Ranma ½ Senpai: A Story of Good Friends ~Devas Edition~

[The Ero-Sennin]

And we're back again with another Senpai update. Let's check up on the girls and their friends.

|Slash and Burn|​

The rapid clanging of metal echoed in the schoolyard of Butsumetsu High School, beyond its high walls topped with barbed wire broken open at its gate, which lay shorn into pieces. With his gang of delinquents surrounding him, the injured Sōban watched as Kamaitachi’s blades and Ucchan’s spatula met in an intensifying back and forth across the dusty schoolyard.

Defending from a horizontal slash from his left, Kamaitachi blocked a diagonal slash that came from the other direction. Twirling the sickles, he circled around Ucchan’s back as he overextended a rising diagonal cut, spun, and slashed down at Ucchan’s back. The twin blades scraped against the broad flat head of the spatula as Ucchan held it over his shoulder to cover his back.

Turning around Ucchan swung his spatula like it was a broadsword, every clash that Kamaitachi blocked pushing him back when their blades connected. After five such pushes, the leader of the Sickle Gang caught the weapon between his sickles and parried it away before trying to lunge in close–only to be forced to defend against a trio of smaller spatula thrown at him like knives.

As the weapons were defeated, Kamaitachi crossed the blades again to block a violent overhead swing from Ucchan. “Oi, oi! Is this okonomiyaki thing your whole deal?!”

Ucchan bore down on Kamaitachi. “Go with what works, right? Ain’t that why you look like a clown?!”

With that he broke his lock and kicked Kamaitachi in the chest. As the sickle wielder was pushed back Ucchan pointed the spatula at him and charged, unleashing a fusillade of thrusts to stab him. “I could be using this stuff to actually cook, but you losers think it’s funny to smash a hard-workin’ chef’s business and take their money!”

Kamaitachi grimaced as he struck as fast as he could against Ukyo’s attacks, but there was so much anger driving the force of each blow.

“There are…!” Ucchan stopped when Kamaitachi caught the spatula just behind its flat head, with the crossed sickles. This just allowed him to wrench his weapon up, and yank both of Kamaitachi’s out of his hands. “… Consequences for your actions!”

Acting quickly, Kamaitachi reached for and pulled the studded leather belt around his waist and used it to block Ucchan’s return swing. Whipping it around, he clashed again with Ucchan several more times, grimacing when the edge of the spatula caught his cheek. In retaliation, he quickly worked the belt around his hand and backhanded the weapon away when Ucchan brought around for a horizontal slash–before going in and tagging Ucchan in the jaw with the makeshift weapon.

Ucchan staggered back, jolted by the blow, but just gave Kamaitachi a wild look as blood seeped down his cheek.

“I’ve met six-year-olds who hit harder than you,” he snapped.

Kamaitachi glared darkly at Ucchan, and then at his upraised fists with even greater anger. “Oh… if you only knew what kind of handicap you’ve got…”

“Blahblahblah… shut up and take your beatin’ like a man!” Ucchan said as he got ready to strike again.

Out the corner of his eye, he noticed his situation get considerably worse when Katie and Akane walked through the damaged gates and looked at him. Turning his full attention back to Ucchan he backed up towards the wall, whipped out some smoke bombs and threw them on the ground, creating a great plume of pink smoke that obscured him.

Ucchan turned and looked at Katie and Akane, before turning his nose up at them. “Great, now I gotta chase him down… thanks a lot.”

Akane grew annoyed. “Are you seriously going to–” When Ucchan took off in pursuit of Kamaitachi, she sighed. “I do not care for him right now…”

“Well, at least he was grateful,” Katie said dryly of his bitter sarcasm before she turned to Sōban and friends, who were a lot more relaxed to see the two girls. “Sōban, Curly, you guys all right?”

“Yeah,” Sōban reported.

Curly agreed. “Woulda been a lot worse if not fer that okonomiyaki dude. Are you okay?”

Katie grimaced. “They threw some big-time weirdos at us. A couple wrestler-lookin’ dudes who could actually fight.”

Akane nodded grimly. “They were cosplaying like Hard Gay and Real Gay.”

Sōban nodded. “Fakes.”

Curly shook his head. “Yeah, the Sickle Gang has been super into that leather look since Razor Ramon HG first appeared on TV. Before that they used to dress in suits and be all gentleman thieves.”

“Like Tuxedo Kamen?” Katie asked.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” Curly said.

Katie shook her head. “Definitely a downgrade. So, you got our guy?”

Curly nodded and turned to Sōban. “You can stop sittin’ on him now.”

With a nod, Sōban stood up to reveal a member of the Sickle Gang laid out and gasping for breath. As soon as their leader was clear, the other members of the gang swarmed to make sure he was pinned down by his limbs, and Katie, Akane, and Curly approached. Despite the holds on him he thrashed and squirmed, his teeth clenched as he breathed heavily.

“You… you brats…!” He grunted. “Get your… surprisingly strong mitts… off me!”

Akane made a face. “Please, is it too hard to not make it weird?”

Curly agreed. “Yeah, these guys are turbo pervs. I’m actually sorry for all the catcalling we’ve done…”

Katie walked over and squatted down next to the guy, looking down at him. “Howdy.”

The Sickle Gang member looked up at her. “Ah, the gorilla woman who attacked us the other day! Yeah, count your days… because when we’re at our full strength there’s no stopping–” Katie reached down and took off his domino mask. “Us… uh… ah-ah-ah… er… can I have that back? Please?”

Katie began rifling through the pockets of the man’s short shorts and he squirmed more urgently. “Hey! You don’t need to be going through there, aren’t you brats going to just torture me–?!”

He paled when Katie pulled out his wallet.

“So, a neat trick my family taught me is that when you have someone who’s a problem, it’s best to get ahold of their driver’s license or ID.” She explained. “You know, to hold onto so you don’t forget a face you don’t like and a name to go with it.”

She pulled the ID out and looked at it, then at the man’s face. “Kawasaki Shinji… hey, it says here you live in Japan.”

The man suddenly pursed his lips together and began to sweat. Katie slipped the wallet–ID and all–into her pocket. “Well then, what brings you over the wall and startin’ shit with your fellow leather enjoyers?”

She gestured around. “Bear in mind, the quality of your answers determines who here gets to kick you and for how long.”

After looking around at his audience, from the extremely violent schoolgirl who was glowering at him, to the high school boys he’d just been terrorizing, to the massive man that led them, and finally back to the chilling young woman with eyes that did not hide her hunger for carnage, the unmasked Sickle Gang stopped struggling, and suddenly put on his most polite face on as he nodded. “Yes, I will answer whatever questions you want to ask, to the best of my ability.”

Akane huffed in annoyance. “Of course.”

“Cooperative interrogations are few and far between, now,” Katie pointed out.

She then looked back down at the Sickle Ganger and placed her hand on his chest. “Now… why have the Sickle Gang come back? It’s been a few years.”

The gangster gulped. “Because of the Special Administration District, our current leader decided that it was a good time to begin the gang anew. There’d be l-less law enforcement and we could get more members if there’s less pressure from society…”

Katie closed her eyes as he spoke, then asked. “Who is the current leader of the Sickle Gang, and what happened to the old one?”

“Kamaitachi… he’s been in charge for four years, now,” the gang member said. “The true leader, Kamaitachi’s leader… I joined after he left. I haven’t seen him.”

“Why is the Sickle Gang working for a bunch of pretty boys who think they know kung fu?”

“Whoa,” half the older boys in the group said at once in the same deep droning tone.

Akane didn’t get it.

The Sickle Gang member gulped. “Because Kamaitachi h-has a crush on Suzuki.”

Katie opened her eyes but kept them narrowed. “Is Kamaitachi planning to come after us again?”

“Suzuki wants nobody to know that he was leaning on the Sickle Gang to get ahead of other Host Clubs. This whole thing’s got him scared that his club is going to be shut down if the wrong people find out before he has a chance to hit them…”

And that incensed Katie. “Well, you can tell Kamaitachi that Suzuki’s days are numbered one way or another. He played with fire and unless you all want to burn with him, he’ll sever that connection on the fast side of pronto, y’hear?”

