20. Eight-fold Battle

Still hiding on the bushes, Kazuki got closer and whispered on Haruka's ear. After listening and feeling a single off beat heartbeat, Haruka nodded with her head and moved slowly, towards a tall conifer tree. Kazuki moved on the opposite direction, around the bushes. He took a deep breath, and prepared his submachine gun. It was short and had a long magazine, meant to be held in one hand. He got up from the bushes. The man was with his shirt, jeans and black boots, submachine gun in his right hand, the sun on his face and fire in his eyes. Then he shouted.

The shout got the attention of the Hachimorph, which turned to him. Quickly, it extended two of his tentacles, which turned to spears into Kazuki's direction. He ran and dashed to avoid the attacks. When the monster prepared the next hit, a shot was heard and a tranquilizer met one of his tentacles. The deviant shouted and the shot tentacle shrank and stopped moving. The Hachimorph reacted, trying to find the source of the shot and was shot again on the other tentacle. The monster shrieked again.

On the top of the conifer tree, stood Haruka with her sniper rifle. Now, the Hachimorph tried to attack her with one of the tentacles, it extended and hit two nearby trees, breaking them in half. At the same time, Kazuki used his submachine gun to shoot on the monster's head with lots of rubber bullets which made it roar and again turn towards him. It used one tentacle to again try to impale Kazuki who jumped away from the attack. However, with another of its appendages, it grabbed Kazuki. Before the Hachimorph was able to squeeze the life out of Kazuki, Haruka shoot its tentacle with another tranquilizer. Kazuki fell, released and Haruka shot the fourth tentacle.

The Hachimorph turned towards Haruka and released a stream of water from its mouth. She jumped and slid on the tree's trunk, avoiding the attack, which spread the trees leaves on the air. The beast roared and unleashed its four tentacles in the form of maces: two it sent towards Haruka and two towards Kazuki. They jumped away, avoiding the attacks and released lightning and fire streams respectively. Now, the monster wallowed in pain. Kazuki spread his fire towards its body and tentacles and it was unable to react. This allowed Haruka to get her rifle again and one by one shoot the tentacles. The Hachimorph panted, its tentacles shrunk and its stamina was gone. Haruka got closer and when it tried to release another stream of water, she shot a tranquilizer between its eyes. The Hachimorph tried to react, but fell asleep. Haruka and Kazuki released their weapons on the ground, relieved.

- "Hey, the sensors tell me six people are running into your direction!" - shouted the operator on the NCID. Haruka and Kazuki got their weapons and looked around. In a matter of seconds, they heard shots and they ran towards the bushes and trees to get cover.
- "Any more information, Operator-san?" - said Kazuki.
- "Nothing yet, I am trying here."
- "Why the hell didn't we catch them sooner?"
- "I don't know, they simply showed up in the sensors" - the operator breathed - "maybe they were using something to hide"
- "It does not matter now!" - said Haruka - "Op-san, keep an eye on them, we will try to get visuals." - Haruka and Kazuki crouched along the bushes, but no more shots were heard. They saw five people, looking like soldiers, wearing blue tight uniforms and sporting rifles, enter on the clearing. Four of them started firing in the direction of the bushes, which forced the two agents to hide behind a tree. As they waited for the shots, they heard another sound, one they heard lots of times.

After the shooting stopped, Haruka and Kazuki crouched to look and much to their dismay, one of the soldiers was wearing a ring, which shone and was creating a magical net, capturing the Hachimorph.
- "What the hell?" - said Kazuki.
- "That's... unheard of..." - the operator replied, also in dismay. Then they heard an engine sound, which got louder, a tow truck was driven into the clearing. Quickly, two agents got its hook and used it to catch the net with the Hachimorph, and using the motor, they lifted the Hachimorph on top of the truck's flatbed. Two shots were heard. Haruka snipped the two soldiers that lifted the Hachimorph using tranquilizers and they fell. Other two soldiers started firing into her direction, prompting both her and Kazuki to get cover. At the same time, the soldier who created the net entered the truck and started to drive.

Haruka released the rifle and used her electromancy on a tree, creating lightning between the trees, distracting the two soldiers and allowing Kazuki to surprise them with his machine gun. The entire round of rubber bullets incapacitated them. Haruka and Kazuki tried to run, but soon saw that the tow truck was already gone.
- "Operator-san, everything went wrong!" - Kazuki said. Haruka reported:
- "The tow truck is gone, it is white and large and has at least one man in blue soldier uniform."
- "I will send a red alert to all our units and police forces!" - the operator replied.
- "Darn it!" - said Kazuki looking up - "what do we do now?!"
- "First" - Haruka was huffing - "let's tie down those four soldiers."
- "That's true" - and so they did.
- "Op-san, we also have captured four suspects here, we will need a cleaning team."
- "I've already called them, don't worry."
- "Copy that."

Haruka and Kazuki took a moment to recompose. Then they advanced to analyze the place where the truck came from and went to. The grass was damaged by the tire tracks which were deep. Using her hands, Haruka found a card. it was blueish, had a name, a number and a sign of a computer chip. She said:
- "Now we know who they are, they are rebels."
- "How do you know that?" - Kazuki inquired.
- "This card." - she showed the card - "seems to be the cards the rebels use to identify themselves in the havens. I remember Renegade-san had one."
- "Renegade who?"
- "One of the thieves of the heist I went undercover."
- "Did you get close to her?" - he gave her a side look.
- "I had to get some drinks and talk to her to keep my cover."
- "I see. That's terrible."
- "What exactly?"
- "The rebels. They have Brumetium. They are capable now of capturing deviants."
- "That's indeed really bad" - Haruka put her hands over her face. - "things may get worse from now on."
- "Darn it!" - shouted Kazuki again. Before he could complain more, the operator said:
- "Kazuki-kun, Haruka-chan, I have orders from the Colonel. You are to return to Tokyo, again by train keeping an eye out to anything out of the ordinary. If nothing happens until you return, the mission is over for you."
- "Why?" - asked Kazuki - "shouldn't we give everything to find the deviant? We failed here."
- "These are the Colonel's orders. You have no vehicle. We now have Haruka's information that they are rebels and already have specialized units to find the rebels and the deviant. We also suspect that there may be more rebels involved, who might go to Tokyo using different means of transportation, so you will look inside the train." - Kazuki frowned:
- "It seems so wasteful."
- "Kazuki-kun, I understand your frustration. But, I wouldn't complain if I were you. If the rebels truck is not intercepted, it is high likely that you will be assigned a recovery mission when we find the Hachimorph." - Kazuki was still bothered, but he looked at Haruka who gave him a reassuring look and said:
- "Alright, we will follow the orders Op-san. Please keep us informed."
- "Sure, I am giving my everything here."

Kazuki and Haruka took some moments to take a breather before returning all the way back. They walked again around the beautiful lake, returned on the old brick road and entered the white hi-tech station. They waited for the train and entered on it, again traveling on different cars. Despite their worries and readiness to action, nothing out of the ordinary happened, no news came from the operator and they returned to Tokyo. There, they simply returned to the condominium, and called it a day.

On the night, Kazuki felt particularly frustrated and remembered failures from the past: failure to enter college, a failure on a driver's licence test and critics' rejection on one of his paintings. It was strange however, as he knew he never had of those experiences, yet these images populated his mind. On the other apartment, Haruka was more worried about Kazuki and their relationship, and was quietly making plans for the next day when she fell asleep.