Chapter 2
Late the next morning after everyone had woken up, Ikki decided to respond to AT team personally, and after a little research, they found out where the Flaming Dragons' turf was. It was just on the edge of Kogarasumaru's turf past the train tracks and it was there that they waited for the team that had ambushed Emily.
Apparently, they were expected, because it didn't take long for Drake and his team to appear and surround the seven of them.
"It's very brave of you to show up here Kogarasumaru," Drake snickered cockily.
Ikki took Emily's defaced jacket and tossed it at the feet of the Dragon's leader, "Our team members aren't territory jackass."
The leader grinned, "If I had a few more minutes with her she would have been mine."
Something inside Emily snapped and she lunged at the man, but fortunately, Buccha had noticed her tensing up and caught her mid leap and managed to restrain her. However, this was not without some difficulty as she thrashed violently and began to scream.
"You perverted piece of shit! I'm going to fucking rip you to shreds! I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you!"
Ikki laughed hysterically as her other teammates stared at the raging girl with wide and almost frightened eyes. Even Agito seem a bit uneasy from the look on Emily's face.
"What do ya think?" Ikki asked, "Should we let her go?"
Yayoi vehemently shook her head, "Don't even joke about that, she may really kill them."
"Alright," Ikki sighed disappointedly, "Then I guess we'll settle it with a Parts War class B disk battle. It'll be in our turf on top of the school roof at midnight tonight. Sound good?"
"It makes no different to us, we just want your emblem!" Drake exclaimed.
"Dude, why are you yelling? Fine, whatever, winner gets the territories and the emblems, losers disband," Ikki agreed.
Still tense and trapped by Buccha, Emily had ceased writhing and screaming but retorted to muttering, "I'll kill you," over and over while glaring maliciously at Drake.
Kazu glanced worriedly at her when an idea suddenly struck him so he called to Ikki, "Hey."
"Yeah?" Ikki answered glancing at him.
"Let's make it interesting. We'll play with me and Emily against five of them."
Emily stopped struggling and stared at Kazu with some confusion. Buccha slowly placed her on her feet and she remained still and silent.
Ikki shrugged, "Fine with me. Go for it."
The leader laughed, "You're going to send the girl and that skinny wimp against five of us? This'll be a cakewalk."
After they parted, Emily fell into step beside Kazu, but seemed at a loss for words, "Kazu-sama, why…?"
He scratched his head through his beanie and said, "Well…uh, what they did to you wasn't right so I figured that it should be you who gets them back, and then I thought that maybe I could help. I'll support you."
She flushed and nodded smiling shyly, "Thank you!"
Kazu's chest suddenly felt uncomfortable and he realized that his heart skipped a beat.
"What the heck was that!" He thought and scrambled to say something as their encounter earlier that morning suddenly flashed through his head, but Yayoi appeared beside Emily on her bike and said something about emergency training with Agito and suddenly they were way ahead of him. The figurative gears in his head were almost audible as he rode along on autopilot and thought.
Ikki apparently noticed Kazu's blank expression and curiosity urged him to investigate, "What's with the stupid look on your face?"
"Emily's a girl, right?"
"Uh," Ikki said a little confused, "I think so. She's scary sometimes, but she does have a pretty hot body."
Kazu's expression didn't budge and Ikki's suddenly turned into a grin, "Hey, hey, what are you thinking you perverted devil!"
Kazu snapped out of his daze and pulled his beanie further over his eyes, "Shut up. I'll see you later."
Ikki watched as Kazu shoved his hands deep into his pockets and rolled away, splitting off from the rest of the group.
They all didn't meet again until close to midnight, and by the time Kazu arrived at the secret base, Emily was lying on the floor asleep recovering from Agito's emergency training. Ikki soon landed in the entryway after him and after locating Emily, rolled up to her on his ATs and shook her awake, "Hey, hey!"
Emily sat up groggily and rubbing her eyes asked, "What? What is it?"
Ikki reached into the bag that he was holding and pulled out a brand new team jacket in her size, "Here. You can't go into the Parts War without this on your back."
She nodded and said, "Thanks," and then carefully shrugged the jacket on over her bandaged arm and zipped it all the way up. When she made her way over to the entrance where Kazu was waiting for her, he held up his fist.
"Are you ready?" Kazu asked.
She held up her fist and bumped it against his, "You know it."
The players for the Flaming Dragons were already on the school's roof waiting for them and Drake yelled irritably, "It's about damn time! You're late!"
Kazu and Emily met them in the middle of the roof and didn't give them the satisfaction a response instead Emily immediately identified herself as the disk keeper and demanded to know who theirs was.
"I am of course," Drake grinned smugly, "Let's get this thing started already!"
Kazu smirked and shoved his hands in his pockets, "You got it."
Once the game started, Kazu vanished, leaving a trail of illusionary flames in his wake and Drake's expression turned into one of shock, "Where'd he go!"
"He's not the one you should be worried about," Emily was in front of him then gone within moments with the disk securely in her hand. That was the last time that any one on the Flaming Dragons even touched the disk.
The actual battle was completely one sided and for all their below the belt scheming, the Flaming Dragons didn't even score a single point. On the field, Kazu toyed with the team's four supporting players, keeping them far away from Emily and Drake by simply getting in their way every time they tried to get close. Many of them thought that they had caught fire once or twice. On her end, Emily was untouchable and upon scoring the final point by jumping up and over his head, she smirked down at him from the wall.
