Ark14 Episode 27: The King is dead, Off with his head!



                Grey clouds angrily boiled overhead with lightning and thunder flashing and rumbling through the sky like an attack from the gods. Rain poured in buckets to the ground flooding many areas of the city in puddles that went half way up your shoe. People stayed inside, most people that is, of course you have those few stragglers that go out in weather like this and just a few foolish people who just like this weather. Kotone Fujiwara was just such a person, foolish enough to walk from the safety of her bar to her bosses home and clan base. Over the usual fair of clothing she donned every morning, Kotone had on what looked like a heavy black leather trench coat with a hood but in all reality, it was naught but a thick vinyl raincoat. Its black luster beaded up the heavy drops of rain that fell in the border between district one and two, letting them slide ever so ominously down to the pavement beneath her black booted feet. Even though she wore a raincoat, Kotone was extra precautious and also had an equally black umbrella over her head. Cold seeped into her bones with each damp step she took and she shivered in the rain sending showers of droplets flinging from the nylon canopy above her. A frown fell onto her pale face; she wasn’t having a good day nor would she where she was headed. Earlier, Kotone finally decided to muster up all the courage she had and see her boss, she would have to face the music sooner or later and now seemed as good a time as any. Before she left the bar, she downed an entire pitcher of her special raspberry white tea and sake, the alcohol doing nothing to her because of her mood. If anything, it made her mind feel more honed and she felt more confident she could talk to him without seeming like a nervous wreck. As she walked down the sidewalk, she mentally figured out how she would explain her absence from his presence for so long, it wasn’t an easy task for her, each thought she had was worse than the last and she groaned. Kotone leaned up against a brick wall of a building looking up at the rain streaked lights of the city; even from here the bright lights burned with special closeness making Kotone feel even more strengthened in her decision. If she managed to pull this off, she would be a free woman, free to do most of what she wanted. ‘I have to do this... Talk to him and maybe... No, I can’t... Not that... Not now...’ She thought, her eyes closing and her head leaning back to rest against the brick, the rain hitting the top of her hood as her umbrella fell a bit from its location. ‘What if I did though? What if he were finally gone? My toils would be finally over and I could finally put my past to rest... Maybe I can just stab the bastard and get it over with.’ Kotone clenched her fist not holding the umbrella and slammed it against the brick behind her, a small bruise forming near her thumb. ‘Damn it that hurt..’ Pushing herself off the wall, Kotone shoved forward and continued the rainy trek to her bosses hide away.

                Kotone sighed again as she saw the clean slate colored doorway leading into her bosses joint, the slider for ID’s open. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small chip that she slid into the small slot, a few seconds later, the door opened and she got her ID chip back on the other side. A tall lanky man who went by the name of Beans, handed her her chip. “Kotone-san, the boss won’t be happy with you when he sees you. You’ve been gone nearly two weeks straight.” “Three. It’s been three.” Kotone replied with another frown. She shoved her glasses back up onto her face and took her raincoat off revealing herself to the young Beans. Her black jacket like over top that dipped all the way to her belly looked slightly off kilter and slid over her shoulder a bit, exposing more of her flesh than normal. The usual silky black tresses hanging off her back looked as well disheveled from the travel from place to place, the hood of her raincoat messing it up. Kotone ran a hand through most of her strands of hair trying to get herself presentable before the boss saw her. With a swift movement, Kotone fixed her clothing and grabbed her pistol from its place tucked into her belt, Elementaribus felt a bit heavy in her hand this time and she deposited it after wiping it down with a rag back into her belt.

“I offer you the best of luck Kotone-san, I’d hate to see you go.” Beans said to Kotone as she walked toward the stairs to see the boss. He gave her a small smile as she disappeared up the landing.



                She ascended the stairs, nervousness playing about her face like fish in a pond, leaping off of her frequently. Her palms started to sweat so she shoved them into her jeans pocket. The resolve she had before walking into the building disappeared quickly, falling off of her onto the old creaky wooden stairs she walked on. With each step, the stairs made the most awful noise as if they would break at just a feather falling on them, but they didn’t. As soon as Kotone reached the top of the long flight of stairs, she stopped at the top, kneeling on the ground her behind touching her heels. She swallowed before knocking softly on the old, decorated wall beside the screen plastered with so many layers of old rice paper.

