Disclaimer: Don't own anything, don't sue
Note: The song you will read the lyrics of, Step Up, is the property of the band Drowning Pool...it just fit in so well, I had to borrow the lyrics. I do not own it, gain not money from it, and it is only the lyrics. No singer, or instrument used. So sueing for it would be pointless. Thank you.
Zack was gathering weapons at an armory on the opposite side of the village. He would have gone to the other armory where he heard Kyone was, but he wanted to keep his skull in a round shape. First on his wishlist of weapons was a katana, the standard Japanese sword. He found a blade that would have looked good in a museum of art, and that looked even better at his side. Second, a bow. This was a lot easier choice ...there was only one left in the building. Apparently, the villagers kept most of their bows at home. Plenty of arrows, and a large quiver. Then half a dozen spears and a dozen daggars.
As he left the building, he had a moment of
doubt -- should he do this? He remembered that the old hag had
told him that he couldn't last a day in the wilderness. He would
love to see her face when he proved her dead wrong. Then a
daggar fell, and when he leaned over to pick it up, all the
arrows fell out; and when he tried to pick up the quiver, he
dropped the spears. Before he proved his fighting and survival
abilities, he would have to find a better way to carry all these
weapons...mabe lose a few dozen or hire a few porters to help.
Kyone knew the three people in front of her as Sango, Keade, and Inuyasha. The old woman Keade said that if Kyone beat the village's best three fighters -- one at a time -- then she would teach her to use the weapon that best suited her fighting style.
Kyone answered that she might enjoy a fight with Sango and Inuyasha, but that it would take take average village wimps to slow her down, much less beat her. The old woman just pointed to the field behind Kyone.
Kyone turned around, and got serious quick. The first guy looked like a bald gorrilla -- hair everywhere but the top of his head, and the top of his head was a good ten feet above the ground. Was this hag trying to get rid of her quick?
The gorilla charged her rapidly, with his fist wound up for a death-dealing punch. Kyone just followed her instincts -- hit the deck before the gorilla swung, and rolled out of the way of his other arm, feeling it skim her ear lobe, nearly decapitating her.
Kyone quickly stood up and charged back. The gorilla tried to punch her again, only to see her grab the arm, and swing up and around, like it was a trapeze and she a circus performer, and he the dumbo straight man, in utter agony. To add injury to insult, she did a double-flip, as if she were showing off to an Olympic audience, and kicked him in the face with her heel, as she bowed majestically.
But her celebration was a bit premature. Before she straightened up, the gorrilla grabbed her, with one hand on her throat and the other on her crotch, and threw her in the air.
That annoyed her. Nobody threw her... or rather nobody who threw her kept his balls for long.
But she was actually more happy than mad. She was loving every second of this. It had been years since she had met an opponent good enough to put up an interesting fight. If she had just remembered to bring her iPod, she'd play her favorite -- Step Up by the Drowning Pool -- and savor the moment. So she did the next best thing -- she hummed the tune, and heard the words in her head.
She stood up slowly, smiling broading, and dancing wildly in tune with her hum. The gorilla did a double take, what kind of blood-crazed maniac was this woman?
Kyone suddenly stopped humming, and started singing out loud, "One, two, three, GO!!" The moment she said go, she charged at the ape just like she had charged at the bear... with no thought on the consequenses.
"Broken,
Yeah, you've been living on the edge of a broken dream.
Nothing,
Yeah, that's the only thing you'll ever take away from me."
The giant charged at her too, with a shuffle-step of hesitation, both in confusion and curiosity. Given a choice, he'd like to hear the end of the song before he crushed her. But she was too fast, and on him while the song was just getting started. In self-defense, he swung at her, and once again Kyone ducked under the blow.
"I'm never gonna stop,
I'm never gonna drop,
Ain't no different than it was before."
This time, Kyone, without missing a beat in the song, rolled right between his legs and kicked upward with both feet. He shot straight up like a rocket, screaming in agony, and landed flat on his back, with red, hairy, drooling face staring blankly at the clouds.
Keeping up the tune, Kyone gracefully jumped on his chest, and did a good imitation of a tap dance -- the tapping provided by the sound of breaking bones; then did an Irish step dance on his nuts.
