Sanaek !gwSNAAKE5k 2012/11/30 (Fri) 03:49 No. 163236 ▼ File 135424739284.jpg - (378.00KB, 1200x1600 , Nue pics are almost always oddly censored.jpg)
Oh God it's a long one! Somebody tear me away from my keyboard!
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Doubtless she locked the door to keep me from returning. Worry not, me; there is much brutal slaughter to be had and the night is young! Come to think of it, I fear I may have forgotten a minor little detail which may greatly hamper my progress.
Humans are diurnal. Unlike myself, they sleep almost exclusively at night. Common knowledge among youkai folk and probably more so among humans, but I'm none too good at remembering the little details that may sometimes be a detriment to my almighty plans. I peer out into the village, seeking lantern light or any movement that could indicate a woken individual. I find nothing short of guards, and armed humans are right out. I've learned my lesson after my last endeavor. As to who they're guarding, they've got to get up to use the outhouse at some point, the fools! I enter the town proper without being spotted and make my way onto the rooftops. I hide myself as best as possible and hunker down for the long haul.
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Nothing comes, and the moon is high in the night sky. The light it casts allows me to see clear as day, though all I see is wooden boxes and the occasional torch-bearing guard. I study them as I wait; from head to toe I gauge their movements, note the location where the armor they wear is lacking and examine their armaments. Swords mostly, no spears as I would recognize them. More blades on long sticks, reinforced by a long metal trunk with an odd mechanism on the blunt end. I've never seen anything like it, but it seems unwieldy. I locate their guardhouse, think for a moment on lighting it ablaze, and deftly abandon those thoughts in favor of a less direct method of drawing attention.
A few fields over is a corral for livestock. Cows almost exclusively. Nothing that'll sate my appetite, but enough to unsettle the locals. I leap from the rooftop and make my way to the fields, careful not to catch any unwanted attention from the guards. My having memorized their patrol routes makes this part of the trip a piece of cake. I hop the fence into the animal pen, carelessly waking one of the animals. It dies easily.
I rip through its throat like so much butter. Warm blood flows freely over my fingers as the animal twitches and falls limp. This visibly disturbs the other animals, and they back away instinctively. They're a noisy lot, so I take my kill and run. The blood trail it leaves is all part of the plan. I race for the center of town as the guards hear the noise and clamber towards the pens, and rather than risk my neck carrying this thing I opt instead to throw it. Trying to run with a fully-grown cow slung across my back is no easy task, after all.
Lifting a cow to throw it is harder still; rather than fly in a wondrously fine arc into the guardhouse, the carcass flops nary a pace before me with squishy thud. A moment of undiluted frustration later, I opt instead to dismember it, contorting the joints in ways they should not bend before pulling violently. Oh, how I wish I had butchered a smaller one. This was indeed not one of my better plans, but compared to my initial idea ripping its legs off is much more cathartic. Not minding the mess, I fling what amounts to the sum of its parts into no fewer than five buildings, waking the residents. Extra points for the rump flattening one guard. Heh, heh.
Something impacts my arm, and the yelling of the guards tells me that I've been spotted. I find this to be the perfect opportunity to flee and do exactly that. The guards give chase, but I am already well hidden moments after they've lost sight. Funny though, they shouldn't be able to see me so well at night. Or at all, considering I was purposely masking my appearance. They seemed frightened, though not nearly enough to guarantee that my ability had worked on them. More importantly...
My arm appears to be wounded, though I'm covered in enough cow blood that I find it difficult to tell how badly it bleeds. The wound begins to heal readily, but the manner of the wound strikes me as odd. A metal pellet falls from the wound. Again, something to which I am unaccustomed. I do not recall having bumped into anything during the chaos, so it must be what caused the impact. No matter, the wound closes and, barring any soreness should no longer pose a problem. I resume my escape on the rooftops, hunting will have to wait until I've gotten through the guards.
The guards yell frantically across to one another, waking the residents and seemingly instructing them to stay indoors. Damn them! All have broken their normal patrols and have begun to fan out into the town, searching for me. Youkai attack appears to be something to which they are very familiar. One spots me as I jump over to the next building. A crack of thunder, a puff of smoke. Something whizzes past my head, and the guard stops to fumble with his weapon. He screams for the others to assist, but I stop him short. I feel him die as I drag him onto the roof, but it isn't enough.
A crack of thunder, a pain in my leg.
It must be those weapons. Miniature cannon?
They only fire one shot. The next guard dies quite the same, the others try to surround me as I make a break for it. My leg seizes as the wound tries to close, pushing another of those metal pellets from it. Running appears to be out of the question at the moment. Though, falling...
I flop down into the back alley. They can't see me but I can't hide here. They'll have the place turned out in minutes. My leg works against me, and I come to the main road. They're well ahead of me.
"Well, shit," I curse under my breath, pushing for a new exit.
More main roads, more guards. Every exit appears to be blocked. They'll spot me as soon as I'm--
"Get down!" One shouts, different from the rest, his arm extends towards me as if to alert the others.