"Who's the bitch now?"
Sputtering, Drake lunged and punched her right in the face once she landed. Emily raised her hand to her cheek then slowly turned to glower at him.
"That was weak. I guess you're absolutely nothing without your lackeys doing your dirty work. Anyone can kick someone when they're down, but you've got a long way to go before you can knock me off my feet, so there's no way you could ever reach Ikki."
Screaming in frustration, Drake ripped off his pin and threw it to the ground, turning tail to escape with his former team.
Ikki rolled over with the others and bent down to pick up the pin. When he straightened he tossed it in the air and caught it in his fingers to examine in the moonlight, "Another one to add to the collection. Eh, I'm already wearing way too many. Why don't you wear it?"
Emily held out her hand and Ikki dropped it into her palm, "Sure thing Boss!"
"Hey, how's your cheek?" Yayoi asked and Emily gingerly touched where she had been punched.
"It's not that bad, see? It's not even swelling."
"Yeah, but it's a little red so let's take care of it anyway."
After pinning the emblem to her sleeve, Emily followed her friend to the secret base where the ever handy first aid kit was located but she still managed to protest the treatment along the way.
"I'm telling you Yayoi, all I need to do is put some ice on it. If you put any more bandages on me I'll look like a mummy."
"Then you should stop getting so beat up," Yayoi argued rationally.
"Maybe she needs more training," Agito suggested with a sadistic smirk, Emily shivered, she hadn't even realized that he had trailed after them.
"I'm good for now, thanks," she said with a grimace, recalling her last training session with him.
"It doesn't look like we have ice," Yayoi observed after getting inside, "I'll make a quick trip to the convenience store."
"Oh! Can you get some snacks while you're there?" Buccha asked.
"Oh and can you grab my magazine-" Ikki added.
"I want some food too!" Onigiri asked.
"If you want all of that crap, go get it yourself," Yayoi scolded as she grabbed her wallet, "It's not like you guys did anything today, so get off your lazy asses."
"Fine fine…"
"If Ikki's going, I'm going too!" Akito emerged with his singsong voice as his eye patch covered his right eye. Jumping up into the air, he tackled Ikki to the ground, drawing from him a mostly surprised scream.
"What do you think you're doing! Get off me Akito!"
"Come on guys, we don't have time for you to fool around," Yayoi was nearly out the door when Ikki turned around, with Akito dragging behind him.
"Aren't you coming Kazu?"
"Nah, I'm not hungry. I'll wait here."
"Suit yourself," Ikki shrugged then thrust his fist in the air, "Food run everybody, yeah!"
"YEAAH!" was the response he got mostly from Buccha and Onigiri as they departed in a rush, leaving Kazu and Emily in the quiet room all by themselves.
They were sitting on opposite sides of the room so Kazu moved from his seat to one in front of her, sitting backwards in the chair so that they were face to face.
"You did an amazing job out there tonight, Emily," he said earnestly.
"It was thanks to you, Kazu-sama," Emily said, "I couldn't have done it without your help."
"Haha, I didn't really do anything," he said tugging on his beanie.
Emily sighed, "Why do you do that, Kazu-sama?"
"Hm? Do what?" He asked, releasing the cloth of his hat.
"Put yourself down. Do you have any idea how amazing you are? Pretty much everyone who knows you believes that you can be the Flame King, yet you still seem to hold yourself back. Why is that?"
Taken aback by her words, he couldn't help but stare at her for a little while, "Flame King…do you think I could be…?"
"More than anyone!" She exclaimed.
"Is that why you call me 'Kazu-sama'?"
"Well there's that, but also" she mused thoughtfully, but then smiled brilliantly, inclined her head and told him, "I really like you!"
It took a moment for both of them to process what she had just confessed, but it was Emily who reacted first. Her entire face erupted into the lovely shade of scarlet and she jumped up out of her seat overturning the chair while covering her mouth with both hands.
"Oh my…I-I didn't mean, I mean you don't need to…to answer right now! I, uh, I have to go now! Bye!"
She ran out of the room leaving Kazu paralyzed with a slack jaw and a flush creeping up his face reaching even his ears.
This was the way that the others found him when they returned from the store, and Yayoi scanned the room with the ice in her hand, "Hey, where's Emily?"
"Your face looks like a tomato!" Ikki roared with laughter luring Onigiri to come by and tease the poor boy as well.
"What happened…?" Akito wondered glancing at Buccha and Yayoi who both seemed to have an idea of what had transpired after sharing a quick glance.
"You don't think…" Buccha trailed and Yayoi nodded.
"What else could have happened?"
They heard a crash and turned to look at where Kazu had been sitting.
"Hey Ikki! You knocked him over!" They heard Onigiri exclaim, and they made their way over to see if he was alright since no one else seemed to care about his well being. He was still conscious, but made no effort to pick himself off of the ground.
"Hey," Ikki said seriously, "Did she show you her boobs?"
Kazu's foot shot up like lightning, and Ikki jumped out of the way in the nick of time, but unfortunately it was Onigiri who took the strike which started a fight between the three.
As they watched, Yayoi felt a vibration in her pocket and pulled out her cell phone and read the text message from Emily through typos that represented her current mental turmoil that basically said, "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH! I told him!"
Yayoi sighed and typed a quick message back saying, "I'll be over soon," flipped her phone closed and sighed again.
"And here we go…"