Childhood is a strange thing.It’s murky and indefinite.
At eighteen years and counting, legally I’m no child, but try telling that to anyone else and you’ll get laughed out of the room in most situations. People’s definitions of “children”, or perhaps it’d be better to say “kids” change at the drop of the hat.
Even I wouldn’t say I’m a total adult yet. From my vantage point, at least, I’m still very much within the umbrella of adolescence. I’m sure many would agree.
There are some people that, once they turn eighteen, try to force others to recognize them as “adults”. There are some people that, once they turn eighteen, are forced to recognize their newfound “adulthood”. There are some people that, once they turn eighteen, work towards the idea of being respectably “adult” in stages and phases, slowly grinding towards independence and responsibility.
Me, well, I don’t know for sure where I stand there. But I do know that I certainly don’t feel as “adult” as anyone who is truly their own person. It’s not clicking yet to me, like I’m just treading water where most adolescents do instead of striving towards that vaunted independence.
There’s this idea people have, one I’m sure we’ve all heard of before, of the “formative experience”. That certain events affect people psychologically as they age, deeper than others, and have lasting impacts on their personality, thought processes, and ingrained reactions.
Events that, essentially, chart the path of neither body nor mind, but soul.
I can think of one of my own such events that may explain this sensation, explain the prevailing idea of mine that I’m somehow stuck on my own journey out of childhood.
However…
Much like a kid still clinging bashfully to a secret crush, I can’t open up about it yet. In the chain of events that built me up to who I am, of the formative experiences that made me myself…
It’s supremely important, but not the story to tell right now. It would be veering off-topic into a can of worms that you would only get halfway through even if I did my absolute best as a storyteller.
So with my apologies for being a tease, I have to continue talking about what I began with and see that through. A spiral of rambling and uncomfortable memories is nothing we need to deal with right now.
Childhood and Adulthood.
My place between them, nebulous and unsure.
I spoke before of independence being a key factor in what most people saw and strived for as “being an adult”. If that was entirely the case then I wouldn’t be where I am now. I can tell you this up front: That big formative experience I hyped up taught me all about independence.
And afterwards I learned that unchecked independence, much like unchecked cell growth, becomes one big fat tumor upon you. If I had to pick a name for this cancerous, malignant definition of independence…
Hermeticism.
That would have to be it.
Striving for independence is one thing entirely. I’ll clear the air early and say that it wasn’t my intent to imply you should just mooch off everyone else for the rest of your life. In fact, even during my hermetic spell I was technically doing that. It couldn’t be helped seeing as I was a high schooler and all, but it needs to be pointed out. My hermeticism was from society, not from food, water, or shelter.
If you want to accuse me of half-assing it, go right ahead. But my point is this:
If I had to guess at a reason for why I feel like I’m off the usual course towards adulthood, that formative experience, and the independence and social hermeticism it lead to, would have to be it.
Simply putting it, I drove too far down the path too early.
And I needed to turn back.
Instead of learning to stand on my own two feet, I instead have had to learn how to lean upon others.
How others would need to lean upon me.
How to stop acting like I was independent when I had just exiled myself.
And above all else, how it was impossible for me to avoid everyone and everything forever.
And in terms of formative experiences, this is the one that set me back upon that path.
“Friendship is poisonous. All it does is make you weak.”I think that’s what I used to say. Something trite, pointlessly edgy, and more than a little cliche, so it was no doubt along those lines. As dumb as it was, I was a dumb kid and am a dumb guy, so it was backed with conviction.
A form of self-defense. I didn’t want to rely on anyone or open up to anyone or need anyone else. I had seen how trusting even one person could shatter an entire world. So in my lonesome mind, who needed friendship? Friends were just little time bombs waiting to go off on you.
No matter how worthy of your trust you or they themselves thought they were, you could never be safe with them.
This was my mantra that I always reminded myself of, regurgitated back at anyone trying to approach me, and essentially lived my life by for years.
As for when, the last time I told it to myself, was May 9th, the afternoon of the day classes ended and the beginning of my second-to-last summer break. The period in which I was between the status of “junior” and “senior”, at seventeen years and some change. Wandering aimlessly, I had certainly been contemplating what was ahead of me with mixed feelings.
Staring down a summer break that, in my mind, had nothing more than lazy, lonely days of being by myself in store for me. Like any other student, I was excited about having a cluster of days off, let alone whole months as provided in the summer, but by reasoning was surely an outlier. Normal kids wanted to go on vacation, get a job and earn cash, or at the very least have more time to hang out and do things with their friends.
And there’s that word again.
On the other hand, I was looking forward to a continuation of all of the friendless coasting I had done through school, except without the added baggage of being around people and letting my assignments and such pile up on me.
Granted, it also meant that I didn’t have those two things to occupy my time as I once had. While staying home and shutting into NEETdom for extended periods of time appealed to me, I couldn’t say an entire two months or more of it didn’t feel like it’d be weird.
Thusly, after getting my clutching-at-the-edge report card and being told “see you next year” along with the rest of the class by our teacher, I had ended up spending the afternoon with my head in the clouds, milling about the general area near school and doing a whole lot of nothing.
It wasn’t like I had any reason to be there. Even if any of the clubs interested me, I wouldn’t have joined them back then. I wouldn’t want to build up connections to chain me down and tie me to other people. But still, I hadn’t strayed too far from the general area of my high school in about an hour or so of aimlessly letting my shoes eat up sidewalk and asphalt.
I hadn’t exactly felt like going home straightaway either, even with nothing keeping me at school. At the very least, no force had possessed me to retrieve my bike from the school racks yet. Personally, I blamed the fact that it wasn’t a full school day. Did nobody realize how upsetting those things were to a routine?
Maybe it was just too early to go home.
Or, maybe, I had things waiting for me at home that I didn’t want to deal with. It could have been something along those lines too.
But whatever the case, I had been wandering long enough for it to nearly be the time the middle school around here usually got out.
Definitely so, in fact.
“Oi, watch where you’re goin-- Oh, s-sorry...”
“You should take your own advice, y’know.”
It had to be the case, because I had just bumped into an attendee. By the looks of her, she was probably about two or three years younger than I was, and ready to start her first year of high school when I would be starting my final one.
Perhaps this could have been a chance senpai-kouhai encounter that foretold her rose-colored high school life…
If I was somebody else.
“You could run into somebody nasty if you don’t.”
Damn kid. Quit complaining because you had your eyes on your phone or were playing with those spirals in your hair instead of watching your path. Admire your dye job later.
Granted, blame also fell onto me for not noticing said dye job entering my field of view, but at least I wasn’t denying it and trying to shunt my half of the blame onto someone else.
If this is what it meant to depend upon people, then my family could leave all the way off. I wanted to carry my screwups on my own shoulders, thanks very much.
“...Right…”
An awkward pause followed. Whether it was due to me giving her a mild stink-eye or her getting her accusation thrown straight back in her face, the girl was definitely embarrassed. Green eyes locked onto the sidewalk and pale cheeks flushed, it seemed like my words had definitely hit home.
Good.
“Seriously, stay in your lane. One wrong turn and those studs make you a target.” I said, gesturing to my own lobe for effect. Of course, our town was very safe with a highly trained police force, so I was really only forcing the point home in doing this than giving any actual advice…
But whatever, as long as I made the message absolutely clear, we didn’t have to drag this out.
“Shouldn’t let it happen again.”
I turned and raised my hand, letting her know the conversation was over with as I walked off. My pace was always relatively quick when I had things on my mind, so between that and quickly breaking off of what was a growingly uncomfortable conversation for both parties involved made my steps long, quick, and rhythmic.
