00 .
"For the final time, I did not indulge in any alcohol or drugs while I was at the party. I'm not stupid enough to waste my life away on two meaningless ways of idle distraction." Oshida Risuka firmly stated in a passive-aggressive manner, unfazed by the unintimidating police interrogation. She swatted the blinding light that had been shoved in her face as a further act of defiance.
"It's okay to tell us the truth, Oshida-san. Trust us and we'll let you go free." The flower boy officer claimed soothingly. Risuka's emerald eyes flicked to the partner in bored expectation.
"Dammit, Oshida! You've got some nerve to lie to cops!" The burly, gorilla of a police man snarled at her, his hands slamming against the metal table.
"The good-bad cop routine? Really? Goin' old school?" She rolled her eyes with a confident smirk on her lips. "You guys are running out of options, huh?"
Another familiar detective rushed into the room, and Risuka knew this one all too well. His usual handsome figures were marred by dark rings under his eyes, with random tresses of hair striking every which way. "Sorry I'm late." He nodded his head in acknowledge of the other officers. His fierce grey eyes focused on his daughter this time. "Got caught again, huh?"
She merely shrugged and stood up, politely tucking her metal cold chair in a routine way. Her father was bowing in very stiff apology to his other fellow officers, who merely shrugged the whole affair off. After all, it had happened so many times before.
Once she left the room with her father, Risuka stretched and yawned. "Ah~, they kept it cold in there. They must have started switching tactics, used to be so hot in there."
Her father merely shot her a tired glare. "Care to explain to me why you were at a club with drugs, prostitution, alcohol, yakuza, and the shadiest characters in town?"
She stared back at him defiantly, but did not utter a word.
"You're a bright kid, Risuka! I don't understand why you're having this sudden bad streak!" He growled in rough tones to vent out his utter frustration.
"I would stop if you told me about mom already." She hissed while grinding her teeth together in suppressed anger. "Don't you think I'm old enough to know by now what happened to mother?"
He balked, caught unaware of how to handle the delicate situation with his maturing daughter. The love of his life and the mother of his child was an enigma to the Oshida household, someone's whose presence was still strong even after she had left under such odd circumstances. Especially after a long day of work and of rescuing his now delinquent daughter, the subject was better left untouched, and so he kept quiet.
"If you're not going to tell me about mother, then I have to find out on my own, don't I?" She answered bluntly and blankly, before breaking eye contact to find more interest on her worn sneakers.
Risuka stared disinterestedly at the trigonometric problems on the board. Her pencil was tapping repeatedly on her notebook with her hand resting her head in a "thoughtful, genius-like" position. Usually, math class was her favorite subject, but today she just couldn't seem to focus.
She had been grounded, once again, for sneaking into an illegal underground party. Not that it particularly bothered her, just mildly annoyed her because of the limitations on her freedom. Straight after kickboxing practice, she'd have to go home immediately to start on chores and homework for the next couple of weeks. No going out with her friends, instead she'd be doing service work to try and drill moral values into her head on the weekends.
Vongola. The word still haunted her. It was in the contacts books her mother owned. In fact, it was printed everywhere. She had researched everywhere to see what kind of clues it would bring on the whereabouts of her mother. And it only brought her to the shadiest parts of the tone, with the less than friendly sort of people. Who exactly was her mother?
"Miura-san, mind waking up from your nap and telling me what the answer to the problem is?" The teacher harshly hit the desk of the poor girl dozing off in front of her. The girl panicked with a surprised "hee!", before staring at the teacher in fear. Risuka regarded her classmate, Haru, if she remembered correctly, with sympathy. She'd been down that road before in English language class.
"Undefined." She whispered in a hushed voice.
"Er, the matrix is undefined?" Haru answered with a shaky, wobbly confidence in her tone.
The teacher severely frowned at the unexpected correct answer from her less than brilliant student. "Next time I catch you napping, detention Miura." She stalked off with her wooden ruler to pray on the next unfortunate soul caught sleeping.
Haru gulped as she watched the strict teacher barely let her off the hook. She then case a grateful glance behind her to mumble a spoken gratitude of thanks before turning forward in her desk. Risuka merely craned her head to keep an eye on the clock; kickboxing practice after school would let her blow off some steam.
"More aggressive than usual with the boxing bag today, Oshida?" Coach Fujimoto commented as he observed Risuka dealing physically exhausting blows to the boxing bag. "Heard you got held up by the police last night for sneaking into an underground party."
"Yeah, well." Risuka mumbled as she delivered a prevailing punch to the beaten up bag that nearly blew it off from the chain holding it up to the ceiling. "I came purely to find out some valuable information before I'd make my escape. No booze or drugs, I swear. The police coming weren't exactly in my plans."
