Chapter twenty two:
A/N: thanks for all the constructive reviews everybody! They sure made my
day! And sorry for the slow update, I had exams… anyway, that gave me a chance
to continue writing, right now chp 24 is finished, so
expect a quick update!
#Millia:
What on earth just happened? He told me to wake him up in twenty seconds
and then just threw his head on the table. I tried to wake him without making a
scene, but he just wouldn’t respond. A waitress walked up to me and asked if he
was okay.
“Yeah, he just has a headache.”
“Would you like some aspirin sir?” the waitress leaned down to speak
quietly.
“Damn.” He lifted his head and rubbed his forehead. His headband had
clattered on the table, tipping an empty cup to the side.
“About time! What happened to you?” I leaned across
the table and brushed a few strands of hair from his face, I guess I sounded
relieved. “Are you okay?”
“Yah.” He sat up and glared at the table, like
he couldn’t remember where he was. He glanced up at the waitress and ordered.
“Get me some coffee… and some aspirin.” The woman hurried away.
“What happened?” I finally realized that he was looking at something on my
shirt, and then sat up straight. I just gave him a good look down my shirt
didn’t I? his shirt… whatever.
“Che.” He
scratched his head and reached into his back pocket.
“No smoking here.” I reminded.
He groaned and rubbed his face, he looked like he had a headache.
“Let’s just go…” Home? “Back.”
“Hnn?” he looked up at me, his eyes were misted,
but at least they weren’t empty as death anymore.
“Let’s go back, you look tired.” I looked out the glass to the street, people were walking around with their umbrellas
under their arms. It was going to rain soon.
“Here’s your coffee, and aspirin, sir.” The waitress looked down at him. “Anything else?”
The man in front of me swallowed the capsule and shook his head, before
watching her go, over the tip of his cup.
One minute he’s emotionless, the other he’s checking out some girl…
I was jealous.
I glared down at the table and touched the cast on my arm. The surface had
gotten a bit messed up in the water, but the inside is still dry and hard.
What does she have that I don’t? femininity
maybe? She smiles? She’s not me?
What am I saying, I’m not even considered beautiful, let alone attractive.
My hips are too wide and my
Just their toy thing.
“Can I write my name on that?” I flinched and looked up at Sol. He had a
thoughtful look on his face and was looking at my arm, his head band slanted on
his forehead.
Your name? My cast? “Sure.”
He nodded and got back to nursing his coffee. I squirmed in my seat at the
attention and accidentally knocked down one of the bags at our feet. It spilled
to the side, a black satin bra peeking out. I dove down to get it but Sol had
shoved it in before anybody noticed.
“Dark underwear, wonder what that means.” My eyes shot wide open, is this
really Sol? “Damn…” okay now that was Sol.
“What’s wrong with you?” You are perverted all of a sudden…
“Nothing, lets just go.” He drank the remaining
coffee and placed the money on the table before picking up our bags.
To tell the truth, it felt terrible to let him carry everything and pay
for everything, but what can I say, I’ve decided that I would use the man with
money until I’m done with him, and then I’d leave.
Problem is, I can't find it in me to leave this
man, no matter how hard he pushes me away.
I know he is walking at a slower pace than his norm, mostly because I can
barely follow him with the crutches. He is nice, nicer than he thinks he is, but
he wants to look like a tough guy. Well, he is a tough guy, but a softie too…
that didn’t make much sense did it? I just feel so, so… light headed, also like
there was no gravity beneath me, like the air is so easy to suck in. Was it
because there was a man giving me his back, protecting me? Or is it because I’m
not wearing a bra?
Well, whatever it was, it felt too good to be true, I knew it would end
soon.
After a few minutes I was able to recognize the parking spot where we had
left our car. I was about to speak to Sol about something, but it had
disappeared immediately when my hair prickled and a hand grasped my arm from
the back.
“Gotcha!” a man hissed behind me and started dragging me.
“Hey!” My hair automatically shot out to rip him apart, but I had to stop
before it did. I don’t want to kill any more people. This person’s method was
no where near the intelligence the Guild was using so he’s probably working for
himself. He glared at me and then smirked, he had dark
eyes and red hair.
“You are Millia Rage, no? You’re mine!” he
grinned, spiky red hair flew around his head when a gloved fist hit him square
in the face, the owner of the arm had it stretched above my shoulder.
Sol?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#Sol:
Nobody touches MY woman and gets away with it. The fact
that I care about her or not is irrelevant.