I’ll be honest, it was probably a bit of a vain hope that I would have managed to make any habitual changes in the long run. I was just some high schooler, looking at it realistically, that she ran into and got groused at by. If anything, she’d probably be back on her phone not even a minute later shooting a friend of hers a text about me scolding her. She definitely looked like the kind of girl you’d expect to be popular as she edged out of middle school and into high school, where all that stuff supposedly went full swing.
Well, I’d yet to see that, not that I paid much attention.
But anyways, surely she wouldn’t actually end up changing all that much. I probably just pissed her off a little because I made her feel embarrassed.
Well, I didn’t know.
In the end, it was just a chance encounter between two people that started and ended in under a minute. Neither of us knew eachother or even knew of eachother. I had avoided the poison of friendship and kept my personal agency high. She would go on with her life as normal.
It wouldn't matter at all.
Time had passed. I don’t know if it was minutes, an hour, two or more, but more aimless wandering was going on and that was about the end of it.
There really wasn’t a purpose to anything I was doing, or anything I wasn’t doing either.
I had managed to stick myself in limbo beyond all doubt.
Eurgh. What a waste of time. There was filling time, there was killing time, and then there was trying to crash time’s plane with no survivors. By now my two sisters, who were undoubtedly home, were likely starting to get curious about their hopeless brother’s absence.
I’d really prefer not getting grilled by those kids, so it probably would have been for the best if I had gone and retrieved my trusty bike quickly. Although, now that I had gone back to thinking about it with action in mind, I probably still needed a cover story...
Maybe a trip to the bookstore…
A new novel coming out could provide ample reason for my tardiness, absolutely. However, off the top of my head? I couldn’t name any releases that interested me. And with a lack of reasonable dissuasion of doubt, I knew where the mind of two fourteen year old girls would turn when dressing down their elder brother.
They would think me a technophobe, a luddite, a fogey stuck in the days of old—
Doubtlessly they would suspect me of grabbing a school’s out celebratory porn mag. Maybe they would be onto something in other circumstances, like a complete blackout, but then I would sooner worry about such amenities like our air conditioning, fridge, and lights.
But, yeah. In the end, I could at least say I was perusing and had heard some dumb rumor by chance that a new volume of something-or-other had been released, and then I would at least have a story to stick to— I very much doubted I’d escape an earful from those two if I came home with no other logic behind things than “not feeling like it.”
The dumb kids probably thought the rest of the family and I had a salvageable situation. I mean, we never really got into big fights or had a falling out, but as time passed by from my inception into high school, we just began to drift apart. To grow distant from eachother. Work for both began to ramp up, I secluded myself more and more, and whenever we spoke of my academic performance, we quickly learned that the less there was said about it, the better.
The racks were empty when I drew upon them, save of course for my own bike. How late had I let it get?
Sheesh. Any worse and the sky was going to start turning orange on me. It had to be a personal record for time wasted entirely naturally, with no outside nor manmade assistance. Didn’t even look at my phone. Not that I had any contacts or anything, but…
Well, unfortunately for me, even if I had contacts and friends by extension to use as an excuse, I barely knew how to work the things. I just wanted it to tell me the time and take me to the internet under my desk in class. Anything more would have asked too much of both it and me.
I pushed my legs into the familiar churning, circular pattern as I started off. Though there were a scant few things I could out and out say I enjoyed in this world, I’ve always loved doing some touring around town on my bike. The breeze in your face and the quickness while still traveling under your own power-- it appealed to me. Of course, needing both hands to keep a proper balance meant I was also working a little harder and needed to pay more attention than just walking...
But on the flipside, me needing more attention to go places meant that I also had less that was there to be attempted to grab by others.
A natural barrier against conversation. If I was on my bike when I went places, people didn't try chatting me up. I'd simply be out of earshot in a matter of seconds. I got places fast, wandered less, and didn't have to talk to anyone or even check my phone for texts.
What a beautiful invention. One of mankind’s finest. And needless to say, I rode the thing wherever and whenever I could for those exact reasons. For a guy who had all of the desire to affiliate with others of a particularly social tree, bikes were the perfect method of getting around places. The less I talked to people, the less I had to recognize them and potentially care about them in the future.
The less chance of randomly making a friend.
The less people that could cause a buildup of weak points for me. Whose pain and suffering could bleed off onto me. Whose happiness and fun a petty guy like me could be jealous of. Who I would have to worry about and remember and consider when making my actions.
It was less people who could limit the kind of person I was. Less people whom could be used against me. Less people whom held sway over what I did and thought.
Less people I would, inevitably, come to trust and be burned by, as I had personally witnessed so long ago.
Yep.
All in all, the social forcefield of speed and focus that a bike provided made it a perfect fit for a solitary guy like me. If anyone wanted to get my attention while I was on it, they would have to do something big and crazy, which nobody would ever consider when you factored in them not knowing me nor ultimately caring about someone whom they didn’t know. They would have had to do something that could go way beyond the limits of normal communication.
“HEL--”
...
Like letting out scream.
…
…
And right in the face of years’ worth of a solitary mantra…
I skidded to a halt.
Our local bookstore happened to be in a bit more of an urban, densely developed area. Normally this just meant the streets were busier and I’d have more breeds of lights to worry about, but such urbanization also, inevitably, came with a caveat.
More and taller buildings meant more and darker alleyways. It was an unavoidable side effect of trying to stick a bunch of people and companies into one spot—once builders ran out of room to build out, they inevitably look to build up.
And yet at the same time, with all those people, the section of sidewalk I had been riding through was empty save for me. If bumping into some kid was a chance encounter, then hearing a girl’s cry for help right now was a one in a million scenario.
Nobody else was around.
Nobody else could have heard her before she was cut off, and the quieter, distinctly more rough and masculine shouts that followed, which I’d needed to be listening for.
Nobody else would know something had happened.
I could have walked away and written it off as the wind…
“Alright, listen up! This is how it’s goin’ down, you little brat!”
The shouts were getting louder and my footsteps, on instinct, were getting quieter. I could feel my heartrate skyrocketing as I snuck my way into the dim, murky in-betweens of our town’s polished exterior, body stuck tight to the walls.
What on Earth was I doing?
What happened to not caring?
I didn’t know who this was.
“No more noise-makin’! Either you cooperate…”
I heard dark, ugly chuckles. So there were lackeys, too. Great. What the hell was wrong with me? For all the hype about the bystander effect in class, I sure as hell wasn’t getting affected by it.
“Or we take all your stuff by force! And I gotta warn ya, we play rough…”
“You could get yourself hurt, missy.”
Yeah, that was more than one voice. No two ways about it or anything like that. A mugging at best. At worst…
…
I’d rather not.
And to speak of that, I really’d rather not be doing any of this. It went against everything I had preached as gospel.
I was about to throw myself into deep trouble because I couldn’t even keep my word to myself. I’d have to add “all talk” to the list of things that made me the loser I am. I was a loner, and it was so much work staying that way. If all I had talked about was true, then I should have ignored it and kept moving like any other person.
What kind of hermit went out of their way to seek trouble like this?
In the end my feet just moved of their own accord. Even though I was questioning everything I was doing and the reasons behind them, the rest of my mind was running me on autopilot.
A resurgence of instinct, huh?
God damn it all. That must’ve been it. Once again, I couldn’t win.
“What the-- Oi, you’d best keep movin’, twink!”
They spotted me.
Three high schoolers, each looking almost stereotypically, cartoonishly criminal. The idea of “delinquent” given flesh, and not in the loveable way that popped up so frequently in Shonen Jump. No, as it turned out, if you took a bad attitude, outdated style, and a propensity for getting into fights and causing trouble, the end result was actually pretty ugly.
The one who addressed me, leering down his crooked nose, stepped forward threateningly. His beady eyes had absolutely nothing but malice in them, and he was at least a good four inches taller than me. Probably outweighed me by thirty or fourty pounds as well.
