Lieutenant Painite waited. Her heart was beating slowly now, evenly. She was ready. She was calm. No, calm was not the right word and never would be, she imagined. At least not for tonight. Not for this fight. She knew better than to think this was going to be anything close to what she had known so far. But perhaps that was the point: maybe she needed to do this, for her own growth, her own training. Sassolite could not teach her everything, after all. She needed to do some things on her own. Whatever had prompted this night, whatever had brought her to this place with these thoughts, they had become facts. She dealt in facts. She couldn’t change what happened nor the decisions she had made: all she could do was go with the flow, make things work for her, and come out of this whole ordeal on top.

She was standing on the roof of the library, Mr. Saddles in her hands. She gripped the staff of the hobby horse, the plush head angled toward the floor. Pointing to the sky was the attachment she had built for it not too long ago. It was a few inches long, fastened out of metal, attached to the wooden pole with bolts she had soldered together. It was shaped like a rounded spear head, burnished to a shine and as sharp at the point as she could make it. It wasn’t the most refined of metal work, but she had certainly done her best with it. She never did anything less.

She had a javelin of sorts now.

Her eyes were drawn to the fire escape she had come up as the senshi from before climbed up, rage still on his face. He was furious with her, for leaving that human down in the street to be killed by a youma. She had used the librarian as bait, to prove that senshi could be terrorists too, dressed as one of them and refusing to help him just to see him learn. She had thought the youma killed him, but it seemed the senshi got there first, and he had turned the youma to dust. Now he was chasing her, as they were wont to do, wanting to put an end to her dastardly ways, she expected.

She smiled at him brightly.

“What’s the matter, mister senshi?”

“Nothing,” he growled, not amused by her playful voice or the way she was swinging the hobby horses’ head back and forth like a pendulum. She was putting on her very best performance, which was a strange idea to her. She had to work hard just to act normal, because she was not feeling anything close to that. Everything was so jumbled up in her head, it was just easier to keep that focus she was always harping on, stay in the moment, and wait to think when everything was said and done. If she took herself out now to think about what happened, there was no chance she would be able to react to what was and would happen. Everything was in the now.

“You look pretty mad for nothing, mister senshi,” she prodded again, taking a step back.

“I’m not mad.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“Let’s cut the chit chat. You did something stupid as ********, and I’m here to stop you from doing it again. You know the drill. Blah blah blah, senshi s**t, blah blah. Fight on.”

Painite watched him. No overblown introduction, no declarations. He just wanted to fight her. She raised her weapon and braced herself, grinning at him, though it was mostly forced now. She was nervous, her muscles coiling and her ears prickling. Her eyes seemed to be seeing better, even the scents in the air coming in sharper. Focus. Always focus. The senshi charged forward, drawing his fist back, and she recoiled backwards on instinct.

There was a moment of panic. What the hell was she doing? He was fueled by anger and righteous, or rather self righteous, fury. She was confused about everything she had done. He was strong and had just punched a youma to death. She had not been in many battles, and her best line of offense was thrown completely out the window here. She hadn’t accounted for another brawler entering this trap, only setting up the one for the librarian. She should have had a back up, a just in case, but that hadn’t occurred to her when she was preparing. And this was how it always went, and why she accepted the fact that nothing was one hundred percent and never could be. Still, knowing it could and would happen didn’t make it any easier to deal with on the fly.

She had to fight. She couldn’t rely on traps and plots: she had her weapon and the gadgets she had worked so hard to make in an effort to improve it. That had to be all she needed. It was all she had.

The first thing she noticed was, despite swinging at her and fighting hard with his fists and feet, he didn’t call his attack. All Senshi had magic, but he didn’t use whatever stupid spell he had. Why that was she had no idea, and no chance to ask or figure it out. He punched her hard in the gut and she doubled over, panting for breath. But in her powered up state, she was fit for fighting. She rammed her shoulder into his chest and drove him backwards, then grappled with him until she had him turned and against the railing of the roof. He still didn’t use his attack, and she couldn’t know it was because he didn’t want to destroy the library if his attack dispelled while they were still near it.

It was his father’s pride and joy.

She lashed out and punched him in the face, his hand on Mr. Saddles and keeping her from using it against him. He seized her suddenly, hauling her up and over his head and shoulders, throwing him right off the roof. She yelped in fear and fell down the three stories straight to the floor, landing hard on her side and feeling a pain shoot through her hip. Mr. Saddles landed nearby. She looked up to see the senshi leaping off the roof, falling down land hard on the pavement near her. He moved toward her and she scrabbled away.

The image of the librarian scrabbling away from the youma hit her. The fear on his face, the betrayal in his eyes, the pure horror that seemed to radiate just from the way he moved. She knew in an instant that she wasn’t feeling that, despite the similar crawling. The senshi drew closer to her and she looked at him, then made a final grab for her weapon. She found her hand close around it and she turned suddenly as the senshi fell on her, his fist colliding with her face as she jabbed the javelin shaped metal into his side. Everything came to a stop as they stared at one another, both breathless. It was still. Silent. Painite felt warm blood running down the spear, over her hand.

A groan filled the quiet, but it did not belong to either fighter. The senshi turned his head to see the librarian moving. He pulled back from her, stumbling back, his hand clamped over his side. He kicked her as hard as he could before he ran toward the human, leaving her doubled over, but the victor all the same. She pushed herself to her knees, looking at the senshi as he hoisted the civilian up, over his shoulder, and ran off with him, stumbling as he went.

Painite sat up, then got to her feet slowly. She went to collect her things, so she could go home.