The Saving Bean!

[gee]

My heart beats loud in my chest, and I take the corner at a flat-out sprint, The toes of my feet created blunt arrow shapes into the alley's cracked cement as I dig in and spin, pushing my legs down and gathering myself to launch a dozen feet forward in my new direction. I don't get a chance to complete the leap. Something hard, seemly hooked sharp slices into my side, and I felt the knuckles of someone scrape off the bones of my ribcage like piano keys, tearing through muscle and spattering beautiful crimson red liquid across the alley street.

My people, as the rest of my Galaxy, had known of this war. We've watched it from distances safe and measured; it is not our place to interfere. My Mother and Father explained, they must settle their own affairs. They are strong yet, two races created Equally, a variation, a perversion of nature. Because of their infectious method of reproducing insanity they vastly outnumber us, and so we have chosen to keep our existence secret. They are not so wise as their ancestors the Found fathers of the Tenshi Wangetsu; not so patient as their forefathers the Fathers of Tenma Wangetsu; and not so pure as we, their accursed brothers, the neutralise of the races. Our kind has been here since time immemorial, and we will still thrive long after The spit of the races created their tainted strain.

Or so I used to believe…. So very long ago…

I turn on my attacker, my muffled yell of pain being drowned out by the deep rumbling growls and high-pitched snarls echoing through the area. The cracking of my Knuckles followed as I attempt to repay my attacker in kind a loud crack in the seething atmosphere. I turn, licking my lips as I crouch down, dropping to my knees; the pain quickly shot through my body. Placing my left hand on my wound I prepared myself for the next attack. I tilted my head down toward the ground. my eyes still focused in front of me, waiting for the larger creatures to come close enough for me to get under their chin and go for the throat. I'm cornered, and I know I probably wont survive, but damn me to hell if I don't take somebody else with me.

One of the Yohrtd (vaguely similar to that of a human tiger and wolf Hybrid) lunges towards me from the left, and I swing to meet him, my gaze locked on his exposed jugular but another comes at me from the right as I turn, his claws catching painfully under my belly, and my body is flung high into the air. There's a sickening crunch as my shoulder connects with the alley's stiff wall, and I hit the ground on my back, my jaws open in a gasp for air. I don't get up. I can feel them, surrounding me, converging on their fallen quarry. I flashback to my last Fight. I know the thrill of bring down prey, and the excitement in the moment when it has ceased to struggle, the anticipation in the seconds before your fist connect to your opponents warm, moist flesh and you feel the strength and the satisfaction of being the winner in a battle for life and death. I suppose I never did think about how it feels from the losers point of view. Payback's a goddamn Bitch. From my place on my back I can see the moon, and it gives me a small measure of comfort. I know that somewhere this night My Little sister is sleep soundly. I close my eyes and sigh. I can feel the warmth of the Yohrtd breath on my battered skin.

"Stop!"

Incredibly, at the sound of the rough, hard voice, the Yohrtd reluctantly halt their advance on me. I stay frozen, waiting to feel at any second the ripping and tearing of a half a dozen sets of razor sharp fangs sinking themselves into my alluringly fresh and bleeding body. I can hear their residual growling and their breath, panting with exertion. And then another sound, humanoid footfalls, wending their way carefully through the large, furred bodies of the Yohrt monstrosities. Randomly curious, I crack one eye open. The faint, blurry image of a man enters my vision. I blink twice in an attempt to focus. His head blocks out my view of the moon. He looks totally pissed off as he looks down at me.

"What the hell have you done?" Without turning his gaze from me, he addresses the Yohrtd in a low, quiet, ice cold tone that makes me shiver. "Leave us."

" Tshmpt!" He turns to yell the name over his shoulder in the same harsh voice that gave me a short reprieve, and another man appears above me. "Get them the hell back to their cage and get Stmpm up here. I don't care what she did."

