[Episode 154015] [Episode 154015]The wind bit and kicked at her as she stood on the deck of the ship. It was late in the night, and it was extremely cold. Thick, freezing fog obscured the sight of everyone around her; but her eyes missed nothing as chakra pulsed through them. If she had been at home, this was the sort of hour in which she’d be asleep, but she was quite awake and completely alert. This was a mission, and if she were taken out this early…well, it didn’t pay to think about that.
She gripped a throwing needle in her left hand; she’d removed it from its case a little while ago as a nod toward safety. It probably wouldn’t be of much use as her hands were much more deadly, but it was better than being unarmed and she liked the feel of the cold metal against her skin.
A curious thought struck her, and she voiced it aloud, although at a volume so quiet probably none but she could hear it. “If lightness is unbearable, darkness, by fiat of logic, must be bearable. And yet I cannot see anything further from the truth. So is logic wrong, or reality?”
She smiled as she processed all the pieces of the idea. Around her, the few other people who were on deck shifted, but none moved closer. If they did, they would be at their peril. She slipped the needle back into its case and then stretched and flexed her fingers. Chakra pulsed and pushed throughout her body; she would be ready for anything in an instant.
An hour passed and nothing happened; then, two. The silence was eerie, but also comforting. Little should be active in this biting cold, she thought. With an instant’s movement the bag at her feet was in a subspace pocket and she was prepared once more for combat, or anything, if needed.
The ship’s engine rumbled, and she could hear it. The horn, for whatever reason, sounded, and she could also hear that. The fog obscured the sight of all the people around her, but her eyes missed nothing.
Her concentration wavered as she thought back to the last time she’d seen her former jounin instructor Yuuhi Kurenai alive. It had been more than three years before; she and the rest of her team were in a meeting discussing the upcoming chuunin selection exam – or rather, her own refusal to participate in it. She would have needed to find new teammates anyway, as Kiba and Shino had both been promoted in the previous exam, but she noted that Kurenai seemed quite exasperated at her for not making a second attempt. Kurenai had, at one point, stated that she wouldn’t have been able to sponsor Hinata regardless, as she was leaving for a long-term, high-priority S-class mission in Lightning Country within a week. The jounin had then dismissed Hinata’s teammates, and simply stared at Hinata as if to challenge her. Hinata didn’t like the look on her face, and tried to read any hidden intent, but her efforts elicited absolutely nothing. Not that this was unexpected; Kurenai was of higher rank and greater experience, and furthermore, she was an expert in illusions and the mind-games needed to use them efficiently.
At once, a small distance behind her, she saw movement she deemed suspicious, and turned around.
It was an ugly sight. The man she now faced was at least a foot taller than her, with stringy, filthy waist-length black hair and a thin, haggard face covered with hair and scars. His coal-black eyes gleamed maniacally and he swayed, as if unsteady, left and right and back again. His clothes were torn, and even if they had been in good condition they would have been hideous. He wore no shoes, and she wondered how he was ignoring the obvious chill of his feet.
Most ominous of all was the huge knife with probably a thirty-five centimeter blade, which he wielded in his left hand. Almost as bad was that his right arm ended just past where his elbow should have been.
She wondered how he had gotten onto the ship, and then realized that his swaying was quite deliberate. She didn’t feel any significant amount of chakra from him, but his intentions were clearly malevolent and so she decided his threat level was greater than she’d initially decided. Still, he wasn’t attacking at the moment, and she didn’t think inviting him to was a good idea. She noticed that other people were moving away – and she decided this was a set-up. Perhaps her paranoia was unjustified, but better to be paranoid and alive than any sort of dead. Furthering that, she started actively scanning the flow of chakra in his system.
She raised her right arm and lowered her left; her right palm came up and faced her opponent, her left palm was flat and parallel to her leg. She pushed her chakra through both, but more through her right, preparing to block the knife.
Her enemy started to move, and in an instant, it was done. She had surged to his right, startling him with her speed, and brushed her fingers over a single point on his temple. She pushed her chakra into his body, and just when her opponent might be thinking the battle was barely begun, there was nothing left but for Hinata to watch him die. Her chakra destroyed his brain first, and then spilled through the rest of his system, wrecking his entire body as he collapsed to the deck and writhed, his body still following his brain’s final commands, but soon his movements slowed, and then stopped. Blood and gray liquid leaked from all the holes in his head; evidence that her chakra had finished the process of literally melting his brain.
