Rashomon

The sewer lid was dislocated ever so slightly, allowing a quick pick at the outside. Akutagawa was the first to get himself out of the hole, followed by Kath, Kyouka, and then Atsushi.The man looked around as though expecting something to jump at them out of the fog. He then faced in a certain direction and smirked. " No wonder he can sense my presence."The hair at the back of Kath's neck prickled up with the intensity of someone's gaze upon her. Maybe her own ability wasn't too far from them." I'll help." Kyouka offered." I don't need it." He marched on with firm steps, one could almost say he was enjoying it. " I've wandered many a night and slain many an enemy to prove my might. But I haven't thought such an enemy worthy of fighting and being defeated would be so near." And he disappeared into the fog.Kath narrowed her eyes as she ran after him, but suddenly stopped and looked back at Kyouka and Atsushi. " Listen, if you ever come across my ability, run. Don't try to engage it."" Wait, Hanazawa-san!" But she was already gone, following the echos of the footsteps." Wait up! Ryuu! I'm going to help!"" I said I don't need it!"" Blimey! Getting help will not kill you! But that bloody thing might just do!" Kath stopped when the man looked back at her." I've challenged countless enemies, and defeated just as many. However, that man never acknowledged me, you know why?"" Are we talking Dazai again here?"He ignored her. " Because the one who defeated the enemy, no matter how strong it was, was Rashomon not me. But I'm not just a vessel, I have my own worth. Yet I could never prove it, up until now. I need to defeat him, with my own strength."Kath wasn't sure that was the answer she wanted to hear. Nor was she sure any of that would bring Akutagawa what he desired, but she knew how to get him then. " Okay then, if it's that way, then I'm not helping... But I'm going there as your strength."Akutagawa regarded her. " I'm just another asset you gained. A strength you have that has nothing to do with Rashomon. So I'm going there with you, whether you like it or not."His eyes narrowed, his lips pursed. Maybe he wanted to agree, but the fire in Kath's eyes could never be extinguished. " If it's as you claim, then I'll take the offer." Kath's face brightened." Okay then, what's the plan?"" Simple, stay out of his reach. I know his limit." Kath wanted to bang her head so badly at that." Ryuu, that's an idea, not a plan. Though it's a crucial one." Kath folded her arms before her chest. " The problem is how to defeat it. I personally never seen my own ability till now, but I've seen Kyouka-chan and Kunikida-sensei's. There is one thing that stood about them."" The red stone..." Akutagawa continued. " It's really intriguing. Most of the abilities I've seen too had them on their foreheads. Rashomon however..."" Here comes my second observation. Kyouka-chan's and Atsushi-kun's abilities, they didn't take the form of their owners, but their own forms with their own aspects. Which brings us to Rashomon which too seems to do the same..."Akutagawa looked over his shoulder. " Then you're saying..."" I'm going to bet my bloody fingers that same stone is in there, protected by Rashomon the same way it protects you. So to destroy it, you would need a way to get through the fabric." Kath reached into her pocket and picked up her gun. " You know Rashomon, there is no way to defeat it from afar so I'm afraid you will have to get close to destroy it in the end."Akutagawa looked down at the gun, and irritation flared through his eyes. " I don't need that pathetic weapon."Kath caught the switch in his tone. " Ryuu..."" It gives people the false idea that they're strong, that they have the right to take lives as they please and trample on others in their wake. It's not strength, it's a vile lie."Kath's mind raced back in time, to a day that was long since buried away. It may have been the first time she had dug it out. The scene flashed before her clearly, blood covering the walls and the floor, bullet holes piercing everything in sight. " Right... they died by guns..."Akutagawa gave no answer. Sensing the gravity of what she had done, she quickly put away the weapon as though it was burning. Just how much it took for him to contain himself when Atsushi-kun pointed the gun at him." You still need a weapon." She took out the grenade she had picked at the agency from her backpack. " This should suffice, right?"Akutagawa stared at it for a moment before accepting it. " Alright, now we need a place."" I've already thought about it."