Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Sacrifice ❯ Capture ( Chapter 77 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

By: MellyN

XxXxXx

Sacrifice

By: Melissa Norvell

Chapter 77: Capture

XxXxXx

"We don't have to fight them, if you don't want to, Keiji," Tsurugi told the green-haired boy in an effort to chide his troubles. This made Keiji question him and with a 'what' in response, turn his gazes towards the blonde angel. "We can teleport away," Tsurugi suggested an alternate route to their problem.

"Where will we end up?" Ko wondered what kind of results they were going to get out of doing something like that.

"Somewhere in Shaffon. Hopefully, we can find the man with a feather in a crystal ball. He's the head of the village and he has even more magical power then these people do," the angel informed.

"This whole village is encased in a magic field. I felt it as soon as we came here," Fife pointed out that he had felt very odd and uneasy while they were just standing around when they had first arrived in Shaffon. The whole village put off a very uneasy sensation that the magician just could not shake.

"I wonder if those citizens were somehow empowered by the magic of this town. That would explain their strange teleportation powers," Zangetsu wondered aloud. It was merely an educated guess, but it seemed to make logical sense to him. After all, they had encountered some similar occurrences, like his own with Serenande.

Perhaps, the townspeople could even be possessed by something or someone.

"I gathered some information from Kasha, a neighboring town to Shaffon, when I was teleported away. It's pretty interesting," Tsurugi noted.

"Let's talk about that later," Chichiri began to state his reasoning why but was cut off by a potato flying past his head, nearly hitting him. "Not again!" The blonde wailed at his own misfortune.

Keiji looked thoughtful for a moment, as he pondered on what to do in this situation. Thinking through it as quickly as he could without his thoughts running wildly through his mind. "Okay…Tsurugi!" He called out as he turned to the chained angel. "Get us out of here!"

"Right, Wind Transport!" Tsurugi called fourth the winds by holding his hands out to either side. They gained in speed, creating a cyclonic effect around the group as they were engulfed and sucked out of sight.

The villagers glanced around at each other in confusion as many questions about their whereabouts were heard amongst the now confused crowd. None of them had a clue where they had gone or even what had just happened.

The wind angel's summon had swept them far away from the villagers, on the outskirts of Shaffon, where there had only been barren land and no houses, though a border of homes could be seen on the horizon from where they stood.

Immediately, Keiji turned to Tsurugi and continued to question him about what he had heard in Kasha. "What did you hear?"

"The village elder is the head of Shaffon. His name is Ten Sao Tami and he's the one who possesses the feather. He kills angels here and absorbs their power to become stronger," Tsurugi explained the state of the town to his friends.

"I get that's what they did!" Chichiri had thought it over in his head. It almost seemed random to Ko and Zangetsu, who turned their heads in question towards him. "He convinced the people to hate angels and kill them, and bring them to him so he could take their powers."

"Then, Hiroshima is-" Ko spoke up, but was cut off by Fife.

"Not good."

"Hiroshima could be in real trouble," the white-haired girl's expression turned to one of worry for her angelic companion, who she had just became friends with.

"That's why I was worried when I didn't see him with you all," Tsurugi replied. It was odd for everyone to be there, minus Hiroshima and Undine.

"We can't keep running from them," Ko noted the futility of the situation. No matter where they went, the whole village would still be against them. There was no point in running from them.

"Do you know where they take the angels after they capture them?" Keiji asked. Wherever that was, was definitely where Hiroshima would be.

"There is an execution ground not too far from here," the angel noted.

"Have you tried to mentally connect or whatever?" Chichiri looked to the angel in question. Tsurugi and Hiroshima could communicate like that, so they could just tell each other their locations…or at least, that's what he assumed it was like.

"I get no response," Tsurugi looked even more worried at that. No response was the worst answer to get via telepathy.

"we've got no choice. Let's head out to the execution grounds," a look of determination shot through Ko's features. If they were to find anything, no matter if it was good or bad, then that would undoubtedly be the place to search.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Zangetsu looked a little uncomfortable with the girl's decision. While he knew it was for the best and to find one of the two missing members of his team, he also felt like it was a trap in waiting.

