Uncouth Combatants Part 1 {Fightchain 2} (Meliala, Andrew, Hayato, Hajun)

"...And he's still skulking around here somewhere, the wretch..." Meliala hissed to Andrew from behind a hand.

The Night of Lantern Bugs was supposed to be a happy occasion for the two of them. A nice, recreational, and most importantly non-pagan festival where they could get a break from the rigors of evangelical duty for a single Sabbath's evening. That was the idea, at least. Meliala's eye for sin (which was ever vigilant, she'd surely add) had caught the color of vice oozing in the karma of a certain passerby. And beside a famous mercenary of the Yahata, if she wasn't wrong in recognizing him.

"He's guilty of some truly caustic vice, I'm certain... but what... I can't be so sure." Meliala continued, her eyes knit in a vengeful glare.

Andrew's own expression seemed more confused than filled with righteous indignation. "Meliala," he counseled, "All men are subject to vices. And while that is no excuse, one ought to counsel first and chastise second. Where did you see him?"

"He'd just turned into that alleyway. By the red cart. We must pursue him. Interrogate him. Extract a confession."

"We'll do no such thing," Andrew gently but firmly scolded. "I'd like you to meet this man, and to see clearly that whether his sins may be great or few, there is a human being beneath them. One in need of grace, as we all are. And most importantly, I'd like you to avoid making a scene."

//

Hayato sauntered through the festival with Hajun at his side, hands behind his head, reed flitting and turning between his lips.

"So," Hajun muttered, fascinated by the gooey object his pinkey finger had found four inches up his nose, "Remind me again why we're bothering with the whole Festival nonsense this year."

"Chicks!" Hayato smirked, giving his protege only a sidelong glance. "Every chick in the City needs a date to brag to their girlies about, right? It's called meeting your customers where they shop, Hajun."

"Is that why you're wearing that ridiculous getup?"

It really was ridiculous. Hayato had dug through his (rather lacking) wardrobe for the fanciest thing he could find, a colorful scarlet and gold robe with a V that exposed his chest to the open air. It was evidently not well suited to the cold weather. Goosebumps were already making his meager chest hairs stick up like a cat's back.

Hayato waggled his finger.

"Ridiculously smexy, yes. I'm a walking, talking beacon of sex appeal. You wouldn't get it, rookie. Confidence is everything with women."

"I'd be shocked if chicks didn't go blind looking in our general direction."

"Stop right there, heathen!"

Meliala's voice rang behind them and into the open streets, steaming breath pouring from her mouth. Andrew put a hand on her shoulder and stepped forward, a little embarrassed.

"I'm sorry sirs, you're going to have to excuse that little outburst. My friend here was just trying to say hello."

Hayato smirked devilishly at Hajun, and mouthed the words 'told you' in his general direction.

"Well, by all means preacher-man!" Hayato said, twirling the reed in his mouth. "What's your name, Misses-Hopefully-Single?"

"I was talking to the other one," Meliala said with a scowl. "The one with the noxious karma."

Disappointed, Hayato sighed. For once, could a girl harass him for a change?

"Right, he gets that a lot from you karma-seeing types. Long story short, irreconcilable hellfire debt, eternal chains, blahblahblah you get the picture. He's doing all the right stuff to spruce it up, alright? Give the guy a break."

Hajun's face turned a little rotten as he scanned over Meliala. Short, fanatical, and acting too big for her britches. Yeah, he knew his debt was bad. That's why he was fixing it. Rubbing it in wouldn't make it any better.

"You make me sick, walking corpse," she spat, "I don't know what you've done to have such a terrible stain on your soul, but I assure you those chains are all too mean a penance."

"Oooh, those are fighting words," Hayato snickered.

"Indeed they are!" she shouted, before Andrew could put his hand over her mouth. She struggled like a wet cat in his hands, pointing and shaking her fist as he tried to silence her.

"You're really going to have to excuse this one," Andrew insisted.

"Oh don't worry, crazy's a good look."

Andrew was suddenly taken aback. "And what precisely do you mean by that, Mr..."

"Hayato. Hayato Taida. And by that I mean she's pretty hot when she's losing it like that. I mean, in a crazy-psycho-girl kinda way."

"Hayato Taida," Andrew began, "I'm rarely a violent man-"

"Sucks to suck I guess," Hayato cackled.

"-but if I had my way you'd be looking for your teeth on the pavement for saying something like that."

"Oh you're threatening me with a good time now, baldy," Hayato taunted. "I was getting bored of this stupid festival anyway."