The spectators stared in shocked silence.
Keade searched her magician-strength memory, trying in vain to figure out how Kyone did it.
Sango covered her ears, to block out the singing. She hated that song.
And Inuyasha covered his nether regions in sympathy for what the gorilla must be suffering.
"So take some good advice,
You better stop and think twice,
Before you take your first step,
Out that door."
Before Kyone finished her victory dance, her next opponent appeared -- a young man, no taller than Kyone's waist. He stared in horror, then turned and tried to walk away quietly. He would have escaped, if the third would-be fighter hadn't grabbed him and thrown him back toward Kyone, as if this were a dwarf-throwing contest.
"If you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down, knocked down.
If you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down."
The short man landed, conveniently, at Kyone's feet, so she could step off one dance floor and onto another.
He rolled quickly to avoid that ignominious fate, then jumped to a shaky imitation of a fighting stance. He swallowed deep to relieve his evident stress. Unfortunately that meant that his mouth was open when Kyone's first punch landed, deep in his throat.
"You had your chance to walk away.
Live to see another day."
The small fighter landed flat on his back and popped up immediately, like an inflatable punching doll.
She punched again, and he bounced up even faster, this time head-butting her in the gut, rather painfully.
She slugged again, spinning around for the force of the blow, so this time when he popped up, he head-butted her in the butt.
She briefly interrupted her singing to spit in
his face, before picking him up and sending him back in the face
of the still unknown third fighter. Then she continued her song,
while waiting for that last opponent.
"If you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down, knocked down.
You're gonna get knocked down..."
But, to her surprise, the midget came flying back at her, either from his own extraordinary energy, or from another throw by the third guy.
This time he bounced high in the air, like an acrobat off a trampoline, and came down head first, head-butting her in the head.
Kyone paused to hold her head for one second, say, "Creative," then continue her song.
"Suffering,
Yeah, that's the only thing here that's left for you.
Nothing,
Yeah, that's the only thing you're ever gonna -- do."
The midget paused as the words of the song sunk in his ears and as his nose cracked and then cracked again and then yet again, from one punch after another. He had been told that this cute young egotistical girl would be an easy match, and Kaede had promised to pay him the equivalent of a year's wages to rough her up a bit. With his wife hearing the offer, there was no way he could have refused. But now it turns out that this cute little girl is a sadistic fighting bitch. He had been hit so many times, so hard, that he was numb, until now, hearing those words, when all the pain came rushing in.
"I'm never gonna stop,
I'm never gonna drop,
Ain't no different than it was before."
She picked him up as if he were a football, and this time had the good sense to throw him in the opposite direction, where there was no one to throw him back. He went flying through the door of a hut on the other side of the village, and was soon carried out by the irate lady midget and an old lady with a cane, both of whom then proceeded to pummel him repeatedly and humiliatingly with broken wooden spoons. Worst of all, it was his wife and his eighty-year-old mother-in-law.
"So take some good advice,
You better stop and think twice,
Before you take your first step,
Out that door."
The third fighter emerged from the shadows. His mustache and beard served as a mask, hiding any facial expression. His bare torso emphasized his impressive muscles, which he flexed for effect.
He charged Kyone. She confidently ducked. But he readjusted quickly and caught her in the jaw with his fist.
She tried to act as if the punch had no effect, but her jaw hurt too much to keep singing. She went back to humming the tune.
He attacked again, and it took all of Kyone's strength and skill to block and dodge. She hadn't even had a chance to try to land a blow on him.
She took a deep breath and sung again --
"So if you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down (knocked down).
If you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down."
He aimed an open hand chop at her breast, but she caught his hand between her two open hands, struggling to keep it back. How dare he? Nobody, absolutely nobody touched her breast without a written invitation, in triplicate, notarized, and submitted six months in advance.
"You're gonna get knocked down..."
The hairy man spun quickly, so that the hands holding his hand wound up wrapped around her own neck, on the brink of breaking.
