Mulan: A Parody-Chp8

CHAPTER 8 – ENCOUNTER WITH THE ENEMIES

Rukawa’s troops were trudging down the snowy mountains and were moving slowly up north towards Rukawa’s aunt base camp so that they can later be led into the Primal City where they’ll report to the Queen Ayako and protect the city alongside with Rukawa’s aunt. A huge cart draped with a cloth bearing the sign of the Amazon Island symbol was pulled by Oukutsu led by Sakuragi Minako—formerly known as Sakuragi Hanamichi—because his blonde mane stallion was the strongest and the largest of all. Besides, it has always been Sakuragi to manage the chores and the menial tasks and this was one of them. In the cart was filled with cannons and explosives that will be used during the war later if they were to fight.

No one said a word throughout the journey. It wasn’t only because they were still quite shaken up by the blood-filled village of Dyna, but also because they didn’t want their presence to be known by the enemy. Rukawa had warned that since the enemy has passed by this village, there would be a likely chance for them to be hiding out in the snowy mountains, waiting to attack their next victims. They tried to keep their breathing level and low as they trudged on further and further towards the north. Mists came out of their mouths and their bodies began to shiver. Even the thick war armour they were wearing couldn’t keep out the biting cold. Sakuragi also felt the chill and shivered. Back at home, winter was never as cold as this, and he always had fire nearby.

Suddenly, one of the cannons in the cart flew out with a loud whiz and exploded in the midair. Everyone was shocked out of their wits—who wouldn’t if the pressurizing silence was suddenly broken in the middle of nowhere? Sakuragi turned and glared annoyingly at Mido and Noma who were hiding out inside the cart. Their fingers immediately pointed at Takamiya the mini cat who was eating a piece of flambé. Obviously, our food jinn here has made flambé in the middle of the explosives and the fire triggered one of the cannons, sending it flying out into the horizon.

“What was that about?” Rukawa’s cold voice rang into Sakuragi’s ear. Mido and Noma quickly went into hiding. “What just happened?”

“I, uh, I dunno,” Sakuragi tried to laugh the matter away. “It just flew off like that, he he he he~”

“Did you know you just gave away our position?!” Rukawa bore his cold blue eyes deep into his copper-brown ones accusingly. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

“Nande!” Sakuragi’s hot temper got the better of him. “You are always thinking that I’m everything’s fault! Why can’t you just for once…”

Their squabbles were cut short when an arrow was shot towards their direction. Rukawa had only barely been skinned by the sharp tip of the arrow. The next they knew was that they were being showered by hundreds and hundreds of shooting arrows, and this time they were burning hot with fire. Rukawa called everyone to scatter for lower grounds. One of the fiery arrows shot into the cart of explosives and immediately caught fire. Rukawa ordered for the explosives to be taken out of the crate as much as they can. The girls who have been running helter-skelter trying to scatter around doubled back and formed a human chain, taking out as much explosives and cannons as they can.

Sakuragi, after seeing that enough saving explosives is enough, took out his sword and slashed the straps that held the cart to Oukutsu and rode off before the cart exploded. In the confusion, Sakuragi has forgotten about Mido and Noma who were still inside the cart. They were both shot out of the cart as it exploded and landed face first onto the snow. Mido looked up and glared at Sakuragi grudgingly with his bronze eyes.

“Oh, right, sure! Save the horse but save not your guardian!”

“Well, serves you right for not being able to control your own little helper Takamiya!” Sakuragi yelled before scooping up the cat and the bird and rode the stallion towards a safe spot with the rest of the troops.

Showers of fiery arrows and shots of cannons go back and forth between the enemy and Rukawa’s troop. When they thought that this back and forth attacks were not going to end, the enemy suddenly ceased fire. Rukawa stopped Haroko from firing the last cannon and waited for any reaction from the other party. Soon they heard a distant rumbling from the top of one of the mountains. They turned to that direction and saw that there was a whole army on horses staring down at them from above. It was the Shirogane Clan, no doubt. The leader of the team was a tall, big-sized guy with thick lips who looked almost like the Gori, only that he was much more savage and has brownish-red hair and lighter skin than the Gori. Behind him were a whole bunch of men wearing suits of armour and looked really tough indeed.

