Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Zoey Boey
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Zoey Boey better than the alternative

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Yonaka Aimi


Yonaka's plan was dismissed by some, (Akina, surprise surprise) but Mai Li, being both smart and brave, was onboard with it. Everyone seemed very defensive of MaiLi, which, of course they were. Just take one look at her and try not to get protective. But Yonaka wanted to make sure that Mai-Li's ambition had a place to go too.

The taller, purple hair woman stayed by Mai Li's side as everyone talked. When Minato announced his plan, she couldn't help but roll her eyes a bit.

"Chump detectives it is, Mai li-chan." She slapped the girl on the shoulder. She smiled under her mask.

"inspire them to loosen her lips a little-"...Tch. No way was this guy this clueless. Sometimes it felt like he was the only person in the world who understood her. Other times it felt like they were continents apart.

Yonaka picked up her kendo stick and shouldered it. Long, slender limbs slung under the weapon, her fingers keeping it balanced on either side. Ikue. Yonaka didn't like Ikue very much. If Yonaka was in charge, she'd have Ikue come to these meetings herself, or get lost. Maybe she was just saying that because, for some reason, the reaction to her plan ticked her off. People were talking and looking at her like she would just happily feed Mai Li to the wolves. Ambushing the ambushers was her plan, obviously. She had said as much. What, one layer of facetiousness and they think she'd leave the new girl to die? Well, screw what they thought. Yonaka frowned underneath her mask and glared at the phone, Ana, Akina, and Yuya, that shifty bastard. Guy was always giving her weird looks. Even a frustrated look at Minato, though she waited until he wasn't making eye contact with her to do it.

Once he was done giving out his plan, Yonaka turned tersely. "Come on, Mai." She jerked her head to the door she had entered from. As she pulled the door open she let the stick fall and dragged it noisily behind her. It clacked behind her as she descended each step.

If Mai and Yonaka ended up alone together on their walk back, Yonaka would look to the girl. "So? You think you did good?" She asked.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by sassy1085
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sassy1085 The Queen of Sassy

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SARAYASHIKI JUNIOR HIGH

Before Akina object to Yonaka plan to use Mai as bait, she greet at Yuuya with a small wave and a sweet smile, she wonder why his face looks so red, is it cold outside? It not that cold, hmmm. But if Akina is being honest, Yuuya have been always like since they met, "a high school delinquent who act all tough and stuff but secretly, he got a heart of gold", it's her favorite trope in her books.

"We know, Mai-chan. We just want to make sure that you are safe. You're our friend, ya know?" Akina say to Mai in sisterly like tone. Mai looks awfully like her younger sister, Emika, she always ask Akina if she can come to her meetings, always say "I'm going to the same school as you next year, neechan. Sooner or later, I'm going to join your gang!" and that Akina can do is smile at her young sister but she hopes that someday she would join a normal club and not have this much stress if her parents find out about her secret friend group, she wants to keep them separate as possible.

As the gang members are choosing rather or not use Mai as bait, Minato finally speak up, setting everyone plans up, including Akina, who is going give the gang legitimacy. Akina smile to Minato plan, she likes that he use brains instead of brawn, that what makes him a good leader and hopes someday that he can use his leadership after graduation. Minato then tells everyone to go home since it's a school night, before heading off home, Akina give Yonaka a nod "Keep her safe, Yonaka-kun." and then tells everyone a goodbye.

@Zoey Boey@pugbutter@Noblebandit
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by TheWendil
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TheWendil The Wendil-Sama™ / ಠ_ಠ

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“Hmm?” Truthfully, Ikue was half-paying attention to what was going on in the conversation. Or maybe it just looked like it. It was hard to tell over the phone to be honest but either way, she must have been noting down some of the discussion going on with her response. Naturally, she reacted as such when Minato finally made his voice known on the other side, followed up with his cunning plan. Whether or not any of these steps worked remained to be seen and it was clear he wasn’t telling them all the full brunt of his idea. But who were they to question?

If she were there, Ikue might have shrugged lazily. But given that she wasn’t, she only answered in full. “Heh, consider it done. You didn’t say which club suits you best so don’t complain if I sign you up for the knitting club.” Did Sarayashiki even have a knitting club? They would find out the following day whether they liked it or not. What was a bigger question was how Minato even knew the Student Council were hosting a meeting tomorrow. Well…who knew and who cared? Be it a grudge on the Student Council or information fed from Ikue, it mattered little.

“Meeting’s over then,” she repeated when Minato said his piece and dismissed the members he was done speaking to. Ikue would remain on the other line until the very end of the meeting, just in case Minato felt like pulling some last-minute strings of footing her some mystery bill that would orchestrate his grand plan into design. When all was said and done and the meeting was truly commenced, she’d hang up and leave their leader to his thoughts, eager for the next day.

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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Noblebandit
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Ishida brought up a good point. It didn't matter what plans they came up with, Mai was already going to be a target, and it would be stupid of them to ignore that little detail. She was still going to need protecting. And wouldn't it be better for her if having a bodyguard was part of a plan, and not an imposition? She had only just joined, she didn't need a reason for everyone to look at her like dead weight already.

“It won't be long before they take a swing at you. Think you can take one?” Ishida didn't give her a chance to respond, but he could probably already guess her answer. They all could. Mai wasn't going to back down, come hell or high water, and anyone trying to convince her otherwise was just going to be wasting their time.

Ishida went on to tell her the plan, and he must have noticed her wince when he said her first name. These guys were getting way too chummy for her liking. Yonaka could get away with, since those two were actually friends, but the rest of them were strangers to her. She had to wonder, were they treating her like this because she wasn't fully Japanese? Certainly, her classmates thought they could get away with that kind of thing, because apparently politeness doesn't apply for hafus. Or was it her age?

At any rate, the plan was the one she'd been dreading: having to ask her classmates what they knew about the attacker. Mai had to groan. As if her classmates didn't have enough reasons to hold her in contempt, now she had to go around asking them intrusive questions like some low-budget rent-a-cop. Fuuun. Well, whatever. It couldn't all be fun and games. And hey, maybe if her classmates saw she was actually trying to help them, they might actually show a bit of respect for once!

Not likely...

Speaking of disrespect, the one in pink spoke up next. “We know, Mai-chan. We just want to make sure that you are safe. You're our friend, ya know?”

Koitsu! Who did this girl think she was!? She barely knew Mai for ten minutes, and she was already addressing her by her first name — and as “chan” to boot!

“I'm not as helpless as I look, Umeko-san She stated with a voice like winter. Hopefully she got the message. She couldn't tell Ishida off, but maybe she could nip this “call Mai by her first name” thing before it became too entrenched. Maybe that was harsh of her to snap. Umeko was clearly just trying to be friendly. But darn it all, she was not joining a street gang to get the same disrespect she got from everyone else! How was she supposed to feel at ease around these people if they were constantly looking down on her? Friendly or not, all she asked for was a little respect.

“Chump detectives it is, Mai Li-chan.” Mai felt Yonaka's hand clap against her shoulder, snapping her out of her mood. Knowing that Yonaka was going to be by her side made the coming task seem a little less daunting. People could ignore Mai all they liked, but no-one was going to refuse Yonaka, not unless they had a serious grudge against their own kneecaps.

When all was said and done, it was time to go. Yonaka turned on her heel and bid Mai follow, which forced Mai to swallow down a bitter retort. Seems like everyone was showing her disrespect today, even her friends.

When they were alone, Yonaka turned to her. "So? You think you did good?"

Mai shook her head. "They think I'm a kid." she mumbled, morose. "No one took me seriously at all."
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by pugbutter
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But that, in the end, was the difference between him and Ana, wasn't it? The way she talked, you'd think the issue at hand was the bait's efficacy. Its ... reliability. Whether it'd survive the first gulp from their first big trout. That mute smartass really, truly didn't get it. If you had to trick someone to beat him, it was plain as day that you lacked either the strength, or the guts, to beat him head-on. It completely cheapened any "victory" attainable there, besmirching not only the match, but your very skill as a hunter. Like those people who needed tree stands, musk sprays, camouflage, high-powered scopes, and hi-capacity magazines just to feel big enough to take down a deer. At that point was there even any sport in it?

Still riding the high from his first cigarette, Yūya tamped the second down into its pack. He did crack a second beer, though. A shame the rest of it was going to waste; it couldn't come home with him, and no one else seemed interested. Well, either the janitors or the day's first class-skippers tomorrow would have a good time. Even if it was warm and flat by then, thirteen-year-olds had to take what dubiously-obtained alcohol they could get.

Thinking it over again, to shoot down this plan Yūya would have to be ready with an alternative. And unfortunately, they needed too many pieces to fall into place at once: they didn't just need to stomp some brat into the dirt and deflate his ego a little. They needed to find out who this brat even was. Entrap and then catch him red-handed. Obtain a warrant for search, seizure, and eventual arrest. Forfeit his assets to the state, but not before his fair trial by judge and lay-jury ... The suit-and-tie elements in the team always had to make things complicated, like their boardroom meetings and ... uh, stock options. It's like they forgot sometimes who the rest of them were: the runoff, the dregs, drifting down and gathering in the lowest schools and seediest basement bars. The bottom of the bottle. A long, heavy sigh oozed over his tongue. No matter how he looked at it, Yūya didn't have to speak up because he had a better idea. He had to speak up because if the royalty had their way, this was gonna be goddamn boring.

He just had to pick his phrasing; he had to be ... pointed, without being provocative. Concerned, but not insubordinate.

"The important thing is this—" Ah, shit. Too late. "Sarayashiki has a boogeyman that even the Student Council is trying to—"

Yūya listened as best he could. The time for soldiering had come, quietly supplanting the era of advisors and strategists; when Ishida clammed up they could shoot the shit a little, but when he spoke, their role was to listen, and obey. Yūya thought back to his conversation with Mutо̄. Orders were one thing, but if he wanted to listen to speeches he'd go to class and take it from Oguni-sensei, and the class prez, and everyone else who wanted to lay into him for every little wrinkle in his proverbial shirt. If anything was gonna turn Yūya traitor, it was gonna be the fuckin' speeches.

By the time Ishida had been diatribing for two and a half minutes (including dramatic pauses) Yūya was just about ready for him to forget he was there. Yep: signing up for clubs, interviewing students ... the usual M.O. Maybe tomorrow he'd go on a joyride to Shinagawa; take the train up to Hasune and pick a fight with that blond punk who'd claimed the station there as his turf; or even just loaf around with Mutо̄ and Sunohara under the mulberry tree like always. Even among those who'd been mentioned by name, it sounded like only Yonaka and Li might, might, see some action tomorrow.

Waste of my damn time.

"Yūya. Ana."

Hmm? Oh. So he hadn't forgotten. Yeah, it wasn't really like Ishida to do that.

"I need the two of you on something different. Stick around for a moment. Everyone else: go home. Get some sleep. It's a school night, after all ..."

The hell did that mean? First of all, if Ishida was sending the others home before they could eavesdrop, then it was some kinda secret. Why? Yūya didn't strike himself as the secret-keeping type. Maybe that's precisely why he was picked, then? But ... no, more to the point, what kind of secret could Ishida entrust to Yūya better than all his bootlicks and sycophants? Well, him and Tamura-san ... Yeah, and for that matter, what did he and she even have in common? What were they, and they alone, best-suited for? Fighting? Everyone here could handle a weapon. Except maybe that Li character. So, what; were they the sneakiest? The most resourceful or connected? The cleverest? Even something cheesy like the most determined or perseverant? ... No. They weren't. Or, he wasn't.

I guess us two are the tallest? And thus the most intimidating? ... I dunno. That's what I got.

Tamura Ana. What did she think about being partnered with somebody with whom she had nothing in common? Jesus! Yeah, just fuckin' look at her, dude. She's struggling not to puke right now. I bet she doesn't even know she's scowling.

So he was so gross that just the thought of being stuck with him on a stakeout churned a girl's stomach, huh?—like she'd just found shit on the bottom of her shoe—it would've been hilarious if it didn't stab and twist in his gut just the tiniest bit. Yūya snuck a sidewise glance at Akina, too, while she took her leave, as congenially as ever; if she felt the same way, then someone in the high-profile family of hers msut've taught her how to "smile for the cameras," as it were. As for the others, there was some consolation to be gleaned in seeing the same confusion in their countenances, and overhearing a few of their grievances at the door.

