Bounty | Deadly Claws [Akuji, Flara, Kier]

Flara hadn’t expected to find who she was looking for so soon, much less in the very district that she was already in. But here was Sarah Jameson aka Sylph, walking through an alley in the South District. Or maybe searching for her next target. Either way, this woman was Flara’s target.

Flara inched toward the alley− though still keeping a large distance between them−, her eyes never leaving the head of black to white hair. As much as she would have loved to jump right into battle, the alleyway was too narrow, which would make it hard to fight. Thus, Flara was only tailing the woman for now.

Sarah stopped walking when she reached a deserted area. Flara was safely hidden behind some old building about 15 yards away from her. Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her. Oh shit, did someone catch me? I didn’t hear anything about Sylph having an ally…

Flara spun around faster than a washing machine, her hair acting as a whip and smacking whoever was behind her. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” she roared. “YOU JUST GAVE ME AWAY!” This was the second time that someone had ruined her stalking.

Flara blinked when the person’s appearance entered her mind. This guy looked familiar. The red-violet hair and the green to orange eyes (how did she even forget someone with green and orange eyes?!) seemed to be somewhere in the back of her head. Oh! He was that one annoying guy that Flara had met the other day in the West District. “Huh? You’re that Kier guy from the bakery…”

"Stop standing there, she's getting away."

Flara turned to see the blue-haired woman that had also been at the bakery and stared at her with a blank expression. It took a moment for the lady’s words to sink in. “Oh.” Flara facepalmed and heaved a huge sigh. “Shit. Shit. FML.” With that, she sprinted after Slyph.

Flara arrived a bit later than the other two due to her facepalming but when she got there, she had her duo steel pipes out and was ready to fight. The blue-haired lady was already fighting so Flara decided to watch for a bit.

“Hm, three on one is a bit unfair, isn’t it?”

And not as fun. Nevertheless, Slyph’s nails were really disturbing and Flara just wanted to snap them right off. That proved to be a rather difficult job, though, as it was able to withstand tonfa’s. Actually, Slyph was proving to be a good opponent. But if Blue-hair could defeat her easily than there wasn't much of a challenge…

Jameson was stabbing the lady with her nails. That was Flara’s cue. She ran up behind Slyph and launched an overhead swing with both of her steel pipes. Both were easily blocked by two sets of overgrown fingernails (one set now stained with ugly French tips of blood) as Jameson quickly whirled around to face her next opponent.

Slyph’s claws lashed out at Flara, who now held her pipes horizontally so that she could block better. It was as if Slyph had ten individual daggers, and they were getting harder to block by the second.

Jameson gradually cornered Flara to the wall before aiming a slash at her left eye. Flara slid under her opponent but not fast enough to completely avoid the attack. She’d sustained a shallow cut just above her eyebrow (and some of her bangs had been cut off). As soon as Flara wasn’t cornered anymore, Slyph stabbed her claws downward at Flara’s throat. Flara blocked with one of her pipes, producing the sound of someone scratching the blackboard. Keeping her hand in place, she got to one knee and brought her other pipe down on the nails as hard as she could. A sickly cracking sound filled the air. Flara jumped back to get to a safer range.

Apparently, Flara had managed to shatter two nails. Even though she’d aimed for all ten, that was a start. “Heh,” Flara said, a sly smile creeping onto her face, “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, really?” Jameson taunted. Flara narrowed her eyes as she saw what was happening. The nails grew back as quickly as they had been broken. Fuck.

Kier turned around at the sudden scent of blossoms. just in time to see Akuji get punctured by razor sharp nails. He approached slowly, outside of the noticing range. The brunette had regained her senses and was holding her own against Slyph. The steel pipes were much more effective than tonfas, giving her a distance advantage that let her smash two nails. Had Slyph not moved, all those nails would be gone. He retracted that statement when he saw the two broken nails grow back instantly. It was like watching Piccolo regenerate his severed arm, but nastier.

Charging up his brass knuckles, Kier aimed a left jab at Slyph's back just as her nails reached their full length. The hit connected, just barely grazing across her shoulder when she turned to dodge. But it was enough to get a her spine electrocuted and temporarily paralyzed. The static also screwed up her hair, puffing it into a ridiculous afro. He found that extremely amusing and couldn't help but laugh as he decked more charged jabs.

Apparently his first shot was just a lucky one because none of the latter ones landed, not even in Slyph's half-paralyzed condition. Who knew a B-rank was so much stronger than those pathetic D-rank bounties. Considering he'd only started taking bounties recently, the whole class system was still new to him.

Slyph charged at him. She was slower, but her speed and strength were coming back. Kier wasn't fast enough to avoid her barrage of slashes, ending up with small cuts here and there, landing a couple more hits to slow her limbs. The problem wasn't her speed, it was mostly those nails of hers. He hoped her restitution would kick in soon because at this rate, he'd be a pile of human confetti in the next few minutes.

"Jesus, woman, you're deadlier than that cat Elisa had," he said. Kier's neck oozed blood from where Slyph had barely missed his jugular. Damn, did it sting. But it was worth the head shot he'd got on her.

"Now!"