“Oh, look, Uozumi,” one of the soldiers with tall, standing hair said with flourish to the leader called Uozumi. “We have a redhead among the enemies. She is so cute! Can I keep her?”

“Hah! We’re here to keep all of those girls, Sendoh!” another man with wild-looking hair chided in naughtily. “But I’m definitely keeping the redhead.”

“Enough games, men! We’re here on a war, not on a joyride!” Uozumi hollered. “CHARGE~!!!”

Sure enough, the Shirogane Clan let out a long holler in unison before riding their horse closer and closer towards the lower ground and incoming towards Rukawa’s troop. Rukawa called everyone to retreat and scatter again to even lower ground. Everyone did as they were told. Then Rukawa told Haroko who had the last cannon with her to aim at Uozumi before firing. Haroko did as she was told. As she waited for the leader of the Shirogane team to get closer enough, her hand was trembling as she brought the match close to the string. She was obviously nervous as she was actually going to attack the leader and not the men.

Sakuragi looked around. He was sure that hitting the leader is not going to do them any good. That Uozumi character is way too tall and big to be harmed by a mere cannon. His copper-brown eyes searched the area to see if he could destroy all the enemies instead of just one. First he looked at the cannon, then the tallest mountain just right behind the Shirogane Clan. He smirked as an idea came to his head.

With a swipe, Sakuragi grabbed the cannon and ran all the way towards the incoming Shirogane Clan, ignoring the frantic calls of his three girlfriends and his kitsune Rukawa. Mido leapt onto Sakuragi’s back trying to stop him from doing anything stupid. He kept running and running until he was about 3 feet away from the enemy. He stuck the cannon into the snow and aimed it at the mountain behind the clan. Uozumi and his few trusted men stopped charging and slowed down but the other men continued to charge past their leader. Quickly, Sakuragi grabbed Mido’s paw and touched the claw onto the string and lit the cannon. The guy whose name is Sendoh quickly swiped Sakuragi from the waist and threw him onto his stallion.

“Hah! I beat you, Kyota! She’s mine!” Sendoh said naughtily at the wild-haired man as he forced Sakuragi’s hands to hug his waist with a smile on his face.

“No way! I saw her first before you said anything about her!” Kyota growled as he tugged Sakuragi’s armour and brought him onto his stallion. The rest of the men, namely Fujima, Maki, Koshino, Hanagata and some other lust-filled guys came over and fought for Sakuragi too, pulling him back and forth onto each of the stallions.

“She’s mine!”

“No way! She’s mine!”

“No, mine!”

“I saw her first!”

“I dreamt about her last night! I get her first!”

Uozumi sweatdropped as the men fought over Sakuragi like a pack of wolves fighting for a piece of meat. He barged through the fighting crowd and grabbed Sakuragi and placed onto his lap. All his trusted men stared and gaped in awe when Uozumi said authoritatively, “She’s mine.”

At the same time, the cannon exploded and sent it flying towards the high mountain. It hit the top and Rukawa’s troop, including Mido, groaned. “He had the cannon so close!” Mido grumbled to himself as he hid under the snow out of sight. “What is he doing?!” Uozumi laughed menacingly at upon seeing this and looked at Sakuragi devilishly, “Is that your master plan, woman? Hit the mountain so that you can scare us?”

“Guess again!” Sakuragi grinned as he pointed towards the mountain.

The tables had actually turned as the blast from the cannon caused a serious avalanche. Tones and tones of snow came sliding off the mountain and rolling their way. Uozumi stared wide-eyed at it before throwing Sakuragi angrily to the snowy ground. Sakuragi let out a victorious laugh and was about to get up to escape when Uozumi took out his sword and slashed Sakuragi’s waist. Sakuragi let out a groan and the men let out protests—how could their leader hurt their dream girl?

