Hostage (Part 2: Ironic fate)

  “More backup is arriving!” Asahi suddenly notified us. We looked at each other silently with surprised face as He continued explaining:

“The first squad and the fifth squad leaders are on their way to you!”

“That’s a very good news!” Shinji replied.

“They will arrive in ten minutes” Asahi continued talking. “Try resisting until they arrive!”

The idea of finally receiving backups this late in the fight was more than amazing. We were all tired after all…

Shinji and Shuna were doing a pretty good job using the size of the enemy to their advantage. They kept hitting then retreating and switching positions to confuse the enemy who couldn’t keep up with their speed. That duo was probably the best!

They are the oldest members in the squad after all. So, it should be normal that they can keep up with each other. To be precise it was always Shinji who adjusts his speed and attack to keep a good rhythm with anyone with him but since he was too tired, he didn’t need to do that. His strength was at a level where Shuna was easily able to keep up with it. She is the second strongest person in the team after all…

Suddenly, Shinji fell on the ground immobile for a few seconds after punching his enemy in the face.

“Are you okay?” The man asked with an arrogant smile on his face as he evaded Shuna’s attack.

“Shuna! Retreat immediately!” Shinji shouted as he slowly stood on his feet.

“Eh?”

“Don’t ‘eh’ me! Retreat! That man has an electric defence system!”

The man laughed as he ran toward Shinji to hit him. “So, you finally triggered it! How does it feel being electrocuted? 220 volts are definitely a big deal…”

“I guess I am a lucky person after all! Since I survived that.”

The enemy before me and Kazuto was having a hard time on his turn too. He was lacking the mobility that I had which made him spend most of his time trying to evade my attacks.

Kazuto was barely moving; he was too tired after the fight he had with the first commander. The enemy thought that he could just use him as a target in the beginning but quickly understood that he won’t have the time to do that.

Asahi kept notifying us with the time of the arrival of the backups until only two minutes were left… He sighed as he explained that something went wrong: “The car that the leaders were using stopped all of a sudden!”

Everyone looked surprised as we kept fighting…

A minute later, the first commander smiled as he shouted to the other two: “They are coming now!”

Shinji’s face became pale as a black hover car approached…

[I know this car! I’ve seen it somewhere!]

As the car stopped a bit far three men descended from it. Shinji looked at them to suddenly stop moving completely as he muttered “Father?!”

“Shinji! Are you okay?” Asahi screamed at the mic.

I looked at the men who were approaching and…

“Aoyama… Tomori” I mumbled as I took a few steps away out of fear.

“Now it is you Rin! What the hell is happening there!” Asahi asked once again.

After seeing the figure of the three men coming in our direction, I started remembering all the bad memories that I had in my life.

Akira Takahashi and Aoyama Tomori were walking side to side along with a third man… I looked at him to realize that he was the man that caught me off-guard in the vacant area near the Meguro ward.

“Tsk” The first commander muttered as he looked away. “Looks like someone has beaten me into getting a favor to Mr. Aoyama”

I looked at the third man who had a large smile on his face as he pointed at me and Shinji: “What do you think gentlemen?” He asked. “I am definitely sure that these are Shinji Takahashi and Kizuna Tomori!”

“Father?!” Shinji muttered again as he looked at them without moving.

“This isn’t the time for you two to space out, Shinji, Rin!” Shuna shouted as she launched another quick attack at the first commander using an EMP gun and a dagger.

“Wait a second!” Kazuto suddenly spoke. “If these aren’t the backups, then what happened to the leaders of the first and fifth squad??”

“The car they were riding in exploded 2 minutes ago…” Shinji replied with a desperate voice.

“Then they are dead?” Akira asked.

Shinji looked at him silently for a few seconds then replied: “Their squad will come to check!”

So… We lost the backup and the enemies got multiplied out of a sudden. Neither Shinji nor I had any will to fight anymore…

The second commander laughed at the whole scene.

“Seeing all that despair in your face is a priceless scene!” He looked at Shinji then continued talking: “Since your dear father has come, why don’t you ask him personally about the devices that we talked about earlier. You didn’t believe us when we told you that he’s the one who developed them for us.”

As the three men arrived at the battlefield, I stood behind Kazuto who lost consciousness out of fatigue yet kept standing. He kept struggling even though he had a very rough time trying to protect me.

I felt that this was my fault, yet I couldn’t do anything. Fear made me act irrationally.

When I realized that he was unconscious I jumped back in fear.

“He is unconscious!” I said as everyone looked at me with surprised faces.

“That’s definitely my daughter!” Aoyama said as they kept approaching us slowly. “What about you Takahashi-san?”

“Same here, that's my son! I was wondering about the Shinji that everyone was talking about in the HQ lately. No one knew his last name, so I didn’t even think of this possibility…”

“So… What are you two going to do now?” the third man asked.

We were in the worst position ever. With Kazuto falling unconscious we had to protect him. That meant that either Rintaro or Shinji would be busy protecting him while the others had to continue the fight.

I was sure that Shinji’s father wasn’t a fighter. I didn’t know whether Aoyama was going to fight or not, but I was sure that the third man was a dangerous fighter.

“We’re going to retreat!” Aoyama replied after looking at the whole scene before him. “The other members of the fifth and first squad are on their way here… We can’t win against them all. Not with this small number. We destroyed the dome of one of the three areas. That's a good thing. Let them consider this as a small temporary victory until we get more members to join Japan’s branch of the Red Claws…”

The enemies started to hide their weapons in silence. We didn’t try to stop them. We were too tired to do that. Shinji kept looking silently at his father who never looked at him again even for a second after the first time.

Shuna couldn't do anything reckless since she knew that her opponent had an electric defence system that could immediately kill her. That's why she gave up just like the rest of us. Akira and Rintaro chose to end the fight since they saw that everyone was worried about Kazuto and decided to give up.

“What about your son and your daughter?” The first commander asked as he was preparing to leave the fight.

“Leave him there! We don’t have the time to capture him before the arrival of the other squads.” Shinji’s father replied as he turned his back and walked away.

“We will take her with us!” Aoyama replied. “I don’t understand why Takahashi-san doesn’t want to see his son, but I definitely think that Kizuna might be useful.”

“It isn’t that I don’t want to take him with us!” Akira Takahashi replied. “He is not the type of person that will let us take him easily!”

Everyone jumped before me to protect me as I kept looking at them with a surprised face. “Huh?!” I muttered as I got on my knees out of fear. My eyes became full of tears as I started turning around to see that another battle was just about to happen.

“I thought you’re going to stand in my way just like the time where I wanted to kill her 6 years ago!” Aoyama said as he walked behind Mr. Takahashi.

The latter stopped and looked at him: “At that time, she was only a child! Now we’re enemies on the battlefield! If you want to kill them, I won’t interfere…”

Shinji bowed his head as he said with a very sad voice that sounded to me like he was about to cry: “So you really are an enemy now?! And here I am the idiot that spent the past 6 years trying to find any clue to find you. How ironic fate can be!”

The three commanders walked toward us silently. Everyone picked their weapons to fight again. Akira took Kazuto and laid him down on the ground gently behind us thanking him for the good job he had done up until that moment.

“You heard the ex-leader of the branch, young lady!” The first commander said with a malicious smile on his face. “You’re coming with us!”