"What else can we do?" Fife looked torn between answers and friends as he glanced to the other members of his team, wondering what their final decision on the matter would be.

"He saved us, now it's time to save him," Ko wouldn't back down from her words. She strongly stood behind her decision and no one's ominous speech would deter her from her decision.

"That's kind coming from you, Ko?" Zangetsu noted. Since when was Ko so friendly towards the spiky-haired angel? He had always known them to be at each other's throat.

"He actually wants to be my friend."

"I thought you hated him," Keiji was also a little confused by her current decision.

"I thought he hated me," Ko replied. "It's really hard to accept the fact that he's an axe murderer or a serial killer or whatever you want to call him and it intimidated me, not to mention, made it hard to trust him but…he saved me from getting molested by a guy in town when we were fighting." The girl said with a slight pain as a nostalgic flashback came over her.

A young girl, no older then fifteen lay on the ground, cut up and nude with a shadowy figure above her. Terror ran though her eyes as the figure smiled darkly, promising to deliver her a world of hell.

'What happened? Where was he back then.'

"So, Hiro-kun finally touched your heart?" Tsurugi smiled and closed his eyes placidly, teasing the white-haired girl.

"I-It's not what you think," the ninja put her hands on her hips and tried to act hard on the situation. "I'm just thanking him for saving me by accepting him."

"That's one of the worst lies I've heard," Fife noted, "even worse than any of the one's I've told." The vampire continued the chain of teasing comments.

"We can't all be lying masters like you," Ko cut the vampire down with one sentence.

"Aw, you hurt my feelings," the blue-haired vampire faux whined.

"I'm glad that you finally accepted him," Tsurugi placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and her stiff posture and hardened features seemed to melt away with the gentle touch. "There should be more people in the world like you."

The kind compliment made the girl blush. "Thanks, Tsurugi."

"Look!" They both heard Keiji exclaim as he pointed behind them, where the wooden and bloodied frame that Hiroshima had been on was. Four detached wings of black and white hung from the shackles and blew in the wind lifelessly as she chains clanked in the wind.

"What happened here?" Zangetsu's dark blue eyes widened as shock overcame him.

"It looks like they killed an angel…" Ko noted. There was far too much blood for anything else, and the only reminder left of the tragic event were the hanging, detached wings that swung lifelessly on the blackened, blood-splattered chains.

"Those wings…" Staring a little harder at the detached limbs, Keiji's mind made a startling discovery, as he had remembered the shape and color of the wings. They had indeed belonged to Hiroshima. "Hiroshima was here!"

"It appears so…" Tsurugi closed his eyes and lowered his head with a frown.

"There's blood everywhere…" The ninja's blue eyes sadly scanned over the ground. "I wonder if he killed them or if they did something to him."

"It appears that they had him in this device," Zangetsu studied the wooden frame closely. "Judging from the blood stains on the wood and shackles, it looks as if he was the one who suffered."

"Hiroshima…" Keiji's green gaze was crestfallen at the sight before him. He could only imagine what went down in this very spot and a part of him wondered if Hiroshima was alright and what exactly happened to him.

As they stood in silence, saddened by what they had found, when they heard an ancient and menacing voice speak, breaking their silence.

"There you are. I knew that you could come as soon as you realized that the angel in your team was gone."

"You must be Ten Sai Tami," Tsurugi stared the old man down with a frown plastered to his face.

The elder smiled. "You're one of the angels that were detected here," he stroked his long, dwindling beard.

"You know where Hiro-kun is, don't you?" Tsurugi asked. A part of him didn't expect an answer and another demanded that the Chinese man give him one.

"He's waiting in line to be executed. Soon, I will posses his powers. It's a good thing he was weakened, then I would have had some trouble," the white-headed man laughed, as if the angel had merely been a hunted animal.

Keiji shook in anger at the mockery of his friend. His green bangs shaded his face as he bore his teeth and tightened his fists. The boy tried with all of his might to contain his anger, but it was too overwhelming for him to stand.

