Post by GO FUCK YOURSELF NICK on Jun 7, 2015 0:56:55 GMT -6
In all the hours of practice, it hadn’t hurt quite this much.
She’d hit something she shouldn’t have and the impact sent waves of shock and pain from her hand to her shoulder.
Rookie mistake.
Shaking it off, Ruby wrapped her legs around her opponent’s body and grabbed him by the shoulders, rolling him over onto his back. Blood caked his nose and mouth, but still he grinned at her with a manic gleam in his eyes. Ruby took him by the hair and slammed his head into the scuffed wooden floor of the bar, but all he did was laugh.
"Is that all you've got, hunter? You cannot kill me! Many have tried and all have failed, just like you will, little bitch!"
He reared back and headbutted her in the face, cackling gleefully at the sickening crunch of bone and the subsequent spurt of blood from Ruby's nose. She cried out and scrambled off her opponent, keeping a tight grip on her knife despite the pain in her face. He was back on his feet before she could blink, and even though he was bleeding sluggishly from a stab wound to his abdomen, he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were glassy and black, his mouth twisted and flecked with blood and spittle.
When the demon shows its face, you will see only the monster within. The human is gone; it has been since the day the demon took root. You must do what needs to be done in order to eradicate the demon. Its host is already dead. Kill the body and the demon will be exorcised.
In training, it had sounded so simple. Take a silver knife blessed with holy water and kill the demon. Now, faced with her first actual demon, Ruby was realizing rather quickly that this objective was easier assigned than completed. He stalked toward her, pushing tables and chairs out of the way as if they were made of wicker. She could hear him chuckling to himself as he advanced on her, backing up until she came up against the bar.
Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.
She turned out of the way just in time, sending her assailant gut-first into the edge of the bar. He groaned, then smiled at her.
“Clever little girl, aren’t you?” he asked her mockingly. “It’s really a shame… you’re quite good. But you’re just not good eno-”
Ruby’s arm shot upward, burying her knife in the soft hollow under his chin, where his head and neck met. His eyes widened with shock and his body shook as she withdrew the blade. He fell to the floor twitching and clutching at his throat, blood flowing between his fingers. His wounds started smoking, a thick black smoke that Ruby recognized from her lessons as the sign that the demon possessing the body was leaving.
The host was dying, and Ruby felt a fierce joy welling up inside her. She had done it. Her first demon hunt and she had achieved her objective.
“Too bad you didn’t realize… this huntress always hits her mark,” she told him, her voice thick from her broken nose. She knelt down beside his body, watching as the smoke started pouring from his mouth and nose.
“T-thank you… for… f-f-freeing… m-me…” he gasped, looking up at her with eyes that were hazel green instead of black, peaceful instead of crazed. His body arched as the last of the smoke left his lips. The demon was exorcised, the host killed.
But Ruby stayed where she was, her joy replaced with cold horror. Her target’s last words echoed in her mind.
He was still in there.
The whole time they had been fighting, the whole time the demon had been taunting her, the host - God, she didn’t even know his name - had been in there, probably screaming for help. And the fact that she had taken the life of not only the demon, but of the vessel as well?
Ruby reached out and gently closed the man’s staring eyes. The next step was to torch the bar, but she couldn’t do it just yet. In her jacket pocket, she carried a small bottle of holy water. She took it out now and sprinkled some over the body.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him,” she murmured. She couldn’t remember the rest of the prayer, but she figured that was enough. Her hands shook as she closed the bottle and wiped the blood off her knife with the dead man’s shirt.
He was a demon. He was your objective. If you didn’t stop him, he would have hurt more people.
But he was also a man, and he deserved more, she argued with herself, hopping over the bar to see what kind of liquor was still there. Her face was throbbing and her stomach was in knots, but she needed to get the job done. Ren and Masato - and probably Tsurugi - would be disappointed if she got this far only to drop the ball now. This was the moment she had been training for since the day Ren and Masato had decided to take her in. She was trying to work her way into the Order that they were all part of, and all her hard work would go to shit if she failed in her first solo mission.
