly, avoiding any sudden movements, they rise into a sitting position and look Alex in the eye with poorly concealed fear.
“Can you tell me your name?”
Their face is stricken with panic, and she can see sweat begin to form, before they shake their head.
“Won’t or can’t”
They hesitate, then they raise a hand with two fingers.
“When was the last time you ate?”
Their hand unfurls two more fingers
“Would you like some food?”
They look at her like she’s grown two heads, and slowly they nod.
“I have food at home, and a few extra beds if you’d be willing to come with us”
They scowl at her, before glancing again at her weapons, schooling their features, they nod.
“Great. c’mon, I’ll carry you”
At the mouth of the alley Akihiro and Sasha stand stunned at the scene before them.
Sasha turns to Aki.
“I’m so confused”
-
“But that doesn’t make sense” Sasha repeats exasperated.
“I don’t know what to tell you, it was like some sort of sixth sense was guiding me” Alex says
“You’re ‘sixth sense’ almost broke my back” Aki grumbles
“Sorry” she replied sheepishly “I was kind of in a trance”
“We noticed,” he said flatly, “Is this going to be a problem? What if we were in a fight or something, you would’ve been a liability”
“I don’t think that’ll happen if i’m in danger”
“But how do you know” Sasha emphasises
“I just do” which was obviously the wrong thing to say as Sasha sort of screams through her teeth, making a noise kind of like those trains from the old movies. The kid, at this point, is just as confused as her friends, all the apprehension from before nowhere to be found. Hearing that you’re would be saviour got the equivalent of a prophecy to find you is not something their little head can wrap around. They’re being carried piggyback style, with the sheath of Alex’s katana being used as a makeshift seat. They’re too light to really hinder Alex’s stride, which is concerning, but they can start on fixing that once they get back to Lost Hope.
“Ok, putting aside revelations from what I can only assume is a divine entity, which is a sentence I never thought I'd have to say, how do you plan on convincing Clarice to take the kid in? She’s not exactly running a charity.” Aki points out.
“I’ll manage, besides, Lost Hope is technically an orphanage”
“An orphanage that expects results Alex, and no offence, but that kid looks like they’d keel over from a stiff breeze”
“Maybe there is a God, should I start praying?” Sasha mumbles
“We can help them get up to speed”
“Define ‘we’”
“Oh please Aki, your not that cold hearted”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Maybe a fast? No, I like food too much, I should buy a bible though.” Sasha continues
“I think you broke her”
“Yeah, it’s kinda funny”
“But what if it's a different God, what if a bible offends them? Alex! Which God mindfucked you?”
“Did you have to phrase it like that?”
“Just tell me”
“I don’t think it was a god”
“How do you-you know what, nevermind, I’ll figure it out on my own”
“Hey guys, isn’t it a bit too quiet?” Aki says.
The two girls look at him, before turning their ears to their surroundings.
Nothing, not even the shuffling of feet.
Sasha draws her weapons, while Aki turns off the safety to his shotgun.
Slowly, Alex puts the kid down, nudging them to the middle of the triangle they’ve formed, before she pulls out her pistol and unsheaths her katana.
Nothing greets them.
They move forward slowly.
The kid seems to have picked up on the tension, shaking a little with fear.
It doesn’t take them long, perhaps a few meters, before a little over a dozen people emerge from the alleys to surround them with bats and tire irons in hand.
The one in front is carrying a pistol.
“This is a bad idea chink” Aki says, leveling his shotgun “turn around, we don’t need to do this”
“Yes, we do” says the man with the gun “that pink haired bitch shot my brother”
“He’s still alive ain’t he?” Aki reasons “just gotta limp for a little while, besides, he started shit with us, letting him live was a mercy”
“You dragons think pretty highly of yourselves don’t ya?” he starts “think you can just walk in on our turf and do as you please.Think that you’re above consequence. No, you brats need to learn a lesson, and I’ll gladly educate you”
“No chance this can end peacefully?” Aki asks
“No” and those are his last words as cranium, brain matter, and blood fly through the air and onto the henchmen behind him.
There’s screaming, yells, and probably exclamations of shock, but Alex can’t hear any of it. Her ears are ringing too hard to let anything else in. Shotguns are loud.
A few of them run, a surprising amount charge.
Three of them go after her.
She shoots one of them in the collarbone, and another in the stomach, before a tire iron comes swinging, forcing her to duck and dodge.
She swipes at him with her sword, drawing a line of blood from pelvis to shoulder.
She hears another shot from the Ramus.
