Inside>Out! Ch3 Departure
**********************************************3 Days Later***************************************************************
"I'm sorry it had to come to this, Shinta. I did everything that I could for you at the Council Meeting. They demand your arrest...and today is the day they plan on coming to retrieve you. There is no doubt in my mind that the Council will have every ally of theirs up in arms behind the police." As he spoke, Master Seijuko remained perfectly still with his eyes closed. "What's worse, as a teacher, they will expect me to have you restrained and delivered willingly to them."
"Master that's terrible!" Iwako cried out. "They honestly expect you to turn on your own student?!"
"Being a teacher has never been easy. I hoped...that I could change the world by sending the students I had taken so much time to train with correct morals out into it to change the repulsive disposition of the population in general."
"...So what do we do now?"
"As I told you three days ago...she has to leave town. Take what you can from home and depart as quickly as possible." Shinta was speechless thoughout this whole affair. She was still adjusting to the idea that her body was now female, and now she had to leave the only home she had ever known. Just as she was beginning to puzzle out what to take with her, Master Seijuko stood, sword in hand.
"Rise Shinta." Shinta did as she was told. The Master drew his sword: a simple, curved blade without adornment of any kind. In fact, when sheathed, it was virtually indistinguishable from the scabbard. "Kill me." The words struck Shinta like a blow.
"Wh-what?!"
"I said...kill me. This will be your last test. If you don't kill me, I will have to give you up. You will prove yourself to have been a weak apprentice, and everything I taught you will have been in vain. If you want to live, you must kill me." He said it with such absolute calm that Shinta was taken entirely aback.
"But...Master...I..."
"Stop this nonsense! Master can't you just let us go?" Iwako pleaded with him, but Master Seijuko shook his head.
"I cannot reconcile the oath I took to my students and the oath I took to the law...no matter how abused that law may be. The only way out of this for Shinta is for her to kill me before she leaves."
"...I can't Master. I won't." Shinta let her sword hang loosely in one hand, still sheathed.
"...fine. If you will not, then I'm afraid I must do my duty," the Master said as he raised his sword to fighting position. "Handing you over to the Council, bringing an end to your life, is my last responsibility to you as your Master. Are you prepared to face your death, Shinta?"
"........."
"I see. So you have chosen death..." Without another word, Master Seijuko rushed his pupil. "Hiko Clan Secret Style: Nine Fangs!"
"haaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"
In a blink it was over. Shinta had drawn her sword at the last second and--"MAASTEEEERRRR!" Shinta fell to the ground where Seijuko's body lay. She turned him over (with great effort mind you--he is a very big-boned dragon and quite muscular) and noticed there was no cut...only a large lump on the back of his head.
"You...you didn't kill him?" Iwako stood watching, a tear running down her cheek. "When I saw him hit the ground...I thought..." Remaining silent as she rose, Shinta sheathed her sword, then turned to look at Iwako.
"Let's go..." With a silent nod, I wako left the house. Breifly glancing back, Shinta saw her Master lying sprawled on the floor. It was almost funny--it brought back memories of his last set of drunken escapades; the memories were tempered with a bitter sadness as she realized she would never see the dragon she had studied under for so many years. Goodbye Master...
***************************************Outside Iwako's House***************************************
Iwako walks out her front door, carrying a package in her arms. It was small and wrapped in pink paper. It was also oddly shaped, drawing Shinta's persistent curiosity. She was looking at it oddly as she approached Shinta, and then she looked up with that same look. Before she could say anything though, a familiar voice rang out from around a corner.
"I thought you'd hide at your girlfriend's house. It's a good thing I'm no fool, like those geezers at the Council." Leo strolled out from a shadow, a smug grin marking his face along with the bruises from their previous engagement. "I don't think anyone will mind if an anonymous hero takes your life in the defense of justice."
"You slimy bastard! How dare you--" Iwako was about to use her famously powerful words when Shinta held up a paw.
"What do you want, Leo?" Shinta let her sword conveniently loosen in her scabbard.
"Just you Shinta. Just...you." Shinta dropped her sword to the ground, assuming a fighting stance when a sharp pain shot through her chest. She clutched herself with one paw.
"That girly chest of yours hurting you? As if you weren't easy enough before. I don't know what kind of stunt you pulled at school, but now that you're female you'll be even wimpier than before." Leo finished his speech of superiority and made his first lunge. Shinta almost got out of the way, but Leo's claws made contact. That smell again...poison...
"Gghh--! You've always been a cheat Leo. And I've always let you get away with it..."
"And that's why you're WEAK!" Leo swept at Shinta's hindpaws but Shinta leapt into the air. What she wasn't expecting was Leo to make a lightning follow up move. He leapt up and forward, slashing Shinta's stomach deeply, ripping her clothes away and nearly exposing her new feminine chest. She landed, gasping and letting blood splash all over the ground about her hindpaws. "THE WEAK MUST DIIIIIIEEEE!!!"
Leo now had Shinta by her throat. She could barely manage to speak.
"Y-y-you....gghhhh...bas--....how d-do you expect to-to get away with this?"
"Don't you worry your sissy head about that, Shinta. I told you, you're going to be killed by a random hero. You see, he caught you leaving town. But on the way, you stopped to pillage you're gal pal's house."
"I-...Iwa...ko..."
"Unfortunately, by the time he got here, you had already killed her...to prevent any witnesses to your crime. And then you burned down the house, leaving her family without a--gah!" Before her eyes, Shinta saw a thin golden shaft of light blast through Leo's throat, blood bursting out as it went its course. And there, with her bow, was Iwako.
Leo collapsed on top of Shinta, his lifeforce leaking out onto her. It would have made her sick if she wasn't also severely injured. Her would-be disgust was cut short as Iwako pulled her by her paw out from under Leo. Propped up against the wall of Iwako's house, Shinta struggled to contain her pain.
"Wait right here..." Iwako disappeared into her house for a few minutes, leaving Shinta outside alone with the dying Leo. As she sat, staring at him, she could hear him trying to speak--to cry out for someone to come and help him. No one would come to him...no one except Shinta. She pulled herself along the ground with one paw until she reached him. He looked up into her eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks and mixing with his blood. He was still trying to speak, despite Shinta's motions for him to be silent. He only shook his head and began to mouth something to her..."I don't wanna die."
Pity and sadness welled up from inside Shinta as she saw him lie there, pleading her and the universe for his life.
"C-close your eyes..." Shinta placed her paw over Leo's forehead and closed her eyes as well.
****************************10 Minutes Later*****************************
Iwako ran out of her house, bags in paw. She wasted no time in pulling Shinta off of Leo and grabbing her bags for her. Shinta was barely able to walk, but somehow she managed to run with Iwako down the road and out of town into the early morning sunrise.