Hana hit the ground and bounced off it. In the next instant she rolled and was back on her ‘feet’, the ribbons around her legs extending her height yet again. Hajime landed, spear first, onto the location Hana was moments ago. The jungle foliage severed by Hajime’s wild spear flailing rained down around him like cheap confetti. His weapon wasn’t really designed to cut wood but Hana’s considerable weight made the trees she perched on fragile enough to shatter with a well aimed thrust. There was no time to gloat about his superior tactics, though! A sweeping claw Hana flung out in response whipped at the boy as he regained his own bearings and moved to defend. It wasn’t even clear if Hajime’s spear would have done any damage to the girl’s armor anyway, but after all that transpired so far, Hana wasn’t taking any chances.

From a distance away Ringo couldn’t help herself but to holler out to her teammate through heaving gasps. “You’re really late, sir! Didn’t you get my message?”

Keeping the spear leveled at Hana as he sidestepped her long distance attack, Hajime couldn’t really give the proper context to his response, so he yelled out his excuse instead. “I was giving a hand to some injured dudes I came across! Just relax!”

“You don’t even have a hand to spare!”

“That’s- oh, I get it.” Hajime’s shoulders shrugged a bit. Hana took notice immediately as well. In their last encounter she had liberated one of his arms from the rest of his body. That crippling blow left the current Hajime with only one arm with which to hold his spear. The other side of his body was heavily bandaged, with the loose arm tied tight against his torso to keep it from flopping around. The boy was even less prepared for a fight than the last time. It had taken an enormous amount of pleading on his part to even be allowed to attend the jungle expedition- but boy, had it been worth it!

“That armor’s pretty thick, huh?” Despite the significant imbalance of power Hajime still wore a smile. “And you move pretty quickly in it too. Are you compensating for something? Why don’t you come out of there and fight me one on one, huh? I mean, one on a half. I’ve got a bit of a handicap here.”

Hana remained silent, instead choosing to rise up to her full ‘height’ provided to her through the ribbon armor extensions. Now she properly towered over the teenage Hajime. In the forest fog one could even mistake Hana for some kind of mythical beast. All that was missing was a pair of horns and maybe some animal pelts, or a bandolier of skulls, or something equally as monstrous. That really got Hajime’s blood pumping! What kid didn’t want to face down a boogeyman? Monster hunting was the sport of kings!

Oh, but, this was actually quite a serious situation, so he couldn’t let himself get lost in the emotional haze of it all. It had been an ordeal just to get General Gou to agree to let him join the hunting party, and by the time he left Camp Monog Ringo had already set off with her own squad. Yet despite his furious attempts to catch up to his teammate, Hajime felt at the top of his game! Or maybe that was the medical drugs still surging through his system. Eh, small details either way. What mattered most is what they would write in the history books when he took down this demon!

Hana lunged again with the intention to simply physically overwhelm the boy. Hajime tracked the movement and shifted his spear accordingly, lining it up to intercept her path. The girl’s ribbons boosted her agility significantly so there was no point in trying to outspeed her. The pointed tip of his spear hit the white cloth around Hana and...didn’t do anything. It sank in maybe just a hair’s length before stopping entirely, like Hajime was stabbing a rock. His weapon was as mundane as it got, actually, and similar plain weapons littered the jungle floor. Nobody, not a single Annitou soul, had pierced the girl’s ribbons. Hana didn’t even bother trying to evade his thrust. He was somehow even less threatening than Ringo.

Hana’s intense advance couldn’t be halted. She was close enough to swing with her claws again and did so the moment Hajime came into range. The razor sharp appendage whipped out in front of her like the tongue shooting out of a frog. The boy wore no armor and even his Annitou uniform looked less like the field fatigues worn by the others and more like a pair of pajamas. Any attack Hana could land would end the battle in an instant! The boy was far too slow, his weapon far too weak, and now he was just close enough...

Just close enough...