While she twisted and squirmed, trying to break free, but he now held both her arms in a vise grip, with his left hand, and with that same arm held her in a headlock. And with his right hand, he gently and sensuously stroked her behind the ear. It was so ridiculously unexpected and humiliating, that while continuing to sing -- to deliberately demonstrate that she was not yet beaten -- her arms and legs started flailing in all directions with force enough to break bricks. To the audience, she looked like a windmill spinning in a hurricane.
"And now you've crossed that line...
You must be out your mind."
No sooner had she sung those oh so appropriate lines, then she sunk her teeth deep into the arm that had her in a headlock.
Moments later, she spit out a chunk of flesh, with a crimson smile.
"If you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down, knocked down.
If you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down."
When he fell to the ground, spirting blood from his arm, as if it were Old Faithful, she didn't let him scream. Rather she sat on his chest, and punched his face over and over again, until it was as bloodly as his arm.
"You had your chance to walk away.
Live to see another day."
She heard voices telling her to stop, but didn't listen.
"If you wanna step up, step up,
You're gonna get knocked down, knocked down.
You're gonna get knocked down..."
She was so caught up in the song and in her
rage, that she would have delighted in killing this man. But,
suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck, and the
lights went out.
Sango didn't waste time after knocking out Kyone with a rabbit punch. She just tied Kyone up and then helped Kaede give first aid to the victims.
Inuyasha just stared at the bodies with horror.
The gorilla man named Goro was mercifully unconscious, bleeding from between the legs.
The small one, Hachiro, had a broken nose and his shoulders were impaled with the handles of two wooden spoons.
The third fighter, Daichi, was bleeding badly from the bite wound as well as from the mouth. Kaede quickly tied a cloth tightly around the arm above the wound, and stuffed another cloth in his mouth and held it down tight to stop the bleeding there as well. Unfortunately, that meant that he couldn't breath. In desperation, he pushed her away.
Inuyasha screamed, "WHAT KIND OF CREATURE IS THAT SHE-DEVIL? EVEN A DEMON ISN'T THAT...THAT...CRAZED!!"
Sango agreed wholeheartedly. Who could sing
like that and smile like that while brutalizing three clearly
out-classed thugs? Who was that thirsty not just for blood and
screams of pain, but also for humiliation?
Meanwhile, Zack was having little luck. He found two creatures he could hunt, but he scared them off by tripping on a rock, snapping a twig, falling into some water, struggling to get out of said water, and getting hit by a falling branch as soon as he left the water. Needless to say, he wasn't getting breakfast that way. So he did the next best thing -- train.
He started by hitting a tree branch. The branch wasn't long, so he could use it later for archery practice...if he could get his sword to cut the thing. His every swing was good. If he had a baseball bat and was hitting a ball, he would have had six home runs and a double. He just wasn't cutting it though... figuratively and literally. In frustration, he picked up the bow, notched an arrow, and shot at a nearby tree trunk. His pride took another nosedive. He missed. From eighteen inches away. And his target was five feet wide. Zack heard a yelp from behind a bush in the direction his arrow had flown. His sinking pride was getting low enough to start a conversation with the Titanic...if it had been made back then.
Unexpectedly, the arrow came back with a few friends. He started to run and reached two entwined trees. Not a good escape route. He turned to the left, and an arrow nearly hit his nose. Wrong way. He did a 180, and an arrow almost hit his chest. While turning again, he was almost hit in the balls by another arrow. At this, Zack raised his hands in defeat.
"I give. I give. No more arrows, please!" Zack didn't use that word very often. Normally, he acted like he didn't know the meaning of the word please, or the concept of giving up. He never gave up, never was polite -- that was the thing he built his reputation on back home. The massacre of his pride and the near miss on his nether regions motivated a rapid reform. (His old teachers would be pleased.)
"Why were you shooting at me? Identify yourself!" asked a feminine voice.
Zack's pride sunk even lower, if that's
possible. The girl was wearing a traditional japanese priestess
hakama and haori as she stepped out of the bushes, with another
arrow at the ready for a kill shot. To put it lightly, some
chick with a short silk jacket [haori] and the feudal equivalent
of jeans [hakama] aimed her arrow between Zack's eyes.