“Well… Kamaitachi doesn’t really like the arrangement,” the Sickle Gangster admitted. “… And he wishes that he could just, you know… take what he wants…?”

Akane made a face at that. “You know, guys wanting to have their way with guys is just as gross as guys trying to have their way with girls, or girls trying to have their way with guys.”

Curly spoke up. “Or girls trying to have their way with girls.”

Katie looked over at Curly. “You could’ve turned that into a lowbrow ‘hurr hurr but girl on girl is hot’ bit but ya didn’t; I think society misjudged you.”

She stood to full height. “Anyway, I got two more questions for you, Kawasaki-san. Penultimately: Say that this game of Suzuki’s went on without a hitch–what was the endgame, here?”

The Sickle Gangster hesitated before answering. “R-recruiting every able-bodied man into the gang and taking over the SAD. Even up to taking on the Great Houses.”

“And now for your final question: Why did the Sickle Gang break up?”

“The… the gang never really disbanded… more like downsized. Years ago, long before I joined, they were going to fight a martial arts master named Happosai, who was hellbent on destroying us… but then on the promised day, he disappeared. With Happosai gone, the true leader faded from view, and no one knows why. Then a few years ago Kamaitachi was given the role of leader, and the original leader vanished.”

Katie nodded in understanding. “Well! I’m satisfied with your answers, so I’m gonna tell you what:”

She gestured to everyone.

“We’re all gonna start kicking you now–and we’ll decide when we wanna stop.”

The Sickle Gang member went pale. “Hey, I answered those questions the best I could, doesn’t that count for something?!”

Katie nodded. “It does, but I did not say a gosh darn thing about the quality of your answers providin’ any mercy.”

She looked at the Butsumetsu boys. “Gentlemen.” She nodded to Akane, who was with them, grinning in malice. “My lady.”

She gestured to their prisoner. “Puts the boots to him, large style.” She looked down at him herself–her eyes glowing with her own fury. “He ain’t so delicate.”

@@@@@​

To Ucchan’s chagrin, he had lost sight of Kamaitachi right on the border of Butsumetsu and Taian and was now standing atop the very top of a telephone pole with his arms folded and his head bowed. He seethed in frustration, furious that his mark had escaped when he had him dead to rights–and now he lost him.

“I was so close…” He grumbled, before he heard Daikoku Kaori step to the edge of a roof the width of the sidewalk below away from the telephone pole. He turned to her, as she sat down on the edge and scowled at him.

“You know,” Kaori began, “I thought we were friends.”

Ucchan turned to face her fully.

“And I thought, that being friends meant that if you needed help, I’d be able to help you,” she continued. “But no, I guess… this is some weird macho flex that you gotta do?”

Ucchan frowned. “Do you have a point?”

Kaori tilted her head. “Do you?”

She crossed her arms and folded one leg over the other. “I get it; you don’t wanna lose to anyone, because that may mean you will lose to him. But uhhhh… it doesn’t matter if you get the runback, you’ve already got the L.”

Ucchan’s expression darkened.

“Oh yeah, mean-mugging; being a petulant sore loser is very manly of you,” Kaori sharply said. “You’re not taking the Sickle Gang down alone.”

Ucchan snorted. “I’m pretty sure I am. They’re jokes; relying on shock value and their goofy routine to get people’s guards down. Without it, they’re just leather punching bags.”

Uncrossing his arms, Ucchan clenched his fists and looked down at the peaceful street below. “And even if in the unlikely chance they aren’t? I need to beat them and hone my skills.”

“If you want to be better, you can spar and train with me, or the two strongest and baddest bitches Nerima has ever seen,” Kaori argued. “Yeah, you want him on that 1v1, and I respect that–I let you have that despite him bein’ responsible for my situation, but would it freaking kill you to let one of your friends or any of the aforementioned bad bitches, lend their fists so yours hit harder in any other fight you get into?”

Ucchan’s frustration surged. “And what good will it do me if I can’t beat these guys myself?!” He looked down at his hands. “You’re right… if I can’t beat these guys, how can I beat Saotome Ranma? I couldn’t beat him once, no matter what I did.”

“You were six,” Kaori pointed out.

“I’ve gotten better, but he’s been off doing who knows what for ten years. I don’t know what I’ll be up against, so I need to be at my absolute best! I need to win against them, no matter what!”

Kaori sighed. “… And it has to be you?”

Ucchan shook his head. “No one else, not even Ryūnosuke.”

Tilting her head up to the sky, Kaori sighed. “Fuck, you’re dumb.”

A growl left Ucchan’s throat as Kaori looked back down at him.

“You'd already have gotten your hands on them if you were willing to play ball, jackass! You think any of us would have begrudged you for claiming rights to the first punch?! At least let us help you corral them so you're not late to the party and chasing who you wanna dance with out the door!”

Ucchan stared at Kaori in silence, and a few moments passed after that.

Finally, Kaori spoke. “I know where Kamaitachi’s hideout is.”

That whipped the tension from Ucchan, and his expression brightened. “You do?”

Kaori gestured to herself. “Yeah, jackass, I’m a delivery girl! I’ve been in the back of every business in the SAD that has a kitchen or food prep station in it!”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Amazing, right? And even more amazing, I’ve done deliveries from a Gay Bar in Taian that has the same masks as the ones the Sickle Gang are wearing! This is why you need to ask for help, I know this town better than you! I’m practically giving away the nouns of this city and you don’t want to tap that any more than you don’t want to tap this!”

Kaori gestured to herself for emphasis at the end of her rant, before she saw the look in Ucchan’s eyes, a look that promised the young man was going to do something very stupid despite their heartfelt talk. “Oh no, I’m not gonna tell you.”

Ucchan flew into a rage. “Why?!”

“Because you’re gonna run off and try to fight them before I can round up a posse. If you want to know which bar, then we do this with Akane, Katie, and Ryūnosuke. We’ll grab the Butsu boys, too, and make it a hellride.”

Still seething, Ucchan looked away from Kaori and pulled his grimace. Kaori sighed and closed her eyes.

“I care about you, Ukyo,” she said as she opened her eyes and looked at him with earnest concern. “I don’t want you to get hurt, especially after how badly you got roughed up before.”

She looked at his chest and arms, through his white shirt she could see the faintest of red. “You’ve opened all your wounds worse than Ryūnosuke did fighting Kamaitachi. I’m amazed that you could fight him like you did over at Butsumetsu… that you’re still standing right now.”

Standing up, she gestured to him. “Take it easy; go back to Tofu’s, get patched up, and get some rest. I’ll meet you with the girls and we can all deal with this together. And I’ll even make sure you get Kamaitachi all to yourself when it comes time to throw down.”

With a sigh, Ucchan finally relented. “Fine… fine… I’ll do that.”

Kaori smiled cautiously. “No bullshit?”

Ucchan heaved a sigh and met Kaori’s gaze. “No bullshit. You’re right, sug… I can’t do this alone.”

Kaori was filled with relief. “Good. I’m gonna go talk to the girls, and I’ll see you later after you’ve gotten some rest.”

Ucchan nodded. “Yeah, got it. And um… thanks, Kaori-chan.”

Smiling, Kaori nodded. “What are friends for?”

With that, she headed over to the other end of the roof and hopped off. Looking down at the ground, Ucchan maneuvered from telephone pole to building face, to streetlight, to the sidewalk. Landing in a crouch, he huffed as he felt the pain of his injuries throb.

“Haa… damn it… Kaori was right…” He muttered as he slowly rose to his full height.

However, he began walking in the opposite direction of Tofu’s clinic, instead heading towards Taian.

“… But it cannot be helped.”

He closed his eyes to concentrate and push down the pain. “A gay bar in Taian with the same masks, huh…? There can’t be that many of those…”

=-=-Note Time-=-=​

Those are some details, huh?

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

|Mockingbird|​

“… So… my Dad’s an asshole,” Ryūnosuke, seated at the edge of the river with her knees drawn to her chest, began as she stared at the street-lit waters below. “As long as I can remember, he told me I was his son. He raised me like a boy, taught me how to fight and stuff, and even gave me a boy’s name. And I didn’t know anything else so why even question it?”