That Li chick ... she hadn't been there half an hour yet and she was already gloryhounding. She had guts—no doubting that—but would she still have guts after she took a punch for Ishida? Or was it gonna be her first punch: replete with the telltale head-spinning, ass-dropping, jaw-rattling disbelief of having just been hit in the face?

Too small to intimidate her inevitable tormentors into backing down; too small to follow through on a threat or keep a hastily growled promise ... She wouldn't last. But if she did, at least she wasn't wearing a damn tie. There had to be some solidarity in that.

Li had been the last one out; she and Yūya had made eye contact. He wondered whether he, too, wore an involuntary expression, betraying the confusion and ... slight sadness which Li stirred in him.

But to Ishida went his eyes next as the door closed behind Li. "I admit you've got a way with intrigue," he said, wandering away from the door and nearer to the boss. Heh; to put it mildly.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by LostDestiny
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LostDestiny Goldfish Brain

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Ana Tamura


While Ana waited for the opinions of the others to be voiced she had been watching the new girl. She seemed to deflate briefly when those who didn’t want to use her as bait said something, but it wasn’t that noticeable. She felt a little bad for the younger girl, Ana herself had never gone through this. Trying to join an established gang, she had fallen in with this group before it even was a gang, it was just 3 kids beating people for different reasons. Finally, Minato spoke up, giving his final say and orders to the group.

Ana almost protested when he basically agreed to using the first year as bait but remained quiet to let him finish his orders. He continued on and she listened carefully. Until finally he told her and Yuya to stay behind. Her face contorted to one of slight annoyance only for a moment. Minato knew of her distrust of the male and yet decided to pair them together for something he clearly didn’t want the others to know about.

She silently watched the others leave. Only giving a general wave for the group as they left. Her eyebrows furrowed as she thought about what it was the Boss could want with the both of them. Was this because she had voiced her distrust, was it some form of punishment, or trust building exercise. She had made it clear she would play nice until he showed signs of betrayal, or he proved he could be trusted. Her gaze fell on the male in question, catching his eyes on her as well. She quickly averted her gaze to literally anything else, which ended up being her own feet, suddenly concerned with a spot on her shoe that had been there for weeks.

Taking a breath her attention went from her shoe to Minato, waiting for his instructions while making every effort not to look back over at Yuya who she could feel was still looking at her. Did he know she didn’t trust him? Had she made it that obvious? She had done her best to not show her emotions but it would seem her facial expressions had betrayed her at some point because he definitely knew something was up. It made her uncomfortable knowing he knew something.

The door finally closed as the last of the other members left and Yuya spoke up. She huffed out a small amused laugh when he made the comment about intrigue. That was an understatement right now. She had no clue what Minato was about to ask them to do, which was odd since she was usually one of the first people to know about issues within their territory. Even still she moved off the fence she was leaning against and stood beside Yuya so that Minato didn’t have to turn to speak to the both of them. She remained silent as usual waiting for the orders from the boss.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Courtaud
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Courtaud Delinquent

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"It's not in my nature to be mysterious. There's just something I want to keep between us three." Minato let the implications that what they were about to discuss was a private matter weigh in the air for a moment before continuing. Of the two of the gang members on the rooftop with him, Ana was a more trustworthy person. She and Minato have been in each other's lives the longest, and of everyone, she was often the only one he could confide in when it came to things outside of just the gang. Of everyone else at Sarayashiki, it was likely that Ana knew him the most.

It was because of this bond that Minato knew that she was probably doubtful that this was the sort of conversation to have in front of Yuya. More than once Ana had not so subtly implied that she thought Yuya was "a shit." Minato didn't exactly agree with her, but knew the sort of thing she meant - he was somewhat abrasive, and someone who furrows their brow as much as they do is apt to give themselves a headache. Yuya might be angry, proud, whatever the case may be - but there was a particular kind of code he carried himself with that Minato saw in small glimpses. With his added physical strength and propensity for willing to slug someone, his role was one that could be honed to perfection. For now, the two of them would have to get along.

"The Diamonds are making some sort of play. Word getting around is that there's been some sort of open invite to a summons of all the gang's. But not by the way you're expecting. Ikebukuro is letting their power plays get out of hand. They want schools to fight." Minato pointed at them both.

"Tomorrow night, you two going to meet at Teiko Middle School, and beat whichever punk they choose as their fighter. There's no telling if they'll be a boy, girl, or whoever else. One of the Diamonds is supposed to be in attendance to deliver the real invite to the summons to whichever gang wins. And that's going to be us."

Minato told them what to expect, how they aren't allowed any additional support, and the same would be expected of Teiko Middle School. He also informed them that since Teiko had a bigger rep, they got to fight on their own turf. It was a challenge that the Sarayashiki Gang would have to step up to. Minato let it known to Ana and Yuya that he was going to keep this quiet for this fight due to not wanting to distract the others from their tasks.

With that, Minato was finished with their instructions. After their reactions, he walks with them down off the rooftop, before they all go their separate ways...




The Following Day, after school...

"I'm not sure this is going to go over very well, boss." Ten Ton whispered to Minato, as the blue haired boy put away his bookbag. It had been an arduous school day, slow-moving. Minato had passed the hours barely able to pay attention to his teachers, instead gazing up at the clouds just outside his window. There was a lot of moving parts going on all at once with his friends. Not the least of which being the physical danger that some of them may find themselves in soon. He didn't like the prospect of Yuya and Ana being in the presence of one of the Diamonds, not to mention Li and Yonaka diving head first into an investigation into whatever violent force was disrupting the hallways of their school. But being a leader came with trusting his gang to deliver.

Of course, he didn't know at the time that things were going to get much more volatile, and fast. Could it all have been avoided? Only maybe.

"Ten Ton, don't worry. What could possibly go wrong?"

"We're walking right into the lion's den. You know the Student Council gives me the creeps. And the Vice President is going to be there. Yeah sure, she may be hot and all, but she's scary as hell." Ten Ton looked around with that nervous energy he sometimes had. Minato smiled at him. If people knew that beneath all that muscle and scariness, was actually a really soft-hearted ne'er do well delinquent, they'd be shocked.

"Ikue is going to take care of us getting in, don't worry about that. And with Akina with us we look that much more legitimate. You know she's one of the most popular girls here. Speaking of, she said she'd be waiting for us outside the assembly room."

Minato and Ten Ton hoofed it over to the assembly room, passing by a few of the others as they went. Yonaka was standing alongside a vending machine in the hallway. Minato noticed that the other students were giving her a wide berth as they passed. Li wasn't around her just yet. Minato stopped to say hello, dropping some coins into the machine to get drinks. A strawberry milk tea, a canned coffee, and a bottle of water all rolled to the bottom of the machine after a few button presses. Minato offered one up to Yonaka - her choice. With a smile and nod, the two boys left her and after a few turns in the hallway, made it to the assembly room doors.

Minato stopped. The doorway had a table in front of it, and it looks like two members of the student council were checking names on a clipboard, comparing clubs before letting people inside. Minato didn't recognize them - they weren't any of The Big 4. He looked around - no sign of Ikue just yet. That wasn't totally unlike her. She tended to wait until the last possible moment before making a grand appearance from the shadows. For an information broker, she had a flair for the dramatic.

Then from around the corner, came Akina. Ten Ton waved her over, nervously sweating already at the prospect of crossing paths with the Student Council. Minato meanwhile was leaning on the wall behind him, making himself scarce for the moment...

Ten Ton smiled down at Akina, rubbing the back of his own heaad nervously.

"Lets um...well let's go up there and see if we can sign in?"
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by Noblebandit
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Mai wasn't to know what Ishida thought last night, but if she had, she would have laughed up a lung. She would have taken ditching school to go meet with a bunch of other thugs over LARPing a gumshoe any day of the week. Lucky for her, she didn't know what she was missing out on: the task ahead of her had already put her in a foul mood, and knowing the fun the others would be having without her would have only made it worse.

Her mood was only compounded by her tremendously poor showing in front of the gang. She was so angry that when she sat down for breakfast the next morning, her parents had to ask her if she was okay, and she couldn't tell them yes with a straight face. What was she supposed to tell them? "Yeah, I'm fine, I just tried to join a street gang, and they all hold me in utter contempt, thank you very much, Dad"? That would have spiced up the breakfast table. It also would have resulted in her getting grounded until college, so instead, she fobbed them off with some muttering about school and fled before her mom could try to bust out the "girl talk". Poor woman. Mai knew she meant well, but she had the social intelligence of a spoon.

The first debate of the day was whether she should get Yonaka involved immediately, or whether she should try to get some information on her own first. Going on her own definitely appealed to her more. It would prove that she had something of value to contribute to the gang, and that she didn't need to hide behind Yonaka's skirt the entire time. On the other hand, if she couldn't get anything useful out of her classmates and she had to come crawling to Yonaka for help, that would just make her look pathetic. On the other hand, starting with Yonaka at her side definitely offered more security, but also didn't offer as much in terms of glory. She considered it as she walked to school, but try as she might, she just could not decide. There was too much uncertainty.

Then again, it all depended on who she was questioning. There were some people who she could crack herself no problem. There were others who would be impossible for her alone to take on. Whether or not she would ask for Yonaka's help depended entirely on whether or not she would need it in the first place.

So who were her targets? Who recently had been assaulted? Out of everyone in her year, there were two names that came to mind - Fujiwara Mitsu and Kishi Kenzo. If two more thouroughly unlikeable people existed, Mai was taking that as proof in the lack of a benevolent god. It was no surprise that someone out there wanted to strike fear into those two, and it was her task to cut through the laundry list of the enemies they had made and find out who exactly was the one that pulled the trigger.

Mitsu would be easy. She had her own plan to deal with her later today. It was Kenzo who was the real problem. He and Mai had history. Nothing serious; a spat, really, but she hadn't exactly won her way into his best friends' club. He thought she was as delinquent in the making, she thought he was a snot-nosed goody-two-shoes kiss-up who spent more time talking to the teachers than he did other students. A match made in heaven, she thought bitterly. Part of her just wanted to ignore him and leave him to the wrath of the student council he was so infatuated with, but as hilariously ironic as that would be, she wasn't doing this for herself. She was doing this for the gang, and the gang expected results. Besides, any joy she got from leaving him to his fate would be nothing compared to watching that little toad squirm when he found out it was Mai who brought his attacker to justice.

That got her thinking. Why should she hog all the fun to herself? She'd been going about this all wrong. She'd been thinking too much about what the gang thought that she had forgotten to have fun with this, and isn't everything more fun with friends? How could she even think of excluding Yonaka when she was undoubtedly about to do Yonaka's favourite activity: putting the screws to some hapless boy until he confessed something he really didn't want to admit? She had been handed a golden opportunity here. Best not squander it.

Once she realised that, it was like the clouds parted to reveal a beautiful sunshine. As she came to the school gates, she decided she was going to look for Yonaka. They had work to do.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by sassy1085
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sassy1085 The Queen of Sassy

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Collaboration with the talented @pugbutter


Among the bray of the cicadas, and the snorting of the boys in white knee-highs and striped blouse-shirts, bull-like in their stampede, an aluminum whistle loosed a single shrill chirp. The boys took notice, and turned their heads toward their coach, who was wagging his finger toward the dugout.

“Water break!” cried Oguni-sensei. He craned his wrist and leered down into the afternoon glare of his watch. “Fifteen minutes. I want everybody back on the field by 16:40. Got it?”

“Yes, coach!” Despite how they dispersed and drifted in from the third-base line, the cry rang out with an icy clarity. For a moment—only one—it let Oguni believe that this pack of loafers and miscreants harbored inside of them a shred of solidarity; that even if they were mostly slag, each of them had in his heart a nugget of iron which Oguni could smelt together in the foundry of discipline, and quench in sweat, and hammer into a real team. An earnest team.

But as Sunohara, Mutо̄, Takanashi, and the others took their seats in the soothing shade of the dugout, any one of them could have told him the truth. They were all slag. Every milligram. Every atom and iota under their greased, pompadoured heads.

Fuaaa,” sighed Yūya with a satisfying slump onto the bench, like he was a big bag of ribeyes tossed onto a butcher’s scale. “I dunno why I keep showing up for this shit.”

