Chapter 8
*Looks at readers, who all have red, angry eyes*
Okay, I admit it. I haven’t written in a while.
*readers snarl*
OKAY! OKAY! I haven’t written AKL for over a month! *cowers* PLEEEEEEEASE DON’T KILL ME!! Take this fic as my apology, and kill me later!! x_X
P.S.: I have a different E-mail!! It’s crazy_jedi_siona@yahoo.com.
****
“Well? Are we all ready, girls?” Atarashii tightened the grip on her staff and looked at her friends, asking for their vote. She wouldn’t go in unless they were with her.
Or maybe she would, with Minami trapped down there still.
Judaiko, strangely serious at the moment, nodded gravely. “As ready as we’ll ever be, Atarashii.” Taihen added a thumbs-up to show her support.
“All right then. Let’s go!” Atarashii leaped into the well, feet-first. She expected to feel the cold slap of water hitting her body, but instead, she experienced a warm feeling instead. She also discovered that she could breathe too. Hearing two more splashes, she looked up to see Taihen and Judaiko floating down towards her.
Nodding up at them, she began to swim downwards as quickly as she could, wishing desperately she’d paid more attention at swimming class. A bright light began to fill up her vision, until the radiance was all she could see, hurting her eyes. But she kept swimming, oblivious to the glow.
“Ah!” Atarashii’s head broke the surface of the water. Nearby, she saw Taihen and Judaiko’s heads appear. Looking around, she saw that they were indeed at the same beach that Oki had transported them to before.
“So, you DID come back. A very odd move for you, Ichi.”
All three teens gasped and whirled around. Low and behold, there was Oki. The sorceress of the sea. A cold smirk crawled onto her face. “And I see you have brought the other two Guardians with you. Very polite of you.”
“We have come to destroy you, Oki!” Atarashii retorted, her voice tight with fury.
Oki barked out a laugh. “Is that so? How cute!”
“Hey!” Taihen yelled up at the sea-witch, shaking a fist at her. “Who are you calling cute, you disgusting hag!?”
Dropping the smile, Oki frowned down at them. “Spare me your insults and sarcasm, Ni. They will not lead you to victory!”
With that, Oki flew down like an eagle swooping on top of a rabbit. She raised her staff then pointed it down at them. Instantly, the waters surrounding the three Guardians began to rotate, forming a whirlpool.
“Get to the shore!” Judaiko cried, struggling not to get sucked in. She and the other two teens fought their way out of the water and onto the beach. Looking up, Atarashii could see that Minami and the other gods were still trapped up on the precipice above them. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in her head.
Whispering under her breath to Judaiko and Taihen, she said, “Girls! The Kaioshins are right above us! Look, you two go cut them free and get them outta here! I’ll distract Oki in the mean while.”
Judaiko frowned at her younger counterpart. “No way you’re doing this alone, Atarashii. You could get killed!”
Throwing the scowl right back at her, Atarashii said, “Do I LOOK like I care?! Just do it! We don’t have time to be fighting! GO!”
Without bothering to wait for Judaiko’s answer, Atarashii ran down the beach as fast as she could. When she had gotten a considerable distance from her friends, she gestured quite rudely with a certain finger up at Oki. “Hey! You! Yeah, you, you ugly old bint!!”
Oki, not even trying to hide her fury, snarled and swooped down at the teen. “You shall die, Ichi!” she screeched.
“You are so poetic! Ha ha ha!” Atarashii stuck her tongue out and her thumbs in her ears, waving them up at the woman. “Nyah nyah! Can’t catch me!” She sprinted farther down the shoreline. When she looked over her shoulder, she was happy to see Oki swooping after her.
And also very unhappy too.
Oki aimed her staff at Atarashii and yelled, “Rage of the Tsunami!!” A violent surge of water blasted out of the staff like a liquid tornado, racing towards Atarashii incredibly fast.
“YAAH!!” Atarashii jumped out of the way just in time to see the whirlwind of water smack into the beach, leaving only a gaping pit in its wake. “Whoa.” She looked back up at Oki. “So, ya wanna play dirty, eh?” She aimed her staff up at the sea-witch. “Take this! Cherry Blossom Blizzard!!”
Just like the water had rushed out of Oki’s staff, a twister of pink flower petals surged out of Atarashii’s own. Oki screamed as the blast hit her full on, knocking her out of the air and into the water.
Standing up, Atarashii made a victory sign, pumping it up and down. “Yes! Score one for the heroines!” Seeing that Taihen and Judaiko had cut free all the hostages, who were just beginning to regain consciousness, she flew quickly over to them.
“That was great, kid!” Taihen praised, bringing up Atarashii’s old pet name.
“Aw, shucks, it was nothing. Now come on, we need to get the Kaioshins outta here!”
Judaiko looked down at the comatose Dai and frowned. “Bloody hell, how do we get HIM outta here?”
“You take him.”
“HEY!”
“Oh quiet it down! Look, Taihen can take Nishi, Higashi, and Kibito; you take Dai, and I’ll take Kaiobit, Kita, and Minami. We’ll carry them with the vines, like how those helicopters do it. ‘Kay?”
Judaiko grumbled a bit more, but tied a few vines around Dai and then knotted them to her staff. The other two did it with their unknowing passengers as well. Once every one was safely inside their nets, Atarashii said, “Ready?”
“Ready,” was the unanimous reply.
“Okay! Let’s get to it!”
The trio soared up (Judaiko a bit slower than the other two) and into the skyline. Atarashii could hardly believe it; soon Minami and the others would be safe and sound, and life would carry on like it was meant to—
“ICHIIIIIIIIIII!!”