Still just close enough...

The claw swung through open air, close but just an arm’s length away. Her target, somehow, retreated fast enough to avoid it at the last moment. That absurd contradiction led Hana to again take a powerful step forward and push again. She was so close now, how could a second attack fail? Hajime’s legs weren’t even moving, they were locked in place! The boy wasn’t doing anything at all to dodge! Yet somehow the entirely motionless Hajime moved backwards fast enough to again evade Hana’s attack. The boy’s own face seemed quite surprised at the development, as if he hadn’t expected it to play out like that. It only took a short moment for Hana to put together why.

Hajime wasn’t moving himself. The boy kept thrusting his spear to meet Hana’s advance, and the force of her assault was so great that the recoil kept pushing him back out of reach. His attacks had been so ineffectual, so worthless, so completely weak that she hadn’t even felt him doing so, as each time he bounced off her armor none of the force even touched her skin. It didn’t matter how fast she moved or how strong she swung, the spear was keeping them both out of reach from each other, like an adult holding back a child with one arm. What a stupid playground tactic that was! Hajime, likely realizing the same thing at the same moment, pulled back his spear to ensure he could thrust it again. General Gou taught him that trick, mostly as something to do in order to avoid a shark attack if caught out in the open sea, but hey, if it worked it worked!

It wouldn’t work anymore. Hana side swiped with one of her claws and snapped the spearhead she had been previously ignoring off in a single fluid motion. Hajime stumbled back at the sudden release of tension and nearly toppled over as a result. Well, sharks didn’t usually do that, so this time it wasn’t his fault his spear broke. That was a small consolation prize as the boy was now disarmed and even more helpless than before.

With nothing to stop the next attack Hana lashed out immediately. There was little else for Hajime to do but accept there was no out maneuvering the girl. Instead he rose up his good arm in a token effort to defend himself. The razor edged ribbons making up the fingers of the claw raked into his skin and cut deep into the muscle, but provided just enough resistance for him to push against. That momentary force kept Hana’s claw from completely shredding his arm into multiple pieces, and instead sent the appendage slamming into the trunk of a nearby tree. The force of impact was so large it splintered the bark and her ribbons sank in nearly halfway through the thick growth. Numerous trees around the jungle glade bore similar marks- it seemed to be a common strategy of Hana to swing with wild abandon and obliterate whatever vegetation (or flesh and bone) might be in her way.

Hajime grimaced as the pain ripped its way up his arm and he dropped the broken fragment of his spear. He didn’t have any other limbs left to defend with now. Smelling the blood in the water in more ways than one Hana’s feet dug into the soil as she launched forward yet again to send another deadly claw right into the boy’s torso. Kick them while they’re down, no hesitation, no delay. That was the Metsina way.

Instead an unexpected force tugged on the claw. Her assault crashed to a halt as some kind of invisible leash pulled her out of range of the backpedaling Hajime. She nearly tripped over her own long legs but managed to stabilize and get her arm another hard pull. Again, the claw stuck in the tree didn’t budge, and held her back. It became apparent as soon as she whipped her head around to look. Although a plethora of cracks rippled across the trunk of the tree, the whole arm looked to be absolutely fused to the tree and dissipating all the force she put into it.

That never happened- not because it was rare, but because it was impossible. She had absolute control of her ribbons so long as they were connected to her. Any pieces of ribbon that had gotten stuck would have just been ripped out when she tugged on them. Instead it felt like the entire limb was glued in place, running up the entire length of her ‘arm’. Was it a freak accident?

No, of course not. When things couldn’t be explained, it had to be a jutsu. Hana managed to stop herself from tripping entirely by giving up contact with the stuck claw, drawing her arm out like she was pulling it out of a sleeve. The cool jungle air once again surrounded the exposed flesh along her arm. A chance! Hajime’s expression switched from pained to surprised as now he was charging at the distracted Hana. One of his hands hung limp at his side and he held no weapons, yet the boldness of his bumrush immediately gave Hana a deathly chill. No time to think- she just needed to act.