“Weren’t you in class, too?” said Sunohara Eiichi.

“Yeah, I saw you in the hall!” Mutо̄ Hiroaki accused, targeting the object of the question instead of its asker. “The fuck’s up with that?

So they’d already figured out something was amiss. He had to admit sometimes that they only looked stupid. Swiping his towel along his nape and his forehead, Yūya went for his oversized jug of Pocari Sweat next, big gulps sending jagged bubbles dancing up to the upturned bottom of the bottle. The lukewarm sweetness loitered on his tongue. He didn’t mind that it had gone warm; the act of drinking it sufficed to let him ponder his answer. What did they not need to know? What would they wring out of him regardless?

“A mission,” he said nebulously. “I had to meet up with my partner-in-crime to talk game-plans. That’s it.”

“That can’t just be ‘it.’”

“Too bad that it is, then.”

“Who’s the partner?” Hiroaki butted in.

“Tamura An—wait. Wait!”

Eiichi’s sudden outburst of laughter affirmed Yūya’s fear in a heartbeat; not two seconds later, Eiichi was reaching, with both hands, into a windbreaker he’d piled onto his slice of the bench. One produced his eyeglass case from a breast pocket. The other—burrowing deep, deep into a Napoleon—produced a memo-book, playing-card-sized and bound in black leather.

“Ta-mu-ra, Ta-mur-a~ …” said Eiichi in a singsong voice, the mischief gleaming in his smile and his reading lenses alike as he opened up the book and carded through its silk-thin pages.

“You put that nasty thing away!” Yūya’s finger slid damningly from Eiichi to Hiroaki. “And you; you did that on purpose, didn’t you?! You damn accomplice!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hiroaki said.

“Come on, Yūya-kun,” Eiichi cooed, “you don’t want to take a look? Not a single little peeksy?”

“No. You keep away from me with that devil-magic, you hear?”

But already he could feel the pull of The Book, its dark magnetism which sought to devour him like the gravity of a collapsed star. He looked away and stiffened, before he got any ideas of asking it why Tamura had said such nasty things to him last night on the roof, right after Ishida had dismissed them. What those grossed-out scowls and sneers were all about. Why she was so determined to … no, just what her fucking neurosis was in general! The Book would have the answers; Yūya was sure of it. But once he succumbed to its power … it felt like cheating, somehow. Like if he wanted to know what Tamura’s goddamn deal was then he had to man up, grab her by the throat, and find out the way any other bastard would. As he recoiled, Yūya could feel Eiichi’s eyes behind the glasses, behind the headcap of the book, smiling.

“Fine, fine. Suit yourself,” said the bespectacled boy. “You’ll change your tune soon enough. Just remember: my services ain’t cheap.”

Yūya scoffed. To punctuate his point, he aimed a lump of phlegm at the ruddy clay right at the edge of the dugout. “... A-And what about you? You scare away that chick from 3-A yet? What’s-her-name—Chiaki?”

“Aono Chiaki, yes … 62/58/72. Size 28AA. Petite perfection. Ah!—Chiaki-chan, light of my life, fire of my loins!” When Eiichi finally drifted back down from his euphoric daydream, and wiped that wistful, longing look from his face with a rag soaked in smug satisfaction, he then declared, “No, Yūya-kun, this is not your dog-day. For I haven’t even asked Chiaki-chan out yet.”

“Why not? Heh; not going sissy on us, are you?”

“I’ve been biding, my friend. Biding … and planning. You see, I only had to secure my victory before the battle for her heart could truly begin.”

And there it was again: that pang of envy piercing his heart, like an especially heavy icicle fallen from an especially high eave. Before he knew it, Yūya’s thoughts had wafted away to another girl entirely: one for whose heart the battle had not begun, and most assuredly was not won. “And … how did you do that?” he muttered, laboring, agonizing to show the water salesman that even without his help, he would survive this march through the desert.

“Mm-hm-hm-hm!” Eiichi only hum-laughed in his usual gloating way. “I bought her a gift. A gift she can’t possibly refuse, Yūya-kun. Of course, it took quite a bit of—research to find out what the elusive Aono Chiaki-chan likes. But it was worth the patience. Now, by my calculations, the chance of her saying ‘no’ is less than one percent.”

Wa—One percent!!!

“So, are you still pretending you’re not interested?” Now Eiichi was leaning in close, slinging an unctuously chummy arm over Yūya’s shoulders. His breath smelled like Vietnamese fish sauce. “Knowledge comes with a price, Yūya-kun, but it’d really be worth it in your case. The things I’ve seen would turn your unlucky ass around.”

“Now, hold on,” Hiroaki objected. “To his credit, he’s talking to one of those second-years. And this one hasn’t even run away in disgust yet!”

“Yeah? And how long has he been just talking to her? Face it, Hii-kun: you and I will both have girlfriends before this loser shapes up.”

“Sheeeeeeeeeyit, Yūya, you should bop him one for that ... Yūya?”

Less than one percent … guaranteed victory … sure to say yes … with Eiichi’s methods she’s sure to say yes?! He had a hand over his mouth and a deathly chill in his eyes, intense with focus and thought.

“Ah, look. You broke him.”

“Did not.”

“... You think I can’t do it, huh?”

“Oh. Welcome back.”

“So, Sunohara, you think I need your goddamn charity to succeed with her; that’s it, right? Is it because I’m a faggot or just a coward; huh?!”

“I … didn’t say anything like that.”

“No,” Yūya admitted, “not in those words ...”

He stood up, knocking aside his empty Pocari Sweat bottle. It rattled a meter down the concrete. “Sensei,” he cried, “can I go buy something from the vending machine?”

“Hurry up,” Oguni said, his coal-black scrutiny falling upon his watch. “Break’s over in eight minutes.”

“Thanks.”

“Oy-oy-oy-oy-Yūya-kun!”

“What?”

“Whaddaya mean ‘what?’ Where ya goin’?!

“Check your glasses, four-eyes. I’m goin’ to the gym. I’m asking her out!”

“Right now?!”

He vaguely heard them behind him—“Oy, Yūya, get back! It’s too soon, man!”—“You at least gotta wait until she’s away from her friends!”—but he had to block them out. All their two-seconds-too-late strategism and couch-cushion camaraderie. Before they talked the sense back into him. Before it sunk in how stupid this was, and how right they were.

Hiroaki watched dreadingly between his fingers and the slats of the dugout. “There goes our boy,” he moaned, “all grown up … Hey. If he comes back heartbroken it’s your fault.”

My fault?! … A thousand yen on him chickening out again, anyway.”

Hiroaki didn’t like to admit it, but … “I like my money where it is, thank you very much.”


Meanwhile, in the gymnasium ...


Hai!

Hai!

The third girl standing in as referee savored the moment. “... Hai!” And with the permission of the three, the match began.

The two contestants collided with a loud clap. Akina deftly blocked every hit, dodged every attack that her opponent tried, utterly in vain, to land on her. And when she saw her opportunity, she took it unhesitantly, slipping under a far-clumsier swing and striking at her foe’s ribcage. Three white flags shot upward in acknowledgement of her second point; and, thus, her victory. “I’ll see everyone tomorrow,” cried their teacher as she strode to leave through the gym’s front entrance, looking more than satisfied with the results of the afternoon’s final spar.

Akina and her peers removed their birdcage masks and their padded armour and settled into a gasping, sweating respite; on the bleachers, or even the floor. “Sheesh, Acchan!” Haya exclaimed. “What are you trying to do: break my ribs?”

Akina did take kendō training a little too seriously, but all she wanted was to be ready for tournaments; and her missions! “Sorry, Haya-chan. You know how I get too focused on these things.”

“Well, I’m exhausted,” Leiko sighed as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. “I can’t wait to get home and sit my ass down.”

“I, on the other hand, am going shopping. I’ve got to pick up a few of those new handbag-charms. Everyone’s saying they give you good luck during tests and tournaments! You girls want to come with?”

Even though Leiko did say that she was going home, she accepted Haya's offer with a self-evident nod and a sidling-up to her shopping companion. Akina, on the other hand: “Sorry. I have to go home early to—”

“Study,” Haya and Leiko cackled in unison, finishing her sentence for her. “Yeah, yeah, we know.”

“I catch a cold just imagining you cooped up in that room all day! Come on, Acchan, have a girls’-night-out with us,” Haya cooed.

Maybe I should, Akina wondered. Sure, she’d end up with yet another set of clothes that looked cute on the rack, but collected dust as she defaulted to her usual idol-esque pinks and ribbons, but at least she’d have fun buying it. Actually, if she found something that would help her fit in better with the Sarayashiki boys … In all their black leathers, recklessly loud kimono-print shirts, parachute pants and so on, she continued to feel, from time to time, that she didn’t truly belong; that maybe she merely played a part to be accepted up on their stage. At times she even caught herself imagining other lives, the ones which could have played out had she never joined the group. What did she wear in these alternate lives? White cotton, or black lace?

Akina’s thoughts were cut short as she heard her pager buzzing, however. Oh, right; the mission! “Sorry, not today but maybe next time. Bye, Haya-chan. Bye, Leiko-chan!” Akina hurried to leave the gymnasium before they could protest. But while smiling to her friends, she must have misjudged where the door was, and knocked into one of the basketball mats by mistake; as she stepped into something firm and a little warm, and it didn’t budge much while blocking her passage, something shoved into Akina’s stomach and kneaded the air from her lungs. “Oomph!”

Had she really just walked her clumsy butt into a wall? Akina looked up to Leiko and Haya again to giggle. “A-ta-ta-ta, that hurts …” she whispered, then turning to see what she’d walked into.

He had greasy black hair, teased into a style which he may as well have been born with, as Akina had never seen him wearing anything else. She knew only one person with that kind of hair; he was barely recognizable in his team uniform, and behind the rosy flush in his face which must have been sunburn.

“Yūya-ku—” She realized her mistake at once as Leiko and Haya’s glares burrowed into her back. “T-Takanashi-san, what are you doing here?”

“A—A-A-Akakak—Akin—Akin—”

Oh dear. This must have been just as mortifying for him as it was for her! He was only calm enough of mind to offer her a hand up—whatever he was trying to say, it only came out in jagged, broken little shards of words.

Akina looked once more to the others. That’s right; in their presence he was “Takanashi-san.” Just like she was Umeko-san.

“Uh, Takanashi-san, d-daijoubu desu k—

Shitsureishimasu!” Yūya proclaimed suddenly. “Akin—Umeko-san,” he said, suddenly remembering something she’d told him the last time they hung out, “can we talk? I got somethi—I mean, I gotta, uh—”

He looked her up and down, now smudged with the faintest smear of dust from the basketball court’s waxed floor.

“—… apologize?”

“OH, NO YOU DON’T.”

Before Akina could do anything to stop them, Leiko and Haya had both brandished their shinai, and wedged themselves between her and Yūya. They wore contempt in their eyes, and Hasso no Kamae rigidity in their limbs.

“Um, guys,” she tried to say assuringly, “it’s okay … I’m fi—”

“YOU!” Leiko shouted. “You aren’t even worthy to shine her shoes, you creep! How dare you grab Akina-senpai by the arm?!”

”How dare you so much as brush your hand against hers, peasant?!” said Haya, a little too eager to join in.

“You wanna apologize?! Prostrate!”

“Yeah, prostrate!”

“Guys!” pleaded a weaker voice, sandwiched between Haya’s and Leiko’s.

Two versus one … Haven’t got a weapon on me … Not good odds. Oh, yeah, and beating girls is kinda not cool, I guess ...

“I, uh, see it’s a bad time …” Yūya murmured.

“For you? It’s always a bad time, greaseball. Remember that.”

“Yeah, the gym belongs to the kendо̄ team, loser! Mnnnnnn!” Haya pulled down her lower eyelid to bare the pink web of nerves beneath, and stuck out her tongue at him to boot.

Akina knew Yūya well enough to know that his nostrils flaring was a bad sign. He obviously wanted to crack one of them open like a walnut; Akina wondered which one had crawled further under his skin to deserve the honor. But when he thought she wasn’t looking, a nervous glance at his fellow gangmate calmed him down just enough. “Fine; fuck you too, then.” He cocked his knees, shoved his hands in his pockets, and started waddling away in an exaggerated fashion. “Nothin’ here but ugly bitches anyway.”