"They never are, but they always come anyway." The coach merely snorted. "Keep your head out of trouble for the next few weeks. You're booked for competitions and if I have to bail my kickboxing star from jail, you're kicked off the team."
"Yeah, yeah." Risuka muttered darkly under her breath. "We've been through this drill before."
Fujimoto sighed, taking the cigarette from his mouth and patting his pupil on the shoulder. "I know you're really desperate to find out about your mother, but don't make such rash choices that hurt everyone around you."
After he left, Risuka dealt one last kick to the beaten bag, which fell with a defeated groan onto the floor in a pathetic heap.
"Eh, you're that girl with the Vongola huh?" A lanky boy called at a terrified Haru. She had been hoping to see Tsuna today, seeing as how she missed the fun of the Sawada household by attending a separate school. But being stopped by these intimidating looking guys wasn't part of her plan.
"P-P-Please let me pass!" She pleaded while clutching her school bag in her hands.
"That's right! You were with the Vongola kid!" A particular bulky gang member growled in irritation. "You know how much trouble we've been getting' ever since the mafia entered the yakuza's turf? Those friggin' Italians think they're superior to us! Please, those kids gon get killed the next time we see them."
The leader of the group raised his hand for his follower to stop. He cracked a supposedly endearing smile that bared his bedazzled teeth, as well as allow Haru an unwanted opportunity to inhale the overbearing cologne that permeated from his slender figure. She took a shaky step backwards while he took an intimidating step forward.
"How about you come with us, miss? We'd like to become more acquainted with the Vongola. And I believe you could help us with just that." He extended his hand to her in what Haru supposed to be a welcoming manner. "Either you accept my friendly gesture or my buddies here will have to use force. And we wouldn't want that now, would we?"
"N-No thanks." Haru rejected, her chestnut brown orbs swerving around the area for any quick escape route. There was none.
The leader merely shrugged before beckoning to his two fellow thugs to grab the defenseless girl. To be completely honest to herself, Risuka did not want to take part in this situation at all. She wanted to jog home and arrive on time so she would not have to pay any more consequences that her father would undoubtedly set into motion. But her sense of justice that her father had worked hard to instill in her kicked into action and her feet calmly stepped towards the scene. She hefted her kickboxing bag higher on her shoulder. Well, her father would just have to wait. She would have a good excuse this time.
But the intention that dominated her mind was the word Vongola. Saving the girl from a few wannabe mobsters might reward her with some information from her mother. This might be her lucky break after all.
"Oi, perverts. Get lost." She growled as she took a protective stance in front of Haru. Haru looked at her with disbelieving eyes, but remained silent.
"Move girl, we're trying to do some business here." The leader reached forward to rudely shove Risuka out of the way until she delivered a powerful kick to his waist. When a bone-cracking sound escaped from his fallen body, she nodded her head in satisfaction. Good timing and good kick. Her coach would've let out an appreciative whistle if he'd been here.
"Bitch, what did you do?!" The bulky one acted quickly and was just about to close his hands around her neck to strangle her when she delivered an uppercut to his jaw and a burrow punch to his gut. He was demolished like a felled tree.
By now Risuka was getting warmed up, she eyed the lanky guy with a challenging glare. "And what about you?"
The ways his knees knocked against the other told her that he wanted to run away from this matter altogether. But the taunting smirk she was wearing probably spurred him to charge at her. Risuka merely dodged and landed the back of her ankle on his neck. He slumped forward without any struggle.
Sighing, Risuka cracked her knuckles after the fight, a bad habit her coach had scolded her to get rid of. As her eyes surveyed the scene, she observed the outline of a gun tucked securely in the leader's back pant pocket. Haru meanwhile was bowing rapidly and mumbling so many words of gratitude that Risuka couldn't comprehend. Without wasting another second, Risuka grabbed Haru's hand and ran blindly away from the knocked out yakuza members.
"Thank you so much for saving me from those guys, Oshida-san!" Haru exclaimed and bowed once more as they finally slowed down to a safe suburban neighborhood.
"Yeah, yeah." Risuka eyed Haru with a calculating air. She was finding it rather hard to believe that her ditzy classmate was in any way associated with the mafia. "Miura, you have connections with the Vongola, right?"
"Well, I was just on my way to go pay a visit to Tsuna-san, but-"
"Lead the way." Risuka commanded.
Haru uncertainly looked at Risuka. She was eternally grateful for what Risuka had done for her, but those determined, almost hungry look in her eyes. Was it really safe to bring her to Tsuna?
Risuka's emerald green orbs landed on Haru once she sensed the latter's hesitance. "That wasn't a suggestion, it was an order, Miura."