Description: The second part to 'The Ninth Circle'. The Guardian Kings, having beaten and sealed the Devil of Koga, now rush to free their fellow teammate, plus one other, only to fully discover the full extent of Marise's experimentations. The main battle may have been won, but are they too late?
Pure adrenaline, basically, is what keeps Tenma Kiryuu going by this point. That, and refusing to think about what just happened, ignoring it entirely. As he dashes into the room pointed out by Ayame, presumably with Kenji and Hakuya hot on his heels, the leader of the Guardian Kings carries his bokken slanted over his shoulder again, the smoky, violent red aura around the wooden blade still glowing. While he doesn't think Ayame had any reasons left to lie, the Gedo swordsman is wary of any more defenses, any further dangers.
But of course, his first goal is the liberation of his teammate, plus whoever the 'other one' Ayame mentioned before was. To that end, as he runs he shouts the Russian girl's name, hoping to hear at least some encouragement that she's still alive, and that they're getting closer. "Voronkova!! Oi, Voronkova!"
Tenma's voice echoes maddeningly in the cavernous spaces around them as he leads his companions on, this twisting subterranean depths around them seeming gutted and hollow now that their evil heart has died. The menace of their environs is now the frozen, cold menace of what has been... the preserved threat of a place whose evil has been put to a decisive stop.
At least, that is the -hope-.
There are no further traps. There is no further opposition. There is only an faint voice that presently answers Tenma's calls; but not one that comes from a throat. But even though the answering call is heard only in the three boys' mind, the 'sound' of it is hard to mistake. It sounds exactly like Stasya, and it's calling back. 'Tenma! Hakuya! Kenji!' The relief is palpable even in that telepathic voice. She heard the chaos from afar-- thought it might be her team-- and she has been hoping so hard to hear their voices. Hoping they come out of those awful sounds safe. Wishing she could go join them.
But the disadvantage of psionic speech is that it is impossible to indicate one's position with it. Knowing this, Stasya twists in her multipronged Iron Maiden of a cage, her gaze winding past the racks of torturous machinery and bloodstained implements to her nearby fellow prisoner. 'Shurui, you must call for them. They are coming, but I don't know if they know where we are.'
Whenever the Kings arrive, they will be greeted with a sight that will either shock them... or send their tempers to flaring again. Both abused girls bear the marks of copious torture and maltreatment, raw wounds riddling their beaten frames; Shurui seems to have wasted more than Stasya from neglect, and Stasya looks marginally more -maimed-. Neither of them have been given more than the most rudimentary care necessary to sustain life. Shurui occupies a cage small enough it would have been inhumane to a cat, much less a girl... and Stasya is still strung up in that forest of spears and blades, killing spires instants from her pale face.
The smaller of the two captives is not only kept to a cage, she's bound with chains- a sort of punishment for her maddening drive to escape until her body was too weak to manage. Stasya may have suffered as another consequence, though of that, Shurui isn't sure. Marise could have been less willing to humor Stasya's protests, or that may have been just the Russian's ability to pierce the demon woman's nerves.
For better or worse, Stasya has managed to keep her fellow captive from giving up, especially when so maddeningly close to being rescued. 'They're coming? They're actually coming?' Honest hope burns in Shurui's thoughts to Stasya, like hot coals. 'I thought...' Her head droops, a sigh of relief coming from her parched lips. 'Everything.... will be alright....'
Then those lips open, the short girl's voice hoarse and raw from neglect. "W-we're here! We're-" Where's here? Fuck. '.... can't talk to them like you can...' is her exhausted reply to Stasya.
Though the final savage beating form Ayame has left Kenji injured... he's still gunning along. The only thing that keeps him from charging to the door first is the necessity to stay with the group and keep everyone together in this hellish pit. Unconsciously, even now as he runs, bursts of white-blue chi siphon off from his right arm in the midst of his strides. He isn't all that aware of it, either-- a sign that he's either -that- pissed off, or he's still got more energy stored up from after the Rail Gun he threw at Ayame.
"STASYA!!"