And just like that, the Gentle Fist had taken another life. Hinata wondered why her family even bothered keeping that name for their style, when it was obviously so horrifyingly wrong. She watched as the people around her looked agape at the corpse, and then they started moving towards her. And in an instant, she had leaped high into the air and over the metal barrier. From a great height, she fell into the freezing sea and at once began to swim. If she were lucky, she would be able to make it to the islands; but if she were not, her mission would end here, with the extinguishing of her life. But, it was better that she die making her escape then at the hands and weapons of some unknown assailants.
01234567899876543210---01234567899876543210
Roughly nineteen years ago…
The noise in the arena was tremendous, and the building was rocking from hundreds of watchers slamming their feet. The arena was in an abandoned warehouse, and the cause for the noise was another illegal street-fighting tournament. There probably shouldn’t have been as much noise as there was, given that these tournaments were hardly rare, but it was fact that nobody had even gone bankrupt while betting on the depravity and bloodlust of modern society.
Speaking of that devil, there was quite a lot of blood on the floor as two bruisers battled it out in the roped-in ring. Their strength was nearly even, as were their heights, reach, and stamina, and neither possessed much more skill than the other – nor did either possess much skill to begin with – meaning this was a battle of attrition. Both of the combatants were covered with bruises and each had a number of small cuts and scrapes that steadily leaked blood down their sweat-drenched forms. Whoever made the first critical mistake would die, and it was possible that the winner too would die, since there were no medics on the premises. Strangely, that never seemed to lessen the number of tournaments.
On one of the third-story balconies, there stood two watchers. This balcony was somewhat out of the way, and generally only one of these particular watchers was present, but the extra had gotten here before the regular and wasn’t about to be thrown out. The regular didn’t care; indeed, it was questionable whether she was aware of his presence. The reverse was definitely not true.
The man didn’t appear special in any way. He was of average height, and muscular but stocky frame; he had black hair, although that was thinning; his skin was a bit dark but not abnormally so; he wore glasses. He wasn’t a good-looking man, he knew, but he knew that many much uglier men existed. He wore training clothes that might once have been white but were now gray from repeated use. His thinning hair was covered by a white bandanna, and on his feet were loose black slippers.
He was very aware of the woman’s presence; in fact, he had been staring at her for some time, but if she noticed that, she did not give any sign.
She was a pretty woman, and that beauty was wild. She was slightly taller than he, which made her unusually tall for a Japanese woman. She had bright red hair, also unusual, and it was tied back in a ponytail that fell to her waist; and in front, her bangs concealed her eyes completely. She wore a pink pantsuit, the jacket of which was open in front, exposing her deep cleavage. Her curves were, in his estimation, spectacular. On her feet were red flat-soled shoes.
Most interesting to him was her monstrously large ki signature and her obvious enrapture at watching the fight below. Reading her emotions as best he could, he gleaned that her pleasure was most assuredly sexual. Sweat was visible through her pink clothing as she breathed heavily; he could tell she was very close to orgasm. There was tangible heat rolling off her body, and the air around the balcony seemed thick.
If he didn’t think she could torch him where he stood, he’d already have propositioned her. They might even have rutted right here, even amidst the filthy watchers and filthier floors. The arena was dank and unclean – it was, in short, a hellhole. But somehow, he didn’t think that would stop her.
He then decided fortune favored the bold. Turning toward her, he said, “Nice clothes. You want to go fuck like crazed rabbits?”
She turned to him, her excitement seemingly rising, and replied, “Not yet.” She then leaped over the metal railing. He gaped, and then gleefully noticed that she hadn’t become a bloody stain on the concrete. Deciding he certainly wasn’t going to miss this opportunity, he jumped over the railing as well. His senses all working at their best, he noted the rapid breathing and heartbeats of all the people near him. He smelled the sweat and liquor in the air. Dispassionately, he noted that nearly everyone was ugly and filthy, and his confidence rose somewhat. Compared to this crowd, he probably looked like an Adonis.
The air near the ground floor seemed to thicken as the woman breathed even more heavily from being closer to the action. Her energy levels rose, and light started to emanate from her. The man felt the rising tide of energy and wondered briefly what its limits were before forcefully expelling those thoughts for being irrelevant.
The other fight watchers, meanwhile, noticed her presence and started to clear a path for her. Her joy rose even more as she walked right to the rope barrier. As luck would have it, one of the fighters collapsed to the floor at that very moment. The other fighter remained standing, too fatigued and injured to even raise his arms in victory.
The labored breathing, the screaming, and the foot-stomping in the arena all became louder and louder, and then suddenly stopped. For a glorious moment, nothing moved and there was no sound. The woman crouched under the ropes and walked into the “ring” unhindered.
