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Description
It wasn’t her vision that returned first, nor her sense for smelling or her hearing.
No, the first feeling, Kitty got after slowly coming back to her senses, was heat, horrible and inhuman heat.
But even then, Kitty simply wanted to keep lying on the ground. Exhaustion and fatigue were extremely strong in her, demanding Kitty to forget the heat again and simply fall asleep again.
In her mind, she felt as if she was lying on a bench in the “Green Spot”, Blutkuss’ apartment and simply enjoyed the early afternoon sun.

Finally, when her other senses caught up with her, Kitty’s mental image changed and became distorted.
As her sense for smelling caught up, she smelled the stench of rusted metal and fire of great intensity.
As her sense for hearing caught up, she heard the hissing of something melting away and bubbling noises coming ever so closer, as well as the creaking and screeching sound of gears, moving something big and heavy.
And finally, as Kitty’s curiosity motivated her to open her eyes again, she looked around for a second, taking in the surroundings, until the images arrived in her brain, causing her instantly to unleash every last bit of adrenaline.

She remembered it. She remembered everything.
She and another woman were about to get into a heated battle as the second daughter, whose name was seemingly Charybdis, interfered and caused the bridge, both were standing on, to collapse and fall onto a rail, which was transporting old and unused, rusted metal.
And as Kitty had expected, the rail was heading towards an incinerator, which would melt down everything on the rail, before machines would try to refine the molten mass of metal.

Kitty pressed her hands on to the ground, on which she slipped away, causing her head to hit the ground of the bridge. It hurt and the following dizziness was far more overwhelming than anything she had ever felt before.
With a slightly blurred vision, Kitty tried to blink it away, until it got at least good enough for her to see on what she had slipped.
It was red… partly liquid, but apparently dried down to a crusty, almost brown stain on the ground.
What that… blood?

Touching her own body everywhere, Kitty seemingly looked for a wound, hoping that her search would remain without success. Sighing in relief as she finished checking her legs, Kitty tried to get up once more, at least trying to sit down, so she would get a better angle on the surroundings.
Sitting down, while leaning to an undamaged part of the rail, Kitty looked around and inspected the environment.

She had been right. She was somewhere on a junkyard and luckily, as her eyes glazed over the heavy and dark skies, outside. Now she spent a moment to check where she was being transported. And as expected, the rail seemed to end somewhere in the air, as a bright, searing red color emitted from the ground.
It was hard to judge from her current position, but Kitty guessed that she had about a minute left, before she would fall to her death… In her mind, hopefully enough time to avoid the probably most painful and also most laughable death through her entire mission.

As her eyes continued to wander around, hoping to see something to save her, Kitty sixth sense rang in her mind, making her remember something, which she had entirely forgotten so far:

She was not alone on the rail.

Circling around, she looked back and saw her chaser, still lying on the ground. From the sounds of heavy breathing and coughing, she was already awake.
Kitty eyes widened in shock as her eyes focused on the entire scenery. The blood on the ground hadn’t been hers, because it had belonged to the other woman.
Several metal pieces seemed to be stuck in her body. That’s at least what Kitty assumed, considering the fact that trails of blood were flowing out of the heap of metal, which had buried the other woman’s lower half.
Groaning in pain, Kitty’s mind was in shambles. On one hand, her first reaction was to help her, safe her from the imminent death. On the other hand, would it really be wise to help someone from the West, the sworn enemy of the faction, she wanted to join?

Kitty was entirely clueless. Should she do what she would normally do or should she do what Kaze Mizuki would expect from her?

…

“I hate to take down someone, I would probably have loved to call ‘sister’ on the streets…”
In the end, it was her sixth sense, which reminded her of the most important thing.
The birthplace didn’t matter… The faction didn’t matter… In the end, both of them were alike: Two former homeless women, who did nothing more than to fight for their place in the world.