But there was no time for stopping. Holding his slashed waist, he quickly made a dash for it. The 15-feet wave-sized avalanche came zooming down towards the Shirogane Clan and covered them one by one. Rukawa’s troop took tot heir heels and ran for cover. They dashed under tall rocks and hid behind them, using them as shields as the snow rumbled down, covering more and more ground and taking more and more of the Shirogane Clan members with it. Sakuragi searched frantically for Oukustu and it turned out the stallion was searching frantically for him. Mido was surfing on one of the Shirogane’s helmet also searching frantically for him, but ended up finding Noma the mynah instead.

As Sakuragi rode Oukutsu, he caught sight of Rukawa almost being swallowed up by the avalanche. He yelled “Kitsune!!” and held out his hand to him. Rukawa saw him and grabbed hold of the hand. Sakuragi, with his never ending strength, pulled him up onto Oukutsu and quickly rode off, racing with the gaining avalanche. He even caught sight of Mido and pulled him too up onto Oukutsu. Unfortunately, the avalanche was faster and soon caught them, bringing them down with it as it rolled down closer and closer towards the cliff.

Sakuragi’s girlfriends, who were hiding behind the tall rocks, quickly went into action. Haroko took an arrow and tied the end to a rope. She called Fujii and Yuki to carry her up to see where their friend and their captain were falling.

“Do you see them, Haroko?” Fujii asked as she climbed onto Yuki’s shoulders and placed Haroko on hers.

“Yeah, I see them!” Haroko hollered back as she saw Sakuragi and his horse sliding by. “I’m shooting it now!”

She did shoot the arrow successfully towards them, but failed to grab the rope just in time. The rope just flew down and down, following the falling Sakuragi. Sakuragi saw the arrow and grabbed it, and as he fell, he shot the arrow back up, hoping someone would catch it. And talk about dumb luck; while Haroko whined and wailed about unable to save her best friend, the arrow just fell into her open palms and was almost dragged down to the cliff as the weight pulled her down. Everyone jumped on her and pulled. With the combined strength and teamwork, they pulled and pulled until they could see Sakuragi and his horse with Rukawa on it. Quickly, they dragged him back up the hill they were standing on.

As soon as they were back up in safety, the first thing Rukawa did was seize Sakuragi by the sleeve and growled, “You do’aho! You’re the zaniest, craziest, silliest, most suicidal woman I have ever seen in my entire life!”

Sakuragi pouted. All this and yet he was showering angry words at him? That wasn’t fair!
Unexpectedly, Rukawa’s eyes softened and said lowly, “For that I owe you my life. Arigatogozaimas, Minako.”

Sakuragi smiled as he heard the words come out of Rukawa’s mouth. He finally said something good about him in public. Without warning, he seized Rukawa and hugged him tight out of his overwhelmed feelings. He only let go when everyone let out a long ‘Ooh’ at them, blushing like heck. He thought Rukawa was blushing too but he didn’t dare to look at him in the eye.

“Three cheers for Sakuragi Minako, the bravest soldier of the Amazon Island!” Haroko cheered, and the rest followed, including the evil threesome who first bullied him. They gave Sakuragi a clap in the back and congratulated him for his courageous feat.

Suddenly, Sakuragi felt a painful sting on his side. He then remembered that Uozumi had slashed his waist when he found out that Sakuragi had blasted the mountain and caused the avalanche. He groaned and clutched his waist. Rukawa was the first to tend to him. When Sakuragi opened his hand, he saw blood covering it and was seeping out of his armour. He remembered something about Mido saying not to shed blood but his mind was going drowsy and his head was going woozy. He couldn’t hold on much longer. He was fading slowly away into unconsciousness.

“Hold on, Minako. Hold on…” Rukawa’s words were the last thing he heard.