Oh, poggers! It's the second chapter for this completely unnecessary endeavour. Honestly, what am I even doing with my spare time? I should be farming PP or something.
Anyways, enjoy!
Sitting on a white pedestal, the squishy ball of white fur looked out to the street outside with its two vertically stitched lines for eyes. It had two big cat ears on its head and two short arms and legs connected to a stubby body. It wore a grey hoodie and smiled at the people passing by with it's sown on cat mouth. Tied to its foot was a small sign with the number one thousand one hundred written on it. Its days of looking at the little children begging their parents to buy it for them were about to come to an end, however. A small girl stuck her face to the window separating the two. Her intent eyes locked on to its.
The girl in question wore a single piece light blue dress. Her soft white hair was covered with a blue cloak. The cloak had two large cat-like ears. A large button was sewn on to each ear, which gave the impression of eyes. Her name - Chirou. Fourteen years old. Her large blue eyes stared intently at the little cat plushy in front of her. All that stood between her and the ball of cuteness was a glass window. At that moment, everything else in the world meant nothing to her.
"I... want it..."
"I... need it..."
"I--"
"Hey, little girl." A woman called out.
Little Chirou turned her needful eyes to the direction of the voice. A woman stood about twenty from her. She wore a black gothic frilly dress and wore long black gloves which covered her long sharp nails. Her long black hair gently swayed with the passing wind as she looked at the little girl in front of her. The little girl that got her attention.
"Who are you?" The woman demanded in a deep and strong voice.
"C-Chirou..." She replied adamantly.
"Chirou... I can sense a wealth of musical energy from you - I want it."
Chirou's body stiffened. The only ones that can sense the musical capacity of a person were the beatless. If a normal person could tell, then it can only be the sign of a threat. The beatless are generally unintelligent and can't think for themselves. They can communicate, but only among themselves. This person standing in front of Chirou however, looked nothing like a beatless, let alone sounded like one. And yet... she could sense her musical energy?
"S-sorry... I-I can't do that." Chirou shifted to a battle stance as she got ready.
Chirou had experience fighting beatless, as many others did. But fighting another human was something she had never done before. No, fighting another human was something no one had done. This was unprecedented. Was she a new breed of beatless? Did they evolve? Chirou could only think and anxiously look on in anticipation. The woman frowned. She closed her eyes and gently shook her head.
"To kill such a young child... How unfortunate. I honestly was hoping to simply take it from you. But it seems you're ready to die before giving it up... Such musical power... IS A WASTE FOR SOMEONE LIKE YOU!!!" The woman's solemn expression almost instantly turned into a twisted face of hatred and anger.
A long black spear - almost ten feet in length and four inches wide - materialized from thin air as it darted towards Chirou. With her sharp senses dialled up to a hundred, She swiftly dodged the spear, just barely missing it by a few inches. Before she knew it, another spear was already heading for her. With more sharp movements, her tiny body dodged spear after spear, as she did her best to inch ever closer towards the enemy. As soon as she saw her opening, Chirou made her move. Her small body twisting around the oncoming spears. As she dodged the last of the spears from the barrage, she pulled out a small stick from underneath her cloak. She tightened her grip and poured some of her power into the stick. Then, with a quick move, she slammed the stick into the woman's stomach - the effect of her abilities becoming apparent as it formed a shockwave - sending the woman flying into the air, and Chirou several feet back. The force of the shockwave, tearing her cloak off.
Chirou looked up at the woman, who corrected herself and floated in the air. With a brief inhale, she quickly flew up, pursuing the woman. The woman flew back as she fired more spears at Chirou, who briskly dodged each one of them. The sudden availability of space in three plains made it much easier for her to dodge the attacks. She would sequence between dodging and attacking the woman. She got up close to her and slammed her stick onto the woman, this time, however, the woman defended herself. Several spears were lined up in front of her, absorbing the impact. The impact was not just absorbed, the energy of Chirou's attack was transferred to the woman. She giggled as white lines briefly appeared and disappeared from her body. Chirou took the short moment between attacks to quickly distance herself from the woman. The defending spears turned to point at Chirou, seven of them lined up side by side. Her hands glowed as Chirou's absorbed power flowed into both of her hands. With a clap, a shockwave was produced, which the spears used as fuel to propel themselves at Chirou at an incredible speed.