“I’m on it,” Flara replied as she bolted at Slyph. She jumped up and brought her pipes down in an overhead swing. Slyph hadn’t finished her feast of flowers but dropped the remaining petals in her hands to block the attack. Before Flara had a chance to make another move, Slyph swiftly clawed at Flara’s left fist. Three crimson gashes formed on the back of her hand. Not able to keep a grip on her weapon anymore, one steel pipe dropped to the floor. Not good.

Flara used her remaining weapon to knock the nails away and aimed a stab attack at Syph’s stomach. Surprisingly, it was able to make contact but at the same time, Flara gained three more cuts on her left hand. Blood now oozed from both her palm and the back of her hand.

The girl ducked to the ground to avoid an attack to the face. She made a grab for the pipe she had dropped earlier with the hand still usable. Two pipes in one hand, she blocked a set of nails aiming for her right shoulder but couldn’t block the one coming from the left. Flara forced herself to grab the nails with her left hand, which hurt like hell. “Get. Your. Disgusting. Claws. Off. Of. Me.” She jerked the overgrown nails out of her shoulder and yanked them to the side with all of her strength, managing to break all five of them. The side edges of the nails sunk into her palm and caused even more blood to seep out. Flara proceeded to stab Slyph’s hand with her own nails, though half of the blood that flew into the air came from her own hand. Only then did she let go of the sharp objects, not able to endure any more of the pain.

Slyph kicked Flara in the gut, sending her flying back and causing her to drop one of the pipes again. The enemy once again reached into her pocket for flowers.

Kier saw an opening when the woman dug for another helping of petals and pulled her into a literally shocking hug from behind, hissing in pain as nails tore at his arm. Just one good hit, that's all i need. With her being unable to fulfill her restitution, Slyph's nails were beginning to crumble and the shock was stopping her limb movements. Soon she was completely immobilized from the neck down.

Breathing hard, Kier released his hold on her and peeled the nails out of his skin, keeping eye contact with the target. The paralysis would hold for at least half an hour, considering the amount of juice he put in it. Slyth screamed as she twisted her head and neck wildly. The volume of her shrieks were significantly quieter to Kier's ears.

He crouched and patted down the target's pockets, removing flower petals, a lighter, a packet of white powder- he didn't even want to know- and a couple of small black balls. Kier studied the balls in his hand. They could be anything from rabbit crap to explosives. Considering Slyph's rank power there's a high possibility she was one of the higher ups in Oblivion. He pocketed the pellets and pressed a hand to the target's mouth to silence her.

"Be a dear and shut the fuck up. Don't want the neighbors to call the police, do you?" Upon removing his hand, Slyph took to talking instead of screeching.

"You're turning me in anyway aren't you? So what does it matter if the police come? Or... you want me for a different reason." Her voice was melodic with an edge of hysteria.

"Sorry, I'm not into chicks like you unless you pay me- which isn't an offer so don't get ideas- but seriously, keep quiet so I don't have to make you." By make, he meant shocking her skull and knocking her out, although there was a high chance that it would melt her brain to jelly. He didn't like resorting to that, since it brought back all the wrong memories. He kept his friendly grin in place to keep the target from seeing how unwilling he was to carry out his threat.

One shock. One shock and Slyph was down. Wow, couldn’t Kier have just done that from the beginning? Flara glanced at her left hand then quickly at the wounds of the other two as she went to pick up her steel pipe and placed both into her sack. This hadn’t been the most pleasant fight for any of them.

The blue-haired lady said some words to Kier that Flara didn’t quite pay attention to and aimed a kick to his crotch. Flara followed her through the alley for something that could be of use. When the brunette’s eye caught sight of the rope, so did the other woman. Well, this was practically a mission accomplished now.

The two females wrapped the rope around Slyph, who made vain attempts to resist. She was like a fish that had been out of the water for too long but was still trying to get back into the ocean. How pathetic.

“Do you still hate harbingers after working with one?” Flara was asked when Slyph’s body was safely encased in rope. Flara blinked in confusion. She never said that she hated harbingers…? “I’m not sure why you would think that but I never had anything against them to begin with,” the brunette replied. The lady− apparently Akuji was her name− moved on the introductions. “I’m Flara.”

The trio carried the now-captured enemy to the police station. When Akuji came out, so did a certain someone: Slyph. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Flara grumbled under her breath as she began to chase the target once again. Well, at least she was the first one to run this time.

Kier stood back abruptly the avoid the crotch shot, but the sudden movement dizzied him and his ass hit the concrete. He'd almost forgotten about the cut on his neck. The adrenaline rush had numbed the wound, and now that said adrenaline was fading, the gash burned. It was half dried but the amount of blood he had lost was a bit more than a a healthy male should be losing. He put his hand to his neck to staunch the rest of the bleeding and laughed as he responded. "No, that's free unless you actually hit me, but please don't." He winced from the pain but continued, "What, was it your first or something?"

The girls exchanged greetings and then they were off to turn in Slyph. Before Akuji distributed the credits, the window crashed, and the target escaped. Her eyes briefly met Kier's as she zipped by their faces, a smug smile that almost said, "Catch me if you can ❤"

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," the brunette muttered under her breathe. Kier had to agree that this had to be one sick joke. He peered into the broken glass to see the officers inside messily shredded, but alive.

"Keep the money safe. We can corner her at the next block." On his way here he'd seen a shortcut to where the target seemed to be headed to. "And Flara, since you should know this area like the back of your hand I'm counting on you for the best shortcuts."