“Konbanwa Goshijin-sama. I am here as requested.” Kotone bowed her head, placing her hands in front of her akin to the way Geisha’s bow and bowed low, her forehead touching the wooden floors. She stayed like this for quite some time, her inky tresses falling over her shoulder. A grunt sounded from the other side of the door then creaking of a chair and a desk as well as the shifting and creaking of old floors and heavy thumping steps. The sliding door between the corridor and the boss’s room crashed open; cracking under the force of him slamming the door open.

“Look who decided to show up finally! Our wayward chick finally stumbling home in the night hoping her father wouldn’t notice!” The boss said calmly, backed with all the rage he could. His plump face looked purple and red, splotched with normal skin color; you could tell how much his temper had risen in less than 15 seconds. “I asked you, more than once, to see me on a regular basis. Check in with me, at least once a week or more. You have disappeared for almost a month, I was going to waste so much money and resources on trying to get you out of jail or find you. You would have cost me more than your salary makes me in a year! I expected you also to bring me that Jack fellow that showed up! Yeah, I know about the little pet of yours that’s been living in my bar. Or shall I say, not, he’s disappeared hasn’t he? Sad, little Kotone-chan?” Kotone kept her forehead on the floor in her bowing position, daring not to speak. A very pregnant silence followed before the boss bent down and backhanded Kotone so hard across the face, she fell over, her cheek red and stinging like a million bees. “SPEAK WHEN SPOKEN TO!” He shouted at her. “ANSWER ME!”

“Y-yes sir.” She said quietly. “Yes sir what?” “Y-yes, he disappeared, and y-yes I’m a bit worried.” Kotone kept herself laid down on the floor silently drawing her pistol, her hair concealing Elementaribus and its power under its inky cascades.

The boss reached down and grasped Kotone’s face in one meaty hand, he lifted her face up to his and spit in her face, speaking in a low, dangerous voice. “If you leave my sight for any more time than I send you out to do jobs, you’re dead. I will have you hunted down, and killed. Do you understand?” Kotone nodded as best as she could with her boss grabbing her face. “I can’t hear rocks Kotone…ANSWER ME!” She audibly whimpered and replied. “Y-yes sir.” Silently, she powered Elementaribus up, its tell tail hum muffled by all her hair.

                Time seemed to move in slow motion over the course of the next few seconds. Kotone flipped open a circuit on the base of her gun, one she used for fine tuning it, and pulled out a wire used for generating the electromagnetic field, electricity arced on the backside of her gun electrocuting herself as well as her boss though the current was dampened on her. He looked almost comical with his body lighting up like a Christmas light; the smell of singed hairs wafted through the air. Kotone took that time to press two more buttons on her gun, one to let air in and pressurize it and another to ready to shoot it in bullet form. Her boss tried clawing himself away from her but his jolting form prevented him from doing much of anything as Kotone squeezed the trigger of Elementaribus. A single bullet formed from the very air itself ejected from the barrel straight through the boss’s brain and skull, flesh, skin, blood, bone and brain matter scattering everywhere. The man’s form lay dead and twitching from the excess electricity in his system and Kotone felt the after effects of the power too, her muscles spasming in more than one place. She dragged herself up from his heaping form, closed the panel to her pistol at the bottom while she stole the boss’s keys, and started running.



                Kotone wound her way down the creaky stairs and around down to the basement, gathering a few things from the storehouse. The guards paid her no mind as she went around quickly rummaging through the stores of tech just shoving random things in a bag, blood and brains splattered on her body. So far, she gathered bits of tech to build the gloves that worked much like her gun but in a different way, some random bits of nano-machines just in case and a few other random bits of tech she would need plus some tools for the job at hand. Kotone thanked the men in the room and left the keys of the store room on the hook just outside its door and started running again back upstairs to the ground floor door. Her body was a bit clunky and jolted still and several times, she tripped up the stairs nearly losing all the materials she had stolen. Many curses flew out of her mouth the last time she tripped but thankfully, the door to the outside was right there. “BEANS! OPEN THE DOOR!” Beans looked up from a book he was reading, his expression suddenly turned from a tranquil confused to a scared, and slightly weird confused. He stumbled up from his chair and dropped his book, hurrying to the door panel. “W-what happened?! You’re all bloody!” He stammered out, his light voice sounding panicked.