Only when his stomping had completely died away off in the distance did Leiko and Haya slacken their defensive stances. “You okay, Acchan?” said the latter, shouldering her shinai.

“Jeez,” Leiko added, watching the door warily as if he may return at any moment, “what makes scum like that even think to walk in here, anyway?”

Great. This was just what Akina needed: her club peers threatening her gangmate. Could she have just one day without yelling, without threats, without anyone overprotecting her or overthinking her needs? She took a few deep breaths before turning to her clique, plastered in a plastic smile. “Thanks, girls. I thought that delinquent was going to hurt me for sure.” She could already feel her heart aching as she said something so insincere, but it was the sacrifice she made. For her public image. For father’s.

“No problem,” Leiko said, the pride evident in her tone. “If he ever bothers you again, just give Haya and me a call, okay? We’ll teach him a thing or two about harassing the kendō team’s favorite senpai!

Akina expressed her understanding as a nod while she finally exited the gymnasium. Like a rat-snake shedding an old skin it no longer needed, she finally shed that phony smile. “Morons …”


A few minutes later, on the baseball field ...


Eiichi tipped his hat to the angle at which its visor most comfortably safeguarded his eyes, both feeble and already exhausted from the after-noontime glare. The fence, the school, everything beyond his little grass-and-dirt, diamond-shaped world trembled in the mirages.

He scanned the distance for something to stare at while waiting for a fly ball to pop all the way to his little slice of the outfield, but saw someone coming instead. He shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted through the glare to see who it was. Mattaku. Cutting it a bit close, don’t you think, bro? But as Yūya ambled irritably toward the infield, Eiichi could see another figure, too: shorter, thinner, more voluptuous. Clad in pinks and violets with demure white socks. She was beelining right for him, her running-stance rife with urgency.

“Oy, Hii-kun!” Eiichi shouted to shortstop.

“What?!” shortstop shouted back.

“Two o’clock from home plate!”

Hiroaki’s ponytail brushed lengthways across his shoulders just as Eiichi’s coke-bottle-glasses-deprived eyes settled on the Yūya-shaped blur in the distance once more.

And if those two only had ears the size of satellite dishes …


Meanwhile ...


When he wasn’t by his motorcycle, and he wasn’t in his usual loitering spot under the shade of the campus’s lone mulberry tree, Akina had to stop herself a moment just to piece it together. He had been wearing the ... more important half, at least, of his baseball uniform, the jacket gripped nonchalantly over his left shoulder; and freshly stained were its muted fabrics with stark, ruddy-orange streaks of clay. The baseball team usually packed up at about eighteen; it was only 16:35. He’d get kicked off the team if the teacher found out he’d skipped early ... so … he had to be heading back to the field! Akina ran as quickly as her shorter legs allowed.

There he was! He’d just started crossing the lawn.

“Yūya-kun; Yūya-kun!”

When he turned, either truly indifferent or merely trying to appear as such, he had his hands stowed away in pockets, and his back in its usual slouch, his mouth in its usual sneer. But Akina’s lack of indifference infected him immediately, wrenching his eyes wide. He called her name, and ran out to meet her.

“You alright? You need a drink? Come to the dugout.”

“Hah … Hah … I’m fine … Hah, I’ll drink when I’m … back inside … Yūya-kun, I’m sorry … for what they said! That was too cruel!“

“Don’t worry about it,” Yūya replied tersely. “It happens.” Too tersely.

He didn’t object when she took a moment to find her breath again. “I have to worry about it,” Akina insisted. “I know I have to pretend to be someone else to those girls, but ... but I don’t have to pretend to you. Your feelings are important, too. And what they did wasn’t right. I know it wasn’t!”

This proclamation caused Yūya to scan the environs. He had to appreciate the irony: that when he sought her out, she was holed up in a dim, sweat-stained room like that; but when all he wanted to do was get home, away from Oguni-sensei, and smoke a cigarette without getting booted from the team or chewed out by anyone, here they were, just the two of them, talking about their feelings. Like people. That when he had something important to say he was a stammering mess, but now that the moment had passed, and he’d pissed away all his courage and adrenaline, he could finally talk to her like she was a person. A trickster-god somewhere was cackling.

Yūya gave her a dismissive smile, albeit one wracked with a bashful warmth. “Akina-chan….I think you read too many books ‘cause that was the corniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Come on. I’m serious.” She said it with a huff but a stifled smirk betrayed an oncoming bout of laughter, too, eager and squirming in Akina’s lungs.

“I know. But they’re just lookin’ out for you. They just ... got their own way of doing it.”

“By ‘interesting’ you mean passive-aggressive, rude, and childish? I suppose they do.”

“There was nothing ’passive’ about that aggression!” Yūya blurted amidst his own heave of laughter. “Still, I called ‘em ugly bitches, too. So let’s call it square.”

“Ugly dumbass bitches. You forgot the ‘dumbass’ part.”

He let his mischievous smile say it all. Akina could practically see the thought-bubble expanding in his skull, stuffed with Haya’s and Leiko’s “ugly, dumbass faces” wrenching with grief at someone finally saying it, something they’d needed to hear for damn well fourteen years. “Hey, I gotta get back to practice,” he said, turning to walk away all nonchalant and cool. “Don’t wanna keep the kusojijii waiting.”

Akina had to get back too, but she was forgetting … what was she … oh, no; the mission! Was Minato-kun still assembled with the others? Were they waiting for her?! “Ah!” she cried. “Thanks for reminding me! Yūya-kun, don’t get hurt tonight, okay?”

“How did you …”

“Just promise me; please?”

Bathump. The next heartbeat hit him fast and hard, squeezing in his chest and racing through his arteries. What did it matter, now, how she’d learned where he was going, and what he was going there to do? Or whether she knew, somehow, that Ishida had trusted him with the most dangerous work? How could he have said anything else but what he said next?

“I … I won’t,” he said. “I won’t get hurt.”

“Thank you, Yūya-kun. I’ll see you later!” Akina turned for the school and took ten steps before she heard his voice again, behind her.

“Akina-chan.”

“Hmm?”

“... If you hate ‘em too, what’s stopping you from cutting ‘em loose already?“

They hesitated long enough for their eyes to meet. But not long enough for him to get his answer.


Doors of The Assembly Room



Akina finally made it in the nick of time to the doors of the assembly room, where she sees her leader and other boy with him, Ten Ton, she thinks that his name. "Lets um...well let's go up there and see if we can sign in?" "Yes, let's" Akina say with voice full of confidence.

As Akina and Ten walk towards the two members of the student council, she takes a deep breath and remember what her father say to her before going to a fancy event "Stand up straight, look them in the eyes and smile, nobody like ladies that don't smile" She hates that last advice but Akina has to smile, for the sake of the gang. "Hello, my name is Akina Umeko and this is Ten Ton" Akina say in a business like tone "Me and my friend here were wondering maybe we can sign up"
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by Courtaud
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Courtaud Delinquent

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Outside the Student Council Assembly Room...



The two students with the sign-in sheets attached to the clipboards looked up from the list - the young girl at the table was smiling up at Akina - "Ms Akina" as some of the student body had called her. She was very well liked, very well respected, and she carried a large amount of influence among the other students. The young girl - her junior - looked up and was met with the strange sight of one of Sarayashiki's most popular girls standing next to a boy who looked like he could crush the table they were sitting at with barely a flick of his wrist. The boy at her right was flipping through the sign in sheet, purposely avoiding the gaze of the delinquent Takuya in front of him. Feeling he was taking too long, the girl took the clipboard from him, started scanning for Akina's name.

"That's Akina Umeko, you turd. I'll find her name." The girl started flipping through the list herself. But after scanning the two to three pages, she also came up short.

"I'm...I'm sorry Ms Akina, I don't see you on the list here. What club are you a part of with this...friend? of yours?"

Ten Ton, growing impatient with the process, leaned in close. He was pressing his weight down on the table. The large boy was always an imposing figure, even if he was ultimately a friendly person at heart. His intimidating aura usually got him and his friends through particular situations - or help to avoid them. Worried that something would stand in the way of the Sarayashiki's gang plans, he thought it best to step in. Plus, it would be a good chance for him to impress Akina. She was a total babe, after-all.

"Listen, there must be some mistake. My friends and I are on here, and we're expected inside. So let's just move aside for us, yeah?" He may have been smiling, but his face certainly seemed frightening. The boy at the desk looked too nervous to even make eye contact, and the girl was shocked that Akina would have this person with her. Maybe there was some kind of issue with the paperwork. Maybe it wouldn't be that much of an issue if she just let them thro-

"No students allowed who aren't either from an approved club, or on that list."

The two student government representatives froze as the sliding door to the assembly room was suddenly eclipsed by an absolute mountain of a man - anyone would be surprised that someone as hulking and massive as the boy in the school uniform wasn't actually some sort of professional wrester, or sumo. His long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his arms were thick as a mass of tree trunks. His voice sounded like gravel and glass crushed beneath a boot-heel.

This boy was:

Student Council Treasurer - Shino Akimichi

Shino looked down at the two students at the desk, and with fierce glaring eyes, dismissed them without a word. He picked up the clipboard they left behind them as they ran into the assembly room to get away from him. His hands were catcher's mitts.

"Umeko...Umeko...nothing for you here. And nowhere does it say anything about Ten Ton Takuya being invited. You and your street trash friends aren't welcome here." He pointed to the clipboard, holding it in front of Ten Ton's sweating face. Akina noticed that even though Takuya himself was considered a big kid, this one dwarfed him. And his menacing, almost quiet demeanor carried considerable weight. Shino gazed past Akina and Takuya - over to Minato Ishida.

"I'm not sure what you expected, Ishida. But the three of you need to take your shit elsewhere. This is Student Council turf."
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by TheWendil
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TheWendil The Wendil-Sama™ / ಠ_ಠ

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“Yo.” Very rarely did a situation call for the walking devil to manifest and appear but sometimes people were really just that stupid. Frankly, there was no one stupider than those in power, especially when they had no idea how to have fun with it. And wasn’t having fun just an essential part of life? Ikue seemed to think so at least and maybe that’s why she ended up appearing in the flesh in who knew how long it was. Casual as she was, she strolled up to the Student Council Assembly Room with her usual cool expression. That expression raised an eye slightly as she noticed the other three.

“Eh? Whatcha doing now Akimichi? And why are you harassing my new club members?” Ikue gave the treasurer a confused look and a tilt of her head. Her school bag was casually slung over her shoulders while a few papers laid rifled in her free hand held at her hip. “Oh, guess you didn’t hear. Yeah, the Occult Club decided it needs to branch out for some new blood so I figured, why not do a little scoping out yeah?” She shrugged, barely giving Minato, Akina, or Ten-Ton a castaway glance in blatant lying; not like anyone else could tell.

The papers in her hand ended up coming in handy after all as she happily showed them off to Shino as well as the other students causing a roadblock for them. “See. Got it all right here. Weird that they’re not on the list though, cause I could have sworn I sent it over to the Vice Prez herself. We got ourselves a long history, you must know.” There was no need to hide or conceal and she plopped the papers down on the small table just in case they felt like double checking.

They’d find no fault in them, least of all any slip ups from someone of the Marada family. “But eh, accidents happen. We’re not perfect, only human, so I’ll look past the slip up. Now can we get going? Really bit of a drag I have to go to this meeting at all but hey, gotta represent my club and all,” Ikue said with her soft smirk. “If there’s still a problem, I can speak to the Vice Prez herself. She knows my number~” Ironically, the club she’d sign the three of them all up for was none other than her own elusive and gossiped one: Sarayashiki’s official Occult Club.

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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by Zoey Boey
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Zoey Boey better than the alternative

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Yonaka Aimi


'They think I'm a kid', she says. Yonaka smirked ruefully under her mask. Aren't you? Aren't we all? But she didn't say that part out loud. Yonaka knew what Mai meant. Even though it wasn't an issue Yonaka herself ever had to deal with. People took one look at Yonaka and, well, 'kawaii' wasn't exactly what came to mind.

"Guess you'll just have to prove yourself, then. Don't worry, I know you got the stuff." Yonaka reassured her young...friend? Protege? Student? Understudy? Just who the hell put this lost child in her care, anyway?

