Chapter 101- From The Ritz To The Rubble
The revolver's report was still echoing off the dormitory walls when Hoshimi's shoulder began to knit itself back together.
Flesh wove through flesh. Bone ground against bone. The bullet had punched clean through his clavicle, shattering it on entry and exit, leaving a wound that would have crippled a normal person for weeks.
But Hoshimi wasn't normal.
The mana surged through him like ice water through a fever, cold and sharp and mercilessly efficient.
"Vitae Core."
His left arm was still numb. The regeneration was slower than it should have been, the fight at the Shaw facility had decreased his output more than he'd realized.
But the wound closed. The bleeding stopped. His fingers twitched, then curled, then formed a fist.
Reina hadn't moved.
She stood on the rooftop above them, her ginger hair wild around her face, her gold eyes cold as winter stars. The revolver in her hand was still smoking. Her expression was the same one she wore during training sessions, clinical, assessing, utterly detached.
Hoshimi's jaw tightened. "Miss Reina—"
"Stay still." The revolver's cylinder rotated with a soft, mechanical click. "I'm going to kill you off painlessly."
She jumped.
Not fast. Not dramatic.
Just a simple step off the rooftop, her body falling through the air with the casual grace of someone who had done this a thousand times before. Her coat billowed around her like dark wings. Her boots hit the grass without a sound.
She was twenty feet away. Then fifteen. Then ten.
Hoshimi drew his sword.
The blade came alive with blue light, the runes on its surface shifting into patterns of oceanic depth.
The warmth of it flooded through his chest, through his arms, through the hand that gripped the hilt. The sword was feeding him strength, compensating for his depleted reserves, pushing his body beyond its normal limits.
It wouldn't be enough.
[I'm going to lose]
But he moved anyway.
A thrust aimed at her center mass.
The blade's tip traced a line of blue light through the darkness, aimed at the soft tissue just below her sternum, where the diaphragm met the ribs.
Reina sidestepped.
A casual shift of weight from one foot to the other, her body rotating just enough that the blade passed through empty air where her chest had been.
Her hand moved.
Hoshimi didn't see the strike coming. One moment her arm was at her side, the next her palm was driving into his solar plexus with the force of a wrecking ball.
The impact compressed his lungs, drove the air from his chest, sent him stumbling backward with his vision swimming and his ears ringing, a crimson red dripped down his chin.
He caught himself. Managed to keep his feet. Managed to raise his blade again.
She was already moving around him.
Her boots made no sound on the frost-covered grass, and her gold eyes tracked his every movement with the patience of a predator that had already decided its prey wasn't a threat.
Hoshimi adjusted his grip on the sword.
The blue light along its edge pulsed with his heartbeat, faster now, more urgent. The sword was trying to warn him.
Reina was too fast.
He lunged again.
His blade swept toward her knees in a wide arc that should have caught her off guard.
She jumped and her boot came down on the flat of his sword. Pinned it to the ground. The impact jarred up his arms, made his wrists ache, made his fingers go numb.
She kicked the sword from his grip.
The blade spun through the air, blue light trailing behind it like a comet's tail, and embedded itself in the trunk of a nearby oak.
The impact split the bark, sent splinters flying, and left the sword quivering in the wood like a tuning fork struck too hard.
Hoshimi's hand went for his gun.
The weapon cleared his holster in a fraction of a second, his finger finding the trigger before the barrel had fully leveled. He fired twice.
Reina swayed.
It was almost imperceptible. A subtle shift of her upper body, a rotation of her hips, a tilt of her head. The first bullet passed close enough to ruffle her hair. The second passed close enough to tear the collar of her coat. Neither drew blood.
She closed the distance.
Her fist caught him in the jaw. The impact snapped his head sideways, sent his teeth clacking together, and filled his mouth with the copper taste of blood.
He stumbled, his vision blurring, his gun firing wild into the darkness. She caught his wrist, twisted and the weapon clattered from his grip.
Her knee drove into his stomach.
He folded.
The air left his lungs in a single, explosive gasp, and his body tried to curl around the injury, tried to protect itself, tried to do anything except take another hit. But Reina didn't give him the chance.
Her elbow came down on the back of his neck.
He hit the ground face-first.
The taste of dirt and iron filled his mouth.
His arms wouldn't move.
His legs wouldn't move.