Nick, seated next to her, nodded. “Mmhm, I guess that didn’t last long?”

“Lasted until I turned ten…” Ryūnosuke said with an implying edge to her voice.

Nick chuckled. “Ahh, I see. I have four daughters who all went through it around then.”

Ryūnosuke rolled her eyes. “I freaked out so bad, but guess what my Dad said when I told him?”

Nick gestured to her to go on. “What did he say?”

“He said it was a curse that afflicts men every full moon, one that I would have to train non-stop to break.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head in shame. “… And I freaking believed it.”

Instead of mocking laughter, Nick absolved her with a gentle response. “It ain’t your fault. You were ten, and you didn’t have anyone to tell you different.”

Ryūnosuke stared at Nick, surprised he didn’t take a cheap shot at her for not knowing something that apparently was so obvious because of her dumbass Dad. She looked down again at the river. “I finally figured it out six months after that, when my old man sent me to school to get an education and learn to run the shop. It was around that time other changes started happenin’ and I was getting picked on by other kids.”

“Early bloomer, huh?” When Ryūnosuke nodded, Nick hummed in sympathy. “Kids are cruel.”

“Yeah, well I was worse,” Ryūnosuke said with a bit of pride. “Kicked all their butts.”

Nick nodded. “Attagirl.”

“But that’s how reality kinda kicked in. The teachers didn’t understand why the kids were all picking on me, and I was fighting them, until finally we had to have a parent-teacher meeting about all my fighting. With me and the boys that I fought.”

Ryūnosuke curled up more, as embarrassment began to settle in. “… I don’t think I wanna tell this part of the story, it’s really messed up.”

Rather than press the subject, Nick nodded. “No pressure.”

Sitting in silence once again, Ryūnosuke took a deep breath and ignored the throbbing of her injuries… made worse by her stomach growling.

A moment after her stomach churned, Nick got up. “… You hungry?”

“Why?” Ryūnosuke asked.

Nick rubbed his chin. “… Because I’m buyin’.”

Ryūnosuke’s eyebrows rose a little bit.

Fifteen minutes later, after taking her order, he came back with takeout. Ryūnosuke now held a paper cardboard container of rice, beef, vegetables, and seafood in her hand and was hungrily scarfing it down. Nick sat beside her once more, eating his own container of fried noodles and chicken.

“Thanks, old man,” Ryūnosuke said between bites.

Nick snorted in mock offense. “Do I look old to you?”

“Please, you’re above 20, you’re old.” Ryūnosuke chided back.

Nick ran that logic through his head. “Okay, that’s fair.”

“You act like an old man at least. All polite and shit, not like the man-children I know wherever I go…” She grumbled.

Shoving his mouth full of noodles, Nick waited for Ryūnosuke to decide if she wanted to talk about it, and after a few moments of consideration she went on unprompted. “At the meeting, the principal demanded an explanation for why I was getting into fights, and the boys I beat up said it was because I was a girl in the boy’s bathroom.”

She tilted her head down. “I got angry for being called a girl, because Dad taught me that being called a girl was the worst thing ever, and that if anyone called me a girl, they were shaming my manhood and I should fight them like the sea.”

Nick lifted an eyebrow. “… Like the sea?”

“Yeah, the sea, my Dad freaking hates it. I think it’s rad as hell.”

There were no disagreements there. “Yeah, the sea is kinda cool. My family have a house by it, we go there in the winter when its storming to watch the waves crash in.”

Ryūnosuke liked the sound of that. “Oh, that must be awesome…”

She went back to her story. “Anyway, my Dad was the one who freaked out even worse. He actually said he’d kick their asses if they said I was a girl, and then the boys’ fathers got up in his face, and it turned into a big argument. My teacher, who I really liked, took me aside outside of the office and she asked me some questions that nobody ever asked me before–especially about the ‘curse’ I kept talking about every month when it came.”

Nick understood where this was going. “… She figured it out, huh?”

Ryūnosuke nodded. “When she explained that… that’s just how girls are and the stuff I was going through was normal for girls… it clicked, yannow?”

She smiled a bit. “… It made sense; for the first time ever I was a girl, and it was… normal.”

Her eyes narrowed a little. “After the meeting, and my Dad being barred from ever setting foot on the school grounds again. We went home and I said to him that what the teacher said made sense, and that I was a girl. He didn’t like that.”

“Took you out of that school and tried to drill into your skull that you were a boy, huh?” Nick asked.

“Yep, but there was no goin’ back, and I’ve been fighting that idiot ever since.” Ryūnosuke resumed eating. “No calling myself a girl, no girl’s clothes, no girl’s interests, and definitely no boys… not that there’d be any boys that I like…”

Nick took a long, deep breath, then exhaled so hard that Ryūnosuke swore she saw the surface of the river ripple in front of him.

After a few long moments, he asked. “Where do you live, kiddo, at the school?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. “Yeah, but…”

“I’m gonna put you up for the night at a hotel,” Nick then said.

Ryūnosuke gave Nick a suspicious side-eye. “… Excuse me?”

Nick got up again. “Actually, a few nights. You don’t need to be going back to your father.”

Ryūnosuke leaned a bit away from Nick. “Listen old man, you’re easy to talk to, but I’m not…”

Looking at her, he cut her off. “The name Fujinami Masako mean anything to you?”

Ryūnosuke stopped talking, her mouth falling open. Blinking in disbelief, she now had many, many questions–but she knew the first she had to ask right now. “… That’s my mother’s name, do you know her?”

Nick reached into the jacket of his suit, and pulled out a polaroid picture, before handing it to her. Ryūnosuke, with a trembling hand, reached out and took the photo from him. It was a photo of three women sitting at a table at an outdoor café. One was a blonde, beaming woman holding a fussy, redheaded baby on her lap. On her left was a woman with fiery red hair like Nick, and she was holding a black-haired infant who was looking at the camera with green eyes just like its mother’s. On her right was a beautiful woman who radiated joy and relief as she held up an infant that Ryūnosuke recognized from her own baby pictures.

Nick pointed at the woman holding her infant self. “That’s your mother.”

He pointed at the baby. “And that’s…”

Ryūnosuke stared at the picture, in disbelief. “… Me…”

She looked up at him. “… Who… who the hell are you, old man?”

“I’m a close friend of your mother,” Nick explained. “Years and years ago… I came to Japan for some work and during that time I stayed with your parents. Your mother was… and still is a Saint. Your father was, and to my horror still is… a delusional jackass.”

“Where was I?” Ryūnosuke asked.

“You were a newborn, and while your mother was ecstatic to have a daughter, your father got started early on this business of you being his firstborn son.” Nick sighed. “I am not proud to admit that the man was so deeply entrenched in denial that he convinced me that you were a boy, and your mother was the crazy one claiming you were a girl.”

He tapped the side of his head. “But like the monthly troubles, there was always an inevitability that comes with caring for an infant still in diapers. At your Mom’s insistence–and given I had three kids under my belt by then–I took a crack at changing you and learned the truth.”

Ryūnosuke blinked. “So you’ve literally known me since I was a baby.”

“That’s right, kiddo.” Nick folded his arms. “Given the situation you were in? I did the only thing I knew to do.”

“That bein’?”

“I swept your Mom off her feet and took the both of you back home to the US.”

Ryūnosuke blinked in surprise. “… I’ve been to America?”

“Yeah, look at that photo. That’s the Seattle Space Needle in the background.” At his instruction she looked, and indeed in the background was the iconic structure of Seattle’s skyline.

“Whoa…” She stopped. “Wait… how’d I end up back with my dad?”

Nick’s nonchalance disappeared, replaced with a stewing fury. “Fucking Canada.”

Ryūnosuke tilted her head to one side. “… Canada?”

“Your father, the mad bastard, swam completely across the Pacific Ocean–allegedly–and made landfall in Vancouver. The second he got a microphone in his face; he unleashed this unholy sob story about how his wife betrayed him and kidnapped his son and flew half the world away to disappear.”

