Noriko burst through the smoke covering an alleyway and sprinted down the soot filled corridor. Her purple ribbon had become undone in her flight through the district. She had been in an empty safe house taking tally of the week's latest haul when the attack began. The entire street the house had been on was set ablaze. She could feel the billowing smoke cloud from the street loom above her, higher than the other black streamers reaching high in the night sky.<br/><br/>Her silky black locks, she both loved and hated them. At the moment they were getting in her face as she dashed along. She struggled to keep them from obscuring her eyes; the smoke didn't need any help with that. She steeled herself against the moans of agony and the terrible noises the legions of monsters were making as they descended upon street after street, pushing the soldiers of the city back. The plight of random strangers were not her concern, nor were they usually. Right now she was running to the other safe houses to make sure that her gang was okay, to make sure that<em>she</em>was okay. She picked up her speed, going as fast as the legs of her delicate, curvy, looking frame would carry her.<br/><br/>She came out of the alley way and into the town square. Noriko scanned the place with her purple eyes, almost sure that the alleyway should have placed her somewhere else. With the smoke choking half the city, she should have counted herself lucky that she hadn't run into a wall already.