Not a good situation.
His partner, who had been shadowing the ringleader, stepped forward as well, wearing a loathsome grin along with his torn up uniform.
“If you know what’s good for ya, pretty boy, you’d better not be getting any hero delusions in your head. Any one of us could snap your prep-school ass in two.”
Believe me, Pompadour Guy, I had no delusions of being a hero. I was scared out of my mind here, despite investigating of my own accord. You too were huge. My practically-failing-prep-school ass had no business challenging someone meaner looking than said prep school’s rugby team captain.
“Oh boy, another one. Five seconds, kid, before I sic ‘em and we shake you down too.”
Probably from the cigarettes I was entirely sure he smoked at the pace of a chimney, a worn, rough voice left the mouth of the obvious ringleader. The tallest and lankiest of the bunch, his scuffed up leather jacket and slicked-back, bleached hair took a backseat to the knife in his hands, as far as the task of making him raise the bar of intimidation was concerned. He pointed that blade at me as he said it, too.
I won’t lie, I flinched. Knives have a profound psychological effect on me, as they would any other man… Dawn steel pointed in your direction is never not something to be concerned by.
He then returned to sticking it in the face of the girl who had screamed, evidently satisfied that I’d be scared off or roughed up.
He had her mouth covered with his free hand, and her back pressed into the wall. The knife waving right in front of her, if I had to guess was what was dissuading her struggling, as her eyes stayed glued to it.
Her olive green eyes. Olive green eyes on a the young face of a between middle-and-high schooler, framed by frayed, long, drill-tipped blonde hair. The outfit was different, much trendier and cuter than a school uniform, but the person wearing it was the same.
Even the piercings.
I couldn’t believe it at all.
“Last warnin’, smallfry!”
…If I were to construct a line of reasoning for what happened next, I guess it would have been something like this.
I was mad at the girl. Stark raving mad. Not only had she bugged me before and wasted my time, now she had actively gotten me into trouble I didn’t want. Every which way you looked at it, it was her fault for preying upon my poor inattentive self. This was entirely on her.
She had obviously not listened to my advice. To brush off an honest tip from your elder so fragrantly was deeply, unforgivably disrespectful. I didn’t care, in that moment, for the fact that I was just some guy who had been passing through twice now. I cared about the fact that the one time I spared more than three words to some kid who had sincerely needed to help, I was ignored.
That would be enough to piss anyone off.
To piss them off unreasonably.
To piss them off into stupidity.
To piss them off apoplectically.
Crunch.“AAAGH!”
To piss them off hard enough to throw a schoolbag full of heavy, hardcover books like they were pitching at the Koshien.
“What the fu--”
“Wrong move, you goddamn punk!”
“You’re dead now, you little bitch!”
The knife clattered to the floor as hands flew up to a newly-broken nose.
Footsteps pounded towards me.
Without even knowing I was doing it, my weight lowered and my hands rose. Butterflies that had already made their home in my stomach were flapping up a storm.
…But really, though?
I caught olive eyes for the third time that day.
“Run and grab my bike! Head straight to the police station and don’t you dare stop! NOW!”
I guess it’s true, even for me.
Old habits die hard.
If you asked me, or any of my family for that matter, who the fighter amongst us was, I can tell you with complete certainty that we would all say “April”. Her practice of the martial arts was nigh-obsessive. I half-wondered if she was living up to the legacy of a reporter of the same name and was making a run at becoming a ninja turtle.
I scrambled back, pulling my head away from a wide, full-fisted swing. As I stated previously, Crooked Nose was a burly guy who barely fit into his high school uniform, so getting hit was absolutely not an option. If he put my lights out, this was all going to be one big fat waste of time. I didn’t want to bank on the card I had up my sleeve if I could help it.
I was no vigilante hero of justice. That was quickly becoming her area of expertise, as it happened, and even with said ninja turtle out of the discussion, her trusty sidekick was none other than our little sister Dawn. Of the three of us, I was actually the one that least resembled a “fighter”. I didn’t get into fights easily and I couldn’t remember a time I’d been in one in years. Truthfully, this was in its entirety not my scene.
The girl, after a moment of shock, heeded my words and began to scramble away. Good, but the only problem was--
“No runnin’, brat!”
Pompadour. Like grabbing a kitten by the scruff of its neck, he lashed out and gripped a fistful of her jacket’s collar, suddenly immobilizing her right as she started moving. Not good. No. Bad. That was definitely a “bad”.
So what was a guy to do if he didn’t like fighting, didn’t know about fighting, and had no experience with fighting compared to the people he was fighting?
Well, luckily for me, nobody would complain if I colored outside the lines a little.
As his next swing came, corrected for my new position, instead of moving back I moved forward. I met his oncoming force with my own, and did something that somebody who liked fighting would never be expected to do.
Even as his forearm crashed into my shoulder, bicep, and forearm, placed there in a classical “block a hit to the temple” formation, my other arm shot forward. I was poorly, amateurishly miming my little sister, but in the end a palm strike to the nose was still a palm strike to the nose, whether it was a ramrod like hers or a glorified slap like mine.
It takes a special family for the older brother to personally know that the large man whose already crooked nose he flattened was now seeing stars, thanks to his repeated scuffles with his own little sister. Maybe it was an explanation for what I had against noses right now…
What happened next was probably the biggest stroke of dumb luck we had all night. At around the same time as I planted my heel into Flat-nose’s gut, the middle schooler managed to wriggle out of her own sleeves and shed the clothing. The end result—
One delinquent, holding a chic jacket, found himself staring at the fleeing form of the girl he had thought he’d ensnared for all of a second and a half before his fellow crashed into him and they both toppled. Just like bowling. Or dominoes.
Heh...
I looked over my shoulder as the two unentangled themselves, seeing a flash of blonde rounding the corner to confirm that the girl was home free…
And instantly regretted it, as a great pressure formed in my side and I staggered as if someone had crashed into me.
“Ghhah!”
Through a bloody, broken nose, a rough voice spat.
“Not so tough, are ya?”
I couldn’t respond, only gasp and stagger backwards woozily. Despite what it initially felt like, I hadn’t been bumped into or punched…
I stared at the knife, clutched in his white knuckled grip.
And even in the low light, I saw blood that I knew wasn’t anyone else’s but my own. I could tell it was mine, without a shred of doubt, because…
I clutched my side, feeling my uniform soak up something warm, wet, and sticky.
“...gkh.”All the three of them stalked towards me now. Their accosting of the girl was completely forgotten. Every last bit of attention they had was now focused upon me. On one hand, it was certainly a good thing that I had at least managed to bail her out for my trouble, but on the other…
I edged back, eyes darting between the three and desperately trying to ignore the growing, burning, almost indescribable pain in my side.
On the other, now I was here in her place. If I wasn’t locked into fight or flight mode and barely able to think through my wound, I’d have probably said something about how you couldn’t even take chances on people…
But that was what pop-culture always got wrong about getting stabbed. Once you know it’s happened and you see your own blood, the pain gets ten times worse. But, for all I wanted to curl up and scream, I had to hold things in.
“Ey, don’t give me that look, pal. We gave ya every warnin’ in the book.”
Wiped nose.
“But ya just had to try and ruin our little payday.”
Cracked knuckles.
“And now it’s you who’s gonna be payin’ for it.”
Brandished knife.
I gritted my teeth and balled my fists, doing my best to ignore that one was all sticky inside. I had to buy her as much time and distance as possible, I knew that, but I felt like a wounded, cornered rat more than some venerable guardsman holding the line…
But you know what they say about cornered animals.