Ryūnosuke was struck. “… And they freaking bought that?!”

“Oh yeah, the ‘poor fisherman who crosses the sea to rescue his infant child from his adulterous wife’ angle was eaten up by everyone. It became an international freaking media circus and due to my work dragging me back to Asia at the time and my wife being banned from entering Canada, there was nothing either of us could do when he caught your Mom slipping, snatched you up, and ran back across the border.”

He seethed. “That was that. They put him and ‘his son’ on the first plane back to Tokyo, patting themselves on the back the whole time, and the second it touched down you both leaped off the grid.”

Ryūnosuke blinked again, and a trembling rage ran through her, adrenaline seeping back into her system and disappearing the pain again. “… Let me find out that’s why we always opened Hamachiya on different beaches every year.”

“Oh yeah, your Dad worked hard to disappear; your Mom came back to Japan three times to try to find you after she and all of us were able to convince those maple syrup-addicted, self-righteous jackasses that they fucked up.”

He smiled. “Then the aliens showed up, and you had all the luck of getting mired in the life of Moroboshi Ataru. When the name Fujinami Ryūnosuke popped up in stories related to him, your Mom started investigating. Since I was already here in the SAD for more work, I didn’t hesitate to add finding you to my itinerary.”

Ryūnosuke’s head was starting to spin. “So… because of Ataru my Mom was able to find me… and she never stopped looking…?”

“Of course not, you’re her daughter.”

After staring at Nick in silence for a moment, Ryūnosuke slowly turned her attention inward, and poked herself in the ribs. When she tensed in pain, she grew wide-eyed.

“I ain’t dreaming… my Mom is lookin’ for me, and she’s way prettier than all those other pictures of women Dad used to show me.”

Nick paused. “What other women?”

Ryūnosuke groaned. “Ugh… the women he’d show me pictures of whenever I’d ask about my Mom. He’d go into this whole thing where he’d show me a picture of some random woman and then say how she’s either dead or left and far away. Anytime I think I’d go out of my way to find out anything about my Mom, he’d interfere…”

Slowly, Nick nodded. “I see…”

“And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He lies about stuff all the time, usually so he doesn’t have to share food with me, or so I don’t try to do girly things.”

When she looked back up at him, Nick was cast in silhouette for a moment. She could only make out his eyes and she realized they were widely dilated. “Uh… you okay, old timer?”

When Nick looked at her, the fearful presence was gone. “Let’s get going, kiddo. There’s a nice place in Taian I can put you up in.”

Ryūnosuke perked up. “Taian…?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, “And uh… while we walk and talk… tell me more about the nonsense your sperm donor pulls on you.”

Slowly getting up, Ryūnosuke cocked her head to one side. “Sperm donor?”

Nick began walking away, his expression filled with a dark and stormy fury. “Yeah… because that son of a gun ain’t got no right bein’ called yer Daddy.”

@@@@@​

It was lunch time at Tomobiki High School, and despite the foolish and ill-advised efforts of the faculty at the behest of Mendō Shūtaro, many students were happily strolling off campus to eat for lunch. Ryūnosuke was not one of those students, as she was in 3-4 with a handsomely spread-out lunch on her desk and Shinobu and Lum joining her for it. She was in the middle of regaling them the story of how she met their new teacher and the shocking connection she had with him.

“That’s amazing!” Shinobu said, stunned beyond measure. “And Sherman-sensei just… found you?”

“Yeah,” Ryūnosuke replied, “He put me up in a nice room and during Golden Week he took me to a fancy hospital to get patched up, took me shopping for all the girly stuff I could ever want, and he even got me a phone and a laptop.”

“Wow!” Lum said. “Are you sure he’s not really just trying to be one of those candy father things?”

Shinobu looked at the alien. “For fuck’s sake, Lum!”

Ryūnosuke huffed smugly. “Nah, he ain’t a weirdo or anything like that! He’s just giving me all the stuff I should have but my Sperm Donor keeps refusin’ me!” She pulled at the collar of her uniform, revealing a blue strap on her right shoulder. “See? I’m actually wearin’ a bra! No more chest wraps for me!”

Half the boys in the classroom stood and violently craned their necks to look without getting too close. When Ryūnosuke noticed them and pulled her collar back with an annoyed sweep of her gaze, they remained in their positions–because Ryūnosuke in a girl’s uniform was a beautiful sight.

Shinobu had not lost sight of the plot. “… Sperm donor?”

Ryūnosuke leaned forward a bit towards Shinobu. “You’ve known me for almost a year, Miyake. You tell me that the idiot who raised me to be a boy, treatin’ me like shit the whole time, has any right to be called my Dad!”

Lum nodded. “She has a point, Shinobu-cha.”

“It’s just kind of an extreme shift, that’s all…” Shinobu tried to defend.

Shaking her head, Ryūnosuke vehemently disagreed. “Hello! This is sixteen years past due! That idiot kidnapped me from my mother and made me live with him in that stupid tea shop! Pretending I was a man and bullying me whenever I tried to be the girl I am! Do you know what they call that in a normal world?! Child abuse!”

Shinobu grimaced at Ryūnosuke saying such a thing. “Ehh… don’t say something like that so loud…”

Ryūnosuke huffed. “Whatever you don’t wanna call it… it’s more than enough for me to not want anything to do with that insult to men anymore.”

Ataru, whose gaze had been fixed on Ryūnosuke’s general direction, closed his eyes and gave a hum of wistful contemplation. “Ryū-chan is right, a father who cannot be proud of having such a smoking hot daughter has no right calling himself a man, let alone a father.”

Shinobu went from pensive to tired disgust. “You almost had it, Ataru.”

“I don’t even feel like zapping him.” Lum muttered.

Ataru turned in his chair to face her fully. “But… what are you going to do about that jerk? He’s gonna find out eventually, right?”

Lum noticed a trembling that slowly grew in volume and intensity as Ryūnosuke replied. “Yeah, he is. As a matter a’fact, I’m lucky he didn’t find out this morning when I came to class. I had to sneak in the back, you know–?”

The door to class 3-4 was slammed open with such force that the door broke. The entire class turned to see Ryūnosuke’s father standing in the doorway, his angular face sharpened into a scowl aimed at his child.

“Ah.” The entire classroom said as one.

Rather than throw a fit, Ryūnosuke just kept eating.

“Ryūnosuke,” her father said, “Why are you crossdressing in class?”

Rather than take offense at the accusation of crossdressing, she kept eating. “Why are you interrupting my lunch?”

“Boy, do you realize what kind of fool you’re making yourself out to be?” He asked.

“Hmph.” Ryūnosuke looked up at her father, then smirked. “I look amazing.”

She turned to her classmates, smiling. “Right guys?”

The other male students in class–with the exception of Hokuto, who has a girlfriend–immediately agreed with a lovestruck expression at Ryūnosuke’s dreamy smile. It actually made her jump, how quickly they turned from quietly staring to simping.

“… Wow, that’s powerful…”

Lum agreed. “Feminine beauty is great, use it wisely Ryū-cha.”

Ryūnosuke nodded in agreement to those sage words, then looked up at her father, who was now standing over her. He was… crying?

“What?”

Her gaze flattened, and she glowered at her father, as he looked outward towards the windows of the classroom. “Ryūnosuke, your mother was a frail woman, who gave all her strength to bring you into this world.”

Rolling her eyes, Ryūnosuke resumed eating as she let him speak.

“All of her love, all of her life was sacrificed to you, our first born and only,” he said dramatically. “It was with her dying breath, her last words in this world, that she whispered to me her final wish–that I make you a man among men, whose fists could split the waves and tame the sea.”

“Mmhm,” Ryūnosuke responded with her mouth full.

“I carried that wish, that burden, alone in my heart,” the elder Fujinami went on, “And though I may have been unduly harsh, my keeping you on the path to manhood was how my wife… your mother… could reach you from beyond…”

He stopped and looked at her lunch. “Wait… is that fatty tuna?!”

Ryūnosuke ate another piece without hesitating. “Mmm, yep!”

Forgetting about his spiel, her father slammed his hands on the desk, then got in close. “Oi, share with your old man.”