A thunder, a flash from his hand. My chest explodes with a pain I thought impossible. I find myself unable to scream or cry out. Another flash, my arm falls limp to the ground, severed by the impact.
Another, three more in quick succession. I can feel them all. After each flash, dull thuds as opposed to sharp pains. I fall as they close in, my vision blurs. I've enough strength to take a few more of the bastards with me--
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Kogasa was right. This isn't worth dying over. I should feel foolish, but all I feel right now is pain.
Pain and more pain.
On the bright side, I'm not dead. At least, I don't think I am. Thinking is generally a sign of living. I can feel the sun on my face as well, so all signs point to me not being dead.
"Ugh...!" Trying to sit up leads to more pain.
Something cold touches my face.
"Wakey wakey," says a familiar voice.
"...Kogasa?" Funny how I can't actually see when I really want to do just that.
"It's me, yep." She sounds too cheerful for my own good.
"So I'm dead, right?"
"No, you're not dead," she says, "Though I half expected you would be. Try to stay down, you're still healing."
Her tone indicates she's trying to scold me; she doesn't seem particularly worried. I'm loathe to admit it, but this is the second time humans got the better of me. I almost died, and Kogasa makes it sound like I'd overslept and missed a date. I'm in a little too much pain to care.
"You made a huge mess in town," she adds, " they're talking about is some kind of wild animal attack. Some of them saw a bear, others say a wolf. One of them seems to think he shot a dinosaur. But that was all you, wasn't it?"
"What clued you in?"
"The blood, mostly," she says, matter-of-factly, "The cuts and bruises, too."
I don't seem to remember much after being cornered, "My arm. What about my arm?"
"Which arm?" She is rather clueless.
"The missing one..."
"Nue," she laughs, "Unless you grew a third arm when I wasn't looking, all of your body parts appear to be accounted for."
"Not funny," I'd jump up and hit her, but a sharp pain in my everything keeps me down. I start to fade out every time I try to sit up.
"Are you... sure you're okay? Did you hit your head on something?"
"So where are we?" Dismissing her jokes, I have to ask. Important questions first. "What happened?
"Just outside town, same place as usual. I don't know about the humans, but I could smell you from the house. Blood has a pretty distinct smell, and you were just covered in it. I've been trying to clean it all off, but you wouldn't sit still. You kept saying stuff about thunder and metal balls... Did they actually shoot you?"
I wish she would've kept talking. At this point she knows more than I do.
"I... guess so," I say, "What were those things?"
"Guards."
"The other things, those weapons." Smart-ass.
"The guns?" She pauses," Wait, you've never seen a gun before?"
"No."
"They're not exactly new, you know."
"Neither am I."
"How old are you, then?" She sounds almost as puzzled as I feel.
"Not now. Can I go back to sleep now?"
"Sure, but..."
"What?"
"You've really never seen one before?"
...
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A good amount of time passes before I'm on my feet again. Kogasa tells me I'd been out of commission for a few days. Any human would be several times dead from the injuries I'd sustained at the hands of the town guards, but for an immortal youkai even a few hours of dedicated healing time seems like an eternity. I should have expected it, but the new wounds don't scar over like my old arrow wound. That one feels old to me now, but the total time I've been conscious since I had sustained it hardly amounts to a week.
The guards eventually come knocking. They instantly recognize Kogasa as a youkai and seem to be on surprisingly good terms with her, but even when stared down by the one surviving man who had wounded me, I remain anonymous in his eyes. My ability works after all, it seems. They explain that no fewer than ten guards are unaccounted for, and that we should move closer to the town square. I see no reason not to comply, but I have to press for information before they leave.
"Parts." is the particular word he uses to describe the state of their dead. The survivors can't seem to agree on what sort of animal had attacked them, but they were confident that it had been some manner of youkai doing the killing. As said youkai, I will withhold my snarky commentary regarding their observation.
As he speaks, I slowly begin to remember what had transpired prior to my losing consciousness--that I had lost a measure of control over my abilities, that I eviscerated no fewer than five of his men in my escape, that I dragged myself into the underbrush behind this house where Kogasa finally found me. The finer details evade me, and I feel forced to accept the guard's testimony as gospel. I have no other significant source of accurate information regarding the attack beyond what memories occasionally flood my mind.
I don't ask about his weaponry despite my temptation to do so. Doubtless he would not talk, and in asking I might rouse his suspicion. I catch the date on one of the notices he's handing out, but the format is... unconventional. I still don't know exactly how long I've been out. They eventually leave as they came--without a suspect.
"So what was that all about?" Kogasa asks coyly once they guards leave.
"Good question," I play along, eager to not out myself as their 'wild animal' assailant, "To be on the safe side, we should most certainly move closer to the safety of their guardhouse. Do you not agree, miss Kogasa?"
"Oh yes, I do believe we should. It would be in our best interest to not have any more attacks in town, right Nue?"
The conversation would be less ridiculous without us mocking ourselves. Or her less-than-subtle jab at me. I'm surprised she's still on about that after what just happened. I think I've learned my lesson in regards to careless planning.
At least, I don't feel quite so hungry anymore. Mission accomplished?
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