Chapter Thirty Seven: Sprung

Hidden Moon had told them that there were only a few ways to get up to the Guildless territory above the city, and most of them seemed to be owned by the High Cathols. Ronin had made a note to look into that later on when he had more spare time, a whole new Guildless territory had potential.

 "Right now the only relatively safe way into that level of the territory for you guys is using your building. Roughly every ten stories is a new level, so you should be able to get there around the hundredth floor."

Hidden Moon's face flickered a bit as she spoke, her hologram connection weakening periodically due to the distance. 

Ronin looked up at her and asked, "Has an alert been sent to the guildless in the area?"

Hidden Moon frowned and said, "I think you'll find that there won't be much need for it up there...but yes, we sent an alert."

From the corner of his eyes, Ronin thought he saw something move and he waved Hidden Moon off and leaned in toward Delta, asking, "While we're gone, I need you to do me a favor and search the security records for evidence of someone being here."

Delta nodded, her hair bouncing up and down as she did so, saying, "I've had a feeling something was off as well, I'm already running a scan."

Ronin put his hand on her shoulder and said, "That's why I love you Del."

She blushed deeply and began to stutter as she said, "L...l...l...love me?"

 Ronin didn't hear her mumbling to herself as he walked to the members who'd be joining him on the mission and said, "If Hidden Moon's right, we shouldn't have too many problems, but keep on guard, just to be sure."

Silas tapped at her V.U.I. and sent a group communications request, which they all accepted, though Azue seemed shocked to be able to hear everyone in her ears at the same time.

Ronin sent her a message saying:

 -On missions, we maintain silence and speed, communication is to convey orders and emergencies-

Azue nodded and smiled at him, her hair slowly turning blue while Silas stood behind her and mouthed, "Azue loves Ronin, Azue loves Ronin, Azue loves Ronin."

While she did that, Azue's hair turned blue almost instantly and she turned around and said, "I do not!"

Assuming she'd seen her in a reflection, Ronin laughed and motioned to the group to move out. They walked toward the elevator, with Azue and Silas close enough to almost be touching him on each side. Sellius and Scalpel followed close behind, waiting for the doors to open as they all stood.

The elevator came and they rapidly found themselves on the roof of the building, though they were unsure of where exactly to go from there. Walking to the side, they found that Hidden Moon was right, there was an entire level just a floor down, that seemed as it were as lively as the streets below.

Connected to all the buildings were large, mostly clear walkways designed to let all manner of person and vehicle safe travel while still allowing sunlight through to the levels below.

They separated and began searching for a way further up, and after almost half an hour Azue spoke over the communications line, saying, "I've found stairs...but they are covered in...what appears to be snow."

Raising an eyebrow, Ronin told the team to meet up at Azue's location and they all soon found themselves at the corner of a building that seemed to have a stairway built directly onto the side and sure enough, there was snow coming out of the enclosed path upward.

Sighing, Ronin muttered, "It's never easy," as he began trudging up through the snow.

The air grew colder and colder as they climbed and forty five minutes later, they finally reached the top of the stairs, where a door marked Guildless Territory was slamming in the wind, open with the latch clearly broken.

Silas closed the communications line and said, "Guys, this is written in blood."

Scalpel got closer to the door and said, "Whose blood do you think it is?" Silas looked at her incredulously and shook her head, to which Scalpel said, "Oh yeah, right."

The five of them walked around the area outside the doorway, surprised to see that there were no buildings going much higher than this point, though it wasn't hard to understand why that was. 

Freezing cold and clearly not meant for human life, the Guildless territory they'd entered filled Ronin with more annoyance than the one they'd left. It was dark and dangerous down there, but other than some bumps and a bad fall, the environment ITSELF couldn't kill the already downtrodden Guildless.

Shaking his head, he made a mental note to work on a way to heat the environment up, at least in small pockets so there were safe places to go.

Say what you want about the city as a whole, it kept him busy, that much was for sure. He ALWAYS had some kind of project to work on to meet some need, so his office stayed open.

A harsh gust of wind blasted past everyone, pushing them straight to the point of shaking from the cold. As the wind blew, a whirlwind of snow flew past them as well, revealing their target, and its guardian.

Looking around, Ronin was surprised to see only a single defender, having expected at least ten people to protect something so important as to warrant transporting it. In a time where machines could reproduce almost any device you needed with the appropriate blueprints, transportation could only mean irreplaceable value.

A high, feminine, voice came from the direction of the container, "You're the one who got me knocked down to this stupid nonsense."

He looked back at the container and found that the owner of the voice was now standing directly in front of him, her head barely reaching his shoulders. Something about her seemed...familiar...and her voice immediately rang a bell, though he couldn't quite place where he'd heard it.

Silas immediately realized the girl had moved to an unsafely close distance to Ronin and tried to push her away, an attempt the girl ignored by simply brushing her off.

Ronin looked down and into her eyes to find that they practically glowed yellow under her cloak hood, and while not exactly tight fitting, her clothes left little to the imagination.

Rolling his eyes, Ronin put his hand on the girl's head, intending to push her away from him and instead found himself gripping something he hadn't expected.

Looking down again, he saw that the girl's eyes had...lulled a little bit, losing focus as he squeezed his hand on her head gently.

She subtly moved close to him, putting her hand on his waist when Azue, hair so blue that it seemed almost neon, pushed the girl and said, "You will NOT get that close to him. We are here for the container, and I will thank you kindly to give it to us and let us go!"

The girl's eyes snapped back to focus and she walked to Azue and pulled her hair saying, "And who are you supposed to be? Some rave fairy?!"

 The air around Azue seemed to boil and she pushed the little girl, whose hood fell off as she fell.

The sense of something being 'off' about her now made sense to Ronin, as he watched her ears become exposed.