As one, they sprung, and as one with them, I lashed out desperately. The Pompadour man was the closest, and thus felt the worst of it. I may be a broken record in reiterating that I’m not April, but I didn’t need to be to kick a scary man much bigger than me in the groin. He doubled over, but it afforded me no rest. Right after him, from the other end, was the Ringleader, whose wide slashes sent me scrambling back again. One, two, side to side, both narrowly missed my body by no more than an inch. I couldn’t keep that up.
On the backswing, as he brought his arm around for a third swipe, I torqued my body as hard as it could go and swung my right hand for his head. It was sloppy, and ugly, more like a bear swatting than a man punching, but it fended him off for a moment.
“Ahgh--”
At the cost of feeling like I was liable to spill my guts all over the place. I grunted, my breath hitched—
And I was blasted by a running headbutt from Crooked Nose, who was apparently descended from a ram faunus now, or something. One second of distraction and I was hit hard.
As if fighting three of them wasn’t bad enough, I had to have a debilitating injury on top of it, right?
Well. Just my luck.
I ducked under his follow-up punch and shoved him away, staining that uniform and the ragged shirt underneath red.
I had to keep buying time. She had to have at least grabbed my bike now, but the last time I didn’t make sure of something, well…
I wouldn’t be needing to now, I’ll say that much.
My breath was getting labored, and I could feel the adrenaline dump beginning to set in. Was I seeing spots in my vision? I couldn’t tell if the picture was swaying because of my condition or my flagging muscles.
I just had to hold out for more.
Just do more.
Knifeman again. Mad. Swinging very wide. Pulling it back.
I charged forward, shoulder-bashing him before he could swing out. Nearly falling off balance.
Growl from other side. Turn, duck.
Not fast enough. Punch grazes temple. Hits forehead. Knocked crossways. Vision swimming--
WHOOM.Enormous impact. Air forced from gut. Ribs crack. Long, heavy, solid. Bat?
Oh, tire iron.
T-Tire Iron?! From where?!
Swings for head, manage to avoid but stumble. Falling to floor.
“Say goodnight!”
Catch. Get up. Get up now.
Try to get up.
Blur in peripheral.
Turn--
Boot.
I wasn’t out before I hit the ground, but the last thing I felt was definitely a stomp on my back.
Great.
I don’t know how long I was out.
Probably not very.
But I do know that I woke up with a start.
Like a jolt of electricity had been run through me.
Like I was reborn.
And, in a sense, you could say I was. The thing these guys didn’t know about me, couldn’t have any way of knowing about me, and never would guess about me, was that in terms of damage, me and normal people were…
I dug my hand underneath my shirt, near my stomach. Dry. Closed.
Markedly different.
I twisted my body, testing for stresses. A bit sore, but nothing crazy. So, my ribs likely needed a few more minutes. No big deal.
I was the only person around here now.Rising to my feet, I patted myself down to check if I still had all of my valuables on me, which was surprisingly enough the case. Huh. Maybe they were satisfied with just beating me up…
Well, if they thought I was out of commission, they’d be sorely disappointed. I had a secret weapon against most forms of injury that, honestly, made me completely unfair.
Her little jacket, too, was forgotten. Lying in a crumpled, careless heap on the dirty floor of the alleyway, it seemed like the gang of miscreants had lost track of it while fighting me. For guys who were trying to shake middle schoolers down for their valuables, they sure as hell had done a terrible job of it.
I rolled my neck and squatted down, picking it up off the floor and draping it over my shoulder. Thankfully, I hadn’t stained it at all, so a quick run through the wash was more than likely to leave it good as new.
As for my uniform, well…
Our family is keenly aware of how to get blood out of clothes. Especially if it’s my blood. I suppose I should get around to explaining that.
I come from a pretty special family. You could say that they’re a whole heaping handful of extreme individuals. People who are stronger, tougher, and all-around scarier than the average, sometimes by whole orders of magnitude. People who would make those three punks combined look like paper tigers.
To put it in terms of numbers, there were three people who either were Huntresses, or were going to be huntresses.
My mother and sisters. Scariest women alive.
And then there was a veteran police officer.
My father. The man of the house who could keep THOSE three in check, however the hell he did it.
And then there was me.
Little old Luke.
When you examined the pedigree I came from and the family I had grown up with, it becomes a little less surprising that even though I’m not much different at all in capability from any other high schooler, I still did have a trick up my sleeve.
Though three of us were going to be fighting Grimm, four of us had our aura and semblances awoken.
Mine was auto-regeneration. You basically could take the healing ability of a normal person and square it, and you would get me. Well, no, that would be oversimplifying it…
If I took damage, be it as small as a papercut or as serious as a knife just below the liver, it would heal completely and very, very quickly. Those cracked ribs could have taken a normal person months to recuperate from, and would have necessitated a hospitalization, but for me it was a matter of resting for less than an hour before I could breathe and walk again. It was an invaluable trait to have in times like these.
With that said, I didn’t enjoy relying on it. I could only heal from damage, there was no reduction of pain or even real mitigation of that damage I had taken in the first place. Tying back into what I said earlier, even though I had the Semblance of a Hunter, I had no interest in becoming one. I had done nothing to train my semblance or aura or whatever since it had awakened.
My aura, the fuel for my semblance, was pathetically weak. So much so that I was, for all intents and purposes, just a normal human in every other area. In fact, I wasn’t even particularly fast or strong by the standards of normal humans. I wasn’t tough, either, as the auric “barrier” that shields most Hunters from minor damage was nonexistent for me.
It was that weak. It took everything it had to keep my semblance running.
And that’s all I was. Just some guy who could heal remarkably fast. A perfect punching bag.
I took a deep breath. No use bellyaching now.
Dusting myself off one final time, I retrieved my bookbag, which had flattened a nose, and walked back into the light of the street.
May as well have headed home now. It was starting to get to the point where there was more light from the shops and the street itself than the sun, after all. With our parents being so bogged down by work it wasn’t likely that they would be in to accost me about being out after dark or anything, but there was no telling what those two little tasmanian devils I had for sisters would do.
Whatever it was, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to it.
Ugh. And it would definitely be after dark, too. A trip that took a little while by bike became a major time investment on foot. I really wished I’d thought a little before telling that kid to use it, but I couldn’t change the past now. If that were an option, this would have never happened at all.
I really didn’t feel like running, either. Maybe it just means I’m lazy, but after what I had been through today, and with my only rest being a knockout blow to the temple, I felt like I wouldn’t have the strength of will left to hoof it for however many miles it would take to get back home.
As such, I hadn’t gotten far at all before my phone began to ring.
I stood just outside the bookstore, having had to shuffle through my pockets and bag before I found it, and stared glibly at the screen. Displaying the caller ID and playing some video game tune most people wouldn’t be caught dead listening to in public, I just couldn’t help but take in the absurdity of the number displayed.
…You know, it’s not often when 911 is calling
you. But strangely enough, that was just how things worked out sometimes, if you were in my situation.
Beep.“Dad?”
A low, gruff sigh on the other end, one that I knew meant unwittingly held breath.
“Hey, kid. You alright?”
“Yeah, why?”
Even though we had grown more distant over my high school years, as I had with everyone, my father was still my father, and my father still cared about me even when I was being a worthless loser working towards nothing.
I’m sorry for being so worrying, Dad. I’m a bad son.
“Well, to say nothing about you being out so late all of a sudden,” he began, obviously leading me into a catch. “We just had some poor girl race in here on your bike scared out of her wits. Typically thieves don’t go and run to the police with the things they stole, so that raised some eyebrows.”
Naturally it would, yeah.
His voice kept even and professional as he continued, and I realized that now I had become part of an investigation. We had our moment of familial worry, and then it was getting to the bottom of what had happened.
