Three Square Meals Ch. 084

There was only one cyborg left, the one-legged assassin trying to crawl away on his hands and knees. He was moving quite quickly considering his crippled state, cybernetic limbs rapidly propelling him across the floor. He covered twenty metres before Sakura caught up to him, impaling him through the back of the head as she sprinted past. The tip of her blade appeared under his chin in a flash of white, having skewered his brain straight through the parietal lobe. She gave the ninjato a savage twist as she pulled it clear, frozen chunks of brain showering out in the wake of her sparkling white sword.

Then the spectre of vengeance was gone, charging deeper into the fortress in a white blur.

In the courtyard behind her, the third cyborg she'd killed slid off the edge of the roof, then smacked into the solid stone floor. His frozen torso shattered into a thousand jagged pieces that skittered across the ground.

***

Raijin listened in shock as he sprinted along the gloomy stone corridor, the fearful chatter over the comlink ringing in his ears. The brief bursts of warnings ended in shrill screams, or just went deathly silent mid-sentence, which proved even more terrifying.

"Idaina-sha!" he called out over the comlink for the third time, but there was still no answer.

He burst into his Master's dimly-lit enclave, heaving a sigh of relief as he saw Mikaboshi standing by the black gothic throne. Light from dozens of monitors cast a ghostly pall over the Master assassin's face, making his golden-brown features look sickly and pale. The expression he wore was one that Raijin thought he would never see on his impassive Master. A look of fear...

"We're being attacked, Idaina-sha!" Raijin blurted out, as he skidded to a halt.

Mikaboshi didn't appear to have heard him, seemingly stunned by the shock of having his fortress home invaded. Raijin ran up the steps to his paralyzed Master and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Someone has attacked! They're killing our men!"

Turning to face him, Mikaboshi whispered in a tremulous voice, "The Lion... How did he find me?!"

Raijin shook his head, replying swiftly, "I've no idea, Maste-"

Before he could finish, Mikaboshi snarled in fury as if seeing Raijin for the first time. Grabbing the fellow assassin by his black jumpsuit, he hauled him off the ground with one hand. "You fucking cretin! Calara must have had a tracking device inserted! Why the fuck didn't you scan her?!"

Shocked by his Master's abrupt change in demeanour, Raijin frantically shook his head. "We did scan her! She had nothing on her body or inside her! Nothing!"

Mikaboshi glared at him for a moment then let him go, Raijin stumbling as he was dropped unceremoniously to the ground. "Rally our forces, coordinate the defences!" Mikaboshi ordered, more focused now and back to his normal calculating self. "I will join our counter-strike shortly. I am planning a little surprise for John Blake!"

Giving him an evil grin, Raijin bowed respectfully. "Hai, Idaina-sha!" The assassin darted down the steps and ran for the door.

"Oh, and Raijin," Mikaboshi called out to him, making the assassin skid to a halt and turn back to look at his Master. "Dispose of the Lion's pet. If I cannot have her, then neither shall he."

"I will do so immediately, Idaina-sha," Raijin replied, a malevolent glint in his almond-shaped brown eyes.

Mikaboshi watched his underling sprint out of the room and once Raijin was gone, a flicker of fear crossed his face again. He turned and started rapidly tapping on the console, his metallic fingers working as fast as he could type. As he rapidly drained all the funds from his organisation and transferred them to his personal secure account, his eyes couldn't help flicking to the timer in his HUD.

"6:38" the countdown read, the seconds slowly ticking down.

There was a chime to let him know that the transfer was complete and he straightened, a gloating smile appearing on his face. What did the Lion's whore know, anyway? He smiled smugly to himself as he turned away from the console and jogged towards the secret door at the back of his inner sanctum. With Raijin coordinating his forces, his legion of ninjas might buy him a few more minutes to evacuate, but at this point his escape was essentially guaranteed. Being forced to flee from Yomi-no-kuni was a bitter blow, but Mikaboshi hadn't lived to be one-hundred-and-thirty-five by taking any chances.

He would live to seek his revenge another day.