Slightly hidden beneath short, auburn, hair, were two cat ears, gently poking out from her head, now twitching sensitively in the cold.

A look of panic appeared on her face as her ears twitched in what Ronin could only assume was also panic, though their size made them much more obvious than he'd previously realized. 

How had she kept them hidden beneath that hood, he wondered as she covered her head again and stared at him and said, "Don't you dare say a word!"

He rapidly grew disinterested with her shyness though and began wondering about getting the target and ending this mission. Since arriving in the city, he'd seen a man with lava for blood, giant invisible lizards and the city itself was so large that it had multiple climates within its borders. Cat ears were interesting to be sure, but not enough to distract him from his goal.

Silas however, was much more interested in this, saying, "Ronin, what do they feel like?"

"They're soft," he replied, focused entirely on the container, beginning to move towards it.

The girl put her hand on Ronin's chest, trying to stop him and failing to do so as he walked closer and closer until she pulled out a blade from within the depths of her cloak.

Pointing the dagger she held at his throat, the girl said,"Stop."

 Ronin glared at her, his curiosity at the container gone and replaced with annoyance as he said, "Do you really want to do this?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "Fight to the death? Absolutely not, but my mistress says I'm not to let anyone take this stupid thing under any circumstances."

Pulling her hood aside with her free hand, she pointed a finger at a bell that was tied around her neck on a choker and said, "And I can't disobey orders, or it's curtains for me."

Silas moved toward her and Ronin turned his head toward her and said, "She's just one girl, I can deal with her." Looking back at the girl in front of him he said, "What's your name?"

She tapped something into her V.U.I., the dagger still pointed at Ronin's throat and said, "You can see it now."

"Mira...that's a pretty name," Ronin said.

She laughed mirthlessly and said, "First you get me all hot under the collar then you compliment me, are you trying to sleep with me or fight me?"

Silas and Azue both started to move forward again and Ronin said, his voice ice cold, "Right now you're stopping me from finishing my mission, so fight you it is."

Mira jumped back and pulled a second dagger out as Ronin stepped forward and pulled twin pistols from his inventory, pointing one at her and keeping the second by his side.

He fired at her head and as she leapt into the air to avoid the bullet, he pointed the second at where he thought she should be and fired again, thankful that Trigger had decided to stay, there was no way he'd have allowed him to kill a little girl.

He heard the sharp sound of metal on metal and looked up to see that she was now flying toward him, the arc of her jump toward his initial location.

She stabbed at his head and he blocked it with the barrel of his pistol and grabbed her arm, slamming her into the ground.

As she flew toward the ground, she he spun her legs around so she landed on her feet and kicked off the ground toward Ronin, pushing them both to the ground with her on top of his waist.

She stabbed repeatedly at him, trying to cut his throat and he kept blocking with his guns, shooting at her when he could, blowing holes into her cloak with every shot until it simply fell off of her.

Mira smiled darkly and a tail flew out from behind her as she threw away her right blade, grabbed one of Ronin's wrists, and, pinning it down she grabbed his other wrist with her right hand and leaned in close, the dagger in her left gleaming dangerously in the light and whispered in his ear, "A shame we couldn't have done this another way."

He looked her dead in the eyes as she sat up preparing to land the last blow and said, "Activate: Strength."

The Aether energy in his body flooded his muscles, making him stronger and stronger by the second while she watched with a smirk.

 She laughed and said, "How cute!"

He pushed against her and found he couldn't move her at all, her strength so overwhelmingly higher than his that he couldn't budge her in the slightest.

She said, "Do you really think you're the only special one here, little Ronin?"

The dagger in her hand drew closer and closer and he quietly watched as she prepared to end his life.

Somewhere outside this fight he heard Silas and the team struggling to move, screaming that they'd help, but he knew they'd never be fast enough.

There'd be no blade from behind, no voice in the darkness to guide him to the light this time.

There was only the sound of silence as he felt as time slowed around him and he wondered if every person he'd killed had felt like this. There was no panic, there was only...peace.

"Pathetic."

 The voice came from all around him and nowhere at all, filling him with sadness and nostalgia at the same time.

It was a woman's voice, audibly apathetic, though he could feel its derision. Hers was a voice he felt like he'd known better than anyone else's, though whose owner he couldn't begin to place.

Despite the feelings it filled him with - regret, anger, disbelief - there was nothing he could do, Mira was too strong.

He looked up into her bright yellow eyes in this final moment and struggled to move his hand against her tail.

She flinched as his fingers brushed against it and it sent her dagger off its mark, striking the ground beside him.

Closer now from the missed strike, he whispered loudly, "What if I don't just want to fight you," and managed to grab her tail.

Her eyes glazed immediately, her calm even breaths from the fight became pants, almost gasps as her cheeks turned bright red and she fell onto his chest, dropping the dagger and releasing his wrist.

Mira's entire body went limp and he could feel her temperature rising as she panted into his chest, the gasps from her, now slack, body audible in the echoing silence that had surrounded them.

He sat up, running his fingers through her hair and gently brushing her ears as asked, "How old are you, Mira?"

She looked back into his eyes and her lips quivered gently as she responded, "I'm twenty four."

 Ronin smiled and picked her up in his arms, carrying her princess style as he walked and said, "You look very young to be twenty four."

She shook her head and said, her voice wavering, "I'm an adult I promise."

He kissed her lips gently and said, "I believe you."

Mira moved her head closer as he pulled away, trying to get him to kiss her again, her breath ragged as he walked.

Then he stopped walking and dropped her off the side of the building and said, "Maybe next time. I'm in the middle of a mission now."

She screamed in surprise at the sudden drop and Ronin turned to see the rest of his team staring at him in shock.

Looking at them, he asked, "What? It's true, we are in the middle of a mission right now."