Oh, right, she did. Mai had a lot to prove, just like Yonaka did. And underneath all the bluster, if Yonaka was a good judge character, (and she believed she was), was a good, brave heart. The makings of a strong woman who looked out for others. But if she was left to drown in the dust of stupid-ass racists and social isolation, she'd never have a chance.

But Yonaka would never say something like that out loud. No way. She had a reputation to uphold!

"Lookin' forward to crackin' some skulls tomorrow..."




Yonaka actually had a couple of targets in mind of her own, but she wouldn't be surprised of little Li could scrounge up some leads of her own. Some...Li-eads?

First of all, Denki. Or, "Snot-Rag", as he is known. He was one of the kids that got assaulted. Denki was a popular subject for bullying. But physical assaults? Not so much. It came up on her radar as it were when he didn't show up for his part time job at the video store.

Next was Mitsu. Art student, member of the track team. Real model kid. Unpopular dweebs getting bullied was nothing new. Poor children like Denki being on the bottom totem pole was just the nature of things, unfortunately. But middle of the road, contented, reasonable achievers like Mitsu? That went beyond enforcing a bad hierarchy. Now it was just senseless violence. The distinction probably didn't mean much to adults, but it meant something to Yonaka.

But she had time. She was going to talk to Denki at his work, and then catch Mitsu on the field during gym class.

Yonaka walked into the school courtyard, missing her kendo stick but still wearing her signature mask. She spotted Mai Li and noticed it looked like the shorter girl wanted to talk to her.

Yonaka made eye contact and nodded. Smoothing out her long skirt she sat on a stone bench under a tree and crossed one leg over the other.

"So, you got any leads? Think of this as high stakes initiation!" Yonaka said brightly. "Now, despite my reputation..." Yonaka lowered her voice, leaning in towards Mai. "I'm not sure it's the best move to threaten kids into telling who beat them up by threatening to beat them up. Seems kind of pointless to me. Today is the day of a soft touch Yonaka. Of course I'm not going to go around flirting with a bunch of first years, but who doesn't want the approval of a pretty girl like me, right?" Yonaka chuckled.

"In any case. They might be able to relate to you, more. After all, you're in danger, too, right? Maybe they don't want to be treated like helpless little kids either." Yonaka said, observing her fingernails and checking for dirt. Internally, she realised she might be letting the tiniest glimpse of empathy show. Oops. Quickly, she concocted a scheme to correct this. Blinking, Yonaka looked up and squinted at Mai Li.

"...You are a first year, right?" She asked, looking the tomboy up and down like she was just seing her for the first time.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by Noblebandit
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Noblebandit

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The moment Mai saw Yonaka, she called out to her and came running.

"Yonaka-san!"

"So, you got any leads? Think of this as high stakes initiation!"

"A couple..." she mused, tilting her head back in thought. "There's this boy. Name's Kenzo Kishi - like the Prime Minister? He works at this ramen place down the street. Well, anyway, apparently someone jumped him one night while he was out making deliveries. At least, that's what we think. No-one really knows what happened. He just came into school one day, all bruised and beaten up, and just pretended that he didn't know what everyone was talking about. It's weird, right? I mean, we could all see it. It wasn't like he could hide it."

"And there's this other girl, Mitsu Fujiwara. Real artsy-fartsy type. She's on the track team, but she had to take a break for a while. Sprained muscle or something. I heard she's back to running again now, though the coach still thinks she should ease off. Thing is, I know some guys on the track team who said that it's actually way worse than a sprain, and Mitsu is just tryna put on a brave face cause she's scared of being taken off the team. She didn't get it on the field either: she just left practice one day, perfectly fine, and the next day she came in saying she had sprained a muscle. Maybe it's nothing, but I want to check on her just in case there's more to this story."


Of course, there was more to it than that. Fujiwara had been Mai's friend back in the day. Even when no-one else would give her the time of day, Fujiwara had taken her under her wing. Even though they weren't friends any more, Mai wanted to make sure everything was alright for her. She knew, she just knew, that there was more to this story than a sprain, and she wasn't going to rest until she got to the bottom of this mess. She owed her that much, at least.

"Now, despite my reputation..." Mai blinked, coming back to reality. "I'm not sure it's the best move to threaten kids into telling who beat them up by threatening to beat them up. Seems kind of pointless to me. Today is the day of a soft touch Yonaka."

Mai couldn't hide how offended that comment made her. "That wasn't what I was asking for," she replied tersely. What kind of girl did Yonaka take her for? She wasn't a thug. She had her grudges, even enemies, but if Yonaka seriously thought she was going to suggest they go around beating everyone up, she had the wrong person. She was happy to toy with some of her classmates, but the moment it got physical was the moment it when from an investigation to cold-hearted torture.

"Of course I'm not going to go around flirting with a bunch of first years, but who doesn't want the approval of a pretty girl like me, right?"

Dang. She knew plenty of her classmates who had some subtle and not-so-subtle crushes on Yonaka, and despite his reputation as an incorrigible stick-in-the-mud, Kenzo was no different. Forbidden fruit was always the most tempting, after all. But if Yonaka didn't want to put on the charms for Kenzo, that only left Mai, and that wasn't going to work. She might have had a similar "bad girl" reputation, and they were both pretty cute, but Yonaka was cute in that "just walked off the cover of a magazine" way while Mai was cute in that "pat her head and give her hugs" way. It was completely the wrong vibe.
And even if she had the looks for it, it was still out of the question. She was happy to do most things for the gang. If they needed her to steal something, or fight someone, or take a hit for them, she would do so gladly. But she drew the line at having to play nice with that turbo-nerd, and the thought of having to pretend she actually liked him made her want to puke. They needed a different strategy.

"In any case. They might be able to relate to you, more. After all, you're in danger, too, right? Maybe they don't want to be treated like helpless little kids either."

That made Mai laugh, and not in a happy way. "'Maybe they'll relate to you'. That's funny."

"...You are a first year, right?"

She rolled her eyes at that last remark. Adolescence was taking its sweet time getting round to her. People still looked at her like she was ten, nine, even eight years old. On one mortifying occasion, she was even mistaken for a little boy. Still, it was better than what some people got. Puberty had been kind to some of the girls in her class, but most were in that awkward, gangly phase of acne'd faces and greasy hair, where the body couldn't quite decide whether it was an adult or a child, and managed to combine the worst aspects of both. Mai would take looking like a child over that, even if it was only for a few months more. Oh, she wasn't stupid. It would come for her eventually. Puberty wasn't something she could just avoid, and when it eventually decided to come for her, it was going to hit her like a freight train. She hadn't dodged the bullet, she just had a stay of execution.

"Not if you listen to anyone else talk about me," she scoffed, casting a wary glance towards the gates. She shook her head, as if physically clearing the dark thoughts that were beginning to form in it, and looked back towards Yonaka with a grin. "I mean, when you look as mature and elegant as I do, everyone always mistakes you for a high-schooler!"
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by pugbutter
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When he didn't know whether to pity the others or envy them, Yūya resigned himself to waiting, and listening. He ached with anticipation; a breath went stale in his lungs. At this point he almost—almost—hoped for something as boring as a stakeout. Just imagining the look on Tamura-san's face as she realized she'd be trapped with him for hours, days—that alone could have made wasting two or three days in a family restaurant or a train station worthwhile. Hell, if he grossed her out so much, why not tease her a little? If Ishida-san wasn't gonna give him the means to have fun, of course Yūya would make his own. Who wouldn't? Yonaka-chan and Li-chan were probably putting together their good-cop-bad-cop routine down in the parking lot as he spoke. Oh, oh, and Marada-san; she had that singsong tone of voice, like she was deigning to spend lunchtime babysitting the boss's toddlers, down to an art form! She had to be tiring of sitting in a leather chair up in a penthouse somewhere while all the action happened down on street level.

But this compromise was not to be, as Ishida grabbed Yūya's thoughts, small and tender, and dashed them against the rocks of his conviction:

"Tomorrow night, you two are going to meet at Teiko Middle School, and beat whichever punk they choose as their fighter," he said.

For those thirty-five seconds, Tamura Ana may just as well have never existed at all.

"There's no telling if they'll be a boy, girl, or whoever else. One of the Diamonds is supposed to be in attendance to deliver the real invite to the summons to whichever gang wins. And that's going to be us."

Yūya pumped his fist in triumph. He didn't seem aware that he was grinning, either, in his side-cocked, leering way. "You just sit back and let us take care of it,
kanchō," he declared. "You ain't gotta worry 'bout nothin’."

And here he’d been worried that Yonaka-san would see the most of the excitement. Yeah.
Hell yeah. If those glittery pricks were trying to make plays, better to squash them while their master plan was still small, undeveloped, and fragile, like knocking a defenseless cocoon off a leaf. Give ‘em no chance to sprout their wings and they couldn’t fly away and out of reach. A two-on-two bop sounded real good right about now, too. Nothin’ to lose.
22 hours later, on a public road in Itabashi Ward ...

... Well … that was yesterday. And it wasn’t yesterday anymore.

Kuso. He’d been so excited back there, he hadn’t even stopped to think a little. Moron!

Tomorrow night, you two are going to meet at Teiko Middle School, and beat whichever punk they choose as their fighter.

“Whichever punk”? What sequence of coincidences and happenstances had led to Ishida knowing that there was a meeting, but not who would fucking be there?

A curt honk behind him. Yūya looked up; the light inside the traffic light had skittered down from the red lens to the blue. He cried out a Gomen, gomen!—lost to the muffling of his helmet and the din of the evening work-rush—and turned his head and bowed to the frayed salaryman behind him, at the wheel of an overworked, underpaid Toyota. Hurrying his left hand to the clutch, his gearbox into first, Yūya leaned the Honda backward, taking weight off its front forks, with the urgency of his acceleration, strangled downward like he was a sick, sick man, and the throttle cable his battered housewife.

... Unless Ishida did know. But why? Why entrust a mission to them if they couldn’t be trusted to keep it confidential? And ... and why go to such lengths to keep it a secret from the others, only to keep it a secret from the participants, too, anyway? He seriously shooed Yonaka and Toronaga and Umeko off the roof just to clam up in front of Yūya and Tamura, too?

More chūnibyō bullshit ...

Yūya’s peripheral vision suddenly filled with a red flare. He looked up from the road to see that the Mitsubishi in front of him was braking for some danger further ahead. With no time to brake himself—not without locking up his rear wheel—he gave a nominal glance to either mirror, found his escape route, and swerved into the passing-lane. As yet another driver hit the brakes to stop from slamming up into the motorbike’s rear fender, Yūya flashed his thanks in his rear indicators.

... Okay, maybe save the theorizing for when I get there. It wouldn’t do to break his promise to Akina-chan so quickly, nor to such worthless ends. She’d at least understand if the Diamond guy or the Teiko girl turned out to be some hulkin’ motherfucker that the two scrawny Sarayashiki kids didn’t stand a chance against. But a crash? Smear himself on the pavement like a meat-crayon and Yūya wouldn’t even be a back-page addendum to the footnotes to the children’s coloring-book of history. Road rash didn’t give a shit who you were or what you had come to do.

One of the Diamonds is supposed to be in attendance to deliver the real invite to the summons ...

Not now, shithead! As the words once more intruded upon his thoughts, like rain soaking through his undershirt, Yūya turned the droplets to flies and swatted them away. He had to focus; the phonebook said there’d be a Lawson’s around here somewhere, right across the street from a florist … there! Even from around a corner and past a house he recognized the blinding white glow spilling out onto the sidewalk, a late-night oasis on many a stumble home with friends, whether from the liquor in their blood or the fresh wounds pounding in their skulls ... He was close. Just past the convenience store, on the right, would be 3-chōme-10, and on the left ...

Itabashi Teiko Junior High. Yūya braked just hard enough to get a good look at the sign screwed to the wall beside the sliding gate. Once he was sure, he sped up again. Didn’t want any sentries or lookouts knowing they were coming ...

... right?

Okay, park first. Around the block should be fine. He found an alley between two closed-down storefronts; near the street without being right next to it. If a cop saw, he’d tow the bike for loitering, not paying the meter, or some other crap. But if Teiko saw ... popped tires? A knife through his brake lines? They’d strand Yūya here and then call for backup. At least he had to assume as much. For his own sake. If he didn’t care whether he rotted out here then no one did. Not Ishida. Not Tamura.

Umeko ...