“NEVERMIND THAT! JUST GET THE DOOR!” Kotone said wiping a chunk of grey matter from her face. She tucked Elementaribus back into her jeans and waited for Beans to open the door. His pale fingers flew on the keypad and within three seconds, the door opened with a pneumatic hiss. “Thank you for everything Beans, I owe you a lot!” Before running out the door, she gave the young man a tight hug, spattering his nice looking shirt and slacks with yuck. “Just know I did it!”

                Beans stood there dumbfounded as Kotone hugged him and told him she did it. He stared at the woman running from the door, blinking a few times. Did she really do it? Was he actually dead? The 20 year old cracked a melancholic smile; he would miss her, that’s for sure. This time slowly, he punched the keypad again and closed the door again with another pneumatic hiss. “She really did it didn’t she?” A small laugh escaped his mouth after hearing himself say that. For years, Kotone had been talking about finally ending his life, putting a stop to Kurobara-sama’s life, finally ending the torture he put her through. Beans laughed again and picked his book up, wiping a bit of brain matter from his shirt. “Here’s all the best for ya Kotone-chan.”

                Kotone kept running from her old base of operations, far from it that is, glad the rain hadn’t stopped as it washed away the evidence of what she did. Even as a Yakuza, she didn’t like just outright killing anyone though her loyalty to her boss made impossible to say no. The sickening thought of it all finally made her stop about six blocks away and wretch onto the sidewalk. A few bystanders tried either asking if she was ok and if she needed help, she shoved them off and just pretended that she was just sick and was almost home. That lie was partially true, her bar was just a ways away, well, three miles at most but it wasn’t anything Kotone couldn’t handle. The 22 year old wiped her mouth on her sleeve and started walking again, stumbling a bit, her body was just starting to register the pain from the shocking experience earlier and a headache quickly started forming pounding in Kotone’s brain. All that electricity flowing through her also left her a bit dizzy, the nerves in her inner ear screwing with her.

“Shit…” She said under her breath. “I can’t keep going on like this… I gotta stop…” Kotone took a deep breath and wretched again where she stood. Wiping her mouth on her sleeve again, she stumbled away from where she was into an alleyway and slid down the side of one of the buildings, closing her eyes. Sheer adrenaline got her this far but the high was wearing off. Her body now dully throbbed with her pulse and her head swam, she was sure the alcohol she drank earlier didn’t help her situation either.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Shit…” She swore again tiredly. “I’m never getting home at this rate.” Grunting, Kotone stood up from the ground and started off running again, she needed to make it home before she passed out on the streets.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">                Hours passed before Kotone made it home, the sun had set and it was now around 2 in the morning, the moon now high in the sky. The rain stopped around 1’oclock and the clouds disappeared soon after. Kotone clumsily fumbled with her keys to her apartment near the bar, her hands now shaking so bad she could barely un-lock the door without dropping them several times. As soon as she was inside, Kotone dropped the wet bag of tech on the ground and locked the doors behind her. She dropped her keys and slid down onto the floor but quickly fell so she lay on the cold surface. Her head made a sort of sickening crack noise as it hit the ground and within a few seconds, Kotone passed out unconscious.