Kitty tried to get over to her as quickly as possible, stumbling on a few metal plates or screws, which were lying on the ground. Finally, as she reached her, Kitty didn’t waste another moment and began to toss the metal parts, which kept the other woman half-buried, aside.
The woman, who had her eyes only half open looked up to Kitty, who was entirely focused on her decision.
“What… are you… doing?” she said almost inaudible. Pain and exhaustion from the fall had made her very weak.
“I’m trying to save you. Isn’t that obvious?”
“B-but…” the other woman began slowly, right before she had to cough out loudly. As soon as she calmed down a bit, she continued. “We’re both from opposing sides…”

“That might be…” Kitty said as she pushed a larger metal plate aside. “However… if it would be just that… Why didn’t you call for reinforcements? Why didn’t you ambush me in the facility? You had so many choices, so why did you keep it fair?”

“Because… Because we’re alike…”

Kitty took a moment to take a deep breath, since on metal piece was much heavier than it seemed at the first place. After that, she kneed down and looked at the other woman with a smirking expression.
“If we’re alike, why wouldn’t I try to save you then? You gave me a chance and by my street rules, you return a favor as early as possible, because-“

“Because you never know… if you see them again…” the other woman replied with a sad smile.
As Kitty was just about to get up again and focus back on the next metal part, the other woman considered her choices… Silently cursing herself for her ignorance and stupidity to question her opponent, she said “If you can… free my right arm. I have an escape tool on me, but I need my right arm for it.”

Kitty quickly nodded in response and did as told.
As time kept running short, Kitty stopped tossing the metal parts away and simply tried to pry open enough space for the other woman to do what she wanted.
Trying her best to keep the small gap open, Kitty asked under exhaustion “Is it… enough?”
“Yeah…” the other woman replied. “Just have to get this… damn sword… out of the way…”
To the relief of both women, her right arm was miraculously unharmed. With little effort, the woman grabbed after the sheath of one of her swords and tossed it forward.
Finally, she was able to reach into the back pockets of her pants and pulled out a small square-shaped piece of paper. From Kitty’s point of view, it seemed at first hardly worth the effort, but when the other woman smacked the piece of paper into a stain of her own blood, a warm, white-blue light began to emit from the piece of paper.

As the spell began to build up, the woman signaled Kitty that she could let go of the metal parts, who was more than happy to do so. As the light began to shine brighter, slowly coating her body, the woman looked up at Kitty and smiled warmly.
“Thank you very much for saving my life... This recall spell… will take me back to my… superior’s side, who should be able to patch me up…”
“W-wait! What about your sword? It’s not glowing!” Kitty responded in a surprised reaction.
The other woman however simply shook her head.
“Take it as rightful price… and sign of gratitude… And next time we meet, we’ll have a real fight, fair and square, okay?”

Kitty was actually overwhelmed with mixed feelings. On one hand, she was sure to miss her, simply because she felt so many similarities between them. On the other hand, dark thoughts were still gnawing on her mind to let an enemy go.
In the end, Kitty simply nodded with a smile and agreed to it.
Just as the other woman was to fade away, she said one final thing.
“There’s a hatch at the end of the rail… top-left side… Good luck to you… Ehm… What’s your name?”
Kitty chuckled for a brief moment, not knowing, if this was a small attempt to get a bit of information out of this or just a question, the impact she didn’t entirely think through.
“This stray kitten doesn’t have a name…yet.”
“Heh… Well… this white rat has one… Until next time…”

And with that said, the woman, Kitty would only know as “White Rat” disappeared in a glimmer of a faint blue light.
It definitely was one of the most remarkable encounters, but already, her sixth sense warned her to get too comfortable.

As Kitty picked up the sword of White Rat, she saw the hatch coming close and as soon as she got away from the rail, Kitty found herself lost in a huge junkyard.
As she prepared herself to leave, Kitty checked, if the Black Scissors were still in place and if the glasses were still recording, especially since she wondered, if there was a way to erase the event on the railway.
Seeing how the recording was actually turned off, Kitty couldn’t suppress a laugh. It might have been an accident, but it helped her greatly.