“Mine.” My throat voiced it before my brain could actually process it.
What the hell, Fredrick! Is this your doing?
The punk in ragged clothes sat up from where his ass met the pavement and
wiped blood off his chin. “I caught her first! Get your own bounty!”
I put my hand on her shoulder and pushed her behind me, wanting to give the
kid a piece of me. Or a piece of Fuuenken anyway. “My-” Woman “-Bounty.”
“Listen uncle, I just want it for the money!” the kid sat up and slid his
hand in his pocket. Just as I expected,
he pulled out a small combat knife, wonder where he stole it from…
In an effortless, quick swipe from Fuuenken, he was on his ass again, the
knife skidding away into the street. I didn’t even need to put the bags away.
Hmph, kids these days.
“Augh! Why you!”
he got up and started a run towards me, but was too slow to see the hilt meet
his nose.
And he was on his ass again.
“Sol, lets just go!” something touched my arm, it felt like flesh. “Don’t
kill him!”
“He started it.” I growled and popped my neck. It was damn hard to find
good fighters these days… Kiske is not an exception.
“He’s younger than you! Lets just go!” I shrugged
her hand off and glared down at the kid.
“You gonna come get me?” I kicked an empty can
towards him, “Or you just wanna run for mommy?”
The kid glared and pulled a gun out of his back pocket. So he was leaving
best for last, huh? This kid would probably survive.
“Sol! Come on!” I shoved her hand away again and took a step forward, I can
smell the fear, see it in his eyes, as if the shaking of his hands wasn’t
enough.
“Shoot me, go ahead.” I put my thumb in my pocket and ignored the screaming
people around.
The kid had misted dark brown eyes, wide as a deer in headlights. “I’ll
shoot! Man I just want the girl!”
“You wont shoot.” I slowly pulled my thumb out of
my pocket and put it against the muzzle. “You are not man enough.”
Anger
“See.” One hit on the side of his head and he was out. The gun fell in my
hand.
“Sol! Is he dead?” Rage’s voice rang in my head. Had she been shouting all
this time? I haven’t noticed…
“No.” I dropped the gun over his limp body and turned around to face an
angry Russian woman. “Lets go.”
Her eyes held something… different that the usual. “Are you alright? You’ve
been weird all day!”
Something nagged at me to just get the hell out of there, Holy Orders will
be here soon, and even they had had enough of me…
I pushed her with my hand on her lower back and growled, “Whatever, get
going.” I started to sort the bags that had tumbled to my wrist. Damn kids
following me around wanting my bounty, like that isn’t enough, kids with
guns, please…
A gunshot echoed through the busy street. A certain red headed kid was
sitting with his elbows on the pavement, a grim look on his face. “Yes I am.”
I looked down at the puddle of red liquid before the pain.exe was launched
without permission.
Adrenaline.hrmn launched
Pain.exe was unable to terminate.
WARNING! Bleeding warning! Loss of blood at: Leg. Loss
0.05% and increasing.
“Damn.” I ignored Rage’s gasp and looked back at the kid. My head started
to hurt. I kicked the gun away the same moment another bullet tossed a tiny
fraction of my hair away. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I pressed the
heel of my shoe on his chin, blood running down my leg onto his neck.
“I’m a bounty hunter, just like you.” His voice was hoarse, and my heel
pressed
“What’s your name.” better say it soon, or I’ll bite the closest thing,
this file is unbearable.
“I don’t have a name.” the kid smirked up at me. “Do you?”
I kicked his head, and had to keep myself from thrusting Fuuenken in his
chest. “Badguy.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The kid was unconscious. Rage had to drive the way back- she’s a lousy driver,
I’ll give you that. Rain poured down at us halfway there. And the remaining few
minutes were spent in a serious fight.
At least, that’s what I’d prefer calling it.
“We have to get you to a hospital, Sol! You’ll bleed your life away!” she
had said. Waiting for the red light to turn green.
“I said no, Its my leg.” If I had gone to a
hospital, they’d want my personal information, and a blood sample, and they’d
take too damn long to wrap it up in gauze I’ll be already dead of boredom. Oh,
and they’d probably find out I’m a gear. Guess I’m the only one with that much nanomachines in their blood left on this planet.
Okay me and Dizzy. And that Goth guy- I’m still not sure he’s a guy.
“You’ll die!” she’d pushed the paddle too roughly,
perhaps driving with one foot wasn’t as hard as I figured.