“Once we got her to calm down, she said that a high-schooler with a cowlick, medium length black hair, and a real mean streak had stumbled upon three other boys mugging her and got into a scrap with ‘em so she could escape on his bike and ride here. Does that sound like anyone we know?”
My eyes narrowed and I felt myself frown.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Pop. I don’t have a mean streak.”
“So, I take it her descriptions and yours will line up.”
At least acknowledge what I said! I defended myself there!
“Tch… More than likely, yeah. She’s fine?”
“Just rattled. Catch any names?”
“I didn’t. My bike’s fine?”
“Aren’t you cold.”
Well, forget professionalism, huh?
“If she’s fine then it means I didn’t waste my time getting beaten up. It’s not like I did it to make a friend.”
“Alright, alright. We’re giving her a ride home now, poor girl needs to de-stress.”
So that meant— wait, hold on.
“Oh, before you do, could you grab my bike and bring it with her?”
“...Why? Don’t want to come pick it up at the station?”
“Not really. It’d be easier if I just walked home and we traded in front of school tomorrow. She lost her jacket, right?”
“She did mention needing to wriggle out.”
“Yeah, I have it. Best we just kill two birds with one stone, I’d say.”
A moment of silence on the other end.
Please? My feet were starting to hurt…
“Alright. Well, I’ll have to let you go for now and catch Sakura before she pulls out,” he said sharply, as I heard the sounds of him swiftly moving through the station in the background. “But I’m calling you back right after so I can get your story on what happened, got it? You’d better pick up and tell me everything.”
“Wouldn’t expect any less.”
Dad was nothing if not serious about his job, no matter how much goofiness he let loose at home.
“Talk to you soon, then. And son--”
“...Yeah?”
“You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”
It ended up taking over an hour and a half to get home on foot at a steady walk. Who on earth thought that putting the only worthwhile bookstore in our town, anyway? I should sue. I should start a petition. I should gripe to the newspaper…
I unlocked the door using the key we kept in the potted plant. In Mom’s own words, “under the mat’s too overdone and obvious”.
“I should just plop on the couch and not move for a while.”
As was family custom, my shoes came off at the doorway and were placed to the side near the frame. No dust or grime in the house, she would say, unless you want to clean it all up yourself.
I was in no mood to clean anything, even as simple as pushing a vacuum back and forth a few times. Cleaning was for natural go-getters, traditionalists, and people who hadn’t trudged all the way from nearly downtown to a cozy little suburban residential area.
So not me. However—
I brushed the dust off of the jacket, or at least tried to. Where it looked nice enough beforehand, with a warm orange color and comfy-looking lining of faux-fur around the collar, the soft fabric was all crumpled and marked up by dark brown and gray thanks to being involved in a back-alley brawl. The poor thing had probably gotten trampled on a few times after I knocked Crooked Nose into Pompadour…
S-Still, I was sure it was nothing a classic wash and rinse cycle couldn’t fix!
…
Lamenting how lame it would look if I brought back a grimy jacket whilst demanding a spotless bicycle, I left the laundry room and was greeted by the Lesser of Two Evils.
“Oh, Onii-chan. You’re back.”
“Oh, Dawn-chan. I’m back.”
Don’t you dare. I don’t wanna hear it from you. Go try and fit your sister into a yukata.
“You were out pretty late.”
AAAAAAARGH
“I’m nearly eighteen. I can stay out. Dad knows about it, anyway.”
I’m serious. Leave Onii-chan alone for tonight. He doesn’t need your grilling, he’s already been in the fire!
“So, where’s the jacket?”
What the--
“Okay, how do you know about that?”
She tilted her head like an innocent, confused puppy.
Don’t try and get out of answering by acting cute, you little--
“Papa called me to make sure you got it washed right.”
“It’s a jacket! How hard could that even be?!”
Completely unfazed by my outburst, she perked up into an easy smile.
“So you’ve got it taken care of?”
“Yeah, I just threw it in the washing machine. It’s a jacket, not a three piece suit.”
…
She would refuse to wipe the smirk off her face for the rest of the night. Through the re-cleaning session, through dinner, even during my attempts at sinking directly into the couch while she caught up on her drama show, she was unabashedly lapping it up. Every so often, just when I thought I’d get a break, she would brutally chime in with a jab about fabric softener or detergent or something.
It wasn’t until I trudged upstairs into my room and we said our goodnights that I was relieved of having her smug, pearly whites beamed directly at me. I was half-worried she would follow me in just to squeeze a few extra minutes out of it, but it was mercifully unfounded.
Absolutely exhausted, I flopped onto my bed and attempted to become one with the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
Sheesh. What an annoying little girl. It was hard to believe she was nearly the same age as that kid who I’d gotten into this mess with. Just a year, maybe two off. As an older brother, that was a little scary.
My relationship with my sisters is tenuous at best and standoffish at worst, but it’s still unnatural to me to see them as anything more than little girls. In just a couple of months, a kid who was barely any older than them would be a high schooler. And already she was looking the part of someone who was coming into her own as a person, independent and maturing into a young woman.
Were those little girls I grew up with really so close to doing the same?
...It wouldn’t be long now before April would be tackling her application to Signal academy. Dawn was sure to follow, and might even overachieve to snag a spot alongside her. It was certainly within her capability. Once that happened…
Once that happened, our paths were undeniably split. The road forked off into a territory where I couldn’t lord my experience over them any more. I couldn’t be the older brother who had done all that and seen all that before.
...They were moving up past me, weren’t they? I’d kept straight ahead into high school and been content to stop. What I did today would be part of their everyday lives as they learned how to become heroes, just like they always wanted.
If I made Dad proud today, you could say they would be making him proud every day.
And I’d just be sitting here with no paths or goals ahead of me. People romanticize being wayward a lot, but what was it really, besides indecisiveness? It was kind of funny, if you looked at it from that angle. Two “little girls” had more direction and drive than me, their supposedly wise and experienced older brother.
...Was I okay with that? Was staying on course “enough”?
“...Feh.”
I turned over.
What they all did didn’t matter. Growing up is part of life, and there was nothing to be sad or surprised about . It happens to people. In life, it’s what’s called a constant. When it was universal and happened to anyone, it was no big deal and didn’t matter.
Yeah.
None of this mattered. Life was going to go on as normal. If they wanted to become superheroes, then let them. They had the ability and the time. I’d wasted all of my chances to do the same and no matter how much it bothered me, I couldn’t change it. Today was just an anomaly that had come and gone. It was resolved without breaking the status quo.
That’s what I thought.
And then, next morning—
I found my bike beaten into a scrap heap in front of the school.
“...”
Attached was a simple note, written in lazy pen and irreverently brief. Not any girl’s handwriting.
Whitesnake Shrine.
“Dammit, you idiot!”It wasn't often that I verbalized my self-denigration. After all, it had been instilled in me, from an early age, that talking to yourself is bad. Even moreso to try and talk to yourself while your run, although that part may have been one of my own misconceptions. Something about biting one’s tongue off, but at this point neither lesson mattered.
“Of course it's never over that easy!”
My feet pounded across the concrete. I tore through sidewalk like a man possessed. Nearing the edge of the city, I was forced to run thanks to my bike being trashed by those punks.
And boy, was I angry about that. I was furious. Livid. Insensate. I was so angry that I was rushing headfirst into a certain trap because I wanted to exact my revenge that badly. I had become so monstrously enraged that even knowing it was a bad idea wasn’t enough to stop me, and that bicycle was a personal enough treasure that I wanted to do it myself.
That was what I told myself, anyway. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that calling the cops into a hostage situation could rile them all up and have one do something crazy to said hostage. After all, I didn’t care about that stuff. That girl was just an afterthought, nothing more, and after all I had done to help her, she deserved it for still managing to get into trouble. Probably a result of having built up a weak point by thinking of me as a friend, or something.