As soon as she calmed down, she activated the record function again and said in a serious and focused tone.
“I apologize for the interruption of the recording. I don’t know when it cut off, but I successfully left the city and will now head back, along with the Black Scissors and…”
Kitty halted for a moment, as she made sure to record every last bit of the sword.
“…an additional price from a small fight…”

-----------------------------------------------------

From the point on, when Kitty had left the junkyard, she actually wondered, where she was.
Had this really been the West?
Surely, the buildings still looked like what could be expected from the West, except they were old, decrypted and only vaguely reminded of the former glory they once held.
To make it worse, the scenery of ruins seemed to continue on to the horizon endlessly.
Torn streets, crumbling buildings and no signs of life, as far as the eye could see…
And that scenery continued for hours, as Kitty tried to follow one route, hoping that her orientation didn’t deceive her.

After the first kilometers, Kitty’s body had reminded her of some very crucial necessities, she has neglected for a long while now:
Food, Water and Sleep

Thinking back, it actually surprised herself, for how long she had been absent on the primal things in life.
For the past forty-eight hours, she had demanded everything from her body and hadn’t given anything back yet and now, that it was her first moment of peace and silence, her body demanded heavily to be repaid for all the efforts.

She didn’t want to give in at first, but considering how much time she had left to return to the East and how much it would slow her down, if she wouldn’t take a break now, she decided to look for a place to rest now…
Kitty felt no threat around her and backed up by her sixth sense, she considered that this was probably the best time she could get overall. This… “dead zone” would probably not last forever and once the area would become more civilized, she would have to face more enemies for sure…

In the end, Kitty considered this to be her only chance of rest for a long while, so she decided to enjoy it as good as possible… well, and as good as the environment allowed it.

A few minutes later, Kitty stumbled upon something, which looked like a super market.
Her growing fatigue and a growling stomach suggested… or rather demanded that this would probably be the best place she could find.
Giving in, Kitty headed into the ruins of the old super market and looked for all necessities.

After several minutes of search, Kitty looked at the bounty, she was able to gather:
Two still air-sealed cans of food, which only expired a year ago, a still dripping source of now old and muddy water and about a four foot-long piece of something, a banner or a flag perhaps

For someone, who was used to a normal and wealthy life, this would probably have been disastrous, but for Kitty, who was still used to such conditions, this was an amazing find.
Sure, her stomach would probably turn after eating long expired food and drinking muddy water, but she hoped that her body could still remember the “old times”, when something like this was her standards.

After cracking open the cans of food, she enjoyed her meal, before she folded the cloth into a pillow for her head to rest on.
The only thing she remembered, before falling asleep, was to turn off the recording function.
But after that, there was nothing stopping her from falling into a deep sleep right away.

-----------------------------------

A rat was quickly moving through the remains of what had been a bench long time ago, on the search for what was very rare in this area: food

Raising her nose, the rat tried to catch the direction of the wind. Maybe the scent of something edible was waiting for it in the air?

There indeed was a scent, small and even with her developed smell, hardly to take up, but it certainly was a trail.
As the rat didn’t want to waste a single moment, she headed off her current position, towards the trail, she has caught up on.

The rat wasn’t even able to make a single meter, until a dark, moving mass grabbed after it. First forming spikes, the mass impaled the rat and hold it in place.
And one moment later, the spike retracted back into the mass and made room for a hungry mouth, taking its defenseless prey in one bite.

As the still chewing mouth, along with the rest of the dark mass, returned to its main body, Kerberos turned his head into the same direction, the rat wanted to head.

There was a frail scent, but it was unmistakable… There was a healthy, still breathing human in this area and she was only one or two kilometers away.

Kerberos began to move towards the direction, as one single word, escaped from the mouth, which just had devoured the rat, before it got swallowed up back into the black, humanoid-shaped mass, which was known as the best hunter in the entirety of the West.