So she took all the bottles she could find - whiskey, gin, vodka, tequila, and a couple of liqueurs that were probably flammable - and put them on the bar. She took her time, methodically pouring the contents around the perimeter of the building and on the stacks of decaying chairs and tables. The place had been abandoned for years, a roadside dive in East Jesus Nowhere, Texas that had collapsed due to health code violations and one too many bar fights breaking out. No one would miss it, not even the owner of the property.
That was why the demon had been using it as his place of residence. No one would notice if a few Satanic symbols popped up, and if they did, the small town police department would write it off as local teens playing pranks. Similarly, if the place went up in flames, they’d chalk it up to a prank gone wrong. And hopefully, the fire would burn hot enough and long enough to destroy the body.
To that end, Ruby made sure to thoroughly douse the body of her mystery man and set him alight first, after crossing his arms over his chest. She took her book of matches and worked her way around the room, dropping lit matches strategically throughout. Once she was at the back door of the place, she tossed the rest of the book into the fire and ran toward her car. Alcohol burned slowly, but the smoke was making her eyes tear up and with her broken nose it was getting even more difficult to breathe.
Before she knew it, she’d arrived back at the motel outside Laredo where she and the boys were staying. She hadn’t been paying attention to the drive at all and she turned to look behind her, grateful that there were no flashing lights or sirens in her rear view. The walk from the Mustang to her room was another blur. She couldn’t get the man’s face out of her head.
Once the door was shut and locked behind her, Ruby dropped her bag on the bed and went into the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror. Her face was bruised and bloody, and there were more contusions from her chest down to her knees which were beginning to make their presence known now that the adrenaline was fading from her system. She felt like one giant ache, but it was her nose that presented the most immediate problem. Putting her hands on either side of it, she forced it back into alignment. The pain was white hot and blinding, but instead of crying out, she nearly bit through her bottom lip. But at least now it would set correctly, and the fresh blood cleared out her sinuses with astonishing effectiveness.
With that taken care of, Ruby undressed and turned on the shower. The water was nearly hot enough to burn her, but she welcomed it. For the first time in her life, she felt unclean. The bottom of the tub turned pink as she washed the blood from her face and hands, but even when it was gone, the memory of what she had done remained. Nothing would ever be enough to scrub away the knowledge that today, she had taken a man’s life away.
And worse, she would have to do it again and again if she really, truly wanted to be a Hunter like the Kanemotos.
When she emerged from the shower, her normally pale skin was reddened from the heat, making her bruises stand out even more. But she ignored them as she dried off and changed into fresh clothes. She put her hair into a braid and looked at herself once more in the mirror. Makeup presented an interesting challenge, but she managed to cover up the worst of her injuries despite the pain. In a way, she welcomed it. She deserved it for what she had done tonight, and for what she would have to do in the future.
But for now, she looked somewhat human, so she stuffed her keys and wallet into her pockets and took a moment to look at her phone. She had missed calls and texts from both Masato and Tsurugi, curious about what had happened during her mission, but she ignored them. She didn’t want to talk to either of them just now.
Instead, she stopped at the front desk to ask about the nearest dive bar and called a cab to take her there. It was a place much like the one she’d burned earlier, with a few patrons hanging around drinking and mostly ignoring each other. Ruby took a seat at the end of the bar and ordered herself a whiskey ginger without looking at the bartender.
When he came back with her drink and change from the fifty she’d given him, she put a dollar on the bar as a tip and placed the rest of the money under an empty glass.
“Just keep ‘em coming till the cash runs out,” she told him, and he nodded in acknowledgement. The whiskey burned despite the ginger ale as she took her first sip from the glass. It didn’t make her feel better, but at least it gave her something to do other than think. And if he kept making her drinks as strong as this one, she’d be lucky if she could remember most of this night.