Yeah, when it came to her, all I felt was annoyance. Nothing more than a constant thorn in my side that, with my luck, I’d have to deal with all summer should this crap keep up.
It was bad enough that she made me mad at her for not listening to my one lone piece of advice, but she was also a master at making me mad at myself. Here was a girl who had me, one way or another, running into danger with absolutely no benefit twice now. Twice, she had made me break my code of only looking out for number one and not letting a weak point build up.
I shouldn’t have cared in the first place. That was my problem! If I had just let the stupid ‘who was bumping into whom’ thing slide, I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. I wouldn’t be rushing towards ten, twenty, or even thirty young men holding some kid I didn’t know hostage because they wouldn’t have broken my bike and pissed me off, because I’d have made up my mind to go home ten minutes earlier. I wouldn’t have heard that scream from the alleyway.
I wouldn’t have investigated something that had nothing to do with me.
I wouldn’t have found a girl getting mugged at knifepoint.
…
And I would have condemned her.
It had to be me, because there was nobody else who could have helped her then. Just as it had to be me now, ironically enough. Because I foiled a plot and humiliated three people by smashing noses and kicking junks, I had now brought down the wrath of the whole gang on my head.
And on hers too.
I knew it was a gang of them because it had to be a gang—and that was also why, as I ventured into the road up towards the base of the mountain, I juked right for a good fifty yards until I was well into the bush. To pull something like this off in the space of a morning— kidnapping a girl, smashing a bike, and setting themselves up within the one abandoned shrine our city had— that was next to impossible if it was just the three punks I had fought last night. No trio of high school delinquents had those kind of resources on their own.
So I wanted to stack advantages, since they had numbers. If BleachedHair and Pompadour were anything to go by, they’d also be armed, too. So I needed something to counter that with…
Like surprise. The problem was that with that note, I knew that they knew I was coming. They had set the place and had the time. They were having me come to them.
My pace slowed to a creep. By now I was practically on top of the stairway up, so if I wanted to even have a ghost of a chance at this, I needed to move with discretion.
Peering out from the brush may have been the best decision I’d made all morning. A lone man stood at the very foot of the stairs as a sentry, looking bored from posture alone as he leaned against the archway. You might ask why I had to denote figuring this out due to his posture but that was due to—
“A horse mask?”
I said it under my breath from a fair distance away, so thankfully he didn’t hear me. But I was surprised. Not at the fact that the guy was keeping watch, but the fact that people actually wore them outside of making dumb internet videos…
I guess all types of weirdoes flocked to this crew, huh? There had to be plenty up there. I counted at least four cars that could easily hold two dozen people total at a conservative guess. If more people were coming, had already walked, or were crammed into one of the two vans…
Ugly.
Very very ugly for a little high schooler man like me.
But looking at this guy’s mask, I was beginning to have an idea…
“Here goes nothing.”
I grabbed a nearby branch and snapped it.
The Whitesnake Shrine was ancient. Absolutely ancient. Ever since the first settlers that had crossed the northern seas and ventured into the mountains of Sanus had plopped down here, the Whitesnake Shrine had stood. Hundreds, if not thousands of years of history had been witnessed by this building.
Even as it was joined by and eventually retired from the nexus of Shrines that dotted the side of the mountain range, it had stood strong. A bastion of worship to old gods, to ancestral spirits, and a sealed barrier against the Grimm past the peaks. The white oak beams had proudly weathered the ages.
Not even the color war nor the battle literally fought on top of it could break it.
Not even decades of retirement after that war, nor the slow onset of dereliction could break it.
The venerable shrine had stood through it all, and would continue to stand. As though the gods it used to venerate had indeed watched over it.
Today, as the grassy tiles of its courtyard were occupied by no less than thirty of it’s protectorate’s rebellious youth, would be no different. Though they scratched the still-smooth stone with their lead pipes and risked burning the thick bamboo grove and forest surrounding it with their cigarettes, the shrine would still stand on.
Relieved of duty or not, it was simply what the shrine was to always do, as it has always done.
Another of the rambunctious lot trudges up the steps, increasing their count to thirty-one. He is a strange one and has always been a strange one, but was generally reliable. That was why they allowed the young man’s quirks such as a preference for baggy hoodies and horse masks. While making a name for yourself as a tough dude was one thing, having a calling card that was recognizable anywhere worked just as well.
Thanks to being a reliable sort, they had placed him on lookout duty to warn if anyone was headed that way that refused to be turned back by a strong suggestion. Like the cops.
Or, maybe that little punk who Motoharu had decided he wasn’t through with yet. They knew he would be coming too, and they were all too happy to show him some appreciation for taking care of their buddies last night.
Thanks to being a reliable sort, they were also fine with letting him swap out with another reliable guy after the fourth hour on watch duty. Yoshitake had been a little miffed about not getting to slug the whiteknighting prettyboy who was willing to resort to kicking another man’s junk, but his worries were allayed by the Boss, who reminded him that his job was also to escort the little shit up the stairs so he couldn’t try anything funny.
He’ll get his licks in.
All of this conversation passes through the ears of the Girl, who, due to her younger age, weaker even if well-kept frame, and current position of being tied rather tightly to the chair she was sitting in, was unable to do anything about it. She didn’t even feel safe looking in the eyes of any of these older boys…
Well, Horsehead Mask doesn’t have a face that would haunt her nightmares that she can see. So once he’s stepped into the shrine courtyard proper, she gives him the most withering, unholy, vitriolic stink-eye a fifteen year old almost-highschooler could muster, backed by years at the top of a schoolgirl’s social food chain.
To her credit, it actually seems to give him pause, but telling the true effects of her assault is hard beneath the blank, unreadable expression of the horse mask. After a brief shake of his head, he seems to have recovered…
“Heh, looks like the watch duty really spaced ya out, huh Mitsuo?”
Mitsuo shrugs goofily in response, and the group chuckles heartily, sans the Girl. Instead, she just lets out a despondent sigh. Nobody sane would blame her, as nobody sane enjoys being a hostage.
“Don’t worry,” the boss drawls lazily, kicking up from his seat behind her and greeting Mitsuo with a tilt of the chin. “Once Motoharu’s little friend shows up, we’ll kick things off and it’ll get interesting again.”
“He ain’t my friend, Boss.” Motoharu growls beneath his pompadour, grinding his tire iron into the tile in irritation. “An’ come to think of it, what if he gets cold feet? We did beat the shit outta him already, y’know.”
Protecting his masculinity there isn’t he? He feels he has to remind everyone that the three of them did in fact beat the high schooler in question. Having been around lots of boys, she’s wise to it, but also wise enough to not comment on it from such a precarious position.
“Well then, it’s simple. We’ll all take care of the girl for a bit, and then we go straight to demanding a ransom.”
A shiver runs up her spine. Whatever that entailed, she doesn’t like the leers, jeers, and smirks. Not one bit.
But she does also notice Mitsuo wander her direction while the conversation was happening. The mysterious horse-masked boy draws up close, tilting his head and as far as she can tell, looking her over.
Creep.
He then beckons the Boss over as he walks behind her, and she can’t help but turn her head over because she doesn’t like the looks of this at all. Is he just trying to get caught up? Is he inspecting her? Has he noticed something none of them else have?
“Huh? Ah, liking the knot job, huh? Yeah, she’s not getting out unless we want her to.”
Mitsuo slowly nods, reaching into his pocket…
“What are you…”
The next thing the girl knows, the integral rope is cut. Her bindings fall to her feet and she rises, not sure if this is even real. The next thing she knows, the knife that freed her is thrust in her her hands.
The entire shrine is frozen in disbelief.
And then Mitsuo, having outed himself as a traitor, decides to run all the way with it and decks the Boss with the chair.
