Faster Than Angels

[BardicSMG]

For more then three days now, Katsuo stayed on the overgrown yard of her home. She leaned her back on a stone slab with a name crudely etched on the other side. Natsuki was filled with guilt just from not being able to coax her daughter into shelter.

“Katsuo... it's time to eat.” She knelt to Katsuo's eye level to try to negotiate, but got no response. “You can't stay out hear forever. It's going to rain soon, you'll get sick.”

“Are you sure he's not coming back?” Katsuo asked.

Natsuki simply didn't have the will to explain what happened, and hoped she had just forced herself to lie. She sighed and walked back inside to bring the food back inside. From the kitchen, she saw the door to the garage cracked open. She had found an old Icaras craft the week before that was going to be turned into a playpen to surprise Kat. She remembered seeing something else among the pile of scrap it was dragged from.

She grabbed it from the old craft and brought it to the living room. It was a plush doll based off of Curly, the F7200 mascot. The head was actually a screen, the batteries just needed to be replaced, and it still worked.

Natsuki took the doll out to the yard and sat next to her daughter. Katsuo recognized the doll, as though it were a living pet. The eyes made by the screen let her young mind remember what she still had left in the world, giving back at least some of the comfort she had lost. She reached up to the plush, and her mother stood up, still holding it herself. Without having another exchange, Katsuo agreed to follow her mother back inside to shelter.



Outskirts of Nagasaki, 2210

Katsuo meet Ryouta right after she had broke Halvred out of the interrogation room. Hal was taken to a hospital, ready to call a lawyer in case Hideki was desperate enough to press charges after beating a bystander. He loaned Kat his hotel room as a token of gratitude, as she wasn't willing to risk going back to her childhood home after finding out it had been raided.

In an adjacent hotel, leaving his parents before he was ready to care for his younger sibling, Irisu, was about where Katsuo meet Ryouta for the first time. His sister was kicked out of the home when their highly religious parents found out she was dating another girl. She had rented a room from her girlfriend's family at first, but Irisu had later found out that her partner had been stealing money from her. Between the two, Irisu and Ryouta were able to work up enough money to pay for a room, but Irisu's deteriorating mental health caused her to get fired from her job as a store clerk.

Ryouta started out as Katsuo's mechanic, only because Kat took pitty on his situation, and thought that since Ryo was already a full-time mechanic, he could do a better job of maintaining her car then she could ever manage. When they got the money to purchase a beat up house out of town, which ended up being cheaper then the hotel room, their feelings had grown to where they ended up sharing. Just to at least try to make it a bit more official, the went on a date not long afterward, but they were too cheap to go on another one after already living together.


Irisu had been getting very ill over the last few days. Since the winter chill wasn't helping any, the heater that's usually used for the living room was put in her room while she was at rest. Kat and Ryo shared a blanket in front of the TV playing anime. Kat was never interested with any movies or shows, just the AG races which had already ended the week before, but she had no desire to step outside in the ice and snow. Just as she was about to dose of, there was a knock on the door.

“Just ignore it,” Kat said before Ryo had paused the TV. “It's probably just a solicitor, or something.”

The knocking continued. “I don't think their going to leave until someone opens the door.” Ryo said.

“You think they'll just stay outside for that long?”

“Do you really want to test them...” The knocking got louder and more persistent.

“Alright, I'm coming!” Kat proclaimed to the door. She got up with a sigh and throw her coat on among the banging. After a brisk pace, the door was opened, with the view of a metal barrel fixated to her face.

Katsuo backed away slowly with her hands up, clenching her jaw to insure she didn't say the wrong thing. The gunman grabbed her shoulder and pushed her into a kneeling position, while another one from behind grabbed Ryouta and dragged him to face Katsuo, then pulled a shotgun to the both of them.

The first man holstered his gun and strolled upstairs to Irisu's bedroom. He reached for the first doorknob he saw, but found that it wouldn't rotate past a couple millimeters. He then went back down to where he came from, grinding his teeth the whole way.

Katsuo kept her head down and hoped that the two gunmen hadn't arrived for the reason she suspected. Ryouta saw right into Katsuo's fears, only deciding against to ask her what she thought was happening because of the double-barrels next to them. Ryouta had know clue why they where being invaded, and seeing the helplessness and regret in Katsuo troubled him more then he cared to think.

The man with the shotgun looked up at the man arriving from upstairs. “Is she not here?” he asked without getting a response. “Zakhar, did you find her or not?”