Several hours later, Ruby’s cash had run out and the bartender was calling her a cab to take her back to the motel. She poured herself into the backseat when it arrived, dozing off against the window for the majority of the ride. The sudden stop in front of the motel threw her forward into the back of the passenger seat, waking her up with a painful groan. Ruby threw the driver a twenty and lurched out, slamming the door behind her. Her stomach and head were roiling, and she was coherent enough to realize that she’d have a hell of a hangover to deal with in the morning. But that was tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, she needed to find water and her bed.
It took her a couple of tries to find the right door and when she did, she nearly left to go sleep it off in her car. Tsurugi was sitting on one of the beds, glaring at her.
“You could have taken one of us with you to the bar,” he told her with an accusatory tone in his voice. Ruby shook her head and kicked off her sneakers, peeling her jacket off and letting it fall to the floor as she stumbled toward the bed.
“Not now, Tsurugi.” She threw herself down onto the bed, not even bothering with the covers. There was already a bottle of water on the nightstand between the two beds, along with two ibuprofen tablets. “How’d you know I went to the bar?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “When you didn’t answer your phone, we asked the guy at the front desk if he’d seen you. He told us where you went.”
“You could have followed me.”
“Masato wanted to. I figured you needed some time to yourself.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Ruby opened the bottle of water and gulped down half of it, trying to settle her stomach. Tsurugi simply watched her for a few moments, his arms crossed over his chest. “If you have something to say, say it.”
“You know, we’re here if you want to… talk, or anything. Well, maybe not so much Masato. It’s the job, and he’s all about the job, so I don’t think it gives him much trouble. Me, well… I hate to say it, but you get used to it after awhile. Sooner than you might think.” He gave her a smile, trying to reassure her.
“How? How could you ever possibly get used to… this?” She made a vague gesture with her hand, but Tsurugi understood her meaning.
“You learn to compartmentalize. These people… we’re doing them a favor. Releasing them from hell on earth into a better place. Think of it that way and it’ll get easier.”
Ruby sighed heavily, her eyes drifting shut. A few tears trailed down her cheeks as she gathered the pillows under her head. “I didn’t think it would be this hard,” she murmured, choking back a sob.
Tsurugi got up from the other bed and knelt down next to Ruby, putting a hand on her shoulder. “No one ever does. But we’re Hunters. Capital H. You’re strong like us, Ruby. We all find our ways to deal. You will too.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Get some sleep. I’ll leave the ibuprofen bottle in the bathroom for when you wake up.”
“Thanks, Tsurugi.”
“Anytime, Ruby.”
After she passed out, Tsurugi made sure that she was on her side and that the door between her room and the one he shared with his brother was unlocked in case of anything.
In the days following, Ruby and the boys returned to Ren and made a full report. He beamed with pride when she told him that she had completed the objective all by herself, even though she’d gotten her nose broken in the process. It was another sign that he and Masato had been right to choose her for the Order, and their pride made her feel somewhat more at ease with what she had done. By unspoken agreement, none of them mentioned the aftermath of Ruby completing her first solo mission.
And Tsurugi was right. The next time, it was easier to deal with. But Ruby still found herself checking out the local news for reports of her first kill. Police eventually ruled it a suicide. The man had lost his wife and two children in a drunk driving accident the year before, and she assumed that in the wake of that loss, he had become vulnerable to demonic possession, thus winding up on the Order’s radar.
So maybe she had done a good thing for him in the end.
Or maybe she was just a killer.
She’d hit something she shouldn’t have and the impact sent waves of shock and pain from her hand to her shoulder.
Rookie mistake.
Shaking it off, Ruby wrapped her legs around her opponent’s body and grabbed him by the shoulders, rolling him over onto his back. Blood caked his nose and mouth, but still he grinned at her with a manic gleam in his eyes. Ruby took him by the hair and slammed his head into the scuffed wooden floor of the bar, but all he did was laugh.
"Is that all you've got, hunter? You cannot kill me! Many have tried and all have failed, just like you will, little bitch!"