In response, Ryūnosuke stuffed another piece of the expensive sushi into her mouth. “Mm-mm.”

He pulled back, filled with indignation. “You ungrateful…! Where’d you even get this, huh?!”

Savoring the bittersweet tenderness of her fish, Ryūnosuke took a moment to chew and swallow her sushi, before giving her father a pleasant smile filled with broken, jagged steel. “… He gave it to me.”

“He?” Her father repeated.

“That’s ‘He’ With a capital H,” Nick said from the front of the class, as he set down a few cans of soda. “You know, because I’m Him.”

Fujinami turned several shades whiter than his dingy casual clothes, when he heard Nick’s voice behind him. Ryūnosuke’s smug smile at his reaction faded when a new one followed–her father’s skin turned from titanium white… to a shade of red that rapidly deepened.

Once more, there was a shaking Lum noticed–but she was not alone in her awareness, as Shinobu, Ataru, and the other students began looking around while the walls shook, and the windows rattled.

Ryūnosuke’s father turned to face the teacher, whose eyebrows rose in surprise at his transformation. “Hey Fuji-kun, how many gates did you just open…?”

And then Fujinami was a blur, shooting down the row of desks straight for Nick as he drew his fist back. Reaching him, he opened his mouth and bellowed out a single word.

“FONTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINE!”

There was a tremendous crash and a plume of dust, drywall, chalkboard, and wood–as Ryūnosuke’s Dad met the wall behind Nick at the highest possible speed of his lunge. Standing just to his left of where he had been standing in Fujinami’s path, Nick looked at the man and the perfect outline of his body in the wall.

Picking up a can of juice, Nick tossed it over the heads of several students to Ryūnosuke, then took his own can and popped the tab. “It’s Fontaine Sherman now, Fuji-kun.”

He placed a hand on his cheek and flushed. “I’m a happily married man.”

Taking a sip of his drink, he then gestured to him and the hole he made with the can. “You’re gonna clean that up, right? This is my first day of class.”

The atmosphere was far less light behind him, as the students got up and backed away from the confrontation–no one expecting Ryūnosuke’s Dad to go beserk and attack someone other than his daughter.

Some reconsidered that observation, and actually felt bad.

Ryūnosuke stood up, actually surprised that her father was capable of such destructive power–while simultaneously giddy that he whiffed it. “Geez, what the hell, you bastard?! Why’d you attack the teach?!”

Fujinami pushed himself out of the wall. “Why…? Why did I attack…”

He turned and glared at Nick. “… THIS MAN?!”

As Nick sipped his juice, the elder Fujinami explained. “Ryūnosuke, my son. It is time that you know the truth! All your life, I have been training you–preparing you for the hardest battle of your life! A foe stronger than the sea! A demon king of the depths with no rival!”

Raising a finger, he pointed it at Nick. “THIS MAN, THIS DEVIL! IS THE ETERNAL ENEMY OF OUR FAMILY!”

Ryūnosuke nodded. “I know.”

Fujinami stopped. “Ah?”

“Yeah, I’ve been hanging out for the last three days with him, you weirdo. Where do you think I got the uniform, the food, the makeup, and–oh yeah, lookit this.”

She lifted her shirt with one hand, revealing her bra. “I burned the wraps you piece of shit. I’m never goin’ back.”

All the boys in the class–including Hokuto, who had a girlfriend–craned forward awkwardly to look at Ryūnosuke’s chest before she dropped her uniform’s top.

Ryūnosuke did not begrudge them, because all the girls looked, too.

Ataru, who gave up all the math he learned in fourth grade to burn that image into his memory, spoke up. “Yeah, she just spent the last half-hour telling us about the teach being an old friend of your wife and how he tried to save her and Ryū-chan from you.”

The elder Fujinami whirled upon Nick in fury. “Old friend?! Is that all my Masako is to you, now?!”

Nick enjoyed another sip of his juice. “I mean, it’s a little more intimate than friends–but I’m not gonna tell your daughter about how Masako and I get up to this and that.”

Like a raging demon, Fujinami punched Nick, but succeeded in only hitting the can with such force that it flew across the room and bounced off Ataru’s forehead.

“Man down!” Kōsuke shouted.

Ryūnosuke got up. “Oi! What the hell?!”

Her father kept attacking, throwing punch after punch at Nick, who swayed and dipped around the man to avoid each blow.

“You know, Fuji-kun,” he said while moving in a full circle around Fujinami and his flailing punches. “I was enjoying that juice; it was the last one in the machine and for some reason the school’s shop is closed.”

“It’s not enough that you stole my wife from me! Turned her into an adulterous fiend!” Fujinami yelled as he swung on Nick. “But now, after years of making me suffer, you’ve come back for my SON?!”

The class watched as Nick dodged each punch with the skill of a professional boxer. Leaning from side to side to avoid his crosses, he picked up another can of juice. Ducking and weaving under a hook, he popped the tab with his teeth and walked back from Fujinami’s rampaging blows towards the window.

“Fuji-kun, I’m gonna be honest with you,” Nick said as he used a gap in his attacker’s punches to reach the classroom window closest to the front and opened it. “I ain’t here to humor yer bullshit.”

“You won’t take my son…!” Fujinami yelled, not caring what Nick had to say otherwise.

The feeling was mutual as Nick moved with such speed under and around Ryūnosuke’s father, that to everyone watching it appeared that Nick had been standing in front of the open window and then abruptly was behind the lunging man.

“But if you’re gonna insist on being a joke, lemme provide the punchline.” With that he turned and kicked the man in the back. The blow didn’t appear to be very fast or forceful, but when it connected there was a very loud thump and Fujinami’s whole body arched backward as he immediately lost consciousness.

He fell forward, out the window. As the third-year classes of Japanese High Schools were on the ground floor, old man Fujinami dropped unceremoniously into the bushes below the windowsill, his legs sticking out of it comically, twitching in spasm.

Lowering his foot, Nick closed the window and locked it before walking back over to his desk. Still sipping his juice, he looked at the hole in the wall Ryūnosuke’s father made, then at his class.

“Well, shoot,” he lamented. “Looks like y’all got free study while I work to get this cleaned up. Don’t trash the class–I’m gonna find out who fixes things ‘round here and give ‘em a holler.”

Ryūnosuke watched as Nick traipsed out the door, her eyes sparkling. With Lum down on the floor, attending to Ataru, Shinobu was left to appraise the starstruck expression on Ryūnosuke’s face. She stared at her closely, and then looked back towards the door.

“You make a crack about it being springtime, and I’ll sock you,” Ryūnosuke said.

Shinobu shook her head. “No, it’s not that. This is the first time you’ve ever had a real father figure in your life, isn’t it?”

Ryūnosuke nodded. “You’re cool with your old man, aren’t you?”

“Mostly; especially since I stopped dating Ataru,” Shinobu replied.

“Is this what having a Dad is like?” She asked, feeling giddy. “I’ve only known the guy for a few days, and he’s done all this for me without askin’ for anything or wantin’ me to do something ridiculous like beat him in a fight.”

Shinobu wanted to call the starstruck look around Ryūnosuke cute. Smiling, she shrugged her shoulders. “Well, there’s a thing parents are supposed to have for their kids called unconditional love. Maybe that’s what it is.”

With the concept being utterly foreign to Ryūnosuke–for obvious reasons–she hummed in consideration. “Are kids supposed to have that for their parents, too?”

“For a while,” Shinobu said. “I mean, after a certain point kids have to go their own way, right?”

Ataru, risen, joined Ryūnosuke’s side. “There’s another kind of unconditional love–not between parent and child, but man and woman.”

He looked down at her, looking more handsome and tender than he ever had before in his life, his eyes gentler, his jaw squarer, his hair more perfect than that of a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s. “Ryū-chan, I…”

Ryūnosuke raised her hand into his face, stopping him. “Please go to the front of the class so Lum can zap you there.”

Lum didn’t even wait and gave him a quick hard zap without causing any collateral.

“Gahhhhh!” As Ataru was all-naturally electric rifled, Ryūnosuke brought her balled up hands together at her chest and bounced in place.