He moves to bend over me, and I make a superhuman effort to lift my head and follow his movements as his hands go to trace my open wounds. My weakened body is splayed out unattractively and bloodily. Shit. And then suddenly modesty seems horribly unimportant. The final lingering effects of shock rid themselves of my system, and the pain comes crashing down on me in ten thousand waves. I'm usually the suffer-in-silence type but, I make a valiant attempt to scream, but all that's left in my lungs is enough for a short, sharp gasp. The man beside me makes a soft, absent-minded shushing sound, and I pass out quietly, and gratefully. While I'm unconscious, my mind runs through memories and thoughts the way water moves through a riverbed. I wanted my beautiful home in the cold, frozen tundra. I wanted to be surrounded by the sounds of my family.

I am Gekkou Eclipsu. I'm a smart, attractive, Powerful (if I do say so myself), youthful Temna Wangetsu. I'm twenty eight years old. I am going to stay a Temna as long as I live which might very well be forever. I have dark red eyes and thick red bangs. I'm a daughter of the ex-King of my race. I'm part of the bloodline which has always held the leadership of my people. I'm youthful and impulsive, and, stupidly, I chose one night to follow a path that led me right into a Yohrt lair, which of course led to me being chased through the city streets, brutally mauled, and finally fortunately saved by the Yohrt'd leader himself. Oh sure, I recognized Yohrtd. We might not take part in the Tenma/Tenshi dispute, but we do know the key players. Well, not all of us do, but since the untimely death of my parents my Grandfather has most likely made sure that my sister has been properly educated.

When I came to I was laid out on a stretcher in a cold, damp, dank underground chamber that was filled with the rotting scent of death and old blood and decay. A light sheet covered my undamaged lower half, but left the gaping wounds on my chest and abdomen exposed. The pain came back in the first few seconds, but it was lesser, detached somehow. I knew this was a bad sign, it meant that my spirit was slowly leaving my body and its physical weaknesses behind. I could feel somebody poking and prodding me, and felt the presence of another standing by my head.

"Well, I cannot say for certain. These injuries are very serious, but I cannot tell their full effects if I do not understand exactly what she is. They say she made a transformation, but I clearly she is not one of us… For a lesser creature these wounds would be fatal, for Tenshi or Tenma, devastating. And she does not appear to be healing…" "Well of course I'm not, you idiot." My voice came out rusty and I licked my lips, trying to swallow. Someone slipped a hand around my neck, lifting my head up, and a tin cup was pressed against my lips. I could smell the water, and I took a mouthful. My head was laid back again, and I tried again to speak, prying my eyes open slowly. "I've got your kind's filthy blood and spit poisoning my system, haven't I?"

[gee]

I looked up, my eyes lighting first on their leader, (no, he didn't look even marginally happier), and then I managed to pin the weasel like old physician with what I hoped was a convincing death-glare, but the edges of my vision were tinged with gray and I felt at any moment ready to pass out again, so I probably wasn't very scary. In fact, far from being intimidated.

"Really? Our blood is a poison to you?"

"Well, the burning and itching does give a kind of clue, yeah." I was horribly rasping, and my entire torso was throbbing with a hot, relentless pain. I took a deep breath, which was incredibly stupid, because a wave of agony hit me and my breathing hitched, sending me into a long, racking coughing session. Randomly, Their leader reached over to help, his hand sliding through my filthy, matted hair to cradle my neck and turn my face to the side, so I didn't choke on my blood. I'm not sure why he bothered, I was clearly already in the throes of a final death-rattle.

"Who are you?" The creepy doctor asked, his wrinkled face getting scarier close to mine, and something like reverence and awe in his heavily accented voice. I coughed a few more times and spit out an impressive mouthful of half-congealed blood which dripped heavily to the floor and left my lips streaked red.

"I'm a real version of what you all only pretend to be." I wheezed, and tried my goddamn hardest to put some venom in my rasp. "I'm a damn Tenma, you critter."