He reared back and headbutted her in the face, cackling gleefully at the sickening crunch of bone and the subsequent spurt of blood from Ruby's nose. She cried out and scrambled off her opponent, keeping a tight grip on her knife despite the pain in her face. He was back on his feet before she could blink, and even though he was bleeding sluggishly from a stab wound to his abdomen, he didn't seem to notice. His eyes were glassy and black, his mouth twisted and flecked with blood and spittle.
When the demon shows its face, you will see only the monster within. The human is gone; it has been since the day the demon took root. You must do what needs to be done in order to eradicate the demon. Its host is already dead. Kill the body and the demon will be exorcised.
In training, it had sounded so simple. Take a silver knife blessed with holy water and kill the demon. Now, faced with her first actual demon, Ruby was realizing rather quickly that this objective was easier assigned than completed. He stalked toward her, pushing tables and chairs out of the way as if they were made of wicker. She could hear him chuckling to himself as he advanced on her, backing up until she came up against the bar.
Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.
She turned out of the way just in time, sending her assailant gut-first into the edge of the bar. He groaned, then smiled at her.
“Clever little girl, aren’t you?” he asked her mockingly. “It’s really a shame… you’re quite good. But you’re just not good eno-”
Ruby’s arm shot upward, burying her knife in the soft hollow under his chin, where his head and neck met. His eyes widened with shock and his body shook as she withdrew the blade. He fell to the floor twitching and clutching at his throat, blood flowing between his fingers. His wounds started smoking, a thick black smoke that Ruby recognized from her lessons as the sign that the demon possessing the body was leaving.
The host was dying, and Ruby felt a fierce joy welling up inside her. She had done it. Her first demon hunt and she had achieved her objective.
“Too bad you didn’t realize… this huntress always hits her mark,” she told him, her voice thick from her broken nose. She knelt down beside his body, watching as the smoke started pouring from his mouth and nose.
“T-thank you… for… f-f-freeing… m-me…” he gasped, looking up at her with eyes that were hazel green instead of black, peaceful instead of crazed. His body arched as the last of the smoke left his lips. The demon was exorcised, the host killed.
But Ruby stayed where she was, her joy replaced with cold horror. Her target’s last words echoed in her mind.
He was still in there.
The whole time they had been fighting, the whole time the demon had been taunting her, the host - God, she didn’t even know his name - had been in there, probably screaming for help. And the fact that she had taken the life of not only the demon, but of the vessel as well?
Ruby reached out and gently closed the man’s staring eyes. The next step was to torch the bar, but she couldn’t do it just yet. In her jacket pocket, she carried a small bottle of holy water. She took it out now and sprinkled some over the body.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him,” she murmured. She couldn’t remember the rest of the prayer, but she figured that was enough. Her hands shook as she closed the bottle and wiped the blood off her knife with the dead man’s shirt.
He was a demon. He was your objective. If you didn’t stop him, he would have hurt more people.
But he was also a man, and he deserved more, she argued with herself, hopping over the bar to see what kind of liquor was still there. Her face was throbbing and her stomach was in knots, but she needed to get the job done. Ren and Masato - and probably Tsurugi - would be disappointed if she got this far only to drop the ball now. This was the moment she had been training for since the day Ren and Masato had decided to take her in. She was trying to work her way into the Order that they were all part of, and all her hard work would go to shit if she failed in her first solo mission.
So she took all the bottles she could find - whiskey, gin, vodka, tequila, and a couple of liqueurs that were probably flammable - and put them on the bar. She took her time, methodically pouring the contents around the perimeter of the building and on the stacks of decaying chairs and tables. The place had been abandoned for years, a roadside dive in East Jesus Nowhere, Texas that had collapsed due to health code violations and one too many bar fights breaking out. No one would miss it, not even the owner of the property.
That was why the demon had been using it as his place of residence. No one would notice if a few Satanic symbols popped up, and if they did, the small town police department would write it off as local teens playing pranks. Similarly, if the place went up in flames, they’d chalk it up to a prank gone wrong. And hopefully, the fire would burn hot enough and long enough to destroy the body.