“Well, whatever! Here I am wearin’ a girl’s uniform and makeup given to me by someone who knows my mother–and he just kicked the butt of the only person who could take it from me!” Ryūnosuke clenched her fists, stars in her eyes. “He’s so cool!”

Kōsuke, mesmerized like all of the other boys by Ryūnosuke’s pure joy, leaned forward towards Hokuto. “… Bro, she’s so fucking precious…”

Hokuto was not mesmerized by the wholesome Ryūnosuke. In fact, he was in full detail, glowering straight ahead at the mess the elder Fujinami made while being so effortlessly dispatched. Kōsuke noticed Hokuto’s intensity and joined him in it.

“Hm? What’s the matter?” Kōsuke asked.

“That man,” Hokuto said as he narrowed his eyes dramatically, “He is not what he seems at all.”

“Obviously,” Kōsuke agreed with a nod.

Hokuto lowered his head slightly. “Besides that… something about him reminds me of someone…”

He then remembered the tall, green eyed Furinkan girl in front of Ucchan’s.

“… Ah…”

=-=-Note Time-=-=​

Ryūnosuke is free, but for how long...?

 

[The Ero-Sennin]

|Hello World|​

“You know,” Nabiki said as she watched Katie and Akane spar at lunch later that day. “I kind of expected the two of you to take those Ls a lot harder than you have.”

Katie and Akane were rapidly trading punches, blocking and redirecting each other’s strikes like well-oiled machines. While Akane’s strikes were extremely fast, Katie seemed to know both where her kouhai’s hands would be and how her hands would be positioned to intercept the strikes. Akane on the other hand was nimbler, ducking and weaving with impressive neck work any punches she couldn’t parry.

Stopping and bowing to signal a time out so no one got knocked out trying to talk to the person kibitzing from the side, Katie turned to Nabiki.

“Well, neither of us lost cuz we didn’t take ‘em seriously,” Katie reasoned, rather casual about it.

“Besides, the fight ended before we got a second wind,” Akane said, before snorting, “And it’s not like I’m not pissed–it’s just there’s better ways to put my energy to use.”

Nabiki rolled her eyes, figuring her little sister was trying to be cool in front of her Senpai. “So, have you figured out that guy didn’t go down when you clocked him?”

Akane grimaced but refrained from snapping at her sister.

“They gave the names of those wrestler guys you mentioned, if I heard ‘em right.” Katie reasoned. “Even if it wasn’t really them, maybe they learned somethin’ similar.”

“… Yeah,” Akane said, nodding, “It was like I was hitting him, but he wasn’t taking the full brunt of it. I might as well have been punching paper that’s floating in the air.”

Katie hummed as she pictured it. “Sounds right. It’s a good way to avoid getting hurt while performing–but in a real fight something like that is impossible without the cooperation of your opponent. You need to have super sharp reflexes and to know where the attack is coming from and what you need to do to avoid harm.”

Nabiki chimed in. “Not that the guy minded the pain.”

“Don’t remind me.” Akane complained, feeling revulsion forcing bile up as she thought about it.

“That’s why next time, I’ll have a go at him,” Katie said, nodding a little as she formulated a response, “If I’m right, he ain’t gonna like a round with me. The other guy’ll be tricky though. He ain’t gotta be close to do his damage.”

Nabiki nodded. “Didn’t he, like, long range slap you with ‘it?’”

“NABIKI!” Akane yelled, she really didn’t need that image to even begin to make its way into her head.

Katie chuckled at Akane’s discomfort. “Well, while it was with a whole different kind of sword, that attack of his was not unlike Kuno’s.”

“Ugh.” Akane rolled her eyes.

While they were on the subject. “So, it’s like the thing Kuno did with his bokken… and what you did to block it before you disarmed him.”

Katie punched her fist into her palm and nodded. “As sure as an Oregon rainy season. Pushing the air around with a punch or kick is possible if yer strong enough. Heck, there’s even a name for the actual technique: Cavitation.”

Akane was intrigued. “Cavitation?”

Katie nodded. “Mmhm! It’s displacing the air with such force that a bubble of low-pressure forms around your fist. When your movement stops, connection or not, the bubble goes on and collapses–creatin’ a shockwave that hits and goes through whatever you’re punchin’.”

That sounded incredibly simple to Akane. Too simple. “Wait… that’s all it is?”

Katie nodded again. “I mean, the trainin’ for it is ridiculous–and dangerous–but if you can master it? Woo doggie…”

Nabiki chimed in. “Do you know how to train it?”

“Sure do, I did it myself.” Katie proudly revealed. “It requires you to take a swim to about two hundred meters below the ocean, and practice punchin’ when you’re on the bottom until you start cavitatin’.”

Akane blanched.

“And you gotta do it on yer breath alone, no scuba gear or anythin’ like that. The equipment would get in the way anyway.”

Akane went even whiter.

Katie sensed it. “… You okay?”

“I-I’m fine…” Akane coughed. “I’m just… not a good swimmer.”

And now she understood. “Aw… sorry if I triggered some fears there, hon.”

Bowing her head, Akane sighed. “You have no idea…”

“From what I saw,” Nabiki recalled as she tapped a finger to her chin, “You seemed more surprised he could do it at all.”

Katie nodded. “It was a shock for sure that he could punch with his junk. It hit hard up close but didn’t have a whole lotta reach.”

Akane refrained from getting upset.

Nabiki didn’t let the opportunity slip by. “A common malady amongst Japanese males… or so I’ve heard.”

“Gosh!” Akane felt her cheeks flair up.

“… Wasn’t where I was headed with that, but considerin’ the force would be tied to how hard he could thrust…” Katie said, pondering the dimensions of the earlier encounter. “Next time, you should take him.”

Akane raised an eyebrow. “So switch up our opponents?”

“His slightly below average length is exploitable,” Katie explained, ignoring Nabiki’s snicker and Akane’s paling. “Yer the one from a school that also uses weapons, right?”

“Well, yeah.” Akane wasn’t sure how exactly it was relevant.

“Then ya simply use somethin’ that can bang that buck down from outside his range.” Katie said as if it was the simplest thing.

Nabiki coughed to dispel the awkward atmosphere from how Katie phrased that. “Anyway, even with most of the laws rescinded, there was no way they were gonna leave guns lying around.”

“Wasn’t meaning that,” Katie said, looking thoughtful. “They teachin’ anythin’ like archery here?”

“Yeah, but I refused to join any of the clubs because of Kuno,” Akane said, “And I don’t want to rely on that.”

“But ya got somethin’ in mind?” Katie asked.

“Yeah, I think I got an idea,” Akane said, nodding a bit.

Nabiki was about to say something when a figure suddenly dropped in practically on top of her. “Ah?!”

“Oop, sorry! Forgot to check if the LZ was cleared!” Kaori apologized, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Howdy, girl,” Katie greeted, “What’s got you in such a hurry?”

Kaori turned to her and Akane. “I did some poking around, asked some questions, and fell back on my months of deliveries round Nerima, but I know where the Sickle Gang’s hideout is.”

Akane grew serious. “Where?!”

“It’s at a gay bar in Taian called Ikemen Teikoku.” Kaori revealed. “It’s actually one of the more popular ones, and the food’s pretty good, too…”

Nabiki gave Kaori a look. “You’re not trying to sell us on going there.”

“You wouldn’t even be allowed to go in, you high schoolers,” said the young woman the same age as Katie and Nabiki.

Katie gave Kaori a chop atop her head. “She means goin’ on about stuff that ain’t pertinent to the situation–and besides, there ain’t a bar I’ve been to that a fake ID can’t get me in.”

Nabiki took Katie’s height into the equation. “Not surprised.”

Kaori rubbed her scalp. “We won’t need IDs anyway if we just storm the place with the boys from Butsumetsu and thrash the ever-loving life out of Kamaitachi and his friends.”

On that, Katie agreed. “True that, but this kinda raises a few questions now…”

Now Kaori was curious. “Like…?”

When Katie answered, there was an edge of annoyance in her voice. “Thems questions are more for Kamaitachi durin’ or after I’m done mashin’ his face into fertilizer.”