✦ -─────────- ✦Kath had known him since they were kids, and she knew his every habit. Or so she hopped. Akutagawa was the kind of person to react without thinking, then think in the spur of the moment, like some wild instinct that kept him alive for so long. Now she was strongly reminded of that once again.Her job was simple. Sit still and hit the buttons when Rashomon shows up. And most importantly, she was to never get in his way. With a roll of her eyes, she observed the other side of the bridge hung over the boiling cistern of iron. Rashomon was bound to appear any moment now.It wasn't before long that she noticed Akutagawa's shoulders tense at the other end, a telltale that Rashomon had finally shown itself to him. From her position up there, the ability was still blocked from sight.Akutagawa made it to the center of the bridge, his footsteps loud, almost provoking, his stride unwavering and unflappable. And then it happened, ribbons of dark red fabric zoomed to his throat, albeit stopped a few inches short. Akutagawa had moved back his head ever so slightly to avoid the blades with minimum distance." Show off," Kath mumbled as Rashomon darted forward, it only left option was to reduce the distance. When it was just one meter from Akutagawa, she hit a button on the panel before her. Beams of iron fell off the ceiling, burying Rashomon beneath their weight.Kath held her breath in anticipation when everything went still. There is no way it was stopped just by that. And she was right. The beams shook before a dragon head made of cloth surfaced up, pelting them in every direction. The large jaw of sharp fabric launched for Akutagawa who backed away immediately. But much to their surprise, the jaw split into countless little ones." Ryuu!"Knowing there was no chance of outrunning it, Akutagawa spun around and brought his arms over his face in defense. Rashomon struck, leaving nothing but a hole in the scaffold as Akutagawa plummeted down to the boiling furnace.Kath wasted no time, grasping a joystick, she flung it away from her and a crane zoomed towards the man just in time. He grasped its chain and halted his fall. Kath heaved a deep sigh of relief at that.Rashomon however wasn't satisfied with its owner's survival, for it attacked almost immediately. Akutagawa let go of the chain just as the black blades whizzed over his head and cut it. He used the other half to fling himself forward and rolled down to the nearest scaffold, hitting his back and head hard against the railings.Kath winced when she witnessed that and noticed his body shaking with the attempts to stifle his coughs. A blur of black leapt before him and her eyes widened. " Get away! Ryuu!"Akutagawa managed to push himself away in time just as Rashomon carved the part he was laying on off the bridge. The scaffold throbbed and plunged down, its cut end submerged into the melting iron. Akutagawa was lucky to avoid being thrown head-first into it.Rashomon dropped before him, just on the upraised part of the bridge, glaring down at him. Kath swallowed hard. The ability had made a point of cutting every crane she could use to save Akutagawa. This feeling... it's as if Rashomon wants to settle a score with him...Akutagawa dashed forward, undeterred by Rashomon's whips and skidding beneath him before rounding and kicking him from behind, shoving him down the pit of hell. Yet Rashomon refused to stay down there. It didn't take a moment before it was clambering back on the scaffold. Kath was looking around for anything, anything that could be used when she noticed Rashomon wasn't moving. Her eyes flicked back to its feet rooted to the ground with molten iron that had cooled and clumped down on it.I see! Kath's eyes widened in amazement as she looked over at Akutagawa, making a show of unsealing the bomb she had given him with his mouth. Was that what he was aiming for from the beginning!!Akutagawa skidded to his ability, jamming the hand clutching the bomb into the fabric of its abdomen before bringing up his arms in defense just as Rashomon ballooned and was blown off from the inside. " I see, the fabric doesn't just protect those inside it. It can also protect those on the outside if used to quell something. I didn't know that. Rashomon is truly an amazing ability."Akutagawa stepped off the scaffold just as a red glow enveloped him, the beast's head emerging from the folds of his coat, eating away at the space before it.