And all hell breaks loose.
It's a bit funny, in a strange way like it always is when it's a bit funny.
They thought their plan was pretty much airtight. They, somehow, didn't at all plan for an infiltration. They didn't even plan to make sure that they had a backup sentry posted in case their primary one got taken out before he could warn them.
I thought these guys were smarter than that.
However that isn't to say I should have started casting stones. Not from this glass house of mine.
Because, while this gang was objectively stupid for not having a failsafe in place for their lone sentry, I was equally stupid.
Because my plan ended directly after I smashed their boss in the face with a chair. That was it in its entirety. I snuck in, pretended to be one of their guys for a few minutes, and then worked my way over to the chair. Standard stuff. Anyone could do it, if they bought me as him that easily.
Having a little sister whose entire Semblance revolved around the generation of strings, I luckily had enough experience with knots and ties to make light work of anything they knew how to put together. So far so good.
And then after that…
Uh, here, young lady, take this knife and run down more stair steps than you can shake a stick at! Remember, point your stabby end at them, not yourself~
Meanwhile, I'm going to try and fend off thirty angry dudes at once! Better hope they don't notice you in the confusion~
Yeah, everyone on this mountain was stupid. I wasn't any better than them. The smartest person here was probably that kid, spluttering and spazzing out for only a second before realizing that this was the best chance I'd be able to give her, as I ripped off the horse mask and threw it in the nearest guy’s face.
Of course, even as she turned tail and ran for all she was worth, it was too naive to hope that they would just let her go.
Even as I beat another man and the chain he was whirling away from me with what little of the chair survived, I saw one, two, three going after her. Crap.
It was also all I could do to keep them all off me by swinging the chair in huge arcs, the moment anyone came near.
In doing so, I had allowed myself to become surrounded, going against rule number one of real world situations: Never let yourself get surrounded. A rule I had broken already by letting the trio box me in last night. Double crap.
What sort of horrific comedy of errors was this? Was I really so incompetent as to make the same mistake twice?! I was going to seriously die here, throw me a bone!
They were closing. Both on her, and on me. It was the end of the line in everything but writing…
Once again, I couldn't…
“Eat lead, bastard!”
My body moves before my brain does, and a lead pipe smashes through one of the chair’s legs, leaving me with only one intact and three stumps. Nonetheless, I jabbed that last leg into his gut and swung it around for good measure. It kept them at bay, but I still couldn't..
...I was still fighting.
Couldn't what, exactly?
If I was still fighting, who was to say...
Couldn't get through to her in time? Why was that?
Because I didn't have the ability to break through that many, right? It was all I could do to hold them off.
Wrong. If I could hold them off with the threat of getting walloped by a chair, then I could break through. I'd just have to start forcing my way forward.
So why not do that?
Because they had more size? I had a weapon.
Because they would engulf me if I moved? I was already surrounded.
Because I would be running headfirst into pipes, bats, and shivs? I had a chair and a healing Semblance.
Because I was okay with halfassing a rescue attempt and was willing to make excuses for failing?
Because I didn't want to go through all that pain and trouble for some kid I had just run into, yet was being forced into one bad situation after another by?
Because I was okay with screwing it all up for both of us?
Because I was okay with failing?
...Because I was okay with watching myself ruin another girl’s life?
Was that it?
Was I really fine with letting it happen all over again?
“..........”
I eyed the crowd.
They eyed me.
One lunged forward, bringing his cricket bat down in an arc that aimed its end straight onto my skull. He was big, strong, and the broad kind of big and strong.
Synapses fired.
Adrenaline pumped.
I held the chair and its remnants of legs in front of me like a battering ram--
“Never again.”
And with a whisper that felt like a howl, I charged.My drive forward carried me out of the “knockout range” of the cricket bat and instead of probably cracking my skull and dazing me, it broke the skin of the crown of my forehead and cut it open. Blood ran down my face like a mask, a testament to how quickly head wounds bled even with a semblance like mine, but I didn’t even register it.
Because I had only one goal in mind— move forward.
The base of the chair caught him in the stomach, and with all the momentum I had behind it combined with his lack of balance, carried him with it. He had become the new and improved version of my battering ram, and with him I bowled my way straight through their ring. Thirty people was a lot, but they weren’t a hundred or even fifty. With enough mass moving fast enough, all it took to break through a circle of them was a ram and no fear.
And honestly? Yeah, I got knicked and whacked along the way by the guys that gave chase and those next to the ones I forced my way through, but it didn’t matter.
With one final shove at the end of my charge, I knocked the big guy over— and raced into the clear, flinging the weapon back in the face of my pursuers.
A few cuts and bruises didn’t scare me at all.
Not compared to letting history repeat itself.
I was at a dead sprint, and while I was never a super-athlete, I was light, clocking in at only 130 or so pounds, and I had a lot of experience running around in my youth. As a result, the moment I had broken free of the ring, I was rapidly gaining on the girl’s pursuers.
And, to her credit, she evidently both had a good dashing speed and understood how to threateningly swing a knife whenever someone got too close—
But it visibly wasn’t enough, as every time she would fend one off, the other two would inch closer to getting their hands on her. It was only a matter of time before they would be able to swoop in and disarm her, all but ensuring she was captured again.
Well, not on my goddamn watch, you bastards.
My strides got longer, barreling down two, three, sometimes four steps at once. I was surprised I managed not to trip myself up and tumble, but I wasn’t keen on the idea of counting my blessings.
I gained, gained, and gained some more, pushing my non-super-athletic body for all it was worth—
And leapt upon them.
Even though they both outsized me and I was a short guy with an average build, when you were travelling downhill an impact of any significant force, it was a death sentence.
And any high schooler jumping onto your back is a significant force.
I crashed into the two that were further away. The distance between “furthest” and “closest”, however, could be measured in one or two feet. Even as we began to fall, I reached my arm out and grabbed the last man by the ankle.
I crashed into two and tripped the third.
He fell as the other two and I fell, and we rolled down the stairs in a painful, painful tumble. Hopefully their skulls didn’t crack, but I didn’t have time to check as soon as I found my footing.
Because even though I was right on their asses, the rest of the gang was right on mine, charging down the mountainside in the form of an enraged horde. There were plenty that nearly caught up to us as we tumbled down the steps, and there were even smarter ones who elected to just eschew them entirely and slide down the slope.
Those guys were actually pulling ahead of me.
I sprinted again, narrowly missing a heavy chain whipping through the air towards the small of my back. I had gotten her distance.
Now I needed to buy time…
The moment I was clear, I turned—
And was very painfully reminded of why to never fight an uphill battle.
Surprise was gone. Fearlessness didn’t matter. My weapons were gone.
Now I was just a punching bag.
I tried to raise my forearms to block, but every time I did something weighty would hit me in the legs. I would lash out with every limb in my arsenal, but every time I did another blow or slash or stab would sneak through my opened up guard.
An uphill battle, against superior numbers and weapons, was beyond my caliber.
The well of ingenuity had run dry.
All I had was my Semblance and the hope that I could buy time--
And the hope that that would ensure that poor kid's escape.
I felt a lot more blood flowing than just the wound on my head now.
Something along the lines of a pipe or a bat cracked against my arm, and I felt a crack within that arm to accompany it.
That arm sagged and immediately a knife nicked my cheek. I kicked the assailant away—
And another bat to my kneecap knocked it out of place, and knocked me off my feet.
I crashed inelegantly to the ground, looking up as three figures began to bring their weapons down upon me.
…I should have at least learned the name of the random girl I was gonna die to protect, shouldn’t I?
I closed my eyes and brought my arms up in an X over my head.
I did the stupidest thing in the world, waited for the assault to begin.
Whether I was spent or not…
That assault never came.