“What about our vengeful idiots?” Nabiki asked. “Should we get them in on this or what?”

Katie shook her head. “Ryūnosuke ain’t a problem for the moment, but Ucchan is…”

“Don’t worry about him,” Kaori replied, “I sent him on his way to Tofu’s to get patched up. He’ll probably be good to go by sundown.”

Nabiki had a thought. “… Did you take him to Tofu’s, or did you just tell him to go there?”

Kaori turned to her. “I told him to go, and he said he would.”

Nabiki nodded. “… How’d you get him to cool off?”

“I told him I know where the hideout is, but I didn’t tell him where specifically,” Kaori replied.

Realizing what Nabiki was inferring, Kaori grew annoyed. “Hey! Ucchan may be a stubborn idiot, but even he recognized the bad shape he was in! He wouldn’t be able to lift his spatula to swing it at Kamaitachi, let alone fight him inside his own hideout!”

Nabiki let out a sigh and pulled out her phone. “Just to be sure… let’s give the Doc a call.”

Katie looked at Akane, who was fuming at Nabiki’s complete lack of faith, then at Kaori. “… Hon, let the girl call him.”

Shutting her eyes, Kaori took a deep breath. “She has to be wrong, because otherwise…”

The call connected, and Nabiki turned on the speaker.

“Hello, Tofu Clinic, Dr. Tofu Ono speaking.” Dr. Tofu greeted.

“Hey doc, it’s me, Nabiki–I got you on speaker phone,” Nabiki said preemptively.

“How can I help you?” Dr. Tofu asked.

“Is Ucchan there at the clinic?” Nabiki replied.

There was a pause before Dr. Tofu answered. “No, he’s not. Should I expect him?”

Kaori went stiff. “… He was less than five minutes away from the clinic…”

“I’d say yes. Give me a call if he does show up,” Nabiki asked.

“O-oh, okay, thank you for the heads up,” Dr. Tofu politely answered, “Is there anything else?”

Nabiki turned off the speaker and brought the phone to her ear. “No, that’ll be all doc. Bye.”

As the middle Tendo sister ended the call, Kaori was trembling with anger. “No, no, no… that idiot…!”

Katie groaned. “I’ll call Curly and see if they can spare some manpower.” She turned to Akane. “Yo, Akaneko, looks like we’re goin’ to be big damn heroes again.”

“Twice in one day?” Akane asked as she turned to grab up her bag. “I haven’t even had my lunch!”

With that in consideration, Katie held out her hand. “Siddown and eat it, then.”

Akane paused. “Eh?”

“Me an’ Kaori are just gonna go round up Ucchan and drag him kicking and screaming over to Tofu’s. He doesn’t know where the bar is, so he’ll probably just be off somewhere broodin’ and biding his time to strike.”

“Or thrashing the whole SAD to find the hideout by process of elimination,” Nabiki noted. “I mean, he knows the hideout is here and not, say, outside the walls… right?”

Kaori went pale, and Katie, Akane, and Nabiki all turned to look at her.

“Kaori, hon, sugar pie… what did you do?” Katie asked, her tone increasingly pensive.

Daikoku Kaori didn’t even try to save face. “I fucked up.”

“… How?” Akane said, not liking the vindication in Nabiki’s eyes.

Looking down at her feet, Kaori sighed and fessed. “… I told him their hideout was a gay bar.”

Katie was horrified. “KAORI. THERE ARE ONLY THREE IN THE SAD.”

“You might need to bring a bucket to take what’s left of Ucchan to Tofu’s, then,” Nabiki suggested.

Akane forwent her lunch as she pointed at Nabiki. “You hush!” She turned to Katie and Kaori. “Senpai… let’s go save this idiot.”

Katie nodded in agreement. “Giddyup, then.”

Kaori went right back to seething as the three girls took off. “I swear on my business license, Ucchan… if you are that stupid…!”

Watching the three young women hop the wall and depart, Nabiki shrugged her shoulders and looked at her phone. “I oughta bring Kodachi into the loop…”

“If you do not mind my intrusion,” Mendō Shūtaro said, as he emerged from behind a tree, now that the girls he wasn’t allowed to speak to were gone, “But I would like to know what’s going on as well.”

Nabiki looked up from her phone and at him. “No.”

“If there’s a price for information, I’m willing to pay,” Mendō then offered.

Money was nice, but there was something with Mendō here she didn’t trust. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather not take your cash, Troublemaker. I’m on retainer with Kodachi.”

Mendō knelt before her. “My intentions are noble and pure; I have pledged myself to Kodachi-sama and as you are her retainer, I serve you as well. I only wish to understand this crisis that I have stumbled upon. Who are these masked men, and what threat do they pose to this beautiful school?”

Nabiki huffed in amusement and got up. It was her idea anyway they keep this idiot around, so perhaps it was time to put him to good use. “Let’s talk to Kodachi about it and see what she wants to do about keeping you informed.”

@@@@@​

Ikemen Teikoku, contrary to Kaori’s description as a mere gay bar, was a much more sophisticated and discreet establishment. It was a place where men could come and be freed from the burdens of family, work, and society to be who they really were–all with the application of a mask. The plain white masks that were mandatory for all patrons to wear brought with them freedom from an oppressive and judgemental world, and the comfort that they were not alone in their anonymity.

Today, unfortunately, was not a pleasant day for business.

Deep within the recesses of the red brick building’s most coveted and luxurious lounge, Kamaitachi lit a cigarette and leaned his elbow on the table beneath an extravagant but dimly powered chandelier that still had enough light to set the room glimmering around him. The booth around him was empty, though two of his men guarded the seats.

Across from him, all alone, was a seething Suzuki. His collar popped, his hair was mussed, and there was a fury burning in his eyes as he glowered at the leader of the Sickle Gang.

“What the hell was that?!” He demanded.

Kamaitachi blew out some smoke. “Defeat, that happens sometimes. That okonomiyaki chef and those Furinkan girls showed up at Butsumetsu after fucking Mendō Shūtaro showed up at Furinkan and sent all my guys running in fear. I haven’t even heard back from them.”

Suzuki scoffed. “An infant with no limbs could crush Mendō Shūtaro in a fight!”

Contrary to what Kawasaki Shinji said to his interrogators, Kamaitachi did not like Suzuki.

“Are you freaks that useless?!”

The young man in leather took another drag of his cigarette. “… What more do you want from me, Suzuki?”

Kamaitachi despised this young man.

“I want results!” Suzuki yelled. “I want anyone who could know about our agreement to go away! If you cannot do that, then what good are you?!”

Kamaitachi bowed his head, bludgeoned by the Host’s angry words. Behind his cigarette he cursed his weakness before him–and his wanting inability to assert himself.

To this point, he had been accommodating, generous even, to this spoiled rotten coward.

There was a long drag on the cigarette which burned a little hotter, as if taking in some of Kamaitachi's frustration. “Are you saying you'd like to go back to trying to gain your street cred on your own?”

Suzuki snarled and slammed his fist on the table–painted with a handsome man striding atop a city skyline, bearing the flag with the crossed sickles of the Sickle Gang. In a circle around the man were many similarly drawn men, raising their fists in solidarity with the flag. Looking down at it, he sneered in disgust.

“I may as well, you’re so worthless!” He spat on the center of the table. “Maybe playing grabass in the dark is what you should stick to!”

Kamaitachi trembled, and smoke jetted from his nostrils. “Please… at the very least…”

Suzuki, pulling back, stopped when he heard the quiet plea.

“Please… tell me where I can find it…” Removing the cigarette from his lips, Kamaitachi bowed his head low. “I have already done this much for you, so much for you. Taian is all but yours, they still fear your name and it will be your word against a couple of High School girls and delinquents not even fit to clean Yakuza toilets.”

Kamaitachi hated bowing to this fool so much. But he could do nothing else, Suzuki was his only hope.

His only hope for bringing back the Madame.

Suzuki snorted. “Why? What are you going to do if I don’t?”

A twitch shot through Kamaitachi.