Letting go of Meliala, Andrew's hand descended slowly towards his blade. Hayato's did the same, his thumb flicking his sword in and out of its scabbard.

"Ah ah ah, preacher man. It'd be a chore to just fight you. You tepid religious types are always a drag. But I do have an idea to settle this..."

The mercenary rubbed his chin. He flicked his sword in and out of its scabbard again and again, sending clicks throughout the echoing streets where silent onlookers were beginning to form.

"Yeah, yeah that's not half-bad. Tell you what, we'll let your little hellspawn over there get her way and you can ruin my bank account fair-and-square too. No swords involved."

Hesitantly, Andrew listened.

"A simple bet. You know what the blue-haired chick's capable of, and I know what my chronically-indebted friend over here is too. So whaddya say we let them settle their grievances, and ours with them? Winner gets.."

Hayato dug around in his pockets. Then, finding nothing, dug into a protesting Hajun's pockets and found what he was looking for.

"....15 Plates."

Andrew gave him a quizzical look.

"And a formal apology, to you and your spitfire girlfriend. I'll even go to your little church if you'd like."

"...And if she loses?"

"Simple. One nice, square punch in the jaw. That's all I ask."

"Well," Andrew grinned vengefully, "I'm not a betting man as much as I'm not a violent one. But it's hardly a bet in the first place. You're on, mercenary."

//

In the grim hours of night, the four met in the Bureaucratic Quarter, high on a barren skyscraper's rooftop. Cross-armed, the two raging men stared daggers at each other.

"Ready to lose?" Hayato said, and spat on the ground.

"Only when you are," Andrew retorted coldly.

Hajun leaned to Hayato's ear and confided in him.

"Hey, so, is this gonna be hard?"

"Pfft! As if! Look at that little lady! And besides, you're basically immortal. You can't lose. You beat her blind, I sock this idiot, we all go for ice cream. Deal?"

"You owe me 15 Plates."

"Sure. That too."

Meliala stared ahead, their clothes whipping in the gelid high winds.

"Go easy on him," Andrew ordered, "But win."

"Given how hesitant you were to 'make a scene', I'm shocked you're so eager to let me bring justice to this wretch. You truly value my honor so highly?"

"I do. I have no embarrassment in caring for you, Meliala. You are a woman of decency; a rarity in this City. Now go and obtain victory. I'm freezing to death over here."

Meliala smirked mirthfully, and, as Hajun did the same, they swaggered to the center of the rooftop.

"Hey," he croaked.

"Greetings sinner,"

"I'm gonna be honest, I really don't care all that much about your whole roman larping schtick and 'purging sin' or whatever, but it sucks out here and I wanna go to bed..."

He cracked his knuckles.

"So I'm gonna kick your can halfway up the block. That cool?"

Meliala's stance lowered, and her eyes glinted with bloodlust.

"By all means, try."

Hajun's fist rolled into a sweeping sucker punch, hoping to catch her off guard. It worked. One solid, swift thwack rang through the night, and she staggered a step backward before regaining herself.

She chuckled a little, wiped a combination of blood and snot from her cold-reddened face, and snarled.

"...Your soul is all the blacker for that one, heathen."

Two of her fingers crossed themselves, and her voice thundered across the sleeping City below.

"HOLY WATERS OF GALILEE."

She quick-drew her Holy Water Gun from it's holster at her side, blue Aura gleaming in fiery tongues around her body. Twin jets of it snaked in a helix towards Hajun, who had no mind to dodge either way.

But something strange happened as the waters collided with him. Something more painful than the boiling pain they brought to his skin. All the karmic debt he had, all the sin he had accrued, leaked to the surface and seeped into the cracks of his mind.

This was no ordinary Conduction. This was something formulated against the karmic outcasts. Formulated against him.

Clenching his head, Hajun's rage began to build; at himself, at his opponent, at the world he lived in. He rushed blindly into Meliala, lunging across the rooftop with a ruthless guillotine kick. She rolled frantically, continuing her barrage of holy water as he gave chase. In a blur, the impact of his kick shattered solid concrete where she once stood, sending tremors through the entire building below.

"HAJUN!" Hayato yelled across their fray, "What's the matter with you?!"

"Some kind of... weird weapon!" he returned.

"Can it hurt you?"

"No... But it's REALLY starting to get under my skin!"

Andrew crossed his arms, satisfied. Meliala was unbeatable in the face of someone like this. Someone her arsenal was uniquely suited to punish. But he was cautious in his optimism; who knew what to expect next...