“My life.”
“Well we are too involved to just have you die!” I’ll
“Whatever.” That had been the end of our little conversation back at the
car.
Now I was standing next to her, ignoring the painful stab of electricity
with every step as we both limped to the tall complex building.
Her hand touched my arm when we reached the main door. “Sol, your leg will
hurt, let me take you to a doctor!” her mouth was emotionless, but her eyes
were screaming.
The beast in my chest writhed. “I’ll be fine.” I said I’d take care of
you, and I would, even if I had to take care of both of us at the same time. Without
waiting for her reply I pushed the door open and let her in before we both
silently climbed the stairs. I suddenly
Pain.exe was unable to terminate.
Damn…
The bags tumbled to the floor and was soon followed
by the keys right after I locked the door behind us. the apartment
Something pulled at my pants, I looked back to see her peeling away
bloodied cloth off my leg and pale at the sight of the wound. "You're
still bleeding."
"I know." Damnit, is she trained for
stating the obvious?
I dropped my head down again and rubbed my forehead. It wasn’t that
painful, it was just bothersome.
There was the now-familiar combination of shoe and crutch on the floor
before I sat up, stretched my leg over the coffee table and sighed. This is
very troubling, I probably should rest for a while… She came back with a
towel in her hand and sat down, attempting to clean the wound, I took it from
her hand and started rubbing the annoying liquid away myself. I’ll be damned
if I let a woman claim to have helped me.
I'll get you for this, Fredrick.
“Sol…” she was sitting on the floor with one of her leg beneath her.
“Hn.” I tossed
the bloodied towel aside and examined the bullet hole. It was sealing
remarkably fast, she probably shouldn’t see this.
She hung her head. “Do you even like me?”
I looked at her and the only word that perfectly explained what I was going
through was… ‘Bewildered’ . What kind of question
was that? Why was she asking me this now? Why did she sound desperate?
I continued to examine the wound, willing the blood to stop flowing.
“I mean… We can’t stay together, there is no reason I should stay with
you.” She was probably avoiding looking at me.
“Then don’t.” its just as simple as that.
“You obviously don’t need me, and I don’t think I need you any more,
either.” She shrugged one shoulder.
“Fine.” You want to leave, go ahead,
it would probably kill the stirring thing in my chest.
“I’ll be leaving tomorrow… Then.” she peeked up at me, an odd look on her
face. “
I sighed in irritation. Damn it woman, if you want to stay then go ahead
and say it, if you want to leave then get the hell out, what exactly are you
saying here? “Sure.”
“Are you even listening?” she frowned.
Now I am officially confused. “Yah.”
“Why aren’t you saying anything then?”
I rolled my head back and bit back a groan of irritation. You were much
cuter in my dream… What the hell… “What am I supposed t’say?”
“Anything!” she sat next to me and wrung her hand in her lap. “Aren’t you
going to at least wonder why I’m leaving right after going shopping?”
Because you thought you’d use me up and leave me? Because you are used to
being scolded when doing something for yourself? Because I know how soldiers
are trained and know exactly what you want to hear? “No.”
“Do you even like me?” she repeated her question, except, this time it came
out more shaky.
What the hell is she trying to get me say?
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead.
“Do you?” I could feel her eyes on me, but I chose to ignore them.
What? I’m suppose to answer that? “What do you
want me to say.”
I looked down at her only to see her blonde head. I just know that
somewhere under that curtain of living hair she’s trying not to cry. “Nothing…
It’s… Nothing.”
There was a quiet pause before I said the stupidest thing ever.
“You can stay if you want.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek.
“I’ll only cause trouble.” Her hair shook.
“Then leave.” And stop whatever the hell it is you’re doing, its confusing.
“I’m too afraid to.” Her voice became a whisper.
I clenched my jaws and sighed quietly. What the hell am I supposed to do,
then?
“Why is it my business then?”
“Because…” she shook her head and looked up at me, her eyes full of hope.
“Because you’re the only-”
The minute she spoke, the door burst open, literally. It fell of its hinges
and spread smoke ant splinters everywhere. A shadow of a person appeared
through the cloud of smoke.
I sighed and stood up, pain forgotten. “I hope you’ll be paying for
that.”
“I hope you’ll be a good enough target!”
Analyzing voice sample
… Processing…
Person: Unknown, female police officer from 9872.mem
of yesterday.
Damn, its her… Millia’s acquaintance
End of Chapter twenty two.