His yells and shouts are more furious and direct, though now when they reach the door to the room used to torture the two Gedo students, Kenji is the first to act-- whipping around and driving his leg into the heavy steel door (even if it is unlocked) to get it the -hell- out of their way. "URRRRAGH!!"
And ... What.
"... is this..."
Stasya and ... Shurui? This must be the other person that the Guardian Kings had been informed of prior to steamrolling their way to this room. It shocks, horrifies, and completely -infuriates- Kenji Ashima all over again. Looking to Tenma, Kenji hurries toward the torture devices and cage. "We're here!! Hang on!!"
Hakuya is no longer angry. That much seems to be clear, because he doesn't look like he's about to chew nails into bullets and spit them out at high speeds. He does look concerned though, and as he races through the tunnels after Tenma and Kenji, his fears of what they might find - after all, it's entirely possible Marise killed Stasya and the 'other' before they even got there. She -had- to have had some kind of alarm. It wasn't like they were quiet about it, or even if they could've been, would they have been. But - then the psychic voices can be heard. He never really understood Stasya's ability to do that, but at this point, it was enough to hear her, however weakly, calling out.
They burst into the room, courtesy of Kenji kicking the door in, and are greeted with a sight of... well, badness. It shocks Hakuya, to be sure. It even horrifies a little. But rather than getting angry, he seems to merely set his jaw and run in after his teammates towards the two 'cages'. He didn't like what he saw, no, but this wasn't the time to get flared up about it. They had to get their friends out of these cages, then get them out of this place altogether, and in a hurry. No telling what else would be coming their way.
He does, however, suddenly notice the second cage's occupant, whereas the one in the Iron Maiden-like cage is evident enough. "...Chiang-san?" he asks, even more shocked at this.
With Kenji to open the door for them, Tenma hurriedly charges inside... Though he too is stopped dead by the shock of what he sees. Scowling, Tenma lets out a faint noise before simply spitting onto the floor. It's too bad they can't take Marise out more than once, right? It's too bad the Sneak Thief got away after this. "Ain't you two in a sorry damn state," is what Tenma /says/ though, trying to hide his fury and disgust under his typical arrogant, abrasive, insolent demeanor. Sure, everything they went through was just a walk in the park, right? They do this kinda stuff all the time.
Of course, he hasn't the foggiest idea who Shurui is.
Immediately, Tenma starts slashing at the forest of spines holding Stasya, only taking the time to say: "Get the other one outta there," to Hakuya and Kenji before he resumes slicing through Marise's instruments of torture with his bloody chi-emanating bokken, destroying as much for the sheer primal relief of destruction as to free Stasya. By the time he's done, well, he'll cut Stasya down.
He'll be there to catch her though, which might be a little awkward for everyone concerned.
The instrument of grisly restraint comes apart easily before the preternatural cutting power of Tenma's bloody chi. Stasya falls slackly out of the pinning contraption the instant an opening wide enough is created, her light frame colliding bonelessly with Tenma's when he reaches to catch her.
The girl sighs all the strength she'd been trying to maintain in the last hour or so into Tenma's chest, going slack in his support. Her fingers curl in his shirt front, the utter familiarity of him overwhelming in this cold and harsh place. It's all abruptly too much for the girl who had kept such a pale-faced, rigid calm even through the final steps of Marise's lethal plan for her, and Stasya suffers a mild breakdown. To say the very -least-.
What might be a little -more- awkward for everyone concerned is when she starts sobbing exhaustedly into Tenma's shoulder, the female member of the Kings nearly floored by the complete wash of relief that surges over her when she realizes all her boys are still relatively unmaimed and in one piece.
'I am so glad,' she transmits helplessly, her psionic voice mercifully unhindered by her crying, 'you are all safe. And so sorry...' It's a little funny she should focus on the safety of her teammates when she was the one staring a painful death in the eye about half an hour ago. But then again, if it weren't for her, they wouldn't have had to come here in the first place: wouldn't have had to risk themselves like this.
