Gently waited for her victim to regain consciousness. He was laying on the floor with his arms handcuffed at the wrists behind his back. He had blood on his head from where she had struck him with his own cane, but she had made sure he was still alive. He moaned very softly as her foot connected with his stomach, the sound turning into a grunt. The librarian opened his eyes to see the senshi standing over him, and the look of confusion on his face was priceless.

“What… what’s going on?” he said, his voice strained. He tried to move his arms, but quickly learned what she had done. She saw him start to struggle a bit more, now finding his legs were tied together as well. The more he learned about his situation the more she saw his expression fall, his eyes filled with bafflement and, as she had expected, betrayal. “What are you doing?”

“Youma are drawn to humans, like the homeless to a hot meal,” she said in her gruff approximation of an American accent.

“Wh… what?”

She looked down at him, then motioned with her head for him to look down the street. He had to strain to glance down the dark road over his shoulder, holding himself up because she had put his back to the youma for affect. He started to shake, either from the strain on his back or the realization that the youma was stalking nearby, drawing slowly toward them. It didn’t look like anything Tony had ever seen. In fact, it didn’t seem to have a face, just a strange protrusion sitting atop what might have been sloping shoulders, though they bled directly from the protrusion into long arms. It moved with a jerky, yet fluid grace that sent a shudder down the human’s back. Even Gently found it off putting. It moved its arms out slowly, ever so slowly, long fingers bent at grotesque, sharp knuckles. Its fists met the ground and it jerked forward suddenly, abandoning that slow, dripping molasses like gait in a sudden burst.

Gently had to wonder if it was only half formed. She had managed to summon a reject youma? Tony, meanwhile, found it to be truly horrifying.

She looked down as he looked up at her, pleading desperately with her, as if to appeal to her sense of decency. It might have worked, but she was already planning the next stage, too far gone in her enjoyment of a plan finally coming together, providing the entertainment she wanted. It wasn’t even him, the lesson he was learning, that truly thrilled her. It was putting all this together, and seeing it moving like she had imagined each night she had gone to bed after hours of stalking and waiting. This had been in her mind, building itself, growing and putting itself on a pedestal for her as she poured her heart into making everything perfect.

To see things coming together now? It was indescribable. She would do this every time, for every endeavor, and there would be no stopping her. Senshi beware, she thought to herself. The motivation was incredible, and she couldn’t wait to show Sassolite how far she had already come, and how far she could still go.

“Please!” she heard Tony say, “you’re a senshi! I… you’re supposed to… I mean, you always… well the others…”

“You and yours are meant for a lesser purpose than this. You should be honored to serve in our duties to our…” What was it senshi were so obsessive over? She couldn’t remember, exactly, so she dodged the topic by smirking slightly, shaking her head. “Well.”

He stared at her and she watched him impassively, then took a few steps back from him. He watched her, mouth hanging open, eyes wild and wide. Terror. He knew she wasn’t going to help him, that whatever hope he had that this was just some strange set up gone. He would be right, really, if he thought it was a trap, but not for the youma. Which was already drawing closer, one more jerky pull that disrupted the still of the night, only to have that stillness seep back over the darkness bathed street as the youma slowly extended its long arms one more time. Tony tried to get up, as if he could hop away, but failing in that he just tried to crawl. Anything to escape.

The youma’s arms lowered slowly, knuckles meeting the street with an agonizing, creeping sloth.

Tony cried out in horror, watching it, knowing what was coming.

Gently watched with ever increasing interest.

In a flash it was near on top of Tony, and the cries of horror he was making were cut off abruptly by a strangled, pained gasp. He was jerked up off the floor with enough force that he almost felt like he had been in a car accident, his head snapping forward and back. Long, cold fingers closed around his throat, both hands gripping his throat as his body hung down. He kicked his body as best he could, but the lanky youma was out of his reach, his shoes dragging on the pavement because the youma was not holding him high. Tony saw no face, no eyes staring back at him as his own looked around in panic, desperate for some help, some last minute hero, almost feeling disappointed and, as Gently had guessed, betrayed that no Senshi was showing up to save him this time, as they had always done. He gagged and struggled and Gently watched, eyes wide, fascinated by the still, impossible calm of the youma.

To her own surprise, she felt an icy, yet thrilling, stab of fear in her heart. She half wanted to help him, but she had never intended for him to die. She just wanted to teach him a lesson. She had always imagined she would let him panic, maybe knock him out again, then get rid of the youma and steal the librarian’s energy, leaving him in the street to wake up when he would, and digest everything he had learned about those monsters he hadn’t believed were terrorists.

Now she couldn’t move. She watched, unsure what she was feeling. Awe? Terror? Derision? Detachment? All she could do was watch, heart thundering in her chest as she drew further back, into an alley, eyes never leaving the youma. She had to get back on plan.

The librarian’s gagging stopped. His kicking slowed, then his body grew limp and still. The youma put him down on the ground with that same, morbid slowness from before, making it seem almost reverential, respecting the corpse it must have just created.

She had never killed anyone before. Or rather, had never been witness to a death. But this was her life, she understood. Death came to everyone, whether she was the driving force or the guiding mind or nothing to it at all, be it a senshi, herself, or a librarian.