The air and jeers of the crowd were cut through brutally by two loud bangs.
The sound of a police helicopter and megaphone drifted into my ears.
And in the middle of it all, ahead of the Shiroyama PD and standing directly over my battered, pathetic self—
“So, this is what you kids’ve gotten yourselves up to?”
An eye-searing hawaiian shirt flapped in the midday breeze. An unlit cigarette perched in his mouth like an afterthought. One of his eyes was lazily closed, another lazily opened.
A lead pipe caught between his index and pointer finger. A chain wrapped around his gloved hand. A golf club caught beneath the sole of his sandals.
Standing there on one leg, the middle aged man appraised the group of rowdy youngsters, each in their prime, almost mockingly. Like a tiger would mice.
“...Ha ha. What a spirited bunch. Tell me,”
From the woods and steps behind Tanner Oshino, the police force emerged, brandishing full riot gear.
“Did something good happen?”
He spoke in a frivolous, whimsically casual tone.“You know, we’re gonna have some problems if you keep making a habit of this, kid.”
“I don’t think anyone would make a habit of today and yesterday, Oshino.”
A wry laugh.
“Now that’s a cold way to speak to your elders. When did you get so rebellious, Luke? You must have been hanging out with those hooligans way too much.”
Oh get
all the way off my case, guy. That wasn’t true, and he knew it. With his vague, appraising glances and his annoying ability to see straight through you, there was no way he didn’t.
“Oh, don’t glare at me. It was a joke. You might hurt this poor old man’s feelings if you keep acting so high-strung.”
We were now hours removed from the incident. The girl had been transported to the doctor’s office immediately despite being visibly fine— something about them not wanting to take risks. It made sense. There wasn’t any telling what had happened in the time she’d gotten snatched and the time it had taken me to rush over, after all. Her family had been notified of the incident and were on their way there as well.
Poor girl. Not once, but twice. I had the feeling Dad was going to get an earful for my idea…
But on a related topic…
“Not that I’m complaining or anything, but how did you and the police know to show up so fast?”
He scoffed, folding his arms.
“You’re telling me you’ve forgotten about my volunteer work making sure this shrine isn’t completely overrun by nature?”
...Point. He did often squat there whenever he was in town, and as one of the two “local” hunters, nobody except Mom could really stop him even if they cared to. And she didn’t. But still,
“Okay, but what about the police?”
At that, his scoff became a cheeky, cheeky grin. After a moment of digging through the pockets of his cargo shorts, he held aloft a phone. A familiar looking phone.
A phone that belonged to a certain horse-masked boy, posted at the base of the mountain where we now stood.
“All it takes is three numbers, Luke-kun. You did well to hide him after you knocked him out, but you were way too careless about leaving the phone lying around.”
...Oops.
“I was too careless about a lot of things in these past twenty-four hours…”
Primarily by letting this whole debacle happen in the first place. It was the kind of vigilantism I would always leave to my sisters, and when I ended up stepping into their shoes for a change the results were nothing short of disastrous.
“But it doesn’t have to be that way, you know.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t have to always be a disaster at helping people. You want to, don’t you?”
“...No, I don’t, forget it. Whatever you’re trying to recruit me for, I’m not listening.”
“Relax, I don’t stay in any one place long enough to get so invested as a joining recruitment drive. Not even this cozy little town. It’s Holly’s jurisdiction, anyway.”
Holly was my mother’s first name. I’m late in saying this, but the reason this middle-aged psychedelic hobo named Tanner Oshino is my “uncle” of sorts is due to his being a teammate of my mother’s, back when they all attended Beacon Academy.
You know, that place my sisters were bound for after they get through Signal.
“But, to speak of that woman,” he continued, looking sidelong at me as he chewed his unlit cigarette. “You take a lot after her. I can tell.”
“Well, yeah, she’s my Mom.”
Of course I look like my Mom. Where was he going with this?
“No, not just looks-wise. You’re more like your father there.”
What.He continued on, unaware or uncaring of the logic bomb he’d just dropped on me.
“I’m talking about that drive that made you do this, Luke. It’s not an everyday person that willingly runs straight into thirty ruffians for the sake of some brat.”
Shut up.
“That was because they smashed my bike. I was angry and wanted to get back at them. That’s all.”
“Right, right,” he said, believing me not. “And that’s why you made sure she got away by sacrificing yourself twice. Because of your bike.”
“....”
Stop looking at me with that damn all-knowing gaze.
Asshole.
Talking like you can see right through it all…
Arrgh.
“Look, Oshi-- Uncle. I’ve already proven that I’m not cut out to be some sort of hero, you and I both know it. I don’t know what you’re getting at by me not being disastrous, I’m always going to screw things up. Even if I did want to do… whatever it is you’re trying to nudge me towards, you can’t save me from the fact of the matter. All I can do is spectacularly fail if I try and go down that path.”
He paused for a moment. It was a rare thing with Tanner, but every so often, in between his japes and jests and frivolous, mocking appraisals that had you scarily dead to rights, he would go into these periods of deep thought. He spent them, in my experience, most often by looking at you or into the distance. Gauging you. Searching you— not your face, but your soul.
And then into the distance would always travel up, as if searching for providence itself’s clues.
“Well, you’re right. I can’t save you.” He began after a time, dropping the mocking tone. “But you can save yourself.”
….What was this cryptic yoda bullshit?
“Huh?”
“Think about it. Even if yesterday and today were rough, did you fail?”
Not really...
“...I got lucky.”
“And if that’s how you want to look at it, there’s no stopping you. You have to make the decision, in the end, of whether or not you want to be saved.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Luke,”
...Straight into the soul. Both eyes directly at me.
“That only you can stop running.”
“I’m not…”
“Try telling yourself that.”
…
‘Friendship is poisonous.’
‘I’ll always fail, it’s the fact of the matter.’
‘It was just luck.’
They were all phrases I had kept telling myself for years— And I noticed something about all of them.
They all shoved the blame off somewhere else, didn’t they?
Friendship was a poison because it made you weaker than not having to care. I would always fail, so it wasn’t worth trying to overcome. It was just luck that lead to my success, so I couldn’t count that as any of my work.
Running.
I’d been running all this time.
Running from responsibility. Running from acknowledgement of my own shortcomings. Running from learning and growing.
“That’s right. I can’t stop you from doing it, Luke, I can only tell you what you’re doing.”
...It was hard to forget why I hated talking to him.
Because he really did see straight through me.
Even when I couldn’t.
Ever since that incident two and a half years ago, I had been running and running and running some more.
“...But I can’t make it right.”
I was floundering at the revelation.
“It’s been so long, and it was so… If I can’t make it right, what am I supposed to do besides atone?”
“Atone? You mean exile yourself? That’s fleeing, Luke.”
I felt like a kid being scolded.
Maybe I was.
“Fleeing isn’t atonement. If you want to atone, you need to face it straight. And remember, life isn’t one of your manga or videogames or anything like that. It doesn’t fall into place so cleanly. There’s a good chance that you’ll never ‘make it right’.”
Frank.
Harsh.
True.
“I just don’t want it to happen to anyone again. I don’t want to do that to anyone again.”
I wasn’t sure if I was even still talking to him, but he took it upon himself to respond.
“Then the solution’s simple. If you’re willing to bear the burden, then what you need to do after that is become better, right?”
……….
It was lucrative. I had a hard time admitting it after two years of telling myself not to care for any of that stuff, but it was lucrative.
“...And how would I do that?”
That all-knowing smirk returned. This time, however, it didn’t mock me.
Instead, it was here to help.
“I know a place you can go.” 
tadcfnaf,
Blair,
Raineh Daze,
Plank Sinatra,
cosmiccowgirl,
sillykins,
KillamriX08,
Agunimon,
The Otter