From her crouched position she couldn’t throw out her other claw, and instead twisted at the hip to swung her elongated leg out at the boy. A classic legsweep! As if Gekko and Ringo didn’t try that on him every training session! Hajime smugly leapt over the attack as he closed the gap between himself and Hana. Easy!

This was met by a vicious uppercut delivered by Hana with her bare unarmored arm. The blow sent the boy spiraling away and into the dirt. Turned out, even if Hana had fought Hajime without the armor on, she probably could have kicked his butt anyway. Hajime didn’t even get to headbutt her in a really cool way like he’d planned. All that momentum, gone, in an instant.

His chest heaved as he tried to get air back into his lungs. Complacent! Assuming she wasn’t strong just because she didn’t have the protection of her jutsu was incredibly foolish. Hajime was taking shortcuts, wasn’t that what General Gou always yelled at him for?

Hana slid back and began to reform the armor around her arm she just shed. Hajime wouldn’t have charged in like that without a plan, but what could he do with only one barely functional arm and no weapons? His jutsu. That must have been the answer. Hana needed to understand it a bit more. As Hajime lay coughing off to the side Hana kept her distance and instead drew one of her ribbons closer for examination. Was it touch? Could Hajime freeze or somehow bind things together that made physical contact? No, that couldn’t be right- he would have done that in their previous fight.

After a couple more seconds of analysis, she came to a conclusion. Her experience with the brutality of combat and that entire morning of bloodshed let Hana know when something was out of place. Given a moment to collect her thoughts Hana detected it, that crucial detail that unraveled Hajime’s whole strategy. To anyone else it was an innocuous sight: a dark, veiny stain spread out across the white cloth where Hajime’s blood splattered across it. What made this different from the gallons of similar body fluids covering Hana was that Hajime’s blood didn’t drip. It didn’t look liquid. To confirm she looked back at the boy who was struggling to rise to his feet. Yes, that wound along his arm was the same way! The deep gashes bled openly, but the blood wasn’t soaking his torn sleeve like one would expect. Instead the dark injuries almost seemed to have already clotted over. Glancing down confirmed it. No blood trail followed the boy as he moved backwards. He might not have spilled a drop yet, even.

“It’s your blood, then?” Hana remained stock still while her feet sunk in just a bit deeper into the moist soil. Normally she didn’t talk, but there was good reason to pause here. “You’re trying to get your blood on me, so you can use your jutsu and stop me. That’s an incredibly stupid plan.”

Still wheezing Hajime finally got to his feet. His own legs were shaky but somehow he managed to almost stand to his full height. Using his heavily injured arm he pointed a defiant finger at the once again fully repaired ribbon armor of Hana. “Nope! Totally wrong! Not how my jutsu works! One hundred percent incorrect!”

He needed to stall. Hana had shifted back into caution mode since her own direct approach was looking riskier by the moment. The reverse even held true for Hana- she seemed quite content to hold her ground. Rather than continue the assault she probed for answers. “Tell me why Annitou had put so many soldiers out to capture a few rogue Agents. You clods weren’t bothered before, and now suddenly you mobilize multiple squads? Is your leadership run by chimps?”

While she spoke Hana rubbed the clotted blood with two fingers of her claw and confirmed the stickiness of the liquid. It was in great excess of normally coagulated blood, more than enough to stick to an absorbent material like her ribbons. There was no doubt now the boy would have thrown his body at Hana just to keep her from moving, likely so his teammate could show up and finish the job while Hana was immobilized. Despite the kid having one less arm, Hajime was significantly more dangerous at close range compared to Ringo. What were the odds, running into two liquid-based jutsu on the same day? This must have been how Daisuke felt facing two jutsu that countered him almost perfectly. The feeling was incredibly nauseating. At least Yuu wasn’t here to see it.