"You bastard!" He shouted angrily as he rushed Ten Sao Tami to try and punch him.

"Keiji!" Fife called out after him, in an attempt to warn him but it failed.

"Idiot," Ten Sao Tami replied simply, the smirk still adorned his face as he held up the feather in the orb. Keiji threw his fist forward only to be met with a shock as angry blue lightening coursed over his body, causing the boy to scream as his form was then flung backwards through the air. "Do you actually think that you can defeat me?" The old man asked as he looked over his shoulder to the spectating citizens who had followed him out to the group. "Go! Capture them! They will be executed along side of the angel!" He commanded. 'Then I shall have the powers of both angels.'

All at once, the angry mob began to crowd towards them, waving their makeshift, and even primitive weapons at them as they charged, threatening to take their lives by sheer number alone.

"Here we go again," Chichiri sighed. It seemed as if there was no end to the sea of people and on top of that, he had just gotten away from Sumeria not too long ago and here he was again, fighting more of them.

"I'm unsure of how to beat them," Zangetsu was stuck between killing the townspeople in defense or letting them live and feeling like he betrayed his friends and especially- Hiroshima.

"Just stay out of the way of the teleportation attacks," Chichiri told the ninja, like he was the stupidest person on the team or something and didn't get it the first time around.

"Well, of course but that still doesn't tell us how to defeat them," the black-haired ninja already knew what to do in situations like these, and he didn't need Chichiri's attitude either. He simply ignored the blonde.

"Well, that's easy. We'll kill them like we do everyone else." Over time, the war had made him think a little differently about lives and when it came to achieving goals, Chichiri was going to achieve his by plowing through those people to get to Hiroshima and that creepy, old, bastard with the feather. Nothing else mattered to him now and those people were mere obstacles in his path. He could not afford to care, not when he had so much blood on his hands as it was.

This would make no difference.

"I'd rather save them if I can. I think they just might be brainwashed," Zangetsu knew what that felt like. He himself was a subject to someone who had been brainwashed and when people are brainwashed, they had no sense of what they were doing. If that was the case, the Nighthawk ninja felt very sorry for them.

"I'd rather kill then be killed."

"If you have to, you shouldn't do it blindly," Zangetsu replied to the blonde's simplistic and somewhat primal point of view. They could simply have the wrong idea about everything, just as everyone did about Serenande.

"Look, stop telling me what to do," Chichiri was really getting irritated at the black-haired man's sense of 'advice'. "You're not the leader so you do it your way and I'll do it mine."

"I have been through this situation before. I know what I'm doing," the Nighthawk didn't believe that he was wrong and he didn't like fighting with his team mates, but Chichiri took everything he said the wrong way. He couldn't even talk to the guy without him acting like a pompous ass.

"Yeah, like when you stupidly followed Serenande," Chichiri shoved the ninja aside as he trudged past him. "Get out of my way, bird boy."

The black-haired man's body jolted to the side before he caught himself as he looked to the ground, frowning. It was a deep strike, and something that he didn't feel as if he deserved for trying to be helpful.

XxXxXx

Ko delivered a harsh spin-kick to a villager's chest, and sent them flying back as another charged at her. The ninja axe-handled the man in the side and shook her hands with a sigh. "I hate beating up innocent people."

"I think they really do hate angels. I don't think that they are innocent," Fife replied. The look in their eyes said it all- it was not one that was void of expression and emotion but one that was pure hatred and the desire to kill ruthlessly.

"Not even being controlled?" Ko asked as a man came behind her and attempted to hit her with a shovel, but she skillfully kicked it out of his hand and punched him across the face as hard as she could.

Fife wrote out a spell a couple of feet away from her in green, Gaelic symbols. "I honestly think that they just hate angels," the vampire released his spell and sent it out to knock several people backwards. He didn't want to kill them, just give them a shock.

Chichiri leaned down to pick up a weapon. When he stood up, he found his only weapon was a potato. "Damned potato," he muttered and chunked it, hoping that it would hit someone and at least give them a sharp pain.