Eventually she makes herself get a temporary grip, forcing herself to push down that desire to just sob and sob and trying to put on a braver face for those around her. She pulls away from (the doubtless terrified) Tenma, drawing an arm angrily across her eyes and composing herself with a long and shaky inhale. It's not right for her to go to pieces. It's not something a Guardian King does. And besides, the others have already risked themselves so much; she can't just let herself subside into uselessness now.
Trying to reassert some kind of control over the situation, she fusses at Tenma absently, checking him for dire wounds and ignoring all of her own. Once she's satisfied herself, she turns and forces herself in a heavy limp determinedly in the direction of the three others, seemingly of a mind to assault them with her concern as well. Particularly Shurui. 'I would talk normally,' she eventually 'says' tightly, 'but that woman...' Stasya shakes her head, stumbling lightly when the motion sends a wave of vertigo through her. 'It will heal.'
"S-stasya! Get Stasya!" That's Shurui's first concern, fear coloring her pale face. The machine, in her mind, seems poised to enact the brutual surgery on the Russian at any moment, and to Shurui, the moment she's freed is the moment Shurui's conscience is freed in turn.
One of them is going to her. That one... that one must be Tenma, by process of elimination. The other two, one with his blinding aura and the other white and comforting? Those two she can recongize. Hakuya, the polite fellow Gedo student who sparred with her days before she was kidnapped, and Kenji, the student council member who welcomed her on her first day.
Through her third eye, Shurui sees the aura that is Stasya freed and held up by her teammate's body, the tears and grateful words causing the clone to sag against her chains, mentally exhausted. But happy. ".... The demon woman... wanted to operate on her eyes. Take her eyes out. Something. Wanted to test it out before coming to me. Stasya... she kept telling me you guys'd come for us...."
'Get Stasya!' she says-- and Tenma is there to do it, chopping his way through the spikes on the way to saving their Russian comrade from sharp steel death. That leaves Kenji and Hakuya to follow the orders of their captain, the order to get Shurui out of the cage that she's contained within. "Right!" he exclaims, and says nothing more on the topic.
Charging over to the small cage with his Suigetsu comrade, Kenji pulls and shakes the lock a bit in an attempt to twist or break it. Hey, it -could- be old!! Failing this, the Guardian King plants his feet and starts pulling on the lock proper in an attempt to overpower it, grunting and hissing at it the whole way. Releasing it, stepping back, Kenji turns to Hakuya briefly before looking around the room. In that time, he adds, "I'll try to find a key, keep at this thing."
Turning away from the caged girl and the demon slayer, the brawler starts running to different locations around the room, looking for something-- anything-- that could be used or resembles a key.
Of course, blowing the damn thing off the hinges hasn't even come to mind yet.
It doesn't take much to get Hakuya moving over to Shurui's cage. Tenma's already got Stasya handled, so now it's just left to the other two Kings to free 'the other' whose identity is still a little shocking to Hakuya. He'd met the girl only days before, and they'd spared and seemed happy for it. She was a good deal less... uh, horribly tortured then, and seeing the sharp difference - in fact, seeing her here at all - was just making Hakuya alarmed in a number of ways. But there wasn't any time for that yet. Plenty of time to angst later. As he comes up behind Kenji, he watches the other boy try to jimmy the lock, and not getting very far. Then the other King is off to look for a key, which makes Hakuya pause to blink. It's a little bit of a comical motion, if the surrounding circumstances weren't so very serious. Looking curiously after Kenji, Hakuya shrugs - then turns, and punches the hinges.
He's the least worn out of the three Kings, so his manner of strength should be quite sufficient to shatter the metal hinges of the cage's door, then pull the door itself free, tossing it away some distance. Frowning, he then looks over the cage, and how Shurui is packed into it. How'd she even manage that? "Careful," he says, not quite knowing what else there is to say, and then begins to try and assist the girl out of it, or if she can't even manage that much due to hwo weak she is, setting his feet and then beginning to pull her out, gently. Even if Shurui manages to make it out on her own power, Hakuya's not the kind of guy to let an injured person, at least to this degree, walk on their own. So he simply picks Shurui up into his arms, turning back towards Tenma. "We need to leave here, quickly. Kenji will have to lead," since, you know, Tenma and he have their arms full.
