Andromeda

“You?!” Yuki eyes widened in surprised to see that it was her that came to save him. He did not think that there was anyone near that saw them. It took him a moment to catch himself when he remembered what she had told him.

‘Your life is in danger, but I will be here to protect you and keep you from harm.’

He thought that she was just saying that as part of her story. But here she was standing between him and the assassin protecting his life now. “Ayumi…why?” He was not even sure why he was questioning what was happening anymore, but it was the only thing that he could manage to think at that moment.

Ayumi struggled with the assassin’s strength using a sword of her own to hold back the attack that would have kill Yuki. While she held her ground against the attacker she divided some of her attention to Yuki. “I told you before that I will be here to protect you. While I’m here no more harm will come to you.”

Yuki took a step back suddenly feeling like he had seen Saki in her for a moment. It confused him making him shake his head to try to clear out his thoughts, but there was something else in his mind. There was a voice that he did not recognize speaking to him.

‘While I’m at your side I won’t let anyone hurt you.’

“Ayumi…I-I…”

Chapter 6 – Snow Shield

“Stand back, Yuki. I will handle this!” Ayumi spun around on her feet forcing the assassin back making him slide across his sand kicking up a cloud. He came to rest with his sword dug into the ground to stop. As she rotated around to look at Yuki her leg was up hitting him in the stomach with enough force to knock him back through the sand until he fell out of the field of sand into the arms of Saki.

Yuki could feel that he was stopped by someone, but did not know it was Saki until he turned his head painfully. “Saki…Saki?!” He suddenly forgot his pain seeing Saki holding him looking down at him deeply worried nearly looking like she was going to cry. “W-what…w-what are you doing here, Saki?” Yuki stood up with a red face seeing a look from Saki that he could not remember seeing from her before.

Saki grabbed Yuki in spite of his protesting and held him close to her while she looked on at Ayumi. “Ayumi found me and told me you were trouble. Yuki…I’ll keep you safe.” She exchanged glances with Ayumi before Ayumi nodded and turned back to her opponent.

“He’s yours,” Ayumi said as she walked forward a step speaking towards Saki. She focused everything then on the assassin summoning up her strength. The sword that she was holding was thrust into the ground glowing bright blue from the center expanding outwards beyond her until she disappeared in a white cloud. A blue ring burst out from Ayumi changing all of the ground and even some of the sand into pure white snow. The snow reached to Saki and Yuki making him shiver suddenly. Everything that it touched became covered in snow, even the tree nearby them lost all of its leaves and became covered in snow that slowly fell off when the weight became too much.

The white cloud that was spinning tightly around Ayumi began to thin out revealing her, but she was no longer wearing her school uniform. Neither of them could see her very well through all of the clouds surrounding her, but eventually it cleared away expanding from her and vanishing into vapor. Ayumi was certainly different from when they had seen her a minute before. She was now wearing what appeared like a yukata but it stopped just after the waist and split at each side. The fabric was a white base with faint blue shapes that looked in part geometric and part snowflakes. Below was a skin tight white shorts that came down only to the middle of her thighs followed up with white laced up boots that ended just before the knee with a small heel. Her hair was tied up away from her neck in a blue ribbon neatly wrapping around the hair down to the end with the obi matching the color.

Yuki stared at this transformation that Ayumi had undergone seeing that it was just like the assassin’s power except the effects were different. His eyes widened again as it only took him a moment to realize what it meant. “Ayumi…you too?”

“What’s going on here? Where’d this snow come from? And what happened to Ayumi?” Saki said with the same confused face that Yuki remembered having when he saw this for the first time. She tightened her hold on Yuki with uncertainty about what this change meant and how it would affect Yuki’s already weakened state.

The firm, yet draining, hold that Saki had on him made him wince remembering all of his pain and bleeding through her uniform now as well. He struggled to stay awake feeling the blood loss getting to him. His eyes were fixed on Ayumi fiercely intent to watch what she would do; something down inside called him, beckoned him forcibly. “I-It’s her power…Ayumi…”

“Power? What are you talking about, Yuki?” Saki asked trying to get an answer from him, but there was no response. She stared at him seeing that he was transfixed on Ayumi unable to pull away. ‘What’s going on with Yuki and her? How does he know what’s happening? What is this strange power she’s using?’ All that was left to do now was watch and wait to hope that Ayumi would be able to stop the man trying to kill Yuki. ‘And why was he trying to kill Yuki?’