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center">~meanwhile~

<p class="MsoNormal">                The Kurobara clan base was in an uproar. Not long after the Kotone left the building did one of the many peons find the boss dead on the freshly clean tatami. Beans knew that they’d be after him to figure out who did it and where they were now because he was the only door man on duty most of the time. He grabbed his knapsack with his books and other small items from his office and left a note for the other doorman to take over. They would kill him over this and they’d go looking to Kotone one way or another, he was dead sure of it. He had to get to her and quickly. There was ruckus upstairs and the sounds of many quick footed people coming down, there were shouts of Kotone’s name and his own mixed with other incoherent babble coming from the stairs. Beans cursed under his breath once before quickly typing a code for the door that will open it and then lock it behind him. Just as the first people got downstairs to the door level, the door closed with a pneumatic hiss and locked. Several people ran up to the door and pounded on it trying to get it open with sheer brute force but it wouldn’t work. The door’s material is able withstand most explosions when dead locked like that. Beans ran to his motorbike and quickly slammed the helmet on his head, revving the engine to life with a few kicks. He made sure his knapsack firmly rested on his back before speeding off to the bar. The doors opened soon after that but they found him long gone.

<p class="MsoNormal">                Ten minutes passed in the blink of an eye, Beans was stuck in traffic with his motorbike but he didn’t complain; it would only be another five to get to her apartment. He was sure she went there, it was the only logical choice for her to make, the bar was too far away and she’d have to take a boat to even get to the place. Cars stopped all around him for the second time tonight, a few cop cars were scattered around an accident up a head and were directing traffic elsewhere. Beans cursed again under his breath and laid low when the cops told him and the other commuters where to go, they wouldn’t know him from Adam. As soon as the traffic cleared, Beans revved his engine and sped around the few curves around the outskirts of district two before turning back into the bowels of the district. It took him another five minutes of slow going around city blocks before he made it to Kotone’s apartment, which lay secluded in a dark part of the district. Beans took the special bike lock he designed and locked his bike on a lamp post; anyone who got within five feet of the bike without being pre-programed into the system would be in for a hell of a shock. Taking a deep breath and looking to see if anyone was around, he dug into his knapsack and extracted one electronic lock picking device of his design. Kotone kept her door locked tighter than a drum most of the time and the only unfortunate part was that the lock couldn’t be taken off the police alert system the landlord put in place. Beans mourned that fact as he put the device in place, rapidly typing on the keypad before the door unlocked with a pneumatic hiss and a clunk of a heavy lock sliding out from its hole. He wiped invisible sweat off his brow and walked into her apartment.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">                Kotone’s apartment was actually quite small despite the amount of money she made from the bar and from her now departed boss. It had one bedroom, one bathroom and a living room/dining room kitchen combo for the main floor. The whole thing had a blue and teal color scheme and furnishings resembling the bar almost. As Beans entered, he nearly fell over because of Kotone’s body lying right on the blue carpet, he flailed and regained his balance before dropping his knapsack on the floor and dropped to his knees. “I knew this would happen, you over-exert yourself too much sometimes.” He sighed and smiled crookedly, picking Kotone up in his arms, semi bridal style because she was heavy, especially as the deadweight she was currently. A groan escaped his lips as he almost dropped her onto her small couch, this would be a long night. Before he sat back down on the floor next to the couch, he re-locked the door and grabbed both his and Kotone’s bags putting them out of the way. He closed his eyes and waited.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center">~Some time later, around morning~

<p class="MsoNormal">                The sun rose like any other day, clear and beautiful without a cloud in the sky except for one or two little icy wisps. It was now around 12:30 PM and Kotone shifted slightly on the couch, waking up from her exhaustion induced coma. She coughed, or rather wheezed slightly, groaning afterward at how stiff she felt all over. “Damn... I probably shouldn’t have done it that way... Now I feel like some ass hole beat me all night.” Kotone sat up slowly and rubbed her head at the ensuing headache that felt like the worst hangover she ever had times a hundred.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I need food...” She grumbled to herself, slowly getting up from the couch. She didn’t make it far before she stumbled and nearly tripped over Beans who fell over and lay like a log on the floor in front of her couch. Kotone sword loudly, waking him up. “I DON’T HAVE ANY ARC WELDERS!” He shouted, sitting bolt upwards, apparently from a strange dream. “K-kotone, you’re awake! Sorry, that dream was a little intense.” “How the hell did you get in my apartment Beans?”

<p class="MsoNormal">He blinked, that seemed like such a stupid question to him and he answered it his answer sounding like a question. “The usual way?”