“Who said we’re looking for you!” Hajime scoffed, then coughed and sputtered because his lungs hadn’t yet recovered from the painful gut blow Hana delivered moments earlier. “These jungles are Annitou property! We’re taking on all villains who happen to be dwelling here!”

“Hm. Sure.” Hana’s tone clearly wasn’t buying it. She could see it in Hajime’s eyes, too. The boy wanted revenge plain and simple. Annitou was notoriously petty when it came to things like this. Every soldier Hana left alive would be after them again later, like ants swarming a wounded spider. Especially when it came to Agents, leaving living witnesses meant you were opening the door for retaliation down the line. After all, she had spared these two cadets that prior night just to avoid confrontation with the unknown, and now look what had happened. They would need to be put down today or this problem would just keep happening.

“Tell you what, kid.” Hana pointed one of her long fingered claws at the struggling Hajime. “You turn around and run home, and I won’t follow. I’ll even keep your useless partner alive as well.”

Hajime’s previously concentrated expression of pure focus now disappeared, replaced by very visible confusion. “Oh. Huh. Okay. Just like that?” He blinked a few times as if expecting a response. None came, so he dropped his own pointing gesture and glanced around nervously. “I mean, uh, why don’t you just turn around and run home, huh? Look at all the blood around you, any one of those wet spots could be a trap I laid! I have you surrounded!”

Hana took her eyes briefly off the boy to observe her surroundings. Yes, it was true, there were puddles of unsightly dampness anywhere one chose to look. The boy was right. She couldn’t charge forward recklessly. All the gore she spread around the battlefield with her excessive violence made it impossible to know where it was safe to walk. She would approach this from a different angle. “You aren’t in the position to make demands.” Hana flexed her arm as the repaired ribbon armor around it surged back to life, her jutsu hardening the flexible fabric in an instant. “You aren’t even in the position to help your friends. You’ve lost an arm and are fixing to lose the other. I know your entire plan, and-” Hana mirrored Hajime’s glancing, checking all her flanks. “-I don’t see that other girl anywhere, either. All the other Annitou soldiers fled. You should just run. Don’t you have a family to return to?”

That had been the most Hajime ever heard Hana say and he was having a hard time processing it. Technically, yeah, nearly everything she just stated was accurate. But if she believed that, why not just follow up with another attack and end him? Excessive caution? Fear? Hajime didn’t believe for a second (well okay, he kind of did for a little bit) that she wouldn’t have stabbed him in the back the instant he tried running. She could just as easily stab him in the front, though. So what was with the offer?

Or maybe he was just that awesome, that his enemies now recognized his strength! That silly Gekko, always being so pessimistic about Hajime’s skill...look at how much he’d cowed this rampaging Agent into submission! His Daredevil’s Blood wasn’t just a useless utility ability primarily used to keep himself from bleeding out! It was just as powerful and mighty as-

The fog had concealed the truth until it was too late for the internally gloating Hajime to do anything about it. Hana’s entire face was covered by the protective layer of ribbon but he could have sworn he saw her smiling behind that featureless countenance. There was barely any time for his own feet to shift position before a multitude of white-sheathed cloth tore out of the ground like erupting vines. A diversion! This whole spiel had just been Hana trying to delay Hajime- no, it was worse than that. His head whipped backwards towards a possible escape route only to see it spider-webbed with ribbons as well. Turning again he saw the same thing. Down every possible avenue of retreat numerous bladed strips of cloth tore up from the earth and shot straight up into the treetops above. From the trees, from the grass, from the bushes, every path closed off as the white curtain fell across it.

Hajime barely avoided the few that were bursting by his feet, and one caught him by the cheek and tore a nasty gash alongside his face. No matter where he looked more the unfurling ribbons were bursting out, like white ivy vines seeking to strangle out every possible option. Hana cast a huge net, working from the outside inward to avoid detection. The tangled nest of ribbons blocked off his view of everything, and the last thing he managed to pick out of the web was Hana’s talon-like feet, sunk deep into the earth like roots. She planted herself like a tree and the dumb Hajime gave her plenty of time to grow. Now he was stuck in her cage.