... Anyway, were Teiko Junior High and the Diamonds expecting this little knock-knock on their front door? Or was this supposed to be an ambush? Leaving his helmet on his mirror—pocketing his key and shouldering his baseball bat, retrieved from the struts of his san-dan seat—Yūya accosted the front gate to find out. It was the hour of evening strolls, dog-walks, and last-minute grocery trips, so when the gate tugged away and dug its heels in protest, he decided not to make too much of a scene. He circled around the north side, where it would be quieter and, maybe, they’d left a gate open for their so-called “summons.”

So if this is an ambush, we gotta take out the Diamond, too. Buy ourselves a few more days to move before he gets back to his little hive and rats to his buddies. But considering Ishida didn’t even have his own hallways locked down, wasn’t it too early to be moving against another school?

... Wait, and what did he mean, “Ishida’s hallways”?

...Anyway, then it’s not an ambush. They’re expecting us. So why is the gate locked? And ... hold on. Is anyone looking?

Yūya checked both ways, watching the shorter, quieter street on the north side for any idlers who could end up gawking; he scanned the parking lot up the way for just the same. There was a single woman smoking a cigarette in her cucumber-green power-suit, but she looked too disheveled and frayed to be paying attention. The building looked to be a hospital.

Heh. Well, they won’t have very far to go after we’ve ground them into hamburger paste, in any case.

Yūya chucked his baseball bat over and into the courtyard; rolling up the left leg on his tokkōfuku, he retrieved the kitchen knife stowed in his boot and clenched its octagonal handle between his teeth. Almost as quickly as he’d jumped and grasped, he was over the fence, bracing in his knees and ankles for a landing on naked concrete. No sign of Tamura; not surprising. Seeing as that bitch took the trains, she’d arrive when the civil workers decided she would; that is, if she hadn’t chickened out and stayed home first. Well, he’d give her until twenty-thirty to declare her a no-show and start trying doors on his own.
Yūya, after shedding the upper half of his jumpsuit and tying it to his waist, reached into its folds and knotworks for his cigarettes. Nobody on the roof or stairwells. No one patrolling the courtyard. The flicker of his lighter and the glow of the tobacco would have given him away, but—

Click. Scrape. Crackle. Click. Inhale.

—maybe that would've been best. He certainly wouldn’t have to go in and find them if they raised the alarm. And maybe their reaction would help a few more things make sense.

Ishida knew about the meeting but not who would be in attendance. He’d said something about the Diamonds choosing the gang that “won.” So then ... he and Tamura were champions; representing their schools, proving their mettle in some kind of contest? But now something else didn't make sense. If this was the Diamonds’—raise, draw, linger, blow—idea, then were they petitioning for allies? Handpicking the strongest gangs?

Something else Ishida had said now crept to Yūya's toes, his fingertips, like venom from a spider bite:

Ikebukuro is letting their power-plays get out of hand.

Ikebukuro is letting their power-plays ...

Ibekuro is ...

And once the venom reached his core, it broke from its crawl into a dead sprint, striking Yūya like a heart attack.

Yūya wanted to deny it. But at the same time, it was too plausible to just discard like all the other theories: Sarayashiki, a nobody-school with no fingers in the city, winning this strange little contest. Proving it’s got some guts, and even a little skill and strength to match. Winning the approval of this “Diamond representative.” And ... what came next? God damnit, what else could come next? Why else was Ibekuro pitting schools against each other in controlled-environment, regulated tests? Only one outcome seemed possible anymore: the Diamond, nodding in approval, would take them to their next challenge, or maybe to the guy who’d orchestrated the whole thing to report the results. And knowing that this “Sarayashiki” place had what it took, they’d ...

Were ... Were Yūya and Tamura joining some kind of newfangled rengō, handpicked and headed by the Ibekuro Diamon—

Ishida! Were Yūya and Tamura just his fucking double-agents; his spies?!

No more waiting. Forgetting (or no longer caring) where he was and who might be listening, on the enemy side or his own, Yūya kicked the baseball bat skittering across the walkway. He ripped up a fistful of flowers from the decorative bed and cast them to the ground, leaving them bent and broken.

“You fucking scumbag!” he roared into the still, empty schoolyard air, “This ain't what I signed up for, kor-r-raaaaaa!

Maybe Ishida was innocent. Maybe Yūya had just dreamed up the whole scenario again. But one thing now was certain in the roiling adrenal soup of his thoughts: that little prick was gonna start spilling more of his beans at rooftop meetings from now on. Whether Yūya found out the quiet, civilized way, or whether he had to wring that scrawny little neck like a wet mop. Whether Ishida didn't trust him personally or he simply didn't trust anyone at all in his own gang, or he thought it too unimportant to mention, or it just slipped his fucking mind that night, starting tomorrow, the reason didn't matter: if he didn't wanna tell them how their missions fit into the big picture, then he could get off his futon, go out his front door, and do it him-damn-self!

"It's not in my nature to be mysterious," my fucking ass!

A damn shame that Yūya had to even try and find out this way, but maybe the Teiko twerps had more to divulge than Sarayashiki's illustrious leader. He tried the first doorknob, to one of the classroom wings, then the next, to an infirmary, both locked.

Sorry, Tamura, Yūya said halfheartedly to himself, as if to project the words telepathically along the Chūō line, or to the Tamura household, or wherever the hell she was right now. I'll save one for ya.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Zoey Boey
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Zoey Boey better than the alternative

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Yonaka Aimi


Yonaka crossed one leg over the other as Mai-chan went over her possible contacts and leads. Kenzo Kishi, like the prime minister? What? A look of confusing passed over Yonaka's face as she tried to figure out how that kid was prime minister of the student council. It quickly faded as Yonaka assumed Mai Li misspoke or something. Another part-time worker, like one of her leads, Denki.

The other name, Yonaka recognized. "I was thinking about going after Mitsu-chan, too. Those athletic people love me. I mean, look at me." Yonaka flexed her bicep, constructed of strong, ropey muscle.

Yonaka gave Mai a confused look when she seemed to be offended at Yonaka's simple statement she wasn't going to be violent. "Well, shucks, Mai Li. Maybe I was talking about myself. Not everything's about you, you know." Yonaka rolled her eyes.

Poor Mai Li was all torn up about looking like a little kid when she was, infact, a little kid. Maybe Yonaka was too privileged, (being the ultra-beautiful, tall, dark, marblesque and dangerous goddess that she'd always been,) to relate to Mai Li. But she laughed at Mai Li's joke anyway. It was important to keep up a tough face and good spirits. At least Mai seemed to understand that.

"Oh, I'm sure. Listen. Let's go find this prime minister guy. I'll lay on the charm if you want, but I really think you should have a go, first. Play nice. If you're really low on confidence, remember that I'll have your back." Yonaka rose to her full height, looming over Mai. "I dunno where this guy is, so, you're gonna have to lead me too him."
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by sassy1085
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sassy1085 The Queen of Sassy

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Damn, Akina knew this would happened but she never expect Shino Akimichi to appear. Minato could at least has a back up plan if things would go south, she could have mention that Ten Ton is in kendo club despite it being a all girl club, it would be a awful lie but it could have work. Akina have add some things to the plan, some pros and cons but her mind was somewhere on that night and what was Minato thinking? This is the big four, they could have beat the gang up if they want to, despite being in gang of eight against four. As Akina sigh defeat and about to turn away with Ten Ton, she hear a familiar yet prideful voice, it was Ikue.

Thank god for Ikue for arriving in time, Akina couldn't handle walking away in shame. "Ummm....Yes! Me and Ten Ton are new club members of Occult Club." Akina say, catching with Ikue lie, although it would be really difficult if she has to balance two clubs at the same time and hopes that her parents don't find out.

@TheWendil@Courtaud
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by pugbutter
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pugbutter

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Yūya soldiered along the wall and tried the next door, and the next and the next. He had no choice. Hesitate and he’d start asking questions; questions which would ferment into doubts in his gut, and sit there heavy and leaden like stones; doubts, which would slow-release suspicions, and theories, into his bloodstream, the worst of all poisons for someone like him, just trying to follow orders and get back home mostly intact.

Theories like Tamura ain’t showing up.

Tamura was never supposed to show up.

Ishida made sure you’d be going up against whatever’s in there alone.

This is Ishida’s way of getting rid of you for all your grumbling at his meetings.

He didn’t want anyone getting in the way. Not someone who pities the outnumbered underdog like Toronaga. Not an “ally” like Umeko.


Umeko … if it was an ambush and there were two, three, ten guys in there, was keeping his promise to her even possible anymore? From where Yūya was standing, only if he deserted and didn’t show his face around school for a while. But the entire weight of the mission—whatever the hell it even was anymore—rested on his shoulders now, and his alone. But how could he know in the moment the exact importance of it all? Was he walking into the jaws of death or was he bravely (albeit stupidly) carrying a Sarayashiki torch behind enemy lines? Was he a soldier; or the sacrifice?

Maybe Tamura’d had the right idea after all, avoiding this shit-show altogether. But of course; if she wanted to keep her little Mary-Janes shiny and her white, starched button-up clean, the most efficient way wasn’t to wade out from the scandals and skirmishes in some elegant, blaze-of-glory way. It was to avoid these situations completely.

Suddenly, Yūya, like he was the anchor at the end of a chain, was ripped away from his daydreams and his trance, as his hand enveloped a doorknob which answered in a different language from the rattling rigidity of the others. This doorknob rolled leftward with a heavy click. And it let the door it was attached to whisper open with a creak. Yūya looked up; the gymnasium’s wide walls, high ceiling, and heavy windows glared back at him austerely and menacingly, no longer a place of entrance ceremonies, brass bands, and home games. Soon this place would be a battlefield, where either he, or some other unsuspecting kid or two, would be beaten, broken, and exiled into the night a loser, the lowest of the low, the dregs at the bottom of the dregs.

To believe in the cause, Yūya would have to know what the fuck it was first. So all he had to fight for right now was not wanting to be that loser. For all the naysayers and doubters back at school, that reason for fighting hard, as ignoble as it was, would simply have to suffice.

He hunched himself through the door, and eased it closed behind him.

The weight of the baseball bat on his shoulder proved a solitary source of comfort in its sureness; its loyalty in simplicity. No moving parts which could seize up at just the wrong time. No thoughts of its own which could conspire to abandon him behind enemy lines, or throw him to the jackals of another school. Just a lump of metal at the end of a handle. Yūya wouldn’t find much more kindness in this place; in fact, already he was beginning to hear sounds from the darkness of the wide, empty auditorium, which his brain didn’t know completely how to process. It sounded like … a thumb flipping through a wad of thousand-yen bills? Through the pages of a coloring book? Something frivolous and papery called to him from across the room. He squinted into the shadows behind the tatami mats piled against the wall, and spooled under the bleachers, and spanning deep into the lengths of the room; but the thought of all the enemies laid in ambush among these shadows dizzied him, so he only focused on scanning what he could see, and not getting jumped from behind.

The voices came next.

A male one first, hushed but urgent: “Oy, they’re here. Play your game later.”

Karuta is done when it’s done.” The replying voice, dripping with the tone of a spiteful, scolded child, was younger, less gruff, and decidedly female.

“Don’t you need a second person? … You know what, never mind. Just have my back when shit goes south.”

“Hey,” said Yūya, “can we get some light so we can do this thing?”

“Huh?” the male replied. “Oh, sure. Sorry, bro.”

As rubber soles, definitely not belonging to uwabaki, squeaked away to a corner by a chain-locked door, Yūya strained his ears for breathing, for shuffling, for the shifting of weight onto another foot; any clue at all that someone else laid in wait under the gym’s most esoteric shadows. A moment later, fluorescent bulbs began flickering awake high in the rafters, submerging the room in a blinding, pale-white hum. There were two of them.

The girl had chosen to stay in her school uniform, one of those newfangled blazer-styled ones with a ribbony cravat. She had her hair up in two more mismatched ribbons, and her gaze slid up, drenched in an annoyed expression, from a handful of playing cards clutched in her tiny hand, and a few dozen more spread out over the floor just before her. Yūya supposed she was cute, as least as far as such a vicious sneer allowed. As for her partner, Yūya wondered whether the scars sliced into his forehead were real, or put there just for show, a trembling hand scooping them out in front of a bloodied mirror. He wore a Cuban chain and a fur-collared jacket, the latter unbuttoned to show off just enough pec through his wifebeater.
”So where’s the rest of ya?” asked the Scarface wannabe, wringing his knuckles so hard that his leather gloves squeaked as if in tortured protest.