Zangetsu cart wheeled, flipped up into the air and landed a kick on one of the village men's face. He then landed behind him as more people rushed at him. He quickly threw his winged arm out, sending quill feathers showering at the people as they stabbed into their skin and caused them to fall, screaming in pain.

"I'll show him that my way is the best," Chichiri slashed a man across the chest with a long sword that he had found, causing his blood to spray through the air as he fell to the ground, dead. "He doesn't know what he's talking about! Some ninja he is. He can't even kill anyone."

"I'm going to get that feather," Keiji got up from the ground, his body still felt the aftermath of the shock but he wouldn't let that get him down. He grabbed a pitch fork nearby and attempted to stab Ten Sao Tami again, only to be blasted back by the feather's power a second time.

Slowly and painfully, the boy got up in a shaky manner, but he was too disorientated to keep his balance and fell on his side on the ground. He heard the pattering footsteps of Ten Sao Tami's soft shoes as the man looked down on his and smiled.

"Pathetic child, I have the power of three angels. You can never defeat me," he told Keiji. He had all the reason in the world to smile, as he was, the old man was far more powerful then Hiroshima and Tsurugi.

As he was about to utter another sentence, the glass ball was kicked out of his hand and went rolling across the ground. Ten Sao Tami chased after it in a mad dash, as if he were going to die if he didn't grasp it soon.

Ko saw the feather rolling in her direction and ran towards it.

"Get away!" Ten Sao Tami seethed as he held out his hand and sent a powerful white blast at the girl.

Taken off guard, Ko was hit and blasted back. Keiji called out for her as the old man scooped up the feather into his arms once more.

"Nice try, boy. It won't work. No one can stop me," the Chinese man boasted as Fife appeared behind him with his sword drawn back, ready to end the man's life at any second. Ten Sao Tami then held a hand behind him and smiled as he blasted Fife with the familiar golden light.

The vampire's eyes widened at his stupid mistake. "What? This is-" His sentence was cut off as he disappeared from sight.

"Fife!" Keiji called out, but he already knew that it was far too late to help his master.

"You can join him," the Chinese man held his hand out to blast him, but the green-haired boy dodged the blast. As he turned around to rush at Ten Sao Tami, he felt a blunt object hit him in the back of the head. He turned around, half-lidded to see a man with a baseball bat behind him as he felt himself falling and everything faded to black.

XxXxXx

As Keiji opened his eyes, he saw that it was dark, cold, hard and wet. The air smelled musty and a slight stench filled it. It was not a stench from mold or mildew- it was the stench of human flesh. He looked over to see cast iron bars and he lay on wet, cold concrete. He appeared to be in a cell of some sort.

Everything was fuzzy and his head pounded in pain, so much so that he could barely concentrate enough to see Tsurugi teleport, only to come back mere seconds later with a disappointed look on his face.

He heard the angel's words, they were slightly blurred but he made them out through his own complications. "It's no use, teleportation won't work here."

"I kind of thought so, since this place appears to be someone of an angel jail," Zangetsu looked around. However, he could not see anything but darkness. There were no lights, aside from that which came in through the barred openings one would call windows. They could not even see across to the other cell.

"Man, we're going to die," Chichiri was sure of it this time. Throughout their adventures, they had not been closer to death then what they were now. To top it all off, they were all sitting in a cell, waiting to be executed. He really didn't see the light in this situation- at all.

Ko glanced back to see Keiji finally sit up slowly as he held his head in pain. "Oh, Keiji, you're awake."

"Sorry, I'm stupid," the green-haired boy didn't know how the others were captured but he made a stupid mistake by charging Ten Sao Tami a second time and putting himself out of commission.

"We all got caught too. Don't worry about it. We were clearly outnumbered," Tsurugi tried to chide the worried boy.

"Wouldn't Hiroshima be here too?" Fife leaned on the bars and peered out into the other cells. However, even though the vampire's eyes worked better at night, he couldn't see through the pitch black of the cells. "I don't see anyone else."

"I hope that he's still alive," Zangetsu sat against the wall and peered up into the darkness.