“Thiiiiieeeeeeefffff…”

Description
It wasn’t her vision that returned first, nor her sense for smelling or her hearing.
No, the first feeling, Kitty got after slowly coming back to her senses, was heat, horrible and inhuman heat.
But even then, Kitty simply wanted to keep lying on the ground. Exhaustion and fatigue were extremely strong in her, demanding Kitty to forget the heat again and simply fall asleep again.
In her mind, she felt as if she was lying on a bench in the “Green Spot”, Blutkuss’ apartment and simply enjoyed the early afternoon sun.

Finally, when her other senses caught up with her, Kitty’s mental image changed and became distorted.
As her sense for smelling caught up, she smelled the stench of rusted metal and fire of great intensity.
As her sense for hearing caught up, she heard the hissing of something melting away and bubbling noises coming ever so closer, as well as the creaking and screeching sound of gears, moving something big and heavy.
And finally, as Kitty’s curiosity motivated her to open her eyes again, she looked around for a second, taking in the surroundings, until the images arrived in her brain, causing her instantly to unleash every last bit of adrenaline.

She remembered it. She remembered everything.
She and another woman were about to get into a heated battle as the second daughter, whose name was seemingly Charybdis, interfered and caused the bridge, both were standing on, to collapse and fall onto a rail, which was transporting old and unused, rusted metal.
And as Kitty had expected, the rail was heading towards an incinerator, which would melt down everything on the rail, before machines would try to refine the molten mass of metal.

Kitty pressed her hands on to the ground, on which she slipped away, causing her head to hit the ground of the bridge. It hurt and the following dizziness was far more overwhelming than anything she had ever felt before.
With a slightly blurred vision, Kitty tried to blink it away, until it got at least good enough for her to see on what she had slipped.
It was red… partly liquid, but apparently dried down to a crusty, almost brown stain on the ground.
What that… blood?

Touching her own body everywhere, Kitty seemingly looked for a wound, hoping that her search would remain without success. Sighing in relief as she finished checking her legs, Kitty tried to get up once more, at least trying to sit down, so she would get a better angle on the surroundings.
Sitting down, while leaning to an undamaged part of the rail, Kitty looked around and inspected the environment.

She had been right. She was somewhere on a junkyard and luckily, as her eyes glazed over the heavy and dark skies, outside. Now she spent a moment to check where she was being transported. And as expected, the rail seemed to end somewhere in the air, as a bright, searing red color emitted from the ground.
It was hard to judge from her current position, but Kitty guessed that she had about a minute left, before she would fall to her death… In her mind, hopefully enough time to avoid the probably most painful and also most laughable death through her entire mission.

As her eyes continued to wander around, hoping to see something to save her, Kitty sixth sense rang in her mind, making her remember something, which she had entirely forgotten so far:

She was not alone on the rail.

Circling around, she looked back and saw her chaser, still lying on the ground. From the sounds of heavy breathing and coughing, she was already awake.
Kitty eyes widened in shock as her eyes focused on the entire scenery. The blood on the ground hadn’t been hers, because it had belonged to the other woman.
Several metal pieces seemed to be stuck in her body. That’s at least what Kitty assumed, considering the fact that trails of blood were flowing out of the heap of metal, which had buried the other woman’s lower half.
Groaning in pain, Kitty’s mind was in shambles. On one hand, her first reaction was to help her, safe her from the imminent death. On the other hand, would it really be wise to help someone from the West, the sworn enemy of the faction, she wanted to join?

Kitty was entirely clueless. Should she do what she would normally do or should she do what Kaze Mizuki would expect from her?

…

“I hate to take down someone, I would probably have loved to call ‘sister’ on the streets…”
In the end, it was her sixth sense, which reminded her of the most important thing.
The birthplace didn’t matter… The faction didn’t matter… In the end, both of them were alike: Two former homeless women, who did nothing more than to fight for their place in the world.