The assassin stood up from his knelt position recovered from the surprise of being blocked and countered. He pulled his sword up out of the sand letting the beads fall to the ground staring out at Ayumi. His eyebrows pulled down in anger seeing that part of his field of sand was being invaded by Ayumi’s field of snow. It was almost a complete arc of a circle that cut into with the edge being blurred by a corruption of snow and sand where it came together. “Don’t interfere with my prey.”

“He’s no longer your prey.” Ayumi slid down into an attacking stance with her short sword held up over her head in her right hand standing between the assassin and Yuki. “You’re mine now!” She sprinted forward against the assassin making their swords clash echoing against the school building. The two exchanged blows with their swords keeping things even for the moment. At their feet sand and snow were kicked up and blowing around him as though they were fighting as well for dominance. Ayumi bore down on him with two violent swings bringing the assassin to the defensive.

He stepped back to gather himself still holding his sword defiantly unwilling to accept defeat. Ayumi jumped back eying the distance and analyzing her opponent. She had been testing his strength before to see what she was going to have to do. ‘He is strong and well trained, but I can’t let this continue. I must hurry.’ Her stance suddenly changed bringing her sword down in front of her being held with both hands. Her left hand lower on the hilt slid down until it was no longer on the sword at all, but it still looked like it held something. She lifted her empty hand up opening it in front of her face suddenly revealing a chakram that her hand now grasped.

No time was wasted in throwing the disc at the enemy aiming for a quick kill to bring this to an end. The assassin eyes widened for a moment from the surprise, but recovered quickly dropping to his knees throwing his hands into the sand. The sunlit blade of the chakram flew over the snow until it passed over the sand dominated by the assassin. A wave in the sand lurched backwards until it became larger and leapt into the air over the body of the assassin hardening just as the disc’s blade dug into the sand. It penetrated halfway before it was forced to a stop unable to touch the assassin.

“Hmm…” Ayumi narrowed her expression disappointed by the resistance that he was putting up. ‘This should have been over already.’ She placed her left hand on the hilt again revealing a chain that connected to the chakram. A quick pull dislodged it from the sand returned it to her hand with the coil of finely linked chain held against the hilt with her right hand. ‘Field manipulation…if he wants to play that way.’

Ayumi took a few steps forward to the recovering assassin bringing the snow in closer to him taking over the sand. However, this time there was no fighting between the elements. The snow was washing over the sand unchallenged and the assassin was quick to realize this change. ‘The strength of the field changed…’ He backed away letting his sand hold the best he could. Ayumi charged in allowing the snow to quickly over take it all allowing a wave of snow to leap up over the assassin’s body as though it had an animal’s claw that latched down on him. He was unable to move being completely overpowered by Ayumi. She raised up her left arm throwing the chakram once more at the frozen body of the assassin.

The chakram shattered the frozen snow into shards of ice leaving nothing behind of the assassin as the pieces fell down to the snow. A trail of blood sprayed through the air. Yuki and Saki blinded in surprise not certain what had happened, but Ayumi was injured somehow. Behind Ayumi was the assassin standing with his sword dripping lightly with blood. She spun around bringing her chakram back with the chain wrapping around the sword’s blade and the chakram spiraling around his arm slicing it up like a screw to the shoulder. Ayumi faced the assassin with her right arm covered by a shield with her sword missing.

“A shield? Ayumi! What happened? ” Saki said confused by the strange events that had somehow transpired in front of them unknown. She looked at Yuki who held equal confusion trying to understand what had happened.

‘He’s more persistent than I expected.’ Ayumi pulled the chain as it tightened its grip on the blade and the entire arm squeezing it drawing more blood from the wound. The assassin winced in pain unable to move. ‘The lance was only a distraction…’ Her mind went back through the moments visualizing what had occurred in the few seconds.