With the gunman next to him distracted, Ryouta ran into him and struggled to disarm him. Zakhar pulled out his revolver to retaliate, but Katsuo ran into his line of fire. She had her eyes forced closed and expanded her stomach muscles, but Zakhar didn't fire a shot. Behind her, Ryouta was thrown back to the ground, with the gun pointed right to his face.

“What a brave, young, stupid soul,” Zakhar said. “Why don't come a bit closer, I've got something to show you.”

Katsuo stayed put, now hoping to get a bullet and get it over with.

“Little girl, as disappointing as it is, you're not going to die a hero. The best you can do is make this easy for all of us.”

She refused to listen, and continued to test Zakhar's patiance.

Ryouta looked up at Katsuo, afraid for her life. “For gods sake, just do what he says!” He pleaded in a hyper-ventilated state that forced more tears out of his eyes than he's ever had before.

Katsuo finally gave up her front, and made her way forward. When he got the chance, Zakhar pulled her shoulder and spun her around. “Now, be a darling. Take me to where you keep the keys to the doors.” he demanded with his gun to her temple.

Katsuo couldn't bring herself to move, and with a deep breath, did the only thing she had left to do.

“Find them yourself, or get out...”

Zakhar managed a straight face from what he found an amusing response. “Do you mind running that by me again?”

“FIND THE DAMN KEYS YOUSELF, YOU GIANT PEICE OF S**T!”

She got hit in the head immediately by the barrel of Zakhar's gun. With a cold new look in his face, he gazed a thousand yards before him, and gave a simple command to his follower.

“Show her reason...”

The gunman ahead of him pushed his boot to Ryouta's chest, and spun his gun to point upwards. When Ryouta looked up at the gun, the blunt end smash into his nose. His cry of pain coincided with Katsuo turning her head to look away, only to have forced to face forward again.

Ryouta rolled to his side, and found the blood spilling out of his nostrils. The dented backside of the gun was now raised to the ceiling, then swung into Ryouta's chest. Instead of a scream, there was only the shatter of his rib cage, with more blood being thrown out of his mouth. The gunman walked down Ryouta's curled body. He pointed the shotgun down, poking at different parts of him. He eventually settled on his knees. The gunman stood up tall, and readied his gun to fire both rounds.

“ENOUGH, PLEASE!” Katsuo cried out in defeat, “I'll do what you say, just leave him alone.”

The gunman held his gun away from Ryouta, and walk up to Katsuo, waiting for her to lead the way. She reached into her coat pocket, bringing out a bundle of keys, and hand them over with one sticking out. The gunman grabbed the keys and walked up to Irisu's room leaving Katsuo where she was.

After the door opened, there was a loud glass shatter, which Zakhar instantly turned his head to. Not long after was the sound of flesh tearing, with the man screaming in horror. Another sound of stabbing, this time with more glass breaking. One more puncture, and the screams grew weaker and weaker, inevitably turning to silence.

Zakhar didn't stay for much longer. He opted to cut his loses and leave the scene while he could still do it without trouble. Katsuo stood in a petrified state, instead focusing on Ryouta. He had fallen unconscious during the mess, and layed draped on the floor. Katsuo reached as carefully as she could to check if he was still able to breathe. She put her hand before his mouth, and felt a slight gust come out. Katsuo then held head, relieved to find he was still alive, and trying to find a way to allow air into him more easily.

“R-Ryouta...” Irisu muttered in concern for her brother.

Katsuo jumped away from the voice behind her, completely forgetting that Irisu was her friend.

“Kat... are they gone?”

Katsuo tried to push herself farther back from Irisu then the wall would allow. She found a new fear for Irisu that she couldn't bring herself to explain, and was at a lose when Irisu stepped closer to her.

“Katsuo, you're scaring me,” Irisu started to fear that she would never get a response. “Please just tell me, is Ryouta going to be okay?”

Katsuo started to familiarize herself with the Irisu she's always known, and finally let herself calm down. “Their all gone,” Katsuo finally answered, “everything is going to be okay.”

Irisu dropped down to hug Katsuo, hoping to get them both out of shock. “Doesn't he need to go to a hospital?” Irisu asked.

“A hospital can't do anything right now.”

“But Katsuo, he's bleeding out of the mouth.”

“Their won't be a hospital safe enough to call.”

Irisu tightened her body, starting to weep uncontrollably.

“He'll be okay,” Katsuo promised, “We're just going to need some help.”

“Help? From... from who?”

Katsuo finally reached her arms to Irisu's back. “Irisu...” she started to whisper as softly and calmly as she could manage, “We can't live in Japan anymore.”

---

For some reason I had a hard time writing this part out.