Kitty tried to get over to her as quickly as possible, stumbling on a few metal plates or screws, which were lying on the ground. Finally, as she reached her, Kitty didn’t waste another moment and began to toss the metal parts, which kept the other woman half-buried, aside.
The woman, who had her eyes only half open looked up to Kitty, who was entirely focused on her decision.
“What… are you… doing?” she said almost inaudible. Pain and exhaustion from the fall had made her very weak.
“I’m trying to save you. Isn’t that obvious?”
“B-but…” the other woman began slowly, right before she had to cough out loudly. As soon as she calmed down a bit, she continued. “We’re both from opposing sides…”

“That might be…” Kitty said as she pushed a larger metal plate aside. “However… if it would be just that… Why didn’t you call for reinforcements? Why didn’t you ambush me in the facility? You had so many choices, so why did you keep it fair?”

“Because… Because we’re alike…”

Kitty took a moment to take a deep breath, since on metal piece was much heavier than it seemed at the first place. After that, she kneed down and looked at the other woman with a smirking expression.
“If we’re alike, why wouldn’t I try to save you then? You gave me a chance and by my street rules, you return a favor as early as possible, because-“

“Because you never know… if you see them again…” the other woman replied with a sad smile.
As Kitty was just about to get up again and focus back on the next metal part, the other woman considered her choices… Silently cursing herself for her ignorance and stupidity to question her opponent, she said “If you can… free my right arm. I have an escape tool on me, but I need my right arm for it.”

Kitty quickly nodded in response and did as told.
As time kept running short, Kitty stopped tossing the metal parts away and simply tried to pry open enough space for the other woman to do what she wanted.
Trying her best to keep the small gap open, Kitty asked under exhaustion “Is it… enough?”
“Yeah…” the other woman replied. “Just have to get this… damn sword… out of the way…”
To the relief of both women, her right arm was miraculously unharmed. With little effort, the woman grabbed after the sheath of one of her swords and tossed it forward.
Finally, she was able to reach into the back pockets of her pants and pulled out a small square-shaped piece of paper. From Kitty’s point of view, it seemed at first hardly worth the effort, but when the other woman smacked the piece of paper into a stain of her own blood, a warm, white-blue light began to emit from the piece of paper.

As the spell began to build up, the woman signaled Kitty that she could let go of the metal parts, who was more than happy to do so. As the light began to shine brighter, slowly coating her body, the woman looked up at Kitty and smiled warmly.
“Thank you very much for saving my life... This recall spell… will take me back to my… superior’s side, who should be able to patch me up…”
“W-wait! What about your sword? It’s not glowing!” Kitty responded in a surprised reaction.
The other woman however simply shook her head.
“Take it as rightful price… and sign of gratitude… And next time we meet, we’ll have a real fight, fair and square, okay?”

Kitty was actually overwhelmed with mixed feelings. On one hand, she was sure to miss her, simply because she felt so many similarities between them. On the other hand, dark thoughts were still gnawing on her mind to let an enemy go.
In the end, Kitty simply nodded with a smile and agreed to it.
Just as the other woman was to fade away, she said one final thing.
“There’s a hatch at the end of the rail… top-left side… Good luck to you… Ehm… What’s your name?”
Kitty chuckled for a brief moment, not knowing, if this was a small attempt to get a bit of information out of this or just a question, the impact she didn’t entirely think through.
“This stray kitten doesn’t have a name…yet.”
“Heh… Well… this white rat has one… Until next time…”

And with that said, the woman, Kitty would only know as “White Rat” disappeared in a glimmer of a faint blue light.
It definitely was one of the most remarkable encounters, but already, her sixth sense warned her to get too comfortable.

As Kitty picked up the sword of White Rat, she saw the hatch coming close and as soon as she got away from the rail, Kitty found herself lost in a huge junkyard.
As she prepared herself to leave, Kitty checked, if the Black Scissors were still in place and if the glasses were still recording, especially since she wondered, if there was a way to erase the event on the railway.
Seeing how the recording was actually turned off, Kitty couldn’t suppress a laugh. It might have been an accident, but it helped her greatly.