Suzuki gestured to him. “That isn’t to say I don’t appreciate it–even with some of my best guys being under the weather right now, business has been booming. But your gang are a bunch of worthless freaks who can’t even beat up ‘a couple of high school girls and delinquents not even fit to clean Yakuza toilets.’”

He turned away. “I’m not telling you shit.”

Taking two steps, he stopped when he heard hands tightening on weapons behind him. Suzuki’s smirk grew twisted. “Eh…? You guys do remember I can go blow for blow with Sōban, right? Do you really want to add your blood to this joint’s tacky decor?”

Seething, Kamaitachi got up. “… You…!”

A gentle, matronly voice called from the darkness.

“Kamaitachi… what are you doing?”

Kamaitachi dropped the sickle he drew, and gasped as his eyes grew wide. He, and the equally stunned Sickle Gang members guarding his booth looked towards the darkness the voice had drifted from.

Suzuki turned towards the voice as well, as footsteps sounded on the hard concrete floor. “… Who…?”

When he looked back at Kamaitachi, he could see in the dim light tears forming in the leather wearing man’s eyes as he brought his trembling hands up towards his mouth like he was about to break down.

“… It can’t be…” Kamaitachi murmured, his voice filled with hope.

From the darkness a man appeared, adorned in a royal purple kimono with gold trim on the sleeves. Over his shoulders he wore a white feather boa, and over his head and around his neck like a hood there was a light blue silk shawl. On his hands he wore red lace fingerless gloves, and over his face he wore a gold and black mask studded with jewels and bearing the crossed sickles insignia of the Sickle Gang at its center.

Suzuki looked over as the two Gang members guarding Kamaitachi abruptly fell to one knee. Springing over the table, Kamaitachi quickly fell to his knees before the man taking his right hand into both of his own.

“Please… please let it truly be you…!” The young man sputtered, practically weeping.

Suzuki was confused. “Uhh… who is this weirdo?” He stopped to appraise his look. “… Kinda diggin’ his drip, tho.”

“Dear Kamaitachi,” the newcomer said in a soft playfully chiding tone, “Could there be anyone in this world… nnnnn… this beautiful?”

Kamaitachi felt his tears roll down his face as he shook his head. “No, M-Madame Kamenbell!”

Suzuki went rigid, as all the bravado and arrogance exploded from his body due to the sheer force of the terror racing through him. “… Did… did you just say…?!”

Letting out a wail, Kamaitachi held aloft Madame Kamenbell’s hand before resting his forehead against the back of it. “Madaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!”

“Why do you weep, my trusted subordinate?” Madame Kamenbell asked.

“I have done all I could… I’ve done everything you asked of me… but it’s been so hard, I… I…!” Kamaitachi sobbed. “Please forgive me, all of the failures… they are mine alone!”

Madame Kamenbell chuckled. “Failure? For the first time, I saw my beloved men in the light of day, fearless of the sun, and they fought splendidly.”

“But…!” Kamaitachi sputtered.

He smiled down on Kamaitachi. “Fate moves and weaves in wondrous ways… for my heart and soul had returned to this wretched world, even as you took such bold strides. Our reunion was destiny, my Kamaitachi… I am certain of it.”

Kamaitachi looked back up at Madame Kamenbell in awe. His eyes then widened, as realization struck him. “… It is fate…”

He turned and pointed at Suzuki, who had been edging backwards towards the exit to the lounge. “Madame! This man knows where the Fox Temple is!”

It was Madame Kamenbell’s turn to be taken aback, as he he looked up from Kamaitachi to Suzuki. “… Is this true, young man?”

Suzuki stopped moving as Madame Kamenbell slipped his hand from Kamaitachi’s grasp and stepped towards him, reaching out to him melodramatically from ten paces. “… Is what I heard true… do you truly know of the Fox Temple…?”

Swallowing hard and blinking away the sweat pouring down his face from his eyes, Suzuki tried to shore up the swagger he had a minute ago. He had to get the air around him sparkling, to get himself dazzling. “So… you’re Madame Kamenbell, right? The legendary leader of this gang? Heh… yeah… I might know a thing or two about a temple, but–”

Suzuki didn’t see him move. One instant Madame Kamenbell was ten paces away, and in the next his hand was clamped like a bear’s jaws around his throat as he was pressed up against the wall behind him off his feet. He could still barely breathe, but with only the slightest squeeze, he felt his world go hazy. “Geh… grgk?!”

“I trust you are truthful, my dear lovely young man,” Madame Kamenbell said as he reached up and caressed Suzuki’s ashen face with the knife edge of his free hand, dragging the sharpened nail of his pinky finger down his cheek. “There is such little beauty in this wretched world… and it would be a waste to lose more…”

Suzuki gurgled, to terrified to form words even as Madame Kamenbell granted him the ability to with a slightly slackened grip.

Madame Kamenbell slightly shook his head, and then abruptly swung his hand away from Suzuki’s face to deflect a projectile thrown at the side of his with a dramatic flair.

Kamaitachi jumped to his feet in alarm when he saw the projectile embedded in the ceiling–a single spatula.

“My, my… what have we…?” Madame Kamenbell turned his head to look and trailed off when he saw Ucchan standing at the exit to the lounge, hand gripping his holstered oversized spatula. “… The beautiful chef…”

Ucchan chuckled. “Imagine my luck, finding this place on my first try. That’s better for me, I don’t wanna make an enemy of all the dude bars in Taian.”

He looked at Suzuki and made a face. “You just couldn’t keep in your pants, could you? Had to make one last hail mary, huh?”

Suzuki, his eyes filled with fear, looked at Ucchan and he began to gurgle as he shook his head. “… R-ru…”

Ucchan ignored him and turned his attention back to Madame Kamenbell. “Seeing as you’re the best dressed peacock here, you’re the guy in charge–right?”

“I’m flattered you would describe me so beautifully,” Madame Kamenbell replied.

Ucchan snorted. “That wasn’t a compliment. Your fit is goofy there, sugar.”

He drew the spatula from his back and pointed it at him. “When I’m done wiping you and your gang out, I can offer you some tips to freshen your look. Maybe something with a little more humility, huh?!”

Madame Kamenbell let out a theatrical sigh. “Humility is for pathetic, colorless birds who serve no purpose but one:”

He vanished from where he stood.

Ucchan’s eyes widened. “He disappe–”

Blinding pain whited out all of Ucchan’s senses, as the pain of a deep cutting wound down his back blanked everything else out. Madame Kamenbell had gotten behind him in an instant and slashed across his back with the blade of an ornate black and gold scythe bearing a red tassel on the scythe end and a pointed spear tip at the base.

“To be eaten,” Madame Kamenbell finished.

Unable to even utter a word, Ucchan collapsed to the ground unconscious.

Suzuki, still frozen in terror, watched as Madame Kamenbell–now splattered with Ucchan’s blood, turned and looked down at the wounded chef’s back. Bringing his free hand to his mouth, he gasped in realization. “I see… another broken bird, trying to become beautiful.”

Kamaitachi grew surprised at his master’s words, then scowled at Ucchan. “What do we do with him?”

“We will be taking him with us, and the other fetching young man as well,” Madame Kamenbell said, “If he has found us, then others will be along shortly. There is much to do, and I would like to see it done with as little interference as possible.”

Kamaitachi grimaced. “Damn it…”

Madame Kamenbell abruptly appeared before Kamaitachi and cupped his cheek. “My Kamaitachi… fear not. This withdrawal is necessary, but we are now one step closer to a beautiful world… and it is all thanks to you.”

Heartened, Kamaitachi nodded, then went over to take Suzuki by his arm and haul him to his feet. “Get up you piece of shit.”

Suzuki yelped and tried to pull away. “No, I’m not–!”

A hard punch across his face stopped him, and Kamaitachi looked down at him with the same sadistic sneer he had only a few minutes prior. “You have no say in the matter, pretty boy. In fact, if you want this to go any better for you, then you should collect your thoughts and tell us everything we want to know.”

=-=-Note Time-=-=​

I waited so long for this. The next chapter, dropping next week, will be massive. It will also be the end of the line for a certain character...