Dokedo Suspension Bridge
Port Cirrus, Kaminari no Kuni
...1300 hours, 1 week prior
Steel clashed on steel as Tagiushi Moro, Sennin of the Kumogakure ANBU, fought for his life against the man he had sworn to kill. Yukimura Enishi, the most wanted man in Lightning Country, was also fighting for his own life as well. They both perched precariously on the slippery metal roof of a train car traveling at fifty kilometers per hour, and the wind whipped at their faces mercilessly, currents and eddys threatening to pick either of them up and toss them over the side like two worn ragdolls.
It had cost months of effort to track Yukimura to the little shipping depot on the outskirts of Port Cirrus, and the lives of many veterans of all branches to do so. Moro himself had closed one of his new buntaichou's eyes shortly after the man had bled to death in the ruined lobby of a hotel where they had attempted to take the Kingslayer down. One of the others, a Main Brancher in the Intel Corps, had refused to let Moro help him, instead gripping the Sennin by the collar and pointing with the ruined stump of his arm to where he had seen the man run off to.
It had been a dangerous and precarious pursuit, as Moro chased Enishi across the rooftops while Enishi fired lethal bolts of killing energy back at his pursuer, but he doggedly chased after his man. By chance, they were now on the roof of a moving train, having the fight of their lives. As a swordsman, Moro was outclassed by the man who had made his name with a blade, but his Santaru abilities were able to keep the Kingslayer at bay, with a shock here, a bolt there, or an attempt to electrify the roof of the train.
Still, when it came down to it, the fight was a contest of who could swing hardest and longest. And Moro had just lost as Enishi's blade cleaved through his own with a shower of sparks. Undeterred, Moro charged forward in a desperate bull-rush, ramming his shoulder into Enishi's gut before the man could end his life with a backswing. Both went tumbling to the searing-hot metal surface of the roof and were soon locked in a deadly grapple. At first, the ANBU Sennin appeared to have the upper hand as he repeatedly slammed Enishi's head and face into the metal and broke bone, but the Kingslayer was stronger than he appeared and managed to upend Moro onto his back with a piledriver that produced a sickening crack of bone.
Moro's vision turned white at the moment of impact, and he attempted to move his legs, but they would not respond. Driving back his panic, he reached into his waist holster and withdrew a pistol bolter and fired it. Enishi was pushed back by the impact as the bolt tore through his chest armor and lacerated a lung, but was able to kick the bolter out of Moro's hand, shattering the wrist with the blow.
Yukimura slammed his knee into Moro's solar plexus and drove his forehead into the bridge of Moro's nose, breaking it. He then dragged the ANBU Sennin to his knees, wrapped both hands around the man's neck, and started to squeeze...
"I'm on my way! Fifteen seconds!!!" shouted buntaichou Narsume Eru over her headset to Moro as she raced over the top of the train with all of the grace and power made possible by chakra. The pain shooting up her leg was blinding in its intensity, but the desperation was worse, She could see them clearly now, but as in a nightmare, no matter how fast she ran they seemed so far away. She had originally pursued Enishi along with Moro, but she had fallen through a section of fragile roofing and broken her ankle doing so. Still, she had managed to splint her wounded limb and had caught up with the departing train, barely latching onto the last car as it left. With all of her strength she had climbed to the top, where Moro was having his death duel with the Kingslayer far far away.
Meanwhile, situated on a sandstone bluff overlooking a section of bridged track, ANBU Taichou Morishima Haruka watched Moro being beaten to death with increasing alarm through the scope of her .50 caliber Baretto man-portable antimateriel arbalest. Theoretically, she could fire and hit Enishi from this range, provided she had not erred in the numerous calculations required to compensate for range, angle of attack, wind speed, temperature, humidity, and even the Coriolis effect. But there was still too much of a chance to miss, or worse, hit Moro... She looked again. Moro's face, the face of the man she also loved, was growing purple now.
"Dammit! He doesn't have time!!! I'm taking the shot!" growled Haruka as she exhaled furiously, emptying her lungs so that even the subtle volumetric changes of gas diffusing across her alveoli would not add any extra vibration that would throw off her aim. She closed her aiming eye for a second before opening it again, to check her natural point of aim and make sure that the reticle still centered on the exact same place she had worked so hard to establish.