I started to cough again. I could feel the force of it rattling my bones. Each heave tore at my ragged, clawed body, and I bit down a scream and turned it into a low, keening whine. Not because I was trying to be brave, honest, just because it took more pain and effort and breath to scream than not to. Their leader pulled back a tendril of crusty red hair that had fallen in my face, and I tried to roll one bloodshot eye in his direction to convey a little bit of thanks. What I saw in his eyes took me back a little. It was guilt and horror and sadness all rolled into one it was terrible. I had to think again. It really didn't fit with the rest of my experience with the Yohrtd world. But that didn't really matter. For the second time that night I was a few seconds away from dying. I decided to see if I could play on some of that guilt and sadness.

"Hey," My voice was a whisper, but it was audible. "Do you really want to help me?"

"Of course." A small furrow creased between his eyebrows, and he moved to smooth the hair from my face again. It was weirdly soothing, being comfort from a Tenma while I was dying of Tenma wounds and all.

"Then take me outside…" I unexpectedly had to blink back tears. I swallowed around the lump in my throat. I needed to see the moon, to give my spirit its best chance at a clear shot to the heavens, instead of being trapped in this black hole of an underground cavern. "Please?"

To his credit, he didn't protest or argue with me. Or maybe that was just a sign of how pathetic I was not even a Tenma could refuse me my dying wish. He pulled the sheet up to my neck, the touch of it feather-light but still remarkably painful. When he picked me up the movement ripped at my injuries and I couldn't stop the little cry that used up the last of my breath. I closed my eyes.

By all rights I should have died right then, and maybe I did. But when I felt the rays of moonlight touch my skin I just had to open my eyes again, dead or not, to drink in its beautiful sight one last time. It was gorgeous, huge and luminous. The sky itself seemed clearer and cleaner. I realized that we must be away from the lights and smog of the city. Blinking I moved my head slightly from where it rested (quite comfortably, actually), on Their leaders shoulder. I could see the blurry outline of trees, and now that I listened for them I could hear the soft night sounds of a forest. Hell if I know how we got there, but I was sure grateful.

We were in a small, attractive clearing that was surrounded on three sides by forest and the fourth faced a large out cropping of rock, behind which I could hear the soft tinkling sounds of running water. The entire atmosphere was so perfect, so peaceful that it (and also partly the fact that I was a hair's breadth away from dying) left me drugged with sleepy blissful satisfaction. This was a place to breathe your last. From here I could easily abandon the physical restraints of my battered and broken body… from here I would leave the earth behind and float gently up on the invisible wings of a thousand angels bearing me gently from this life to the next

"If you were to survive this night, what would you need?"

I opened my peacefully closed eyes a crack and peered up at their leader's face, annoyed at his interruption of my death. It seemed to be becoming a habit of his.

"A damn miracle." I rasped. The corner of his mouth seemed to lift just the tiniest of fractions.

"Yes, well, aside from that."

The gray edges of my vision seemed to be coming together, blacking out my sight of anything at all. I couldn't hear anything anymore. My world was black and cold, but peaceful, and heavenly pain-free. I breathed out a soft sigh of relief, and readied my soul for its next journey…. And then the scent hit my nostril like a slap in the face and my eyes flew open, although I saw only darkness. It was delicious, mesmerizing, drugging the scent I'd followed earlier that day the scent of blood rich and sweet and intoxicating. The taste exploding in my mouth sweet and spicy and warm. For a second I thought I must have passed over to the next and this was my first reward… and then my vision came back and I saw the moon's pale glow and his slit wrist held above me. My eyes widened in horror and I tried to turn away, but my fist had already run out and my instincts cried to fight.. And green colored bean fell between my lips.The taste and feeling are not things easily described, except to say it is the perfect blending of pain and lust, desire, pleasure and greed. I reveled in the return of life and spirit for endless precious seconds and then the pain burst through my head like a blinding white light at the backs of my eyes.

[Rensou Hiruen]

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