To that end, Ruby made sure to thoroughly douse the body of her mystery man and set him alight first, after crossing his arms over his chest. She took her book of matches and worked her way around the room, dropping lit matches strategically throughout. Once she was at the back door of the place, she tossed the rest of the book into the fire and ran toward her car. Alcohol burned slowly, but the smoke was making her eyes tear up and with her broken nose it was getting even more difficult to breathe.
Before she knew it, she’d arrived back at the motel outside Laredo where she and the boys were staying. She hadn’t been paying attention to the drive at all and she turned to look behind her, grateful that there were no flashing lights or sirens in her rear view. The walk from the Mustang to her room was another blur. She couldn’t get the man’s face out of her head.
Once the door was shut and locked behind her, Ruby dropped her bag on the bed and went into the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror. Her face was bruised and bloody, and there were more contusions from her chest down to her knees which were beginning to make their presence known now that the adrenaline was fading from her system. She felt like one giant ache, but it was her nose that presented the most immediate problem. Putting her hands on either side of it, she forced it back into alignment. The pain was white hot and blinding, but instead of crying out, she nearly bit through her bottom lip. But at least now it would set correctly, and the fresh blood cleared out her sinuses with astonishing effectiveness.
With that taken care of, Ruby undressed and turned on the shower. The water was nearly hot enough to burn her, but she welcomed it. For the first time in her life, she felt unclean. The bottom of the tub turned pink as she washed the blood from her face and hands, but even when it was gone, the memory of what she had done remained. Nothing would ever be enough to scrub away the knowledge that today, she had taken a man’s life away.
And worse, she would have to do it again and again if she really, truly wanted to be a Hunter like the Kanemotos.
When she emerged from the shower, her normally pale skin was reddened from the heat, making her bruises stand out even more. But she ignored them as she dried off and changed into fresh clothes. She put her hair into a braid and looked at herself once more in the mirror. Makeup presented an interesting challenge, but she managed to cover up the worst of her injuries despite the pain. In a way, she welcomed it. She deserved it for what she had done tonight, and for what she would have to do in the future.
But for now, she looked somewhat human, so she stuffed her keys and wallet into her pockets and took a moment to look at her phone. She had missed calls and texts from both Masato and Tsurugi, curious about what had happened during her mission, but she ignored them. She didn’t want to talk to either of them just now.
Instead, she stopped at the front desk to ask about the nearest dive bar and called a cab to take her there. It was a place much like the one she’d burned earlier, with a few patrons hanging around drinking and mostly ignoring each other. Ruby took a seat at the end of the bar and ordered herself a whiskey ginger without looking at the bartender.
When he came back with her drink and change from the fifty she’d given him, she put a dollar on the bar as a tip and placed the rest of the money under an empty glass.
“Just keep ‘em coming till the cash runs out,” she told him, and he nodded in acknowledgement. The whiskey burned despite the ginger ale as she took her first sip from the glass. It didn’t make her feel better, but at least it gave her something to do other than think. And if he kept making her drinks as strong as this one, she’d be lucky if she could remember most of this night.
~~~
It took her a couple of tries to find the right door and when she did, she nearly left to go sleep it off in her car. Tsurugi was sitting on one of the beds, glaring at her.
“You could have taken one of us with you to the bar,” he told her with an accusatory tone in his voice. Ruby shook her head and kicked off her sneakers, peeling her jacket off and letting it fall to the floor as she stumbled toward the bed.
“Not now, Tsurugi.” She threw herself down onto the bed, not even bothering with the covers. There was already a bottle of water on the nightstand between the two beds, along with two ibuprofen tablets. “How’d you know I went to the bar?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “When you didn’t answer your phone, we asked the guy at the front desk if he’d seen you. He told us where you went.”
“You could have followed me.”
“Masato wanted to. I figured you needed some time to yourself.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Ruby opened the bottle of water and gulped down half of it, trying to settle her stomach. Tsurugi simply watched her for a few moments, his arms crossed over his chest. “If you have something to say, say it.”