Then again it was all a matter of perspective, wasn’t it? As the rigid bars of ribbon shot up and down all around him it took every bit of skill just to not get impaled. To an outside observer it might look pretty bad! Another misstep sent a ribbon slicing into his shoulder, nearly toppling Hajime and sending him careening into another. Eventually there simply was nowhere else to dodge and the boy completely froze, surrounded by a forest of seemingly harmless white cloth. Any movement at all would have cut him up even further.

“What’s that!” Hajime coughed, voice full of a completely dissonant bravado. “Did you run out of toilet paper? Can’t finish the job?”

Thankfully the ribbon armor hid Hana’s face, though the unamusement dripping from her was more than evident in her tone. “At least die with dignity. Even your fallen comrades faced their demise with more honor than that.”

“Jokes on you, I don’t have any dignity!” Hajime’s head twisted just a bit, but even that tiny motion rubbed up against one of Hana’s ribbons and cut the skin along his scalp. “But I do have...this!” The ribbon cage around him bent and wiggled as he suddenly shifted his posture, revealing something held in his heavily injured hand. The mist, combined the vision obscuring ribbons, hid the object's exact nature but from what she could see it was some kind of...orb? A grenade? Howling a battlecry that was one part pain and one part fighting spirit Hajime committed to the task and flung his arm up. Doing so sent a cascade of sharpened ribbons into his flesh, sending even more blood splattering around him. The baseball sized orb shot up as he released it and bounced off one of Hana’s ribbons, ricocheting off unpredictably in her general direction.

Dumb. Just plain stupid. There was no other word for it. What had the boy intended exactly? To somehow hurl a blood soaked projectile at her and magically bounce it off the veritable curtain of protection she had woven around him? As if mimicking Hana’s disgust the ball lifelessly bounced between a few ribbons before hitting one at a bad angle somewhere up above them and splattering like a spitball on a tree branch. Now that she got a better look at it Hana could tell it was nothing more than a blood soaked bundle of her own strips of cloth. It didn’t even make it halfway between them. It was a total failure.

Hajime, in comparison, was now utterly spent. His last flailing attempt entangled him even further in Hana’s ribbons. The cloth wrapping around his body and face wasn’t protective like Hana’s armor, oh no. Rather the straight edges of the ribbons felt more like barbed wire digging into his skin with every breath he took. The cage collapsed around him like a falling house of cards and within seconds he couldn’t even think about inhaling without their razor edges pressing farther into his flesh.

To his credit he didn’t cry, though he really, really wanted to.

The fact he was breathing at all gave Hana a bit of surprise. She remained motionless at a distance and let her Weave do the work. Her ribbons were meeting a bit of resistance in dicing up the boy entirely as she coiled them tighter around his body. She guessed that the cadet’s helpless flailing had in fact coated the closest ribbons to him in too much blood, which must have been sticking to his skin and preventing the others from finishing the job. As her net condensed and continued to layer on the pressure though eventually his jutsu would give out. This was a tug of war he couldn’t win.

What a frustratingly long ordeal! Hana let out a long exhale, releasing her focus for just a moment. Even General Daisuke, who she fought only hours before, hadn’t been this much of a pain in the butt to bring down. There was a reason for that of course. Yuu wasn’t here to help. The lack of a partner made everything harder. From beneath the growing tomb of razor ribbons came a tiny voice heavily laden with agony, but also a little bit of annoying resistance. “Last chance to -ugh- give up!”

