Lavo Standard (16) (9-22-09)

Every scene was played under the cacophony of hectic Sobu-Line trains. The firmer grip the talons of Ric’s left “hand” made, the slimmer Jade’s escape became.

“It hurts!” Jade tried to pull her forearm out of Ric’s clutch several times, but its tenacity only added pain. “Let me go!” judging that it’s impossible to get out of the abuse by any peaceful method, Jade turned her left hand into a cat’s paw and scratched the left wrist of Ric with her nails. Jade’s heartbeat was racing with the fear of death. As Jade checked the state of Ric’s wrist and ahead following the attack, his talons were still firmly squeezing her forearm. Blood was seeping out of the lacerations on his wrist. Ric appeared unfazed while his equilibrium allowed him to observe how his wounds were changing: blood gradually became thicker until eventually trickling.

However, no sooner had he realized what happened than his physical state reacted prior to making words out. As Jade studied Ric’s face, it was getting covered with dark feathers and his mouth was turning into a beak.

“!!!” Jade froze by the shocking picture. Then, Ric opened his beak and squawked “I don’t need to care about these potential informers as I’ll never show the public myself in an identifiable human state since Juno learned I did abduct Daryl. Or rather, this form is more suitable to kill David while drawing the attention of onlookers. You can only guess how much I love it.” Upon ending his remark, Ric swelled his body and ripped apart his clothes, taking on the appearance of a griffin.

The impact out of the dark ugly monster was mighty enough to scandalize pedestrians around the station’s west exit to a halt. “Cawooo!” while the griffin was swinging his head from side to side, the caw was stentorian, piercing through the skies. Each part of his flexing seemed to be shown after he broke restraint through the transformation.

In the face of the lineup of preternatural scenes, Jade and Libro were utterly paralyzed in their psychological abilities and could not compose even a word.

“I may come across the best place for you and myself,” said Ric stretched out his folded broad wings and began flapping them dynamically to soar off ground level. Regardless of the size, they moved quickly providing loud noises of air.

Ric flew over the building--not tall--of a famous beer hall on the station’s west exit and had the noises of his wings die down as he was landing. With Jade in his clutches, he stood on the long metal/steel roof over a platform juxtaposed closely north to the Sobu Line’s which Juno and Jade had been on more than one hour ago.

Beneath the roof with Ric, there were no people on the platform as its tracks had been out of service. And, according to Ric’s anticipation, the rooftop appeared suited to display the execution. The old platform was laid lower than the Sobu Line’s by one story, therefore the passengers there could see Ric closer to eye level. Furthermore, both the green roofs of Ryogoku Kokugikan and the orange sky in the background could relate the image of the griffin to sumo as its symbol.

Juno inserted herself amongst passengers awaiting a train bound for Chiba as she would be caught and interrogated by station staff after wildly passing the gate with no ticket. While other passengers were frightened and rooted to the spot catching sight of the griffin, so was Juno as her gaze met Ric’s.

Until this almost coincidental moment of identifying each other, Ric was unsure where Juno would have exactly been. But as soon as Ric became certain that the chance of carrying away Juno remained high, he came up with an idea to forestall her departure from the station.

Meanwhile, the station announcement was communicating a train’s approach: “The train is arriving, please wait behind the yellow line.” And, the train arrived.

Jade’s forearm was still being pained by Ric’s talons and the close position allowed the details of what Ric was now. As she studied his face, there was a sense that he was going to do something extreme. Then, Jade’s mind was brought into a blank, witnessing a series of his movements: He deeply inhaled and in turn breathed out a column of blaze that penetrated a train carriage. Large holes were made, whose rims and whatnot were burning. So were several passengers burning, who were hit directly. Others both inside the train and on the platform kept yelling and crying. Followingly, the tone of the station announcement turned frantic, urging evacuation: “Leave the train!”

Both Jade and Libro spotted Juno through a set of automated doors of the damaged carriage, which had immediately opened due to the emergency.

It likely exempted Juno from interrogation. She didn’t flee the mayhem. She, on the contrary, as an expression of anger, was staring at Ric. Wearing tears, she shouted at Ric: “Did you not like kids!?” She did, when among the burning bodies of the victims there also were a few smaller ones, and when kids were also crying in the incredible situation.