***

The Raptor raced lower, punching through the clouds as it swooped in towards the solid rocky face of the mountain top. Placing absolute trust in the information provided by her friends, Jade didn't hesitate for a second as she steered the gunship through the holographic illusion, the mountain disappearing to be replaced by a view of the monolithic stone fortress. She pulled up hard on the stick while hauling back the throttle, retro-thrusters on the front of the gunship flaring as she dramatically slowed their speed. By the time the loading ramp was half-way down, the Raptor had drifted to a halt next to the roof.

John ran down the loading ramp, the five remaining girls following hot on his heels. "We're clear, Jade," he said over the team comm, while jogging down the slate roof.

"Pulling back and providing close air-support," she confirmed, the gunship peeling away.

They had arrived at the rear of the base, on the opposite side to the courtyard that Sakura had landed in after her orbital drop. As the Raptor pulled back, a group of ninjas raced towards John and the girls across the rooftop walkways. Mag-view made the cybernetic ninjas' metal chassis gleam a fierce white, lighting them up like blazing beacons. Alerted by the sudden blast of the Raptor's retro-thrusters, the seven cyborgs were sprinting towards them in a blur.

"Incoming hostiles," John said, over the team's internal comm channel.

He took careful aim at the closest cyborg, lining up his smart-linked crosshairs with the centre of its torso. The speed compensator arced away from the ninja as it charged across the walkway surrounding the courtyard, moving almost faster than his eye could follow. Sweeping his rifle to his left, John led the target, keeping the reticle squarely placed in the centre of the speed compensator. Squeezing the trigger once, there was an echoing retort as the twenty-millimetre railgun slug was hyper-accelerated towards his target.

"VrmPkaow!" the Punisher rifle barked.

The high-calibre round hit the cyborg dead-centre in the torso, blasting a huge dinner-plate sized hole through its body. The ninja tripped and landed flat on its face, skidding a few dozen metres before sailing lifelessly off the side of the building.

There was a strangled series of shocked cries from the rest of the ninjas, as Alyssa reach out with both hands and lifted the six remaining cyborgs into the air. They thrashed impotently, their alacrity boosts rendered useless by the tight telekinetic grip pinning them in place. Punisher rifles sang out their glorious song of retribution, the girls having fanned out to either side of John and opening fire on the incoming cyborgs. One heavy slug after another smashed into the ninjas, blowing away limbs, shooting huge chunks from their bodies, or just instantly slaying them by punching through the internal organs in their chest or head.

As the last of the pack of ninjas collapsed in a twitching pile of cybernetic limbs, John heard the piercing scream of Photon Lasers being fired. Glancing over to his right, he saw that Jade had repositioned the Raptor so that she was flanking the fortress fifty metres below them. Bright blue laser bolts slammed into the mountainside, sundering the concealed Hangar doors with the first shot and causing untold devastation as she raked the interior with the subsequent beams. She opened up with the five turreted Pulse Cannons afterwards, sending a blistering blue hail into the glowing wreckage, targeting anything still moving.

"Remind me to build another Pulse Cannon for the upper spinal turret," Dana said conversationally, following his glance.

"Will do," he agreed, before turning back towards the base before them. "Alright, let's move out."

John took a short run towards the edge of the roof and jumped off, using the grav-generators in his suit to steady his descent to the stone flagstones on the courtyard floor. The girls landed lightly beside him, weapons held at the ready as they rushed across the open area towards the double doors beyond. A gloomy corridor behind that doorway led to the quickest way down through the fortress, allowing them to reach the cell where they knew Calara was being held.

***

Sakura sprinted deeper into the base, making a beeline for Mikaboshi's inner sanctum. It meant having to rush through the area known as the mausoleum, filled with scores of sepulchres, each small stone room containing a heavy black sarcophagus. This was effectively the citadel's barracks, where the Master Assassin kept his legion of vicious killers until they were needed.

She rushed through the brooding stone passageways, noting with alarm that every single sarcophagus was open now, the deadly inhabitants presumably loose within the fortress. It didn't take long for that presumption to be proven correct, when she burst into a training area, almost running headlong into a dozen of the black-clad ninjas who were using the room as a rallying point.

Massively outnumbered, she couldn't afford to hesitate for an instant and she stabbed the closest two through their heads before they even knew what hit them.