The man, already quite intrigued, wondered what she was doing. Absently he noted that her ki levels had stopped rising, but it still roiled, boiled, and rolled off her like water – or was it like a storm? He thought that was an appropriate metaphor. The air seemed thick with ozone, and there was a low rumble. Also, she was glowing, if only slightly.
He decided it was definitely like a storm.
The woman then somehow produced two spikes and four lengths of chain from somewhere. He knew it was a kind of subspace, but he didn’t really know the trick. It was one he’d never gotten his various masters to teach him, which he thought was a pity.
Within two minutes, the woman had pounded the spikes into the concrete, and had the defeated fighter standing chained. The links were just long enough to prevent him from falling.
And she screamed to the crowd, “Do you all want to see some BLOOD?” The last word was stressed tremendously, and he FELT her desire spike. He decided she was very dangerous, but he was too intoxicated by lust to really care.
By way of reply, the crowd began to scream again.
For some reason, the winner didn’t have the strength to remain standing. But no one moved to help him, and it was likely that no one would.
And then the woman’s ki signature exploded. The light emanating from her body became intense, but her skin darkened and her hair did as well. She bent forward and held her right arm parallel to the floor. The light around her body disappeared, and then reappeared solely around her right fist. The air became thicker and thicker, and soon there was a rolling thunder. Tremendous sparks of ki leaped off her body. The man was astonished; his mouth fell open as if his jaw had suddenly disconnected. The woman’s power was overwhelming his senses. Even those untrained in the skill would have felt it. And he realized with even more astonishment, that the sparks were not ki, but actual LIGHTNING.
The dim light in the warehouse began to flicker as the lights overhead were blown out from the surge of power; people began to back away as the air surrounding the woman heated and pushed off. Steam was expulsed from her body and her clothes became utterly saturated in sweat. She rose and looked the martial artist straight in the eyes. Her eyes were only for him. He approached, crouching to get under the ring ropes. He alone could bear the tremendous heat. The crowd backed away some more.
Then there was a tremendous crack, as thunder broke.
“You’ll have to carry me out,” the woman said; and he heard.
“Your ki is enormous! What the hell are you,” the man asked.
“It doesn’t matter!” She then paused. “My name’s Nodoka! What’s yours,” she asked, even as her ki levels continued to soar. The thunder was growing louder, the lightning sparks more rapid, and now the floor was shaking tremendously. The martial artist looked around and saw that only four people remained in the arena: himself, Nodoka, the defeated fight, and the “victorious” fighter. The martial artist could tell that the fighter on the ground was now dead from his injuries, and the chained fighter was barely alive and fading fast. The martial artist knew the man wouldn’t survive the night even if he got treatment.
He then suddenly remembered he’d been asked his name, and he gave it. The woman repeated it, then again and again; the lust and pain in her voice grew more evident each time.
The martial artist realized there was no light in the arena now, save that which Nodoka gave off. He quickly started flaring his ki at a low level, just enough to give off a white glow of light. At this level, it would take hours to empty his reserves.
Nodoka then looked at the chained fighter, and stood straight. The ki pounded the air and shook it. The steam coming off her body leveled off, and then stopped, but the air was still very muggy.
Nodoka then took enough steps forward to be within three feet of the chained fighter. She drew her fist back, and leaned back on her legs.
And the martial artist watched in horror as Nodoka’s fist shot forward and plowed into the defeated fighter’s chest. Every bone in his rib cage broke instantly, but it was rendered meaningless by the fact that his entire body then simply exploded. Blood and guts and flesh and bone fragments and hair and teeth and burned, shredded clothing and, just generally, GORE, filled the air and simply soaked everything around her.
It was the most repulsive thing the martial artist had ever seen in his life. And yet he was too intoxicated by lust to care. His training clothes were now soaked.
He walked forward, and some words came unbidden to his mind. In his current state, he thought they were very poetic.
“They say it rains blood at scenes of battle.” He stared at Nodoka, whose eyes were gleaming with pride and lust.
He continued. “You truly make blood rain.”
And Nodoka smiled.
Within half a minute the two were crushing each other’s lips and ripping each others’ clothes off as they collapsed to the floor and started moving more heavily than they had all night, ignoring the filthy conditions; not caring about the many layers of grime they would be utterly covered with when their lusts were slaked.
And all the while, the thunder rolled in the dark.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by nuclear death frog
(Posted Fri, 24 Mar 2006 05:09)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.