“You know, we’re here if you want to… talk, or anything. Well, maybe not so much Masato. It’s the job, and he’s all about the job, so I don’t think it gives him much trouble. Me, well… I hate to say it, but you get used to it after awhile. Sooner than you might think.” He gave her a smile, trying to reassure her.
“How? How could you ever possibly get used to… this?” She made a vague gesture with her hand, but Tsurugi understood her meaning.
“You learn to compartmentalize. These people… we’re doing them a favor. Releasing them from hell on earth into a better place. Think of it that way and it’ll get easier.”
Ruby sighed heavily, her eyes drifting shut. A few tears trailed down her cheeks as she gathered the pillows under her head. “I didn’t think it would be this hard,” she murmured, choking back a sob.
Tsurugi got up from the other bed and knelt down next to Ruby, putting a hand on her shoulder. “No one ever does. But we’re Hunters. Capital H. You’re strong like us, Ruby. We all find our ways to deal. You will too.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. Get some sleep. I’ll leave the ibuprofen bottle in the bathroom for when you wake up.”
“Thanks, Tsurugi.”
“Anytime, Ruby.”
After she passed out, Tsurugi made sure that she was on her side and that the door between her room and the one he shared with his brother was unlocked in case of anything.
~~~
In the days following, Ruby and the boys returned to Ren and made a full report. He beamed with pride when she told him that she had completed the objective all by herself, even though she’d gotten her nose broken in the process. It was another sign that he and Masato had been right to choose her for the Order, and their pride made her feel somewhat more at ease with what she had done. By unspoken agreement, none of them mentioned the aftermath of Ruby completing her first solo mission.
And Tsurugi was right. The next time, it was easier to deal with. But Ruby still found herself checking out the local news for reports of her first kill. Police eventually ruled it a suicide. The man had lost his wife and two children in a drunk driving accident the year before, and she assumed that in the wake of that loss, he had become vulnerable to demonic possession, thus winding up on the Order’s radar.
So maybe she had done a good thing for him in the end.
Or maybe she was just a killer.
I am so done talking about this.
What’s the point, when all you’ll do is laugh and tell me how inferior I am to you?
The time for words is through, Hardaway. This thing that you and I have right now? It’s only gonna be settled one way. Monday night, in the ring.
You’ve had that belt now for how many months now? Four, five? And yet this is your first actual defense of it.
I refuse to be scared of you, Kevin. Maybe everyone else is. Maybe that’s why no one’s had the balls to challenge you for that belt. Or maybe now that you’re the one holding it, no one cares enough about the San Diego Bay Championship to bother.
For me though, this isn’t just about the belt. Sure, I want it. I’d look good with an extra few pounds of gold around my waist, don’t you think?
It’s about payback.
See, I didn’t like getting my head bashed in by you. I didn’t like seeing what you did to Chandler Scott and Black Jones. So I’m going to take that belt from you and teach you a lesson. Lord it over everyone else that because of your actions, neither of them are in the picture right now. But you have tried time and again to force me down and here I am, back once more to do what needs to be done.
Better men than you have tried and failed to take me out. Better men than you have told me to stay down and to quit and they’ve tried to convince me to do so the same way you did - by beating the crap out of me.
But here I stand.
To everyone else, you’re the First Son of mara’s Family. The wild card, the short-tempered one, the enforcer, the muscle. And I mean hey, that take no prisoners thing has worked out pretty well for you so far.
To me, though, you’re just a man. A man who should, and can, and will be stopped, no matter what it takes.
When I first started training with my old mentor, he used to tell me that he was in his empty space, where he was completely centered and could do as he liked. It took me forever to get to that point, where I felt the same sense of ease and control. And when you and I step into that ring on Monday night, that's where I'll be: completely centered and completely in control.
So go ahead, do your worst. Whatever happens, know this: I will keep coming for you. I am a hunter on a mission, and I will not stop until I've achieved my objective. I will take everything from you and leave you broken and begging me for mercy.
And that's when I'll move on to bigger and better things, because that's how you break a chain: you start with its weakest link.
Enjoy it while it lasts, sweetheart. Because this war ain't over yet. Not by a long shot.