*Alyssa!* she cried out. *I need more power!*

Her Matriarch channelled more energy into her, making Sakura suck in a sharp breath as her body tingled with throbbing potential. She was ready for it this time and she immediately channelled that energy into the still air within the training room. A whistling wind began to pick up speed, swirling around the room and ruffling the assassins' black garb as she pushed the air to follow her will.

The cyborg ninjas reacted instantly, low hums sounding like the angry buzzing of a stirred-up hive of bees as they all activated their speed enhancements. They had drawn their swords so quickly that black ninjato seemed to leap into their waiting hands and Sakura was soon fighting for her life in a flashing whirlwind of blades. Her own white ninjato flicked through the air so fast, it seemed like she was surrounded by a white wall as she blocked their attacks. The flurry of blows was relentless, not leaving her time to riposte after each parry and forcing her to swiftly reposition her swords to deflect yet another attack.

That Sakura was able to keep them from striking her for over twenty seconds was a miracle, but it was one that could not last forever. One of the ninjas had been biding his time, waiting patiently as he watched for the opportune moment to strike, his black sword pulled back in readiness. As Sakura slashed back and forth, parrying each blow with a sharp ringing note, she ducked a swing at her head and blocked a stab aimed at the middle of her back. The patient ninja chose that instant to lunge forward, thrusting his sword at her face with all his strength.

Sakura caught the flicker of movement at the last second, twisting aside to avoid being stabbed through the forehead. The blade plunged through her crystal Alyssium faceplate at a sharp angle, narrowly avoiding shearing off her nose, the black sword tip embedding itself into the side of her helmet. With the blade shoved through her visor, her ability to see was completely compromised, and more blows began to rain down on her armoured body.

However, Sakura hadn't just been desperately defending herself from attack, she'd been biding her time as well.

The swirling winds were spinning faster and faster, flying around her with ever greater speed. Those winds found their voice in a crescendo of sound, building to a piercing howl as the maelstrom reached its apex. The assassins surrounding her wobbled unsteadily on their feet, the wind whipping by them like a thing possessed. The ten men looked around themselves in terror, with the sudden realisation that they were standing in the eye of a tornado. The epicentre of calm suddenly contracted, brutally exposing the ninjas to the ferocity of that cyclone. As if plucking up toy soldiers, the whirlwind yanked them off their feet and sent them slamming into sturdy stone walls, battering the cyborgs into insensibility.

Sakura pulled her shattered helmet off her head, her long black hair fluttering in the breeze as she looked upon the raw manifestation of her psychic might. The screaming vortex hurled the ninjas around her in excess of three-hundred-miles-per-hour, ripping limbs from torsos until she was being orbited by a jagged storm of metal flechettes. Glancing at the broad set of doors on the other side of the training room, she deflected the flow of the wind, channelling her hail of metal through that doorway. The sounds of screams barely reached her ears over the throaty roar of the wind, the lethal blizzard clearing the passageway beyond.

With the training room now cleared of... everything... she rushed after the deadly hurricane that was howling through the citadel, eviscerating all in its path.

***

John strode into the corridor, glancing back at the girls who followed him into the passageway. He wanted to rush to Calara's side, but he was also worried about leaving the rest of the girls behind.

*Go. I'm here to protect them,* Alyssa replied, sharing a quick glance with him.

Turning to look at the rest of the group, John said, "I'm going to run ahead to find Calara, keep working your way down to join us."

He slung his Punisher rifle over his shoulder and drew his sword from his back, the magnetic fields holding it in place releasing it to his sturdy grip. Already channelling his willpower, he engaged his psychic speed and sprinted ahead down the corridor, checking the map overlay on his HUD. The staircase down to the next level was ahead and to the right, along two corridors and then into an anteroom which housed the stairwell.

When he rounded the first corner, taking a right at the T-junction, he barrelled straight into a couple of ninjas lying in wait. His speed took them by surprise as he slammed into the pair, knocking one flying down the corridor and the other crashing into the wall. John reacted faster than his stunned opponents, bringing his two-handed sword around in a cross-slash that struck the closest cyborg in the chest. His octo-folded crystal Alyssium blade hacked straight through the ninja's titanium torso, cleaving him in half below the sternum.