Of course, Tenma holds Stasya up, even as the young Russian's fingers curl in his shirt - which is kind of wrecked after his encounter with Marise, but there's enough there to grab - and then starts /crying/. Why do girls always cry on Tenma Kiryuu? Is there something about him they find comfortable enough to sob all over? Is it just pure timing? Though he's definitely relieved to see his teammate alive, he's abjectly mortified by the fact that she's bawling her eyes out on him and /talking in his head while she does it/. It's difficult to tell which one he thinks is stranger.
"Pff, dumbass," Tenma says, in response to the psychic apology, totally trying to play the whole thing off. "You get into trouble, we come an' get you, that's how friends work." When Stasya checks him out, well, he's not suffering from any horrible injuries, but he has a nice cut all the way around his throat from somebody's garotte wire, and some kind of clawed palm print/burn mark on his chest. "She can't hurt either of you any more," Tenma says, when both girls mention 'that woman'. His voice is full of certainty and confidence, but his emotions are... Complex. At best. "She's dead. I killed her."
Letting that sink in for a moment, Tenma then nods to Hakuya. "Yeah. If we're lucky, we'll meet Blondie halfway. Ashima, lead the way." And whether or not Stasya can actually walk under her own power? Tenma is going to try to pick her up and carry her. Injured people shouldn't complain!
It's timing. Tenma certainly doesn't project a comforting air, after all, and Stasya is not usually a person giving to showing weakness. At no other time in her life would Stasya ever feel the need to embarrass herself in front of her friend and leader by crying all over him. It's only her utter exhaustion, the ambient relief that soaks the air all around them, and her own prodigious gladness to see her friends that makes her break quite so hard.
She's quick to recover though, Tenma's own tendency to play things off roughly leaking into her through her empathy and helping her right herself emotionally. She pulls back with a shaky sigh, cleaning herself up a bit angrily and nodding jerkily to his words. 'Th... thanks. I was so worried... others would be hurt because I was a fool.' More 'others' than just Shurui, anyway, for whom she still feels guiltily responsible.
And then, for all she's battered and injured, for all she's tired and emotionally worn... she shoots Tenma a bit of a worried look when he proclaims he's killed Marise. It's not because of the action itself-- she saw what Marise really was, and that the creature is dead is a favor to the world as far as Stasya is concerned-- but because of the complex emotion that knits itself to life within him when he says it. She's too tired to try to figure out if he's okay, though, and besides she refrains from prying a little bit. She feels a little uncomfortable poking into his privacy on that count. For the time being, she says nothing, except to nod in mingled relief and exhaustion.
As for her ability to walk... it's shaky and halting, but she sure is trying. Tenma apparently won't have any of that, however, and when he picks her up she physically protests only a little before she gives up and just lets him carry her. 'Aiii,' she sighs, slackening, 'I am so sorry. I was... I was foolish.' She literally believes this entire thing to be her fault, and she's kind of stuck on that fact. 'I will explain what happened when we get out.' She leans heavily against Tenma's shoulder, peeking concernedly at Hakuya, Kenji, and Shurui. '...How did you find us? How did you get -in-?'
The Shurui that Hakuya met back then was distant , some would remark. But a transformation occurred during that spar, the girl changing from a cautious off-putting teenager to a fast, vicious opponent, trading blows, dodging and manipulating his attacks, and pressing forward when his attacks *do* hit. In the end, when the spar ended, both recieved their equal share of success and pain, and Shurui left that room with a positive impression of the offbeat and friendly Guardian King. Kenji? He may have seen a surly girl that was too quick to shoot him down.
How was any to know that the next time they met, it would be in such a state? Hakuya certainly wasn't happy-go-lucky when he charged through the casino looking for the two of them, and Shurui.... didn't look like something close to a skin and bones with rags. As soon as she hears the door come off, Shurui's body contorts, skinny fingers clawing at the bars like a cat freed from its cat carrier after a trip to the vet's.
How did Shurui get in there? It's probably best for Hakuya not to know.