She had pissed from fear, and she was totally pissed off. This idiot's arrow had nearly hit her between the legs. She did NOT want to LOSE her VIRGINITY to an ARROW, DAMNIT!!
Kikyo was struggling for control of herself. She wanted to know who this idiot was, how he saw her, and how he managed to get in such a dangerous shot before she saw him.
Who did he work for? And why did the guy he worked for have it in for her? And... her mind was racing with possibilities, possibilities that could prove uncomfortable for her, and would certainly prove fatal for him.
Trying to ignore the smell and the wet running down her leg, she held her bow, with an arrow notched and ready, and said, "Why were you shooting at me? Identify yourself."
The arrow aimed at his head got him stumbling for the answer, quickly, "I wa-wasn't aimin' for ya'! Just was doing some ta-target practice at a tree. Believe it or not, I missed -- from less than an arm length away. Ha... ha... it was very funny, really. I'm sure you'd be laughing now if you had seen me in action... You don't seem to be taking this in good humor. Maybe if I demonstrate again, we can laugh together..."
"Don't touch that bow again unless you'd prefer to take your chances in your next life. Seeing you so far, I'd say the chances of are good you'll get a better brain next time around, seeing as how the one you have now would be an insult to an ant, maybe even an insult to a rock."
Before she could come up with better insults, she noticed he was checking her out. In return, she checked him out. His strange clothes hid any details of strength outside of his arms...and hid size details as well. Strange man indeed. His face seemed to change whenever his mood did, as if he couldn't control his facial expressions...and considering where he was looking, she yelled only one thing. "PERVERT!!"
The man stop staring, and his face contorted in anger. Apparently, forgetting the arrow aimed at his head, he yelled back, "You were staring too, damn it -- and not at my face." Got her there.
"Why you...ARGH! You're an even bigger moronic fool than I thought." Kikyo stopped aiming at him, just looking at him with her eyes blazing like fire. The bow and arrow were in her hands still, but not in firing position.
"And you're a spoiled brat," he countered, with a grin.
Kikyo was getting white knuckles. "You better watch out, boy." Kikyo's eyes went from looking like a fire to a nova.
"What's with the 'boy' bullshit. You don't even look twenty-five. Hold on, so you admit you're a spoiled brat."
The priestess was trying to hold some control over herself. "I'm as far from being spoiled as they come. I call you 'boy' because you act as helpless as one. Acting tough. Having no power or substance behind your words."
That struck a nerve. The fool looked shocked, at a temporary loss for words. Kikyo couldn't help but smirk a bit.
He finally thought of a comeback, "And you're any better? Here you are, acting like the queen of the whole damn universe. Pulling a 'holier than thou' bullshit act. I don't like RELGIOUS or POMPOUS TYPES!"
With that, Kikyo's anger surpassed anything she felt before. She started cussing. This conversation had become a no-holds-barred insult contest now...if it wasn't before.
"Damned fool. You're parents were clearly suffering from some kind of brain fever when they raised you. Might have even been diseased the night they fucked and conceived you."
Then it got ugly, and less articulate, as anger took them both far beyond wit...
"BITCH!"
"BASTARD!!"
"WHORE!!!"
They paused at that. Kikyo suddenly remembered her bow and arrow, now slightly covered in her blood from clenching her fists. Her reaction: quickly aim and fire her arrow. She aimed for his head, but hit his left shoulder.
Now, being a master of the bow, this mistake surprised her. She could fire several arrows a minute and hit multiple targets a hundred feet away, on the bulls-eye. This idiot was standing just a few feet away. Her first arrow should have gone right through his skull.
As for him, he was now cursing in pain, trying to get the arrow out...he wasn't making any progress and couldn't just walk it off. He was pinned to a tree, damn it!
Kikyo took this opportunity add, "I'm. Not. A. Whore. So, in case you think you can use me as one. Go. Fuck. Yourself." Before she could leave, he said something.
Despite his pain, he had the presence of mind to reply, "That's not the first time someone's suggested that. My normal reaction is, ladies first."