The chakram had just left her hands when the assassin had released his sword. At the same moment he summoned up his lance letting it go from his left hand just after Ayumi had made her strike. She had been able to see the attack, but there was not enough time for her to evade and keep her full concentration. Doing the only thing she had left, she converted her sword into a shield to deflect the lance. However, she had lost only a partial concentration on the snow cage on the assassin that it was enough that he was able to assert field dominance long enough to break free and make an attempt with his sword. She did not see the attack coming until it was too late to do anything, but moved enough to make the wound less deep than it would have been.

“It’s over now.” Ayumi pulled up her sword and tugged on the chain positioning the man right so that she had a clear shot. He struggled against his arm trying to break free, but only made the bleeding worse. She stood in front of him holding him place and using the snow as well to prevent any sort of escape. The sword ran through his chest exposing the tip out the back to Saki and Yuki surprise. The assassin coughed up blood from the wound spraying Ayumi’s face. A short few moments faded as the surprise horror of one of their own classmates killing someone began to sink in. All around the assassin his sand field and weapons disappeared in an instant leaving only Ayumi’s snow. She quickly released her field as well letting him drop to the school’s ground dripping blood across grass.

Saki looked on in disbelief that the new student had just killed a man in cold blood and seemed completely unaffected. Ayumi turned her eyes up at the two of them with a dark expression serious and cold covered in the blood of the one she had just killed. When she began to approach them Saki pulled Yuki back becoming frightened of what happened. “A-Ayumi…stay back!”

Ayumi stopped in her step as her clothes evaporated into the air returning her back to her school uniform. She was back to the way she had been, but there was still blood on her. It was no longer the same person that they knew. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m here to protect him.”

“Don’t come any closer! Y-You killed someone! Y-You didn’t-“

“If I hadn’t he would have come back to try to kill Yuki again. This is beyond anything you understand. Only I can protect him.”

“NO!” Saki was shaking profusely holding Yuki. She did not know how long she could keep herself together. ‘I have to be strong. I have to be strong for him.’ The ground started to rotate slightly in front of Saki forcing her to catch her breath holding back the heavily panicked breathing. “I-I will. I will p-protect him. I-I will…”

Ayumi pulled one side of her lips up in annoyance of the frightened school girl. “You’re barely holding yourself up in front of me. What you expect to do against the next assassin that comes for him?” She started walking forward again toward them.

It did not matter to her that she looked unarmed and like any other girl at her school. Saki knew differently from what she saw that there was more underneath the girl than just weird fantastic powers. The expression she had was something that had seen death before, far too many times. Saki could tell that she was not like them in anyway. She could not trust Yuki in her care no matter what. “I-I said stay away from us!”

‘She’s going to fall apart any minute. But I…’ Ayumi ignored the demands of Saki pressing on towards them. Saki pulled back more until she had run herself against the shed of the sports equipment. Yuki’s pale face grunted going unnoticed by both girls. “You can’t get away from me with him. And you saw what I can do.”

“Now you’re threatening us. What do you want with him? Who are you?”

“I already told him. He’s the only one that needs to know.”

“How you expect us to trust you?”

“I’m not looking for your trust. I don’t need you. I need him.” Ayumi closed the distance between them quickly and holding Yuki there was nothing that Saki could do to prevent it. She took Saki’s arm to prevent her from going anywhere. “Leave him to me. You’re no longer required.”

“I already told you. NO!” Saki shifted Yuki to her right that was being held down by Ayumi to free up her left hand. She quickly tightened her fist and ran it through Ayumi’s face connecting to her surprise in her chin and mouth. It was enough to break her free from the hold and pull Yuki away to a safer distance.

Ayumi brushed the back of her hand against her lip to wipe away the blood. “I see you’re stronger than you look. But that’s not enough.”

‘So I can hurt her. Is it because she doesn’t have her powers?’ Saki continued to back away slowly making her way further from the school and into the track grounds. She watched Ayumi cautiously not certain if she would use her powers to take Yuki from her now that she saw that it was not going to be so easy.

“You’re serious huh? Well if you are…” Ayumi began to shift her body, but was stopped in mid motion by an unexpected voice.

Yuki coughed from Saki’s arm spilling some blood from his lips alerting the two of them. “I-I think…I’m bleeding…” He suddenly went limp in Saki’s arm losing consciousness dropping to the ground. His blood slowly dripped onto the grass.

Ayumi rushed over to him with Saki kneeling down panic covering her face thickly. “Yuki? Yuki!”

To be continued…