His whole body was screaming at him to get up, to fight, to do something, but his nervous system had simply stopped responding.
"I'm disappointed," Reina said.
She crouched beside him, her knees pressing into the grass, her face level with his. Her gold eyes swept over him, the blood on his lips, the bruise forming on his jaw, the way his chest heaved with each desperate, ragged breath.
Hoshimi's fingers clawed at the grass.
His mana was surging, pushing against the paralysis, demanding that he move, fight, survive. The sword's presence in his chest was pulsing with a desperate, almost frantic energy, trying to feed him strength, trying to compensate for the gulf between their abilities.
Hoshimi pushed himself to his knees. His arms were shaking.
His legs were shaking.
[Damn it, I can't do anything]
Everything was shaking—a fine, constant tremor that ran through his body like an electric current.
[I can't move]
Blood dripped from his split lip, splashing against the frost-covered grass in patterns he couldn't quite focus on.
[I can't out maneuver her]
He raised his hands. Curled them into fists. Met her eyes.
[I can't do anything]
"Good." Her lips curved. It was not a smile. "You're still fighting. I was worried I'd broken you already."
She moved.
This time he saw it, just barely, just enough. Her weight shifted to her back foot, her hips rotated, her arm cocked back for a strike aimed at his face.
He ducked. The punch passed through empty air above his head, close enough that he felt the wind of its passage against his scalp.
He drove his fist toward her stomach.
She caught it. Her palm closed around his knuckles with a grip that was absolute, unbreakable, the grip of someone who could shatter concrete with their bare hands if they chose to. She squeezed, just slightly, just enough, and he felt the bones in his hand grind together.
"SHIT!"
She threw him.
His body left the ground, tumbled through the air, and crashed into the base of the oak tree where his sword was still embedded.
[It hurts]
The impact drove the air from his lungs a second time, sent spiderweb cracks through the bark, and left him sprawled on his back with his vision swimming and his ears ringing.
[Every single part of my body hurts]
He reached up. His fingers closed around the sword's hilt.
[Where the hell is Neila?]
The warmth flooded back into him. The strength, the presence, the ancient, patient power that had been waiting for him to claim it.
[Did they run away?]
His wounds began to close. His vision cleared. The trembling in his limbs steadied.
He pulled the sword free.
"Good." Reina was walking toward him, unhurried, her hands loose at her sides. "Use the sword. It's the only advantage you have."
Hoshimi pushed himself upright. His legs held. His arms held.
The sword's blue light pulsed along its edge, brighter now, more urgent.
He lunged.
The blade carved an arc toward her throat. She swayed.
The edge passed through empty air.
He reversed his grip, brought the sword around in a backhand slash aimed at her ribs. She stepped inside his guard, her body pressing close to his, her hand closing around his wrist.
"I could break your wrist again."
"But what fun would that be?"
She shoved him backward. He stumbled, caught himself, raised his blade.
She was already there.
Her palm struck his chest.
His sternum cracked, he felt the sharp, bright pain of splintering bone, felt his heart stutter in its rhythm before the sword's warmth flooded through him and began to repair the damage.
He flew backward, his feet leaving the ground, his back slamming into the dormitory wall with enough force to crack the brickwork.
[Damn it, it's so hard to breathe]
He slid down the wall. Hit his knees. Gasped for breath.
Hoshimi pushed himself to his feet. His chest was still healing, he could feel the bone fragments grinding together, the muscle tissue weaving itself back into place. His breath came in ragged gasps. His hands were shaking. But his grip on the sword was steady.
He moved.
Not toward her. Toward the tree line.
A gunshot.
The bullet caught him in the thigh. His leg buckled, and he went down hard, his sword clattering from his grip, his hands pressing against the wound. Blood poured between his fingers, hot and dark, soaking through his pants in a spreading stain.
[My entire body is screaming]
"You're predictable," Reina said. Her revolver was still raised, the barrel smoking. "You're trying to lead the fight towards the crowd to create more confusion. Did you think I wouldn't know to cut off your escape?"
Hoshimi's jaw clenched. His leg was healing, but slowly, too slowly. The bullet had fragmented on impact, shredding muscle and nicking the femoral artery. He was losing blood. Losing time. Losing everything.
The night split open.
A sonic wave erupted from the tree line, a wall of compressed air and pure, focused sound that tore through the grass and shattered the remaining windows in its path.