<p class="MsoNormal">She shot him a dirty look as best as she could. “Beans...” “Ok ok, I hacked your lock... It’s not like anyone would have found out anyways, my device blocks the security systems and-” Kotone cut him off. “Spare me the details, I don’t need to know. You do know though that you’ve just signed your own death warrant right?” “Yeah I know...” He sighed rubbing the back of his neck, sliding up onto the couch. “The guys’ll come looking for us soon but they have no idea where we are. Sides, I figured you could use the help, I know you stole that tech for those gloves you’ve been talking about for a while.” She opened her mouth to talk but shut it again, he was right, she would need the help but she didn’t want to get him of all people dragged into it. “Beans, just watch your back ok? Now, we can get started on my gloves as soon as I find something to eat. I’m starving and I feel like a giant bruise.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Beans chuckled and nodded. “Sure thing, food then work.”

<p class="MsoNormal">                An hour later, both Beans and Kotone had eaten their fill of rice and bacon and turned the dining room table into a work station, all of Bean’s tools and Kotone’s things spread out. Some of the tech she grabbed was too soaked from the rain last night to function any more but she had enough to build her gloves. For another three hours, Both Beans and Kotone worked tirelessly on constructing Kotone’s new gloves. These gloves were her babies more or less; she spent two years on the blueprints and another year figuring out with holographic building simulators if they would actually work and they do, at least in theory and testing. Once completed, they functioned much like her gun did, using her nano-bots for its abilities but in different ways, instead of a gun like mechanism for things, it made it so that she could control the individual elements as if she were telekinetic. The gloves also had a kinetic generator battery that could convert her movement energy into usable power for her gloves and the compact electromagnetic field generator. Both friends sweated and toiled over the table, soldering guns and mini arc-welders in hand. They fit the thick fingerless gloves with the control compartment that would allow gestures to activate different parts of her gloves, the special battery pack that converted the kinetic energy into usable power. A compartment that allowed her to interchange different nano-bots in her gloves for different purposes, however, there can only be three nano-bots stored in the gloves at one time, was sewn into the back of her gloves. Finishing off the gloves was the electromagnetic field generator that worked just like her gun but stronger and used energy easier and more efficiently. The gloves had the same pattern on them as Elementaribus and had different colored gems on them as buttons for a manual release of the abilities if need be. In the center of her palms were the ports that expelled the elemental attacks, there were also, ports on the knuckles that shot bullet like projections of the elements she controlled and the elements programed into her gloves. Lastly, she hooked the gloves up to her computer system and programed the buttons and gestures to work the way she programed the software to do. Finally, after many hours of work, Kotone and Beans stood back, observing their handy work with sweaty smiles, grimy smiles. “They’re done. Finally, after all that work I put into designing them, I have the first and only pair.” Kotone said, smiling wider. “Yeah, try em on; I wanna see how they look on you.” Kotone slid the black and multi-colored-jewel encrusted gloves over her hands; they fit snuggly and were a perfect weight for her. The ends of the pair of gloves reached just past her wrists and stayed strapped down with two leather straps around her wrist and arm area. “Perfect, now to turn these on and let em charge.” She pressed a red button on each of her wrists and the gloves hummed to life with the same tell-tale hum Elementaribus had. The red jeweled button glowed slightly with the small amount of power stored in the batteries to start with. “Now no one’ll mess with me. And, I can plug these into Elementaribus for an extra boost if need be.” Beans chuckled and walked over to her small couch, flopping down on the black cushions. “What do you say we go get a celebratory drink? I’ll pay.” “That’s a first; usually I’m the one who has to persuade you to go get a drink.” Kotone flashed a grin at Beans and flopped down beside him, wincing from her still stiff muscles. “So? This is a rare opportunity; I’ll even give you a ride.” He smiled back and stood up, offering a hand to help his friend up. Gratefully she took his hand and pulled herself up, walking to the door. “Well, what are we waiting for? To Oni of the Thunder!” Kotone opened her door and waited for Beans to be out before shutting the apartment’s lights and systems down and locking the door. She hopped on the back of his bike after he downed the lock system and he revved the engine to live. Beans sped off away from her apartment with Kotone holding onto his waist to her bar for drinks, a smile on both their faces at new found freedom.