Hakuya proves to be more of a help than Shurui's own scrambles for freedom, managing to keep her from dislodging some bone or rib in her haste to get out. When he simply picks her up into his arms, Shurui flinches, then immediately clings despite herself, pressing her face into the cloth of his hoodie with a word. Human warmth. Normalcy. The unaudible hum of a well-meaning aura against her head.
It isn't until she hears Tenma's words, however, that the sobs start. ".... Fucking.... devil woman.... wouldn't even... back down in a losing battle..."
"We used a tank! And a grenade launcher! And then there was a lot of punching."
The fact that she isn't talking-- verbally-- hasn't crossed Kenji's perception just yet, ripping whatever he can find apart in an attempt to find a key. He's much more energetic than his body would claim, the bruises and welts long since formed on his arms and head, not to mention the t-shirt roughed up in the duration of their fight. Guts!! His passionate heart!! Those are the phrases he'd use to describe it, if he had the chance.
"Ah-HA!" he declares victoriously, holding a key up just as he looks over to Hakuya... who has ... ripped the door off.
Kenji turns his attention back to the key for the briefest of moments, as if giving it a look as to say 'I'll get back to you' before tossing it over his shoulder. Hurrying over to Hakuya and Shurui, the Missile Fist removes the jacket from around his waist, trying his best to drape it over the girl before looking to his sword-wielding compatriot and the hoodie-clad student.
"All right, I'll go make sure there's nothin' up ahead on the way out. Keep up, all right?"
Bearing down a bit, Kenji Ashima turns and starts out of the torture room first. He's moving at a brisk pace, but looking over his shoulder now and then... after all, he has to make sure his friends can keep up.
It's probably good Hakuya got Shurui out, then, for she very likely would've just hurt herself more in her frantic clawing to get out. And with that in mind, he doesn't even give her a moment to try and talk her way into walking on her own - not that she does, given that almost the moment she realizes she's up in her arms, Shurui clings to his hoodie. Offering a slight smile of comfort that doesn't entirely touch his eyes - he's too worried for that - he adjusts his grip on her slightly so he can hold the psycho-user better for what's ahead: lots of running. And also so that Kenji can toss his jacket over the girl. To either comment from Stasya or Shurui, he doesn't answer, a little distracted with other thoughts to answer properly. After all, they still need to get out of here!
Nodding to Kenji as the other King leads the charge, Hakuya turns with his feet, and then trying to make it as comfortable as he can for Shurui, begins to race after his team mate, falling into line with Tenma as the three of them, with an extra two carried, make their way back to the exit. And the waiting LAV.
With Kenji leading the way, the other Guardian Kings - plus Shurui - follow behind, Tenma and Hakuya slowed only slightly by carrying their respective psionic former captives. "Oh... We had a little help," is Tenma's only response to the psychic question about how they found out where Stasya and Shurui were held, much less managed to get inside. Of course, that's probably around when they run into Adelheid, the aforementioned 'little help'. Otherwise? The leader of the Guardian Kings doesn't appear too interested in continuing the conversation; the girls will learn soon enough how Tenma got the information about their location, if history is any guide. And the Bernstein scion is evidence enough as to how they got in.
Especially when they get to the stairwell Adelheid has cleaned out, with all those armed and armored Blackjack enforcers strewn about like so many toy soldiers. Even Tenma, always arrogant and abrasive, has to let out an impressed whistle at the remarkable sight of the havoc wrought by the younger teenager... But there's no time to stand around and pat anyone on the back for being awesome, no. They need to get out. The run up the stairs, with Kenji in front and presumably Adel bringing up the rear, is nowhere near fun for the tired and injured Gedo swordsman, but it keeps his mind off of what's happened. The Fennek can't come into view soon enough, in the middle of the probably just as chaotic casino.
Piling in with the others, Tenma lets somebody else handle the driving this time; right now, all he wants to do is go home with his friends. For once, Tenma Kiryuu doesn't have much of anything to say. A heavy silence weighs on him as the group makes their escape. He should probably feel proud, he knows that; he should probably feel happy. But mostly, Tenma just feels exhausted.
Log created on 22:42:20 03/28/2008 by Shurui, and last modified on 02:07:45 04/03/2008.