As soon as she calmed down, she activated the record function again and said in a serious and focused tone.
“I apologize for the interruption of the recording. I don’t know when it cut off, but I successfully left the city and will now head back, along with the Black Scissors and…”
Kitty halted for a moment, as she made sure to record every last bit of the sword.
“…an additional price from a small fight…”

-----------------------------------------------------

From the point on, when Kitty had left the junkyard, she actually wondered, where she was.
Had this really been the West?
Surely, the buildings still looked like what could be expected from the West, except they were old, decrypted and only vaguely reminded of the former glory they once held.
To make it worse, the scenery of ruins seemed to continue on to the horizon endlessly.
Torn streets, crumbling buildings and no signs of life, as far as the eye could see…
And that scenery continued for hours, as Kitty tried to follow one route, hoping that her orientation didn’t deceive her.

After the first kilometers, Kitty’s body had reminded her of some very crucial necessities, she has neglected for a long while now:
Food, Water and Sleep

Thinking back, it actually surprised herself, for how long she had been absent on the primal things in life.
For the past forty-eight hours, she had demanded everything from her body and hadn’t given anything back yet and now, that it was her first moment of peace and silence, her body demanded heavily to be repaid for all the efforts.

She didn’t want to give in at first, but considering how much time she had left to return to the East and how much it would slow her down, if she wouldn’t take a break now, she decided to look for a place to rest now…
Kitty felt no threat around her and backed up by her sixth sense, she considered that this was probably the best time she could get overall. This… “dead zone” would probably not last forever and once the area would become more civilized, she would have to face more enemies for sure…

In the end, Kitty considered this to be her only chance of rest for a long while, so she decided to enjoy it as good as possible… well, and as good as the environment allowed it.

A few minutes later, Kitty stumbled upon something, which looked like a super market.
Her growing fatigue and a growling stomach suggested… or rather demanded that this would probably be the best place she could find.
Giving in, Kitty headed into the ruins of the old super market and looked for all necessities.

After several minutes of search, Kitty looked at the bounty, she was able to gather:
Two still air-sealed cans of food, which only expired a year ago, a still dripping source of now old and muddy water and about a four foot-long piece of something, a banner or a flag perhaps

For someone, who was used to a normal and wealthy life, this would probably have been disastrous, but for Kitty, who was still used to such conditions, this was an amazing find.
Sure, her stomach would probably turn after eating long expired food and drinking muddy water, but she hoped that her body could still remember the “old times”, when something like this was her standards.

After cracking open the cans of food, she enjoyed her meal, before she folded the cloth into a pillow for her head to rest on.
The only thing she remembered, before falling asleep, was to turn off the recording function.
But after that, there was nothing stopping her from falling into a deep sleep right away.

-----------------------------------

A rat was quickly moving through the remains of what had been a bench long time ago, on the search for what was very rare in this area: food

Raising her nose, the rat tried to catch the direction of the wind. Maybe the scent of something edible was waiting for it in the air?

There indeed was a scent, small and even with her developed smell, hardly to take up, but it certainly was a trail.
As the rat didn’t want to waste a single moment, she headed off her current position, towards the trail, she has caught up on.

The rat wasn’t even able to make a single meter, until a dark, moving mass grabbed after it. First forming spikes, the mass impaled the rat and hold it in place.
And one moment later, the spike retracted back into the mass and made room for a hungry mouth, taking its defenseless prey in one bite.

As the still chewing mouth, along with the rest of the dark mass, returned to its main body, Kerberos turned his head into the same direction, the rat wanted to head.

There was a frail scent, but it was unmistakable… There was a healthy, still breathing human in this area and she was only one or two kilometers away.

Kerberos began to move towards the direction, as one single word, escaped from the mouth, which just had devoured the rat, before it got swallowed up back into the black, humanoid-shaped mass, which was known as the best hunter in the entirety of the West.

“Thiiiiieeeeeeefffff…”