Ninja Girl
Chapter Nineteen

Nick couldn’t think. He could barely breathe.

“No,” he said. The word was quiet, a whisper barely making it past his lips, almost as though it felt the same terror reverberating through his bones and did not wish to expose itself to the open and the danger.

The figure – Kokatsu – turned its head in Nick’s direction, as though even over the din of the screeching metal and the collapsing concrete and the burning fire it had heard the barely audible sound of Nick’s protest.

The figure took a step, and then suddenly ducked. Something whizzed past where his head had been only a moment before. Kokatsu straightened and turned to look in the direction of the attack. Then he walked, slowly, almost casually, down from his mound of rubble and out of Nick’s line of sight.

For a long moment Nick did not move. For a long moment, he did not even think. His life, his mind, was suddenly a complete blank, frozen into place at the abject horror of it all. When he finally moved, he did it without conscious thought. It was almost as if he was being compelled by some outside force. He rose, dead faced, zombie-like, and stumbled his way over to the collapsed building. He turned a corner, and immediately stopped and knelt down.

There, in the distance, Kokatsu was fighting the big Russian man from earlier.

Even further away stood a number of military type vehicles. They came in all shapes and sizes, from smaller vehicles for quick transport and larger vehicles meant to carry troops, but they all had one thing in common. None of them were manned. All of them had various men lying around them in broken, twisted positions.

The Russian man seemed to be made of sterner stuff than his troops. He was currently locked in battle with Kokatsu, dodging this way and that, landing kicks and punches of his own. He dodged the attacks coming from Kokatsu, or grabbed the blows and turned them against his opponent, using their force to throw the smaller man. He was definitely landing more hits, but nothing seemed to faze the Asian man. While the Russian was fast, especially for such a large man, every blow that he took was clearly slowing him down.

Finally, the unexpected happened. The Russian grappled Kokatsu to the ground holding on to the cyborg’s still human arm, and pulled on it. Nick recognized the move from wrestling matches, TV shows, and video games. It was a move designed to illicit incredible amounts of pain while being nearly impossible to escape, until the man on the receiving end tapped out, gave up, or got his arm broken.

But Kokatsu did not seem to feel pain.

Kokatsu took his other arm, the robotic one, and planted it on the ground. With an inhuman strength, he pushed both himself and the attacker sitting on his back up into the air. Kokatsu kept rising until he got his feet under him in a crouched position. He then managed to twist his body, pulling his arm back a little ways, before snapping forward again sending the Russian slamming head first into the ground.

Not surprisingly, the man lost his grasp on Kokatsu’s arm. He rolled back and forth on the ground, holding his head and reeling in pain.

Calmly, as though he was not a human being but rather a force of nature, Kokatsu stepped over to the man on the ground. He stood above him like the very shadow of death. Nick could just imagine the man grinning wickedly, even though his face was more likely the same expressionless mask it had always been. Kokatsu raised his arms, hands balled into fist, and prepared to strike.

Suddenly, a lone figure dashed out from between two of the stopped vehicles and burst toward Kokatsu. Even from this distance, the silvery blond hair was unmistakable.

The newcomer was Holly.

She dashed up to Kokatsu and jabbed him in the back with both hands, and then dashed around to his opposite side. He turned to face her original position, and she got him in the back a second time.

Kokatsu proved to be surprisingly incapable of keeping up with Holly. She was nearly as quick as him, and she slithered this way and that like a snake. She even attacked like one, her hands knifing out in rapid little strikes at weak points and openings. No matter where Kokatsu struck, she was able to keep just out of reach. The downside to her strategy was that it clearly was not doing much damage to her opponent, but it did prove successful at keeping him distracted.

Before long, the Russian was back up and joining her in the fray. At this point, the fight finally turned clearly in their favor. They worked magnificently together. When one of them struck at Kokatsu, the other would deliver a follow up attack. When the Russian would catch the other man in a throw, Holly would get several attacks in while the man was still collapsing to the ground.

Before long, even the impossible cyborg man Kokatsu had become could not withstand the endless onslaught. As the fight dragged on, the Russian finally managed to wrestle Kokatsu to the ground and sit on him, holding him in place. Holly grabbed up a dart gun and shot several into the exposed human portions of their opponent. The Asian man continued struggling for a short time, but his movements were growing slower and weaker until finally they stopped altogether.

The fight was over.

Nick suddenly came to his senses and remembered Anya, still lying unconscious where he had left her. It was too dangerous to leave her there. With Kokatsu defeated, they would likely come looking for her next. He needed to get her somewhere safe.

Nick rose and hurried back to her. He tried to lift her again, but this time found it much more difficult than before. His limbs were growing tired, pushed to their limit by all the events of the past day. With a long, drawn out groan of effort he managed to get her balanced up on his shoulder once again. He tried to walk, but it was more of an awkward stumble than anything.

They absolutely could not stay out in the open, but there was no way he was getting them both back to their hideout. His best bet was to replace a safe spot where he could hide them temporarily and rest for a few moments.

He had planned on searching until he could replace a spot that they could both hide, but his tired, aching limbs quickly made it clear to him that he would not be able to wait. Instead, his salvation came in the form of a small little cubby-hole, under a low hanging roof, behind a stack of shipping pallets and a raised concrete loading ramp.

Nick set Anya down as gently as he could. He tried to make her as comfortable as he could manage in the confined quarters. Satisfied with his work, he collapsed down next to her.

For a long moment he sat there, trying to catch his breath and waiting for the ache to go out of his limbs. As tired as his body was, he could not stop his mind from racing. He kept thinking about Kokatsu, about what was happening just a few dozen feet away. In the end, his curiosity got the better of him. With the roof above them hanging so low he was able to climb up on the stack of pallets and pull himself up onto it. The roof was angled like a tent, and pushing himself up to the top proved a lot more difficult than he had expected. At long last he made it, and looked out in the direction of the now destroyed warehouse they had just come from and the tarmac where he had witnessed the fighting.

Police and firefighters had begun to show. Their lights were flashing and Nick could see Holly and the Russian talking with the police. On the far side of the stopped Ryerson military vehicles, Nick could see Kokatsu. The cyborg man was still asleep. He was lying out on a stretcher with doubled up and reinforced restraints. They were loading him up into the back of a large, plain white van.

The cops did not seem happy about this. The one nearest Holly was getting very animated, and kept pointing in the direction of the van. Holly, however, did not let him pass and kept waving her hands in the air reassuringly.

The van pulled away. Nick watched it for a time, but it disappeared behind some buildings. Kokatsu was lost to them again. Anya was not going to be too happy about that when she woke up.

If she woke up.

Nick sighed and hurried back down the rooftop to where he had left her. She was still passed out. He felt for her pulse. It was still there, and stronger than before. Or maybe that was just what he wanted to believe.

He sat down next to her and let out an exasperated breath. He was still exhausted, still in need of a few moments rest. The police had potentially bought him a few minutes respite, but before long, he would need to get them moving again.

He closed his eyes and waited.