She prepares another strike, but something spiked digs into her ribs, blood flows freely as she falls.
A bat with nails
It’s the one she shot in the stomach.
She shoots her in the head.
She has to roll out of the way as the tire iron comes swinging down at her.
Adjusting herself to a kneel, she springs forward, Katana first at the man.
She runs him through.
He looks at her, eyes wide, as he chokes out some blood. He tries to swing at her, but it is a weak thing with all the strength of a dying man, she doesn’t even bother to dodge.
She lets him fall off her blade as she scans for the last one, and fails to find them.
Must’ve ran away
She turns back to her friends, There's a dead body by Sasha, and she has her gun pressed to the forehead of a crying man on his knees, screaming expletives and other random nonsense at him. The kid’s fine, just frozen still, and probably traumatized.
We’ll have to work on that.
Aki is wrestling with a man trying to take his shotgun.
Alex steps forward and cuts deep into the man's neck, letting blood spray on both her and Aki as the man goes limp on top of her friend.
Aki can get him off. He doesn’t try all that hard during gym, but he doesn’t slack either.
Alex walks over to the corpse of their former leader and picks up his gun, she takes a moment to stare at the corpse, the jaw’s still attached, so is the tongue.
Everything above that is gone.
She examines the gun, and can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her.
That gets Sasha’s attention as she whips her head towards her, the crying man takes his chance and bolts away.
“What's so funny?” she asks
“This mother fucker…” Alex mumbles “THIS.STUPID.MOTHER.FUCKER”
She punctuates each word by shooting the corpse with its own gun, it jams at ‘mother’.
“Alex” Aki tries
“A tinker pistol” she ignores him “can you believe that shit? Dumb fuck tried to threaten us with a fucking homemade piece of shit gun”
“Alex” Aki tries again
“WHAT!” She yells
“You’re bleeding” he says
She blinks at that, then looks down at her chest.
“Oh” she says “so I am”
-
Most of the elevator ride down is spent in silence. They also got the whole thing to themselves, apparently the sight of them, covered in blood and weapons drawn, works as a fairly functional detergent. Huh.
Their katanas are still drawn, why is that?
She looks down. Right, the blood, don’t want that in the scabbard.
How is she supposed to clean the blood anyway, does she just rub it off with a towel? Should she be bringing a towel with her whenever she goes out on jobs? That would be inconvenient.
She turns to look at the others, Aki’s on his phone, while Sasha’s just staring at her sword. Maybe she’s facing the same dilemma.
“Hey Sasha”
“Hmm?”
“You know how to clean this?” She wiggles her Katana, causing a few drops of blood to splatter around the elevator.
“Mmmh, maybe just swing it real fast?”
“Like in the movies?”
“Mhm”
It works surprisingly well, she has to swing a few times though, and each time causes the kid to flinch. They’ve been clinging to her ever since the fight, they didn’t want her to carry them considering all the blood, which is fair. She wouldn’t want to get bloody either.
That ships already sailed though.
“Fuck” Aki says suddenly
“What?” Alex asks, sheathing her blade
“Those bullets cost more than our pay, and because it was just some random dumbfucks, the gang probably won’t curb the cost”
“Ah” Sasha says “yeah, that sucks”
-
Walking through Clarice’s door is surprisingly easy, whenever she walks through the doors to her office it’s like preparing for battle. Now it’s just walking. Clarice stops her typing and turns to be greeted by a child covered in blood and another child clinging on to them. She tilts her head.
“That’s not your blood” she states
Alex blinks, “no, I’d hope it isn’t. Well a little bit of it is”
“And that” She points to the kid “Isn’t one of ours”
“I was hoping we could take them in”
Clarice goes silent, considering.
“Tell me what happened”
“Well, I kinda just found them-”
“Not that” she interrupts “the blood”
“Oh”
“Well?”
“We got cornered by about a dozen small time gangers, I fought off three”
“You killed them”
“Killed two, third one ran.”
Clarice stares at her for a moment.
“You regret it”
Alex scoffs “I don’t regret shit, they came at us”
“But you do, you regret being put in that position in the first place”
Alex goes to say something, before holding her tongue, not a point worth arguing.
Clarice opens a cupboard and pulls out a small container of pills, handing them over to Alex.
“Doxylamine, helps with sleep, give some to your friends as well.”
Alex is a little baffled at that, today’s just full of surprises “thanks” she says “what about the kid?”
Clarice waves her off, “We have plenty of room, now come, sit. You said some of the blood was yours?”