The center of Enishi's back was dead center in her scope. Every time he drew back his fist to land another blow, crimson spattered across metal. Lightly and slowly, against every panicked instinct telling her to jerk the damned thing and save Moro, she squeezed the trigger. The thrum of the massive prods releasing their energy into the bolt was followed momentarily by the thunderous clap of the gas-reset system readying the weapon for another shot. Through her scope, the bolt lanced a silvery trail through the air and smashed into Enishi's shoulder...
And entered Tagiushi Moro's midsection, blossoming crimson over both men. The shock of the impact made Enishi's grip weaken suddenly, and he fell to the roof of the train, rolling in agony. Moro however, fell to the side and limply rolled off of the side of the moving train. Headfirst, he careened two hundred feet into the blue water below before disappearing with a tiny splash of white.
Numbness gripped Haruka's consciousness and refused to let go. Methodically, she inhaled to give her body a respite, before slowly shifting her position on the ground to line her reticle on Enishi's writhing form. The crosshairs lined up on his head, and she slowly squeezed the trigger again... Only to see the bolt crash into the stone lip of a tunnel's roof as the train, and Enishi, slipped into the darkness.
"MORO-NII!!!" screamed Eru as she realized what had happened. Abandoning the chase for Enishi, she leapt off of the side of the train before she would have been sucked into the tunnel, and dove toward the water where the wake of Moro's entry was still visible...
</B>
Trauma Intensive Care Unit
Aesculapium, Kumogakure no Sato, Kaminari no Kuni
...0800 hours, present day
"He's too unstable to go to the OR, Vice Commander. If we attempt to perform surgery right now, he will die," said the mednin Chief to Ayumu, shaking his head. "The best treatment we have right now is to place him in indefinite suspended animation in a bacta tank, similar to how we preserve living organs prior to transplant. There, his body will be given the chance to recover, and eventually, we may begin the reconstruction."
"H-h-how long..." Haruka, her voice unusually withdrawn and timid.
"I don't know, Taichou. Months, at least. Maybe years. And I cannot guarantee that he will be able to function again normally. You brought us a dead man, essentially. Isaki would have called the code immediately under any other circumstance, but I guess he was feeling somewhat...differently. I am truly sorry, but I need to go back and finish his orders. I'm sure you understand," said the chief as he nodded to Ayumu and started to walk away.
"I s-s-s-see..." she said, casting her eyes down to the floor. Eru held her hand, silently. "V-v-v-ice Commander... As s-s-strategic operations h-h-head I r-r-remind y-you that in s-s-such circumstances y-y-you are t-t-to assume c-c-command as s-s-sennin. I'd als-s-so l-l-like to s-s-submit my r-r-r-resignation..."
Port Cirrus, Kaminari no Kuni
...1300 hours, 1 week prior
Steel clashed on steel as Tagiushi Moro, Sennin of the Kumogakure ANBU, fought for his life against the man he had sworn to kill. Yukimura Enishi, the most wanted man in Lightning Country, was also fighting for his own life as well. They both perched precariously on the slippery metal roof of a train car traveling at fifty kilometers per hour, and the wind whipped at their faces mercilessly, currents and eddys threatening to pick either of them up and toss them over the side like two worn ragdolls.
It had cost months of effort to track Yukimura to the little shipping depot on the outskirts of Port Cirrus, and the lives of many veterans of all branches to do so. Moro himself had closed one of his new buntaichou's eyes shortly after the man had bled to death in the ruined lobby of a hotel where they had attempted to take the Kingslayer down. One of the others, a Main Brancher in the Intel Corps, had refused to let Moro help him, instead gripping the Sennin by the collar and pointing with the ruined stump of his arm to where he had seen the man run off to.
It had been a dangerous and precarious pursuit, as Moro chased Enishi across the rooftops while Enishi fired lethal bolts of killing energy back at his pursuer, but he doggedly chased after his man. By chance, they were now on the roof of a moving train, having the fight of their lives. As a swordsman, Moro was outclassed by the man who had made his name with a blade, but his Santaru abilities were able to keep the Kingslayer at bay, with a shock here, a bolt there, or an attempt to electrify the roof of the train.
