CH323

CH322
Ren
I plunged into the water, rolling across the bottom, but not quite floating. I heard shouting from above me. Footsteps. They were following me. I dragged myself out of the water, coughing, shivering. Pushing through the tangle of lotus stalks and layers of dead lotus leaves and floating, mostly frozen flowers.
The wind was so cold. I could feel the water freezing on my skin. The ground slipped and melted beneath my feet. And now I was naked, wet. I'd lost the gun, but I still had the metal carafe. I crawled up the bank, smeared in the mud that hadn't yet frozen. I wrapped one arm around my breasts and staggered away. Searching for which way I could go for just a little more time. However much time I could get.
How long had it been?
Where could I go?
My vision was blurring. I could barely see in the dark. Floodlights fell over me, exposing me to whoever was up there on the veranda, leering. Laughing too high and too used to gunfire to be fazed. Someone was jeering.
"Nice tits!"
I felt sick, but there was no time to try and shrink back from the catcalling. The men coming down the slope were already reaching the banks. I backed up, back into the water. It wasn't deep enough for me to hope to swim away, but it would be where I would make my last stand.
I knew here, right now, was going to be the last chance I had to escape or fight. Whether I ended up dead or just restrained and dragged back up there to be at Hotaru's mercy. Ren shuddered at the back of my mind and I pushed her further into the darkness.
She didn't need to be here for this, no matter what happened.
I swung at the first man who drew close enough, catching him in the face. Another grabbed me by my waist lifting me. I swung down, hitting him in the back hard enough to crack his spine. He cried out and we dropped back into the water. The weight of his body made me stagger, but eventually he slipped down, face down, into the pool.
Another tripped into the pool. Water sloshed around us. Someone yanked the carafe from my hand. More hands grabbed me, rough and unyielding. I heard myself screaming, felt it in my chest, in the way my throat burned. I bit and kicked. I punched and thrashed, but I felt the cold sapping away my strength. My strikes went from lethal to painful to nearly negligible as the dizziness set in.
I was still bleeding, wasn't I?
The men wrestled me, dragging me up the slope.
"She's got nice tits for a --"
He choked and what light I could see coming from the house above me, the floodlight and the party lights, vanished in a gust of darkness that swept over the area. I heard someone shriek in absolute terror, yet it seemed so far away.
A rush of something vast and unseen swirled around me, swallowing the room in a deep, suffocating black. It moved like a living thing, curling through the air with a deadly whisper.
One by one, the hands on me jerked and released me. I hit the ground, gasping for breath, scrambling for something to cover myself to beat the cold that made my eyelids heavy. Something warm and wet splashed across my face. My hair, my chest. It was thick and sticky. The metallic scent filled my nose.
Blood.
For a moment, I wasn't wet and cold, kneeling in the frosty mud, but in a cold cave, hearing nothing but the shred of talons through flesh and sloshing water. A wet, sickening sound filled the air, but relief filled me completely. Something rolled toward me. As the ground beneath me grew warm with that same metallic, thick liquid, I wrapped my arms around myself. Letting the spraying blood, warm and thick, drench me, cleanse me of the fear that had plagued Ren's body and wreaked havoc on our minds all day.
I felt her pushing to know what was going on.
Not yet. No until it was over.
The sounds of more screams, of gunfire, and shouted orders trickled through what was left of my hearing. My hands scrambled blindly through the darkness. My breath came in ragged, shuddering gasps, my entire body shaking. I needed to cover myself, needed something, anything. The warmth of the blood was quickly fading.
The darkness pressed around me, thick and oddly warm. It wasn’t suffocating. It was… comforting. Familiar. Something guided my hand towards something that felt like fabric. The tablecloth?
I didn't know, and it didn't matter as I drew it around myself, feeling it slide across my wet skin. It felt like it was stained and wet in places, but I didn't care—if not for the cold, then for the modesty. I was just grateful for something. A lump rose in my throat, and for the first time since the nightmare began, I closed my eyes and felt at peace.
He had come.

Ryuu
The stench of blood was thick in the air, mixing with the acrid bite of gunpowder. The backyard was silent save for the dying gasps of the few Tiger Clan guards still clinging to life. The darkness coiled back into me as I solidified, stepping forward through the carnage. My scales rippled across my skin as I looked up the slope toward the veranda where the floodlights were coming from and the partygoers stared, whispering, gasping, and trembling in fear.
I didn't like to shift for several reasons, but had I been much later… I clenched my fists at the thought. I refused to finish the thought, because I hadn't been and there was no sense fretting about what could have been.
It was time to focus on what would be, starting with Hotaru.
Hotaru wandered toward the railing of the veranda, looking down, one hand gripping the railing, the other pressing against his bleeding side. His breath turned to soft clouds of white vapor as he breathed. His face twisted in rage and pain, but there was something else in his eyes, too. Fear.
I let the silence stretch as I lifted my gaze to look at him as he realized that I had killed every single one of the men who had been near Ren. I saw the weight of it pressed down on him and the rest of his guests, the horror of what had just happened written across their faces.
They deserved it and much more.
"This isn’t how we agreed to treat each other’s citizens," I said, my voice calm, even. I took a slow step forward, watching as Hotaru flinched.
Then, my gaze slid past him to the rest of the party. Then, I turned to look behind me where Ren was.
A fury like I had never known burned through me. I felt the shadows burning ice cold with it. The wind howled through my ears. My hand twitched and I reached for my belt as if to grab… a sword?
Yes. A sword.