John was already moving on to the next cyborg who flipped up onto his feet, twin ninjato appearing in his black-garbed hands. The assassin made his blades dance in the air, trying to bedazzle his opponent, but John simply lunged forward with the tip of his blade. The ninja had no idea of the colossal strength behind that attack and while he was able to meet John's sword in time with a twin-bladed parry, his ineffectual defence was batted aside. John neatly impaled him through the chest and rammed three-feet of solid crystalline blade through his torso. The ninja gaped down at the sword sticking out from his body, then watched in horror as John took a two-handed grip on his hilt and heaved upwards, freeing his blade and neatly bisecting the cyborg's head in the process.

His way was clear now and he rushed ahead down the corridor, bursting into the anteroom and bounding down the steps two at a time. Mikaboshi had designed this fortress with defence as his primary concern, rather than for efficiency of movement. Aiming to slow the progress of an assault, he had placed the stairwell down to the next level over on the other side of the complex. John gritted his teeth together with irritation and sprinted along the gloomy cyclopean stone passages, making his way across the level.

He could hear the bark of Punisher rifles behind and above him, quickly followed by the booming retort of heavy slugs punching through thick armour. Over that cacophony, his sharp ears picked up a hideous synthetic screech, making him wonder what horrific fate had befallen that particular cyborg. Similarly, he could hear what could only be described as a raging hurricane howling through the base, which certainly sounded like Sakura's handiwork.

The staircase to the next level passed through a large maintenance area, lined with cybernetic body parts hanging from hooks on the ceiling. The floor and assembly tables were also plated in steel, which he could only assume was intended to make the cleanup of oil spillages easier to manage. With mag-view enabled, this repair bay seemed to be a forest of shining white shapes against an equally gleaming background, the metallic objects blurring together into one blinding glare. He quickly deactivated the magnetic resonance imaging, relying on normal eyesight once again.

*Alyssa?* he called out to his blonde Matriarch. *Can you shed a bit of light down here?*

***

Alyssa and the girls walked cautiously down the corridor, wary for the bright gleam of light that would forewarn them of a cyborg assault. As they reached a crossroads, a grating noise sounded from their right and left. Sections of stone wall slid aside, revealing themselves to be cleverly painted metal doors and not the roughly cut stonework they appeared to be.

Four black-garbed men dashed out from each side, rushing forward with swords poised to strike. The Maliri twins were to the right and Irillith reeled backwards, managing to clip the one charging her in the arm with a hurried snapshot, severing his limb at the bicep. Tashana reacted instantly, flipping both pistols to burst fire and unloading on the cyborgs rushing her.

The first received a three-round burst to the chest, leaving a cavernous hole through his torso as the high-powered slugs punched straight through him. As he began to topple over, the second was hit in the head, cratering his face and liquefying his brain with the force of the impact. She switched to the third at the rear on Irillith's side, hitting him with a deadly salvo of rounds from both pistols that turned him into titanium swiss cheese.

Dana and Rachel both fired on the first two that stormed towards them, Dana's rushed shot punching into his leg and literally cutting it out from under him. The cyborg toppled over, thrown off-balance as his limb was blown apart by the railgun slug. Rachel managed to gut the one charging at her, her shot hitting him just above the groin and ripping him in half.

Irillith cried out in pain as the one-armed cyborg lunged forward with his sword, impaling her in the left arm - it was almost as if he was seeking to reciprocate his own dismemberment. She dropped her Punisher rifle and grabbed for his throat, her arm swathed with electricity.

"Fry, you fucker!" she snarled, pouring lightning into her assailant and making him jerk and shudder.

Electricity arced over his metal body, the ninja letting out a wordless howl of agony as she cooked him from the inside, lightning scorching his internal organs. The sparking energy crackled along his blade and reached her impaled arm, but her body absorbed it, the electricity dissipating harmlessly. When she released him, he toppled over with a clang, smoke pouring from every orifice, including his melted eye-sockets.

The last two on the left vaulted over their slain compatriots, swords held aloft as they leaped through the air, ready to plunge them into Dana and Rachel. Suddenly they were hoisted aloft by ghostly telekinetic hands, which started to violently shake them until they dropped their weapons. More ethereal hands appeared, gripping the ninjas securely as they began to twist and wrench their limbs. The two assassins were slammed into each other as the sound of tortured metal filled the air, warring with the two men's screams of horror as Alyssa... merged them.