Still, when it came down to it, the fight was a contest of who could swing hardest and longest. And Moro had just lost as Enishi's blade cleaved through his own with a shower of sparks. Undeterred, Moro charged forward in a desperate bull-rush, ramming his shoulder into Enishi's gut before the man could end his life with a backswing. Both went tumbling to the searing-hot metal surface of the roof and were soon locked in a deadly grapple. At first, the ANBU Sennin appeared to have the upper hand as he repeatedly slammed Enishi's head and face into the metal and broke bone, but the Kingslayer was stronger than he appeared and managed to upend Moro onto his back with a piledriver that produced a sickening crack of bone.
Moro's vision turned white at the moment of impact, and he attempted to move his legs, but they would not respond. Driving back his panic, he reached into his waist holster and withdrew a pistol bolter and fired it. Enishi was pushed back by the impact as the bolt tore through his chest armor and lacerated a lung, but was able to kick the bolter out of Moro's hand, shattering the wrist with the blow.
Yukimura slammed his knee into Moro's solar plexus and drove his forehead into the bridge of Moro's nose, breaking it. He then dragged the ANBU Sennin to his knees, wrapped both hands around the man's neck, and started to squeeze...
Meanwhile, situated on a sandstone bluff overlooking a section of bridged track, ANBU Taichou Morishima Haruka watched Moro being beaten to death with increasing alarm through the scope of her .50 caliber Baretto man-portable antimateriel arbalest. Theoretically, she could fire and hit Enishi from this range, provided she had not erred in the numerous calculations required to compensate for range, angle of attack, wind speed, temperature, humidity, and even the Coriolis effect. But there was still too much of a chance to miss, or worse, hit Moro... She looked again. Moro's face, the face of the man she also loved, was growing purple now.
The center of Enishi's back was dead center in her scope. Every time he drew back his fist to land another blow, crimson spattered across metal. Lightly and slowly, against every panicked instinct telling her to jerk the damned thing and save Moro, she squeezed the trigger. The thrum of the massive prods releasing their energy into the bolt was followed momentarily by the thunderous clap of the gas-reset system readying the weapon for another shot. Through her scope, the bolt lanced a silvery trail through the air and smashed into Enishi's shoulder...
And entered Tagiushi Moro's midsection, blossoming crimson over both men. The shock of the impact made Enishi's grip weaken suddenly, and he fell to the roof of the train, rolling in agony. Moro however, fell to the side and limply rolled off of the side of the moving train. Headfirst, he careened two hundred feet into the blue water below before disappearing with a tiny splash of white.
Numbness gripped Haruka's consciousness and refused to let go. Methodically, she inhaled to give her body a respite, before slowly shifting her position on the ground to line her reticle on Enishi's writhing form. The crosshairs lined up on his head, and she slowly squeezed the trigger again... Only to see the bolt crash into the stone lip of a tunnel's roof as the train, and Enishi, slipped into the darkness.
"MORO-NII!!!" screamed Eru as she realized what had happened. Abandoning the chase for Enishi, she leapt off of the side of the train before she would have been sucked into the tunnel, and dove toward the water where the wake of Moro's entry was still visible...
</B>
<B>Later...
Trauma Intensive Care Unit
Aesculapium, Kumogakure no Sato, Kaminari no Kuni
...0800 hours, present day
"He's too unstable to go to the OR, Vice Commander. If we attempt to perform surgery right now, he will die," said the mednin Chief to Ayumu, shaking his head. "The best treatment we have right now is to place him in indefinite suspended animation in a bacta tank, similar to how we preserve living organs prior to transplant. There, his body will be given the chance to recover, and eventually, we may begin the reconstruction."
"H-h-how long..." Haruka, her voice unusually withdrawn and timid.
"I don't know, Taichou. Months, at least. Maybe years. And I cannot guarantee that he will be able to function again normally. You brought us a dead man, essentially. Isaki would have called the code immediately under any other circumstance, but I guess he was feeling somewhat...differently. I am truly sorry, but I need to go back and finish his orders. I'm sure you understand," said the chief as he nodded to Ayumu and started to walk away.
"I s-s-s-see..." she said, casting her eyes down to the floor. Eru held her hand, silently. "V-v-v-ice Commander... As s-s-strategic operations h-h-head I r-r-remind y-you that in s-s-such circumstances y-y-you are t-t-to assume c-c-command as s-s-sennin. I'd als-s-so l-l-like to s-s-submit my r-r-r-resignation..."