Chirou's quick wits led her to pull out a second stick and quickly tap each other together as hard as she could. At just the moment that the spears had reached her, the tapping sticks produced a massive shockwave that formed a visible circle in the air. The spears were immediately deflected and sent flying in multiple directions. The spears crashed into buildings and pierced cars. Both the woman and Chirou didn't take their eyes off of each other as they took a moment to catch their breath, still floating over the town beneath them. The woman was formidable, She had never fought an enemy as tough as her, anyone would have been scared. Scared for their lived. But Chirou was more focused on something else - The woman's attacks. She absorbed Chirou's attack using her spears. This was nothing new to the beatless. They attacked cities to collect musical energy. They would also use the taken energy as humans would. But, there was one clear difference between the woman and the other beatless: For beatless to use the energy, they would first have to process it and transform it into something that their bodies - devoid of any musical capacity - could use. A lengthy process, according to Pippi. Lengthy, but the woman in front of her used Chirou's energy almost as soon as she absorbed it. How?
She pushed the thought aside, thinking about it now, by herself, wasn't going to benefit her. She quickly turned her focus onto a more pressing matter, how to defeat the woman. As she was lost in thought, the woman fired another spear at her. Chirou quickly came to reality as the spear closed in on her. Without much thought, she moved out of the way to dodge the spear, her dodge was successful, but she slammed into a pole. As she reeled in from the impact, a lightbulb switched on over her head. The woman began to fire another barrage of spears at Chirou, she did not move from her place and stayed exactly where she was. Chirou flew a considerable distance away from the pole, all while dodging the onslaught of spears. As the woman's attack came to an end, Chirou focused once more. She lined up her sticks, one on top of the other. She pointed the stick at the bottom at the pole. She then Slid the stick on top over the bottom one, and just before the entire stick had crossed it, she gently tapped it on top, bouncing it off of the bottom stick. The resulting shockwave was small, but it sent the stick flying at the pole at an incredible speed.
As the stick hit the pole, the stored energy was released. The energy formed a whip-like shape as it headed for the woman. The woman in black, who watched Chirou shoot off of her weapon at nowhere was not prepared for the sudden attack that came at her, as she made her attempt at dodging, the whip just barely grazed her back and cut off her long hair. The woman took a moment to process her sudden change in fashion. Her confusion turned into anger as she realized her loss. But before she could react, Chirou had already reached her, with a solid hit to her waist, the woman flew off towards the ground and slammed into a building, just a bit far from where she initially stood. She fired another spear at Chirou, who was rushing toward the woman. With a great distance between them, Chirou stopped and threw her remaining stick at a building, which bounced off and hit the spear near the front. The impact flipped the spear around, sharp end facing back, still making its way towards Chirou. She caught her rogue stick and tightened her grip on it. With a forceful twirl, she pushed all of her energy into the stick as it made contact with the back of the spear.
The force of Chirou's risky attack stopped the spear in its tracks and was sent flying back at the woman. The gothic woman who couldn't even react to the sudden counter-attack stood in place as her very own spear came at her. In a split-second, the spear had passed right through the woman. It had stuck itself onto the wall, with the woman still one with it. As the realization hit her, she could only gasp. Gasp in shock. Her attack was used against her, and she was going to die from it? Unbelievable.
Chirou gently landed on the ground in front of the woman and approached her. She stood at the end of the spear and looked into the woman's shock filled eyes. Chirou's eyes filled with innocence looked into the eyes of someone facing their death. The woman's gasps began to shorten as the pain began to set in. Her body had begun to shake as it weakened by the second. With her legs barely supporting her, she grabbed the spear and pulled on it--
Big mistake.
The woman immediately vomited blood. Her lungs filled with blood and she began to drown in her own body. She looked down at the little girl in front of her, who looked as if she was expecting her to say her final words. So she spoke.
"T-This-- isn't... the end... *ghyah*..." With each word, the woman gasped for air. With each gasp for air, came more blood.
"N-Now that... I'm... out of the way--" With another gasp, even more blood spilt out of her mouth. Her body quivered and her knees were getting weaker.
"T-They're... c-coming... *ghah*... *cough*... the end... i-is near."
The dying woman, still gripping on to the spear, doing her best to hold herself up with her weak legs, smiled at Chirou. This smile, her very last smile, was a smile of sincerity, it was a genuinely warm smile.
"C-chirou... be... c-care...ful-"
Were her last words. Her arms let go off the spear and went limp. Her legs finally gave way and her body collapsed to the ground. As it hit the ground, it faded into a pool of black, and then thin air. It was as if nothing was there. All that remained was a pool of blood. Even her spears had vanished. Chirou, who was still spotless, walked a few feet to where her cloak rested on the ground. She picked it up and dusted it off, before putting it on, and covered her head. She made her way back to the store, the glass that was between her and her desired white cat plushy had shattered sometime during her fight. The shop and the street were all empty. Any people passing by had ran away, fearing for their lives. With no one in sight, Chirou grabbed the cat and ran off with it.
And with that, we're at the end for this rather short chapter. Let me know what you think, I'm always open for feedback and discussion. I'll be doing my best to try finishing a chapter for every week, as a standard schedule.
And well... see you next time.