The place for a conversation between Juno and Ric had been limited to a lesson booth, but her words had fed through to his heart. Hers were doing right now, again.

“Did I not like kids?” Ric asked himself. “Did I not like kids?” Ric repeated. Focusing on the incident site near Juno, he received the vivid sights of the bodies of victimized kids. “Did I not like kids?” It was the third time.

Meanwhile, Jade was sensing that something was going on inside Ric, which slackened his clutch for a second. “Libro, here’s your chance,” Jade quietly said to Libro and was ready to scratch Ric’s wrist to escape.

Yet what drew the attention of Ric and had him come around was a voice Jade was familiar with.

“Jade!” Keyron shouted from the platform.

What havoc is Keyron wreaking on my plot!? Jade was of course glad learning that he had come after her, but this timing was no better than terrible. His voice only prompted Ric’s grip to tighten again.

“Where was I?” Ric said and set his beak in the direction of Jade’s heart to crush it. “And I’ll have a fun time with Juno later. She is mine,” Ric resolved again.

Jade was at her wits’ end, not knowing how to escape the situation. Libro, however, had an idea and told her about it.

“(Jade, I’ll be dissociated from you, then you should make a run.)”

Yet Jade didn’t go along with the idea easily.

“But your idea will leave you at the mercy of this monster. Do you think I’ll accept such…”

Nevertheless, before she completed her sentence Libro began separating off her body in a flash. It was so intense that Ric lost his sight.

The psychological state of panic triggered his action, however. Ric carried out a scattershot attack, dropping his beak repeatedly, aiming at the slime. And he sensed a certain response of hitting the target which then dropped over an edge of the roof and landed on the ground off the wall of the platform.

The recovered state of his eyesight enabled Ric to land on the ground, get close to the target and confirm the damage given to it. However, when Ric was checking the condition, being caked with blood was not the body of the slime, but that of a cat. She was fatally wounded in her left flank, barely breathing.

Confounded by the scene, for which Jade turned back into a cat, Keyron lurched toward her but the policemen, yet present, didn’t approve of him reaching her. Keyron could not withhold his tears. “Jade! Jade!” he kept shouting.

Libro was still on the roof, but the policemen didn’t identify him thanks to the train which was standing before them and the height of the roof which was by some extent higher than the platform of the Sobu Line. Only Juno, Ric and Keyron knew that Libro was on the roof. She yelled, “Libro!” one time.

With the repeated shouts of Keyron aside, the policemen were already shooting at the griffin.

Minutes later on the start of gunfire, when the damage of the griffin seemed to have reached a critical point, in the midst of falling he flashed as brightly as Jade did and split up into a hawk, a lion and a red slime. At the very moment of the separation in the air, the hawk flew up onto the rooftop while the lion and the red slime kept being shot. The red slime left the answer in time: “Did I like kids? I just liked Juno and my mom.”

Being safe through the gunshot thanks to his size, Libro was crying on the roof after Jade was hurt instead of him. The hawk which appeared to be damaged a little neared Libro. Whether also reflecting on the melding ability of himself, Libro had no doubt that the hawk was a component of the griffin. Hence, it was a natural response of Libro to have hatred toward the hawk.

“(You such a villain!)” snarled Libro.

However, defying such Libro’s perception of the hawk, its response was not of a villain. The hawk was crying too and apologized: “I beg you for your forgiveness...I couldn’t do anything under the control of the evil spirit of that red slime. I’m so sorry…”

Libro listened to what the hawk, a male one, said, but he remained suspicious of it. He was studying him.

In order to break the stalemate, in the hope of winning Libro’s pardon, the hawk made a daring move: It clutched Libro with its talons and began soaring.

“I need you to free Daryl. Just let me prove my sincerity by action.”

“Libro...,” Juno said, catching sight of him.

Meanwhile, after ensuring that the lion and the red slime ceased their movements, the policemen halted shooting.

Finally, one of them brought the yet dead body of the cat to its owner.

“Jade! Jade!” Keyron was generous in producing tears. His hands and arms were trembling but sensed that Jade had been alive until quite recently. Near him, under the repetition of station announcements and the mixed sirens of fire engines and ambulances, Juno also kept crying.