“Crap.” Looking down, Atarashii saw Oki in all her soaked and furious glory. “Double crap! Girls, step on it!”
“Wha?” Taihen looked down and, seeing Oki, cried out, “YIPES!” All three accelerated upwards at top speed. Oki kept coming, and seemed to be catching up on them when—
POP!!
“OW!!” The entire group of Guardians and Kaioshins landed on top of each other when they bust out of the well. Instantly, all of the gods regained consciousness.
“What?” Minami rubbed his temples and looked around. “What’s going on? I just remember a bunch of wa—“
“MINAMI!!” Before he could react, the southern god was being smothered by Atarashii. “You’re okay! You’re okay!”
“Wait!” Minami fended off his lover carefully, as not to hurt her feelings. “Atarashii, would you please tell us what is going on!?”
“I’ll tell you.” Everyone turned at the sound of Rou’s voice from the doorway of the garden. Although he had a rather large bandage on his head, he seemed to have recovered. “But you better believe me! It’s a whopper of a tale.”
Judaiko leaned in close to Atarashii and Taihen and muttered, “Yeah, kinda like his lust stories.”
*****
“Oh dear. This-this is awful!”
Everyone had gathered in Minami’s large banquet hall and were thoughtfully munching on noodles as the girls and Rou explained their current dilemma. The servants and Guardians had insisted on it; the gods would need all their strength if they (along with the girls) were to confront Oki in her water realm.
Rou slurped up the last of his noodles and pointed his chopsticks at the fretting Higashi. “You can say that again! I’m not sure that even all six Kaioshins can defeat her, even with Kibito there.”
Atarashii scowled. “Hey! What about me, and Taihen, and Judaiko?” She could barely contain her anger; they weren’t letting her go! She had started this, and she would finish it, confound it!
Smiling politely, Kita put his hand on the teen’s shoulder. “It’s quite alright, dear. You three have done her part already, and we are quite grateful for that.”
This did little to comfort Atarashii, who only scowled more heavily and went back to her Ramen. The gods chattered, thinking up tactics to defeat Oki or how to seal her back up, permanently. Because he had finished his bowl, Higashi got up and went to go put it in the sink in the other room.
“Huh!” Taihen snorted through her nose. “Can’t believe that they are making us stay here,” she grumbled. The other two teens nodded their heads bluntly.
“I’M the one that should really go!” Atarashii said, low enough so that the Kaioshins didn’t hear them, but high enough to make her point clear.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it was me who let Oki capture you two and the gods. Also, Oki’s made it quite obvious she only want revenge on me, since I’m Ichi’s reincarnation.” Her eyebrows beetled, a sign that she was stressed. “I’m the cause of all this, I need to be the one to solve it.”
Judaiko made a face at her. “You on crack or something? Read my lips, girl: you are NOT going to fight Oki alone!”
“She’s right,” Taihen agreed, “Whether you like it or not, we’re a team, and if one of us goes down, by god, we all go down.”
Atarashii shot back, “Now that, THAT, is just stupid. If the whole team goes down, then the mission can’t be carried on.”
“Oh, forget it! Look, you wacko, we’re going with you, even if you gag us, tie us up, and toss us to the other side of Kaioshin-kai!”
Atarashii struggled to fight back a grin. She wasn’t sure if she should be glad that her friends were so loyal and would stick with her, or be pissed that she would be putting them in the line of fire.
She decided on happy. Letting the smile loose, she said, “Oh, alright. Here’s what we’ll do—“
Her plan was interrupted by a loud cry of pain and terror from the kitchen; a scream that sounded an awful lot like Higashi’s. All the gods and the three girls leapt to their feet and rushed into the galley.
There, they found several servants on the floor, bloody and bruised. The whole kitchen was submersed in knee-deep water that oddly stopped right at the door. Upon seeing who else was there, the whole group gasped.
In the center was Oki, holding a tattered and unconscious Higashi up by his sash. Smiling cruelly, she brought him up to eye level and said, “A descendant of Rou? Heh.” She tossed him carelessly, like he was naught but a handkerchief, over to the girls, who caught him carefully. “I suppose that apple doesn’t far from the tree in this family, especially when it comes to weakness.”
“Higashi!” Nishi flung her arms around the small god, defending him with her body. “Oh, Higashi!”
When he didn’t respond, Nishi snarled and leaped at Oki. Kita followed her, making a sword appear in his hand, ready to bring it down on the woman.
Oki only laughed and swept her hand at them. A wave of the water struck them, knocking the pair against the wall, where they lay still.
With a cry of fury, Kibito, Kaiobit, and Minami followed suit, but met the same end. Soon, the seven gods, along with their tall servant, had fallen to the witch’s power.
“Kaiobit!” Taihen screamed. Turning back to Oki, she leaped at her and snarled, “That’s it! You’re gonna die, you whor—“
But she was cut off from a blast of sea water from Oki’s staff, sending her flying into Judaiko and through the wall.
Atarashii trembled with fury as she stood alone in the freezing water. It was all she could do to not leap for Oki’s throat, but that would be utterly stupid, not to mention futile. She clenched her left fist repeatedly, getting it ready for action, while tightening her grip on her staff as well.
Chuckling nastily, Oki began to float gently down, like a leaf sinking in an ocean. When she was five feet from the floor and twice that from Atarashii, she smiled maliciously and uttered only one sentence, but one that was enough to send chills down Atarashii’s neck: “Hello, my love.”
*****
~*beating impatient reader off* BACK! BACK! I’VE GIVEN YOU YOUR CHAPTER, NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!!
Final chapter, straight ahead!
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