“She’s, uh, on her way,” Yūya replied.

“You see that, Kageura-chan? These Saranasha-whatever pricks are underestimatin’ us.”

Yūya narrowed his eyes, but made an effort not to shift around too much anywhere else in his body, lest he looked ready to lunge into an escalation. “I’ve got a question about that,” he said. “How do you know who we are?”

The wrinkles sent the hereto-unnamed Keiko boy’s forehead, sheened with sweat) and bristly with close-cropped hair, sliding a few centimeters across his skull. He guffawed, and floated in his shoulders. “A real good question, too, champ. Some dumpy little backwater-school like you? Believe me, we wouldn’t know ya if we hadn’t been expressly told to expect ya.”

“Well? Told by who?” Yūya growled. He would’ve glared too if not for how the lights still ached his eyes, forcing them into a burning squint. “And which a’ you is the Diamond, anyway?”

“Bwa ha ha ha! Where do you dumb fucks keep coming from?! No, my friend, they come to you; and the Diamonds got no reason of being here. Not until one o’ you or one o’ me has been … chosen.”

Yūya could tell that the other guy could tell: he’d just struck the perfect nerve. “Chosen for what?”

“My, my. Sounds like someone doesn’t trust you very much.” The Keiko boy effected a great heaving shrug of his shoulders, and an exasperated, damn-it-all sigh. “Tell you what: I'll tell you whatever ya wanna know. That is, if you can beat it outta me.”

Looking him up and down, Yūya searched for a holster, a bulge under his jacket or down his pantleg, anything to betray his opponent’s … methods. When that failed, he asked outright: “Weapons?”

“Not really my style!” The way this guy shrugged and cackled made Yūya think that he and Ikue must’ve taken the same seminar on pushing buttons and, well, overall, being smarmy little shits.

“Rules?”

“The usual gentlemen's engagement: no eyes, and no genitals. Anything else goes. Whaddaya say?” said the Keiko boy.

Yūya released his grip on the bat, a noise which rattled to the gym floor and bounced sharply off the walls in turns. “Fine by me,” he said, running a fistful of fingers through his pompadour. “Just keep that tongue of yours greased and ready to squeal. Don't make me rip it out.”

Scarface took a defensive stance with his ankles spread and his fists raised, his gravity undermined by an unquenchable grin. “Big words!” he giggled. ”But are you the type who’s all words and no action? Please. Try not to disappoint me like the last one.”

“Oh, an optimist!” Yūya said, crescendoing into a roar. “Enjoy it while it lasts, ‘cause there won’t be a ‘next one’ after I’ve finished this!”
He sought to close the distance fast, and to get his answers just as quickly. The meters contracted between them as Yūya rushed forward with his chin down and his arms up. Scarface gave less ground than he thought he would, but this didn’t faze the attacker, nor stagger the coming assault; kilograms and kilograms of muscle collided at the crossroads of Scarface’s elbow and ulna, raised just in time to block his neck. He replied with a kick, which if nothing else forced Yūya back a pace, and an early end to the attack as he glanced the torpedo-like foot to the side and away from his vitals, redirecting all his offense toward this, this grinding halt in momentum.

Scarface smiled and winked, and at once Yūya wanted to grind that smug little smile under his boot, so he advanced again and with twice the fervor. The exchange played out a second time, and in much a similar stalemate, including a second kick easily deflected away from Yūya’s organs.

He seems to like those flashy「Hollywood」moves … If I can get him to do that kick again, maybe I can ...

Yūya hadn’t noticed before, but his advances had forced his opponent against the wall. As he moved in again to trap him there, Scarface circled around, and in passing managed to clip Yūya in the head, then skittering backward just in time to avoid retaliation from a wide haymaker.

... But thankfully it’s as I thought: those showbiz muscles of his sure look nice, but they’re not all that powerful. Just can’t let him goad me. Patience.

That smug little bastard, pretending he was so nonchalant and omniscient … that intense, focused gaze, as if he was scouring Yūya’s very brain … He had to stop Scarface from reminding him of someone, else he’d keep rushing into his traps like a fool for sure.

Think; he had to turn the tables on this guy. How? It had to be tied to that jacket he refused to shed in the summer humidity … the phony scars he’d given himself to look cool.

… So he needed to be taken seriously, huh?

As if the revelation galvanized him, Yūya at once straightened out and stiffened. He dusted himself off, and began to preen his messed pompadour back into place. “Alright,” he said, “outta the way. I’m done with you.”

“... Hah?”

“So, little girl,” Yūya said, “think you can put up a better fight than this twerp?”

“‘Little girl’?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s this bullshit?! Bro! If you wanna chicken out, just say so; none of these excuses, man!”

Yūya suppressed a smile. He’d expected neither the intensity nor the quickness of this reply. “You think you’re gonna get ‘chosen’ like this? You’re a waste of my time, ‘bro.’ Let your baby sister handle this one.”

Scarface opened his mouth to say something, but Yūya had already turned ninety-some degrees to saunter over toward the bleachers; more specifically, the seat where Kageura had perched herself, and splayed out her playing cards how a magpie displays its pilfered bobby-pins and shirt buttons.

“How about it, baby?” Yūya said with a hum. “Wanna have a real go?”

She scoffed, scowled, and averted her gaze to the right. “If this is your attempt at being smooth, maybe land a few more punches first. Oh, and a little less … KIRA, LOOK OUT!”

“Too late.” Yūya didn’t have to turn to look or even listen out for the pitter-patter of his jika-tabi to know that Kira wasn’t going to heed his partner’s warning. He timed it, he watched Kira in the corner of his eye, reeled in the waist and shoulders, and …

Yūya’s body wasn’t much to look at, but unlike one puffed up at the gym, his was sculpted from work; from toil and grime and sweat, earned everywhere from sending splitters to the outfield to gutting carburetors in the forty-degree afternoon broil. “Kira” wasn’t interested in heeding a warning from the very girl he had been spurned for, and when his cheekbone connected with Yūya’s fist, it cracked like a bullet leaving a gun. He didn’t know when he staggered backward faster than his legs could stumble. When he landed ass-first and face-up in the layup section of the basketball court. Or when Yūya finally couldn’t take it anymore and cracked a smile which had been itching to get out for a whole minute before that. The concussion was setting in too quickly, or maybe just the all-familiar rattling shock of having just gotten his own ass handed to him.

Yūya crossed his arms and waited, both watching the girl and letting Kira put himself back together. It wasn’t over, after all, until he spilled everything. Whether he had to lose his blood, his teeth, or his fingernails before he’d start explaining what the hell was going on at this school.

“Had enough already?” Yūya said, though being honest, the arrogant act was superfluous by then; that punch should have more than sufficed in incensing Kira’s honor. He’d want revenge for the rest of the fight, if not the rest of the damn school year. He’d get reckless. Then, if Yūya still hadn’t yielded a haymaker or two to him before they went home, he’d get desperate. “Take your time, ‘bro.’ I’ve got all night to wait for you to recover from one little love-tap.“

“Sh … Shut the hell up.”

“You want me to shut up, then get over here and shut m—whoa!”

“WITH PLEASURE!” Kira swung a right hook which Yūya almost didn’t dodge, eating about a meter of ground just on the backward stumble and recovery alone. And to neither his surprise nor (seemingly) Kageura’s, Kira kept up the assault, chasing right hook with right hook, even resorting to wild haymakers when he just couldn’t put a crack in the Sarayashiki fuck’s armor. Unfortunately, that single punch, stiff and merciless, had already softened Kira’s sense of balance, his speed. And it was Yūya’s turn to play his hotheadedness against him. Every time he baited his prey in, he’d provoke him with a jab; quite worthless in the delivery of pain and injury, but devastating to the pride. And just when Kira had gotten sloppy again, forgetful of what punishment his eagerness had earned him mere moments before, Yūya would remind him; in the ribs, in the stomach, in the throat, in the jaw, he would remind him.

Soon Yūya had earned a few bruises himself, but nothing like Kira, reduced to little more than a sack of spongy, flesh, dead blood, and tender ligaments, seemingly only barely held together by bones and skin. He had to admit: Kira had spirit. Even in certain defeat he didn’t want to back down. And until his fighting partner forced him to, he probably wouldn’t, not even under the screaming protests of his own body.

Speaking of Kageura, Yūya hadn’t heard the shuffle of her deck of cards in a minute or two; and Kira’s eyes had just shifted slightly to the left, as if looking past Yūya instead of at

Thwump. Like he’d just been gored by a stag or shot by a cannon, the force of a blow to his left kidney sent Yūya gasping, sweating, and tumbling to the side, struggling to stand on his own two feet as if they had turned to bamboo stilts.

C-Crap. Ugh ... Of course. Should’ve seen it soo—oomph!

She was close enough that her skirt brushed against his pantleg, and her breath misted on the back of his neck as she sucked in air and readied herself for attack after relentless attack. So it wasn't a bokken or a bat. And yet when she punched him, it was as if she had peeled the skin away from her knuckles, and she was punching him with raw bone. The power! Brass knuckles, maybe? Yūya was too busy getting his ass kicked, however, to be disgusted with their trickery (“Not my style,” indeed)—or even impressed with how elegantly she’d turned the tables.

By the time the beating was over, all he could do to stop from dying then and there was keep breathing; through the jagged shards which were his ribs, through the sputtering of the blood in his lungs. Though they seemed a kilometer away, he heard them bickering over what may as well have been his corpse.

“Kageura, what the hell?!”

“You said ‘Have my back when shit goes south.’ And shit went south.”

“But, interfering with a man’s duel … !”

“They’re the ones who chose to send this loser by himself,” she said in a cold, clinical tone, apathetic to his indignation. She kicked Yūya over to look into his clenched, already-swelling eyes. And for good measure she aimed such a kick at his jaw, just to make sure he couldn’t get up again and try another trick. “It’s not our fault they underestimated us.”

“I guess, but what do we tell Sachimoto? That we had to cheat to defeat them?”

“The truth: we won, and they lost. That’s all that matters here.”

“... Tch. I guess,” he muttered again, but Kira couldn’t help spitting off toward the bleachers. Heh. If the red strings of fate had crossed differently, Yūya probably would’ve been friends with this guy, conquering the halls of Keiko together, their backs pressed together amidst an overwhelming host of pompadoured, punch-permed rivals.

As they walked away in silhouette, his posture more hunched and limping than hers, and propped against hers for support, too, something unfurled from the girl’s fist. It was a long, thin piece of something, like a chain or a strip of studded leather. She folded it neatly away into a pocket, and closed the door behind her latest victim, locking him in the harsh white burn of the gym lights. Hazily, somewhere in the wine-cellars of his mind, Yūya knew that the school day was only a few hours away, and that he’d better be far away from Keiko Lower High School before even the earliest rheumy-eyed teacher turned up for work. Getting to his feet on sore, trembling legs, with swelled-shut eyes and a pounding head for balance; that was the first emergency to handle, right at the top of the list. As for operating a clutch lever with a busted hand … As for getting home before the old man woke up … As for looking Akina-chan in the eye at school tomorrow ...
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When the clock struck 12:30, sending a chime throughout the school, Minato traced an imaginary finger along the spines of the other students of class 2-B. The way they slackened, and slid into the contours of their seats; the way they reached into bags for their bento boxes, or sprawled themselves across the tops of their desks for a nap; the way they gravitated into their whispering little cliques, or stepped outside to "use the toilet" (sneak onto the roof for a smoke); the relief which lunchtime brought to the classroom was palpable. One could nearly taste it in the air. However, only to such idle people could it provide such respite. Minato did not nap very well these days, nor did he have much to gossip about. It was even rare for him to eat during the school day (a fact which Yonaka-san dwelled on far too often, like she was his mother or something).

Not when there was so much work to do.