The unexpected phrase refocused Hana on the task at hand. Squashing this pest for good needed to take top priority. The ribbons wrapping around Hajime drew closer and tighter, and she could feel the resistance slowly giving way. When the last bit of defense fell he would pop like a bloated tick, a sight she had seen many, many times. The ‘sarcophagus’, as her old mentor used to call it. Anyone who knew General Ama knew all the woman’s techniques resulted in copious, unnecessary amounts of gore. Not for fun, but rather to ‘strike fear’ in would-be enemies, Ama had claimed. Any watching Annitou soldiers would no doubt have the last of the worst imaginings realized when Hajime was turned into a pile of gore. Terror was the best weapon an Agent could wield!

And maybe it was just a little bit of fun. Just a tiny amount.

“You -agh- should be afraid!” Somehow Hajime found the strength to continue his ineffectual taunts even when completely encased in Hana’s bindings. “Against -oh, wow, ow- Annitou friendship -jeez that smarts- no enemy can prevail! Your defeat is guaranteed!”

That chipper attitude was really tiring. Was he trying to be a distraction? Hana had been keeping a close eye on her surroundings but the Ringo girl was nowhere to be seen, neither were any other Annitou reinforcements. The fog might have concealed much of the jungle but from this distance what could any of them do? Still, an ounce of prevention was necessary at all times. She turned her head to repeat the motions of before, looking to check her flanks for anyone sneaking up.

The skin along her neck began to crawl. Literally, in fact, as the normally flexible cloth failed to give way and abrasively resisted the motion of her head. She was only able to turn a few inches before her armor simply refused to budge any further. Why was her neck stiff? She tried to turn her head back, but her cloth helmet didn’t move with her. Something was keeping it locked in place.

No. No, it couldn’t be.

Hana instinctively raised one of her clawed hands to her face to claw off the rigid bandages, but the exact same chain of events repeated itself. She could only bend the ribbon armor a little bit before some elastic force prevented further movement, like her arm had been encased in concrete. General Ama, as one of her horrifying lessons, had once put Hana in bindings so she could learn the best way to tie up people with her Weave. Those memories came back now along with the terrible helpless, powerless feelings of her younger self when placed in a similar situation. Something was preventing her from moving! Immediately she ruled out the blood jutsu of Hajime. He hadn’t come anywhere close to her. She wasn’t standing in a puddle of him either. This exact spot was as clean as it got, which was why she had been so comfortable standing there and casting her net around the boy.

The entire reason she had put this much distance between them was so her absorbent ribbons wouldn’t have gotten contaminated, either. The boy’s blood was nowhere near her! She strained her head, painfully forcing it to look down at her now frozen arms, not sure what she was expecting to see. What she did see was heart stopping.

Like little festive polkadots, a multitude of dark red splotches ran all along her armor. There was more red than white now, and what Hana could see with her frozen head ran all the way up along to her shoulder. The way the blood splotches looked, it was as if Hajime exploded into gore right next to her! There was no doubt now, somehow Hajime’s blood reached her even after she isolated him completely. But how? No, that was the wrong question. The how didn’t matter. Action needed to be taken immediately. Once again the pressing issue presented itself- should she shed her contaminated armor and regenerate it? Or risk being frozen, kill Hajime, and undo his jutsu entirely?

Ringo still lingered somewhere but the worse she could do was shoot a crossbow bolt. Hana could keep herself protected when she shed her armor, now that she knew what to expect. Yes, that had to be the play. It was dangerous to linger too long in one place like this even if the only threats in the area were children. Mere moments after seeing Hajime’s blood on her ribbons Hana unfurled them and let them fall to the ground. The ribbons at her feet that connected her to Hajime were fine so there was no reason to put off killing the boy. She would just get rid of the bloody ribbons, replace them, and all would be well. All would be well.

All would not be well, as Hana learned as she shed the ribbons along her arms. The only reason she realized it was because as her skin became exposed to the air again, she felt a myriad of what felt like tiny raindrops fall upon it. Warm raindrops. Dark raindrops. Coming in from above, from below, from her flanks, from her blind spots. A few of those ‘raindrops’ floated into her vision, perhaps the only time and context in which case a tiny red sphere would ever cause her such distress.