She almost just left then, leaving him on a
tree to rot. Her legs wouldn't let her though. They even took
her to him. The HELL? This guy was no one of
consiquence. A nobody who could writhe in pain for weeks for all
she cared. So why was she walking to him? A small voice in the
back of her mind said something she had never heard from it
before. She must be mistaken. She wasn't that kind of person
anymore. She could never be that kind of person again... But
maybe she might want to be...
Zack couldn't describe the pain in his shoulder -- no 21st century language had words that could adequately express this level of pain. The arrow had passed through his bone and lodged in the tree, damnit! While he was uselessly struggling to get free, he noticed the girl coming toward him. Probably to finish him off, or to taunt him while he slowly bled to death...
She grabbed the arrow's shaft and pulled with all her weight, but the arrow didn't budge. "I didn't think I put that much strength into it. Hold still."
She was trying to help him. Wait? Help? When she shot, she had murder in her eyes! So why was she helping him now? She was treating him with as much care as a cripple. That wasn't doing wonders for his ego, but she just might save his life. With their combined efforts, they got him off the tree. The arrow broke and was half still in him.
"Can't take it out any further," she explained. "Unless, of course, you want to spend the better part of a moon cycle in agony and regrowing a larger amount of bone and flesh." He agreed to that logic.
"Now wait here, I'm going to get some herbs." Within half a minute, she came back breaking up the leaves of several different plants into small pieces. She pit on them and squeezed in her hand before applying them to the wound. "This should do the trick. Do you have a spare piece of cloth I can use to wrap it?"
"No."
At that, she ripped off a section of sleeve on her haori, and ordered him very bluntly, "Take off that clothing that's covering your upper body."
Being a badass and a person who protects his image, he hesitated. "My shirt? Can't wait to see me shirtless, huh? And you called me perverted." He said it jokingly, but she didn't take it that way. She punched him in his wound. He winced.
"I'm doing this for medical reasons," she insisted. "If you don't like it, you'll bleed to death. You can put your precious garment back on as soon as I'm done." He agreed, and lost even more pride. She put the spit-covered leaves on the makeshift bandage and wrapped it tightly on his shoulder. He winced a little but didn't whimper.
"There, done." The girl was looking pleased with her work...or was that a perverse stare at his muscular, but hairless chest. He quickly put his shirt back on and saw her walking away. He was about to ask her to stay, don't ask why. He didn't know, maybe to ask why shoot him and then . She could have left him there.
But instead of leaving him there, she walked toward a nearby rock and sat down. "What was that other weapon you were training with? I remember hearing some dull thuds."
"That was me hitting a branch with a sword. In my frustration at not so much as scratching the damn thing, I shot the arrow at a nearby tree -- a big thick trunk -- and missed."
She looked at him with an eyebrow raised. Probably not believing him. Hell, he barely believed himself. A guy like him unable to even scratch a tree with a sword?
"Let me see how you swing your sword. I might be able to help with that." Seeing nothing else interesting to do, he complied. He got into his baseball batting position in front of the same branch as before. Before Zack could swing, the girl stopped him.
"I see, you're holding it sideways, so you'll hit the branch with the flat of the sword. That's good if your intention is to spank it and make it behave. But there are better ways to cut with a sword. You should hold it so the sharp part hits the branch."
Zack blushed on this discovery. Why hadn't the old woman noticed that? God! Of course she had noticed. She was laughing at him with her friends now. Everybody in this bloody country and bloody time knew by now. Wasn't old-hag-talk the medieval equivalent of network news? He made sure he'd strike the branch with the edge of the blade this time, imagining the face of the antient laughing bitch. He cut halfway through the branch on the first swing. His shoulder still felt like shit, but his ego was doing better -- it was all the way up to snot. On his second swing, the sword finished the job. That felt even better. He swung again and again, enjoying showing off. Even though all the action was killing his left arm, he didn't show any hint of it. Apparently the girl was impressed.
"Kikyo."
What? Zack had no clue what that meant. He turned around quickly and saw she was smiling, looking at the sky. He uttered the universal verbal signifier of stupidity. "Huh?"
She smiled more broadly at that. "My name, Kikyo... You're not as helpless as I thought."
That was the best complement he'd heard all day. "Zack."
Kikyo kept looking at the sky, "Now, let's see your archery skills."
This could be a disaster...
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