Minato dawdled by the classroom door a time, only stepping away down the hall once he was sure Yonaka-san had not situated herself to ambush him there. Minato certainly appreciated her enthusiasm, her eagerness to help. But the way she clung to him sometimes, she must have thought he needed protecting; and true, he was rather thin, and not even a second-rate fighter. And any banchō, naturally, was going to make for a prime target in the aspirations and ambitions of others. But did he really need people following him around like schoolteachers escorting their yellow helmet-clad toddlers on a trip to the zoo? Yonaka-san seemed to think he couldn't handle anything so much as a hallway stroll by himself. He would have scolded her if not for it being noble, in a way. What exactly would he be punishing? Loyalty to her boss, and concern for his safety? No, it wouldn't do to discourage such things. Minato chuckled to himself, enjoying the irony: he'd be the most powerful person in the school soon, and yet he had to sneak around and look over his shoulder like any other student.

... Maybe I have to prove to her that she doesn't need to protect me? But what if she enjoyed it? What if it made her feel useful, and Minato was stripping Yonaka of her purpose by breaking free of her strangely motherly instinct? Would she lose her spirit? Would she even go so far as to leave the gang if he made her feel useless?

Then, maybe I can redirect this energy toward someone else. Like that new girl, Li-chan. Maybe it didn't matter who Yonaka was protecting, as long as she felt useful to someone. Li-chan would fit the bill: small, cute, seemingly vulnerable ... why, Toronaga-san was already clinging to her, always nearby like a father-bear guarding over its cub. Maybe he was even falling in love. But did Li-chan want to be protected? Would she go along with that, coming from yet another senior doting on her?

...

...

As he resolved to bear with Yonaka's wishes a little while longer, Minato lamented that that girl had to be so complicated and confusing. That he understood his enemies better than some of his allies.

Although, if any one of his allies offered him relief in that regard, it was Takanashi-san. Takanashi, especially in comparison to the others, was almost a joy to work with: simple. Predictable. Easy to read (he's been frustrated and antsy recently), and easy to use to his full potential. Minato needed progress reports from everyone today, but he might as well start at the place that he knew one of them would be: under the mulberry tree, smoking with those other two baseball club slackers who hadn't quite made the cut back in the springtime. Mutō and ... what was the other one's name? It didn't matter. When others were waffling and stammering and shifting, Takanashi, a snorting, stamping bull, could be trusted to charge horns-first at whatever Minato aimed his finger at. And with the similarly powerful Tamura-san watching his back in a 2v2 ...

Let's start with the good news, then.

Slipping into his outdoors shoes at the vestibule, Minato exited from the front of the school and immediately hung a hard left. At this time of year the air rose from the sidewalk in shimmering ribbons, but through the mirages Minato already made out two figures in a familiar squatting pose, with familiar tufts of white smoke filtering between their knuckles. Their indistinct features only sharpened as he closed the distance: one, a surly boy with a thick eyebrow ridge and long, shimmering locks of black hair; and a skinnier brunette, skinny eyes sneering through his coke-bottle glasses. They had noticed Minato already, and watched, glowering, as he approached. They didn't comment when his gaze wandered the shade of the mulberry tree; nor when it reached the top of the wall just behind them, which Yonaka, Tamura, and Umeko had scaled when they ambushed Takanashi earlier this year. They said nothing at all; they seemed to be relishing in forcing Minato to ask the self-evident question.
"I need to speak to Takanashi-san," he said as he conceded to their petty game. "Is he in the toilet?"

Their contempt for him was so apparent that Minato reckoned they must not even be trying to hide it. As if he was unworthy of human language, the bigger one, Mutō, evidently the ringleader when Takanashi wasn't around, shook his head.

"On the baseball field?"

Mutō shook his head.

"In his classroom?" Minato asked, a desperate theory indeed. Takanashi would sooner dig ditches all day than study.

"He ain't here," Mutō affirmed for him, deigningly. "He skipped school today."

"Skipped? ... Thank you," Minato said as he hurried away, back into the harsh glare of a sweltering June afternoon. Their eyes drilled into his back as he left, but that was no matter; they weren't a threat anymore. Not without their leader.

So he hadn't come to school today; Minato supposed he wasn't surprised. Takanashi was wont to skip already, made only likelier by the probability that he'd gotten injured last night, or had at least tired himself out. Because although he was strong to be sure, that strength didn't exactly compensate for a lack of tactics ... Very well. The more studious Tamura would almost certainly have shown up, and she would be more articulated in her report besides. Minato returned to the vestibule, slipped back into his uwabaki, and sauntered up to her classroom. He hadn't paid it much mind in the halls or out in the courtyard, but two girls leapt up from the bench and made way for him when he went to sit on it. Already the rest of the school, or, at least, some of its inhabitants, feared him. Minato would have liked to think that it was well-deserved, but ... no. He hadn't even conquered the school yet. It still crawled with his enemies, and factions of all stripes. And besides, these girls only "feared" him in the way that they fear a hornet which has flown through a classroom window: he was a small, contentious creature, one which may sting them if provoked, but easily avoided or worse, shooed away. They would learn in time that he was nothing to fear at all; not if they remembered their place. The Sarayashiki gang represented orphans of all description. Some literal, others less so: rejects, outcasts, delinquents, untouchables. Only by uniting had they come to possess any of what it was that they wanted in the world (respect, safety, camaraderie), after the world had insisted, time and again, on misunderstanding and underestimating them. They weren't villains. Not unless people in this school continued to abuse Minato's people, in which case they would learn the true meaning of fear: anticipating what he wanted, and providing it to him before he even knew to ask. Knowing they'd sooner drop out of school and become street-touts than get on the Sarayashiki gang's bad side and suffer its retributions for three years, such was their savagery. The existential terror of a manservant dishonoring her master. First to learn these feelings would be the student council, if they remained on their path of obstinance ... and if everyone did their jobs last night.

Class 2-A was abuzz with the quiet revelries of youth: trading bento items, making plans to go shopping or bowling or karaoke singing after school ... Tamura was there, but she wasn't participating.

Minato didn't trust the way his allies acted at meetings. Either they were puffing out their chests and acting tough, competing to be the baddest and most intimidating people there; or the inverse, loitering with their backs to the wall and their sneers cocked off to the side, nonchalant and aloof. Ironically it was away from their friends that they were most honest about their feelings. And Minato could tell: Tamura was gripped in the icy hand of dread. The way she tucked her hands between her knees; hunched forward, as if to make herself small; and stared straight into a now-lukewarm pile of rice and furikake, afraid to chew too loudly lest she fail to hear whatever it was that she feared creeping up on her; a lump formed in Minato's gut. He was almost, almost, afraid to ask. To interfere. But if she needed her friends right now, then what kind of scum would he be to deprive her of that right now?

So he stepped forward, and gave Tamura a knowing, but patient smile. He waited for her to notice, at her own pace, that he was there.

Of all the reactions he could have expected, he did not expect a chill to run up Tamura's spine, stiffening and bracing it. Fear wrenched her eyes wide. Fear. An emotion which was meant to be reserved for their enemies, and those who wished them harm. This sight smothered Minato's smile in a blanket of empathy, sadness ... and morbid curiosity.

Just what happened to her at Keiko Middle School?

And if Takanashi was in fact recuperating at home, why was Tamura completely unscathed?

No need to embarrass her in front of her classmates, however, no matter how urgent the question. Minato nodded upward and toward the door; Tamura-san understood his meaning, and, bracing herself as if to walk barefoot over red-hot coals, stood and followed him. On the roof, they gave similarly silent, seething nods toward the other students who had gathered there, quickly scattering them down the stairs to give themselves some privacy.

"Is it really that bad?"

"Is what that bad?" Tamura replied. Just as Minato expected: she'd started putting on the aloof act. Maybe it was the setting.

"You and Takanashi-san failed last night," he said. "That much is clear. But what now? Are you ashamed? Or afraid of what happens next?"

When she scratched at her elbow and stared at the floor, Minato had the consciousness to press himself against the wall and kick up a casual pose. This positioned him further from the door, and gave her a more direct route to it; not that she would bolt for it, or that he would stop her from doing so, but the option itself would put her more at ease. It worked. Tamura mustered up just enough courage to shake her head.

"So what happened?" Minato said; softly, as softly as he could manage without pleading. He set down his backpack, filled with personal essentials like extra socks, and extra batteries for his Walkman, and school supplies; but also a tidily stacked array of canned coffees, sodas, and juices. Minato flipped the cover and offered her first pick, his skinny arms already trembling from the weight. She tried to refuse; he insisted. Reluctantly she plucked out a coffee and cracked it with a hiss.

Minato was opening his own orange juice when Tamura-san murmured: "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

He thought she was struggling to find the words, to translate a jumble of thoughts like deknotting a ball of fishing line, until she gave about the simplest answer feasible, one he never expected to hear. Not from her.

"I didn't go."

Minato stared down into the mouth of his can, and gave the juice inside a swirl. She knew his next question. Thankfully, she didn't make him ask.

"You know how I feel about him," she said, "and having only Takanashi for backup on enemy soil ... I'm sorry, Ishida-sama. It seemed like a bad idea. I talked myself out of going."

"It's alright. There's nothing to apologize for."

She was still doubting, and hesitating. This time she hesitated to believe him. "Really?"

"Of course. Plans go awry all the time!" He chuckled and gave her a friendly clap on the back. "A shame—I was proud of this one—but we'll come up with a new one. That's all."

The relief washed over her in a palpable torrent. Gone were the shifty-eyed huddles she had been twisting herself into back in the classroom. Even the playful violence he'd wreaked upon her back seemed to have its intended effect. She breathed freely of the humid air, and squinted at him through the sunlight. "Th—Thank you, Ishida-sama," she said to the floor between them as she bowed.

"Nai, nai!" Minato grinned. "You don't have to do something like that. You haven't even made it up to me yet!"

"O-Of course."

"Come on. The bell's about to ring. I'll have your next assignment for you once I know how to proceed."

Ishida stayed behind long enough to pick up the crinkled aluminum cans they'd tossed to the floor of the roof; so when they started back toward the access door, he was slightly behind Tamura. As expected, she didn't notice when he set down his pack, and, reaching down among empty cans and full ones, he picked a handful of batteries from their pack, and stuffed them into a sock. This he stowed away in his fist as he hurried to scoop up his pack and catch up to her.

"When you put it together," Tamura said, "you won't put me with Takanashi again, right?"

"Of course. We don't want a repeat of last night, do we?" he replied, smiling.

She chuckled, too. "No ... You know how I feel about him," she repeated. "You really shouldn't have—ughck!"

The batteries made perfect contact with the side of her head as Ishida aimed a perfect swing of his makeshift club. She sprawled off to the left, writhing and reeling on the floor.

"I shouldn't have what, Tamura-san?" he said as he stepped near, and knelt over her. "You little stray. Do not presume to tell me what I shouldn't do."

She was swimming through the daze of her injury, desperate to stand up and face him.

"I—sai—I sai—I'm s—"

"Shut up," Ishida snarled with another clunk of the club to her head. "It's your turn to listen for once, little stray. I guess mommy and daddy never had the time to teach you manners before they did the world a favor and croaked, did they?"

Finally she was putting her arms over her face, curling up in the closest she could approximate to a ball. Finally, she was where she needed to be: at his feet, whimpering for his grace, his mercy. Ishida could almost commend her for remembering her place at such a crucial time. But was she listening? That was the question. Climbing off of her, he aimed a few kicks at her midsection. Already it tightened with pain and heaved with sobs, and there were tears pooling at the floor cradling her face. He squatted by her pretty, broken little face, and grabbed her by the cheeks, and wrested her gaze up toward him so he knew she would hear him.

"If I order you to jump down a hole," he warned her, "you will respond, 'Sir, a swan-dive or a cannonball, sir?' If I send you down to hell to fight legions of the damned, you'll say, 'Yes, sir,' even if I give you Takanashi-san, Li-chan, or a damn lapdog for reinforcements. You'll do what I say ... or you'll find some other doorstep to curl up on."

Ishida pushed her head back down, where it bounced slightly, her face a shambles of pain, swelling, and disbelief, her hair a birdsnest crusting over with blood. Shouldering his pack once more, Ishida threw her a pitying can of apple juice; and, splaying the mouth of his wallet, showered her in a pitying handful of cash, too. When he concealed his weapon, he stowed the batteries and the sock into separate pockets.

He left her there; stepping through the access door and locking it, only his foot, wedged against the doorway, stopped it from closing on her. Because Ishida had one thing left to say to her before he locked her up there, with nothing for company but her own regrets and the summer breeze:

"Remember that you made me do this."
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