Bubbles.

Blood bubbles.

It was too late to stop now. The armor rebuilding itself around her now touched the blood tainted skin. As the ribbons layered atop Hana it too became laden with the sticky jutsu of Hajime. Ringo must have been close enough to use boy’s dumb bloody bandages as a source for her own jutsu! Annitou loyalty was absolutely insane; given the choice and how outmatched she was, Ringo chose to chase after Hana despite being given a chance to flee. It was unfair! Why were these islander losers so suicidal?

Not only that, but behind Hana floated a minefield of little sticky bubbles filled with the vile fluid. It didn’t matter how many layers Hana shed because the bubbles permeated the air around her. While Hana spent all that time putting Hajime in a cage, Ringo had been setting up one of her own.

The high pitched voice of Ringo roared out from the treetops above. “TWENTY DEGREES NORTH-NORTH WEST! FIRE AT WILL!”

Who was she yelling at? Another Annitou soldier? Ridiculous! Who would have come back to help a few kids against the utter slaughter Hana had brought against them? What kind of insane loyalty was that? This whole situation was absurd!

There was no choice. Hana completely shed her armor and slipped out the back of it like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. It was a last resort ejection maneuver. Her ribbons decorated the jungle, so she could abandon everything on her person and recover later. Humiliating, yes, but a necessary sacrifice...

Except she forgot a critical detail. All those hours in the armor blinded Hana to a devastating fact. As she tried to pull free in a maneuver repeated hundreds of times in her past, the blood soaked into the clothing she wore as well. In all her years of learning the ins and outs of her Weave, Hana always kept herself distinct and separate from her technique. The ribbons weren’t a part of her, they were like everything else in life: a tool to be used and discarded when inconvenient. General Ama, when alive, drilled that core concept into Hana’s approach to battle. So far it served her exceedingly well. Where other Agents might hesitate, Hana could act in an instant with no fear. Everything existed to be used by her. It was that simple.

She only got about halfway before realizing her clothes and even her hair now bound her to that disposable suit of armor. Hajime’s blood tethered to her ribbons, almost like the shredded edges of her armor were a thousand little hands reaching out from the grave to pull Hana in as well. Hana wasn't separate from her technique. Like it or not, now the ribbons were intractably bound to her own self. Now not only was she immobilized, but her body was completely exposed, without even the frozen armor to protect her.

It was at that exact moment that Hana experienced an emotion she thought she had completely conquered long ago. She felt like a child again. In the worst way.

A cannon blast from a distance away boomed through the air. Even before hearing the sound her heart already threatened to burst at the sudden influx of panic. A complete and utter terror swamped her mind as if a dam had finally burst. Not fear of failing a mission, or fear of losing a comrade, or even fear of death. This was the fear of hopelessness. All her ribbons were useless to her now. Hana was completely alone.

In the span of time it took to think a single thought, the soaring cannonball hit its mark. Why wouldn’t it have? Hana couldn’t dodge anymore. The force of the projectile easily lifted her and her armor up in one mighty push. The immense strength blasted Hana and would have obliterated her where she stood, but in a last desperate attempt to free herself Hana cut loose the ribbon roots tying her to the earth. The floating bubbles couldn’t affect the ribbons underground, but it only made a tiny difference. Rather than shattering her like glass, the cannonball dislodged Hana completely from the ground and sent her flying. Her trajectory ended in moments as the girl hit a nearby sturdy tree after her short airborne stint. The impact completely sundered the trunk and reverberated through the ground like a tiny earthquake, and anyone still lingering around the jungle no doubt heard the resounding crack as the tree gave way. Splinters of the bark, thrown high into the air, fell back down like a bizarre rain. The final sound that ended the carnage was the slow creaking of the rest of the tree until it finally toppled sideways with a loud crash.

Then for the first time in what felt like hours, the jungle was silent again.