"I don't think he's dead yet," Fife wrapped his arms around two bars and placed his head between them, slightly leaning to the right one. The vampire continued to stare into the darkness, intrigued by what or who could be across from them.

"What if they killed him earlier?" Ko asked from her position as she stood in front of Keiji and to the right of Tsurugi, who was standing in the middle of the cell in the only spot that the light touched.

"I don't think so," the Nighthawk Ninja spoke up.

"What? Are you psychic now? You know so much about everyone here and all," Chichiri crossed his arms.

"It's just a feeling. I never said beyond the shadow of a doubt," the black-haired man replied with a sigh.

"Undine isn't here either. In fact, she's not even in Shaffon anymore," Tsurugi informed them of the girl's whereabouts, so that they wouldn't worry about Undine. She was out of Shaffon, which made her safe for the moment. They would worry about finding her after they got out and rescued Hiroshima.

"What?" Everyone looked to the angel in confusion. They didn't understand how Undine could have been completely teleported out of Shaffon.

"You can't be serious," Ko was the first to respond individually.

"Why would I lie? She's not in the surrounding cities either. When you think about it, it's a good thing. She's not going to be executed with us," Tsurugi replied. They had a lot less to worry about because of this. They would find Undine later. The girl was safe where she was, it was Hiroshima who needed their help.

"Well, how do we get out of this?" Fife asked. First and foremost, they needed to worry about themselves before they started talking about other people.

"We've got to get that feather from Ten Sao Tami," Keiji stated their mission, assigned to them by Vespa.

"How, when we are stuck in this cell?" Ko asked with a sigh. Their situation seemed pretty hopeless.

"I would say we've been worse but I really don't think that you can get worse than sitting on death row," Chichiri responded. This truly was the worst off they'd been on a mission.

"We'll have to plot our escape when they take us out to execute us," Zangetsu told them. It would be their only time to act. If their plan failed then, they only had one other option after that.

"That seems to be our best bet," Ko agreed. It would be the crucial time and the one thing that they could not afford to screw up. Everything rode on this moment.

XxXxXx

Across from them, hidden in the darkness in the cell Fife had been peering at, the bloodied and battered angel sit slumped against the wall, blood seeping out of his many sounds as he listened to his allies' words. Hiroshima was so exhausted that he couldn't even speak to let himself be known. He simply stared painfully through the darkness.

'So, they're planning to escape…I wonder if they'll save me as well…For once, I want them to help me be free because I'm too weak to do it myself.' The green-haired angel thought as he let a whispered phrase barely escape his lips. "Please…Help me…"

"Hm?" Fife blinked. He had thought that he heard a voice but he wasn't sure if it could have been mistaken for something else.

"Something wrong, Fife?" Ko looked to the blue-haired vampire in question.

"I thought I heard something."

"What?"

"It seemed like it came from that call over there," Fife pointed towards the cell across from them.

Ko peered into the darkness, trying her hardest to make out any trace of a figure or something that may be hidden within the shroud but found nothing but black. "I don't see anything."

"Maybe it's haunted and I heard a ghost," the vampire replied. So many angels had died there; there was not a doubt in his mind that some of them, as well as a few humans, haunted the jail.

"That's probably it," the white-haired girl convinced herself. "This place gives me the creeps. Its way worse than the House of the Dark Bride."

Fife turned around and bent one knee, slumping forward as he placed a hand in one of his pants pockets. "I guess we die here."

"I would say let's look at the positives, but this is pretty bad," Chichiri stated.

"We won't die here. We've got to get out of here and we'll only have a short amount of time to do it," Keiji advised everyone to begin thinking of a plan. They didn't have much time until their execution came up and they would need all of the knowledge that they could pull together to plan their escape.

"We'll have to come up with a strategy to get out of here, so let's think of what to do and get some sleep, then pit our plans into actions," Zangetsu looked to Tsurugi. "Can you tell me when the execution will start?"

"It will be at 8:00 tomorrow morning. We'll have to get up early if we want to cheat death," the look on Tsurugi's face turned to a serious expression.

They could not afford to mess this up, or they would all die.

…To Be Continued…