Hajun's blows cracked across their battlefield with every strike, demanding no shortage of deft footwork from Meliala. Already disoriented, her only opportunity to strike him while focusing so heavily on dodging was when his hands and feet embedded themselves in the rooftop. Like a wet cat, his mop of damp hair hung over his eyes. When his eyes flashed from below them, he looked like a rabid beast.

In Hajun's mind, every agonizing droplet was a reminder of his debt, his longing to be free, his inability to change the past. It reminded him again, again, again, unable to be ignored.

He didn't need a reminder. In fact it was really starting to tick him off.

He swiped left, she ducked right. He frantically grasped for her clothes, she let a sheaf of her hood tear away in his hands. All the while, her Holy Water was soaking ever deeper into his skin. In his mind, it hurt more. In his body, it had become less than noticeable.

"You're only making me stronger, woman!" he yelled.

Andrew and Meliala's faces turned into the same look of confusion.

He shook out his water-laden head like a dog.

"Maybe this will get it into your thick skulls..."

His hands clasped together in a mesh, then into fists, then into open palms.

"Blazing of the Heart..."

Sweat trickled from Andrew's brow. He'd heard of that one: a Technique that converted anger into pure strength and endurance, seemingly with no end. And by the look of it, Hajun was very, very angry.

In that moment of confusion, he struck his mark at last. In three steps, he covered the battlefield and landed a blurring punch to Meliala's gut, which sent her careening across the battlefield and tumbling to the ground.

"Now that's more like it..." Hajun snarled, rotating his wrist in it's socket.

Andrew immediately rushed to her side, clasping her hand. She spat on the ground and pulled away from his grasps. "I'm fine," she groaned. "Lucky hit."

"You won't survive another."

"I always have that Technique."

"Meliala, the angel is for an unwinnable battle..."

"...Fine. I'll try something else first."

But the thought still pervaded Andrew's mind. This foe was seemingly unbothered by the physical damage of her Waters, but the mental effects... there could be no doubt they were working. But as it was, that seemed to only make him more furious, more powerful... At this rate, maybe the angel was their best hope.

Melialia's shivering hands formed another set of signs.

"MAX CONDUCTION!" she shouted. From her pistols a torrent of water that could rival the Hoover Dam burst forth in pressurized streams. Hajun barely even had time to cover his face. He dug his heels into pure concrete beneath him. Even then, they slowly inched him closer and closer to the ledge behind him.

He peered hesitantly over the edge. Shaken, he sidestepped the roaring waters and rolled toward an electrical box. That might buy him some time, and then he could—

Too late.

In an instant, the box exploded into metal shrapnel and water, sending wires and sparks flying like fireworks above him. Electricity poured into the puddles at his feet and crackled over his body, sending waves of agony up his spine.

Hayato cautiously watched with frustrated incredulity. This wasn't usual for Hajun. He was tough as nails, but something in that water was putting him on edge...

"Hajun!" he called across the battlefield. His hair now standing on end and smoking, he returned a frustrated "WHAT?!"

"Go for the ring-out!"

He nodded knowingly, and lunged from within the cloud of smoke his electrocution had produced. He tumbled frantically towards Meliala, and her waters flew like bullets, leaving bleeding, steaming wounds across Hajun's entire body.

He refused to relent. Haphazardly, he tumbled square into her like a runaway train.

They turned and rolled like fighting dogs, tearing at each other's hair, biting into each other, until at last their fray toppled over the building's edge like a stone.

"MELIALA!" Andrew howled. His shock immediately flared into wrath. He unsheathed his sword and charged headlong into Hayato.

Hayato's thumb flicked his katana into his hand, and their blades clashed with a sharp, resounding TING through the empty air.

Hayato smirked diabolically. "Sore loser?" he taunted.

Andrew smashed his blade in blind fury against Hayato's, again and again and again, his teeth grit in rage. Andrew kicked him to the ground, raised his blade overhead, and howled like a raging lion before its prey.

Something swooped in the air overhead, but in the darkness the two couldn't make it out. Momentarily forgetting their clash, Andrew's eyes peered deep into the black night, finding nothing.

Then, high above, the angel's silhouette cast itself against the full moon like a herald of death, with Hajun dangling by one hand from its outstretched leg.

Hayato and Andrew's gazes met tiredly.

"I suppose we're in the fray now too, aren't we?"

Hayato sighed, then chuckled.

"Never seem to avoid it."