Erica – Part 1

She sat at a table at the back end of the library. Her feet were tapping on the floor and her fingers were drumming on the table. This was a mistake. I should not have sent that text to Tatsuya. How embarrassing!

The library was deserted since it was a little over an hour before classes would start. It was good that Tatsuya wanted to meet here at this time. After school would have been no good because some students hung around to catch up on assignments before going home. Tatsuya spent a lot of time in the library, and he knew the times when others were not likely to be around.

Erika herself had barely stepped foot in here. She read when she had to, but that was it. She much preferred weapons lessons as opposed to book lessons. She felt out of place and nervous here. That anxiety, along with her other 'problem', made her want to hit something to relieve the stress, but all she could do here was tap her fingers and toes and wait for him to arrive.

She'd sent the text late last night and she had been tired. Maybe she hadn't been thinking clearly. The text did get erased three times before she managed to hit the send button, so maybe she had been aware of what she was doing. Those three words were the hardest words she'd ever typed. She'd never said it to anyone else in her life. And it had to be to him.

Well, there wasn't much choice. She had to be honest about the whole thing no matter how much it embarrassed her. This matter was too important. His text message back to her had just said "Meet me in the library in the morning an hour before class". That was it.

If his response was going to be negative, he just would have said that, right? Or, he just would have ignored her. No reason to have a face-to-face if he was going to refuse her. Right?

She heard a snapping sound and almost jumped out of her chair before realizing that she had broken a pencil in half with her fingers. Where the pencil came from or how it wound up in her hand, she had no idea.

She looked up at the clock. Five more minutes. Knowing Tatsuya, he would be here exactly on time. Not a minute sooner or later. There were plenty of things she didn't know about him, but this was one thing she did.

There were so many opposite feelings when it came to him. Erika felt as if she'd known him forever, when it was really only a short time. She sometimes felt that she understood him completely, and then he would do something that made her think he was a complete stranger to her.

That first time she saw him with new eyes was the incident with the kendo club during club week. A squabble had erupted between the kendo and kenjutsu club members.

Saya and Kirihara had come to blows. Kirihara had resorted to magic and Tatsuya, as a new member of the Public Morals Committee, had stepped in to intervene and apprehend Kirihara for breaking school rules.

Cancelling out the man's magic and easily bringing him to the ground had been impressive, but what had happened next was what really had grabbed Erica's attention.

The rest of the kenjutsu club had attacked Tatsuya in defense of their leader. If she hadn't been there to see what happened next with her own eyes, she would never have believed it.

They attacked him and he...even now she couldn't really put it into words. While they tried to land blows on him, he refused to be hit. These club members weren't some kids off the street. They had been practicing their arts since they could walk. They may not have all been experts yet, but they were quite used to fighting. Yet, they could not land a single blow on the first year student.

He turned, he evaded, he sidestepped. He allowed the attackers own energy to be used on each other instead of him. He made them all look like bumbling idiots.

To Erica, a veteran of martial arts combat, it looked like some strange form of aikido, yet she knew it wasn't. And while Tatsuya could have landed hits of his own, he refrained from doing so. He remained the defender and did not attack. If he had attacked as well, things would have gotten even worse.

The level of skill it took to do that and foil more than a dozen attackers was amazing. And he did it without raising a sweat. She'd never seen anything like that level of skill.

Up to that time, she had to reluctantly admit to herself that she had a small crush on him. She didn't understand why, really. He was average looking. He rarely said very much. He was never nervous or flustered, and seemed rather boring. Maybe it was that his whole demeanor screamed "Dependable!"

His only negative quality seemed to be that when it came to feelings and girls, he was thicker than a tree stump. Then again, most boys that age were, but he was on a level all by himself in that department. If she had to say, it would be that this thick-headedness was so jarring that it was actually cute with him.

After that fighting incident, her small crush became not so small anymore. Over time since then, her feelings began to change.

She had later seen even more of the incredible things he was capable of, like the Nine Schools Competition, where his engineering mastery was the talk of everyone there. As if that wasn't enough, he led First High to a most improbable victory in Monolith Code, exhibiting a combat level that gnawed at Erika.

She had begun to wonder just who or what Tatsuya Shiba actually was. He claimed to not be part of any of the Ten Master Clans, but that seemed crazy. How could he have that much experience and skill and not be one of those top clans? Finding out later that he was a "special officer" in the military explained many things, but it was very troubling.

Before the NSC was finished, her ardor had cooled. He was still a trusted friend and companion, but the crush was gone. She had wanted to know all she could about him, but now she found that she was afraid to find out any more. He had some secrets that she knew, deep in her heart, that she should not ever know.

One thing she absolutely knew was that she could trust him. She trusted him enough to be able to say almost anything to him without fear of being looked down upon or being pitied. He may scold her if he felt it appropriate, but that was all.

She'd called him cold once. It wasn't meant to be an insult. It was her own odd way of saying that she could trust him. In typical Erika-style, she had been unable to express herself correctly.

Erika heard the library door open, jerking her out of her thoughts. It was Tatsuya, right on time. As he walked towards her she idly thought "Why did I ever think he was average looking?"

Shaking her head to clear it, she began to feel panic again. She wanted to blurt out that she had made a mistake and he should just forget her message, but she steeled herself to remain sitting while Tatsuya took a chair across from her.

He took out his pad and showed it to her.

"Would you care to explain this message to me, please?"

The message on the screen simply said "I NEED HELP".

Erika winced, having not realized that she had capitalized the whole thing. Maybe she really was out of her mind last night.

Catching Tatsuya's eye, she could see that he understood what a blow to her pride it had been to send those three little words. True to his personality, there was no teasing, no laughing. He just wanted the details. In that moment, she knew he would help her, and the stress that had been pent up in her all night and all morning drained out of her body.

That stress started to come back in waves when she realized that she was so worried about having sent the message and seeing his reply that she hadn't given a thought to what would happen next. Now she had to explain what had happened. That was going to be more embarrassing than sending the stupid text!

Too late to worry about that now, she thought. She took a deep breath, and began to explain. She kept her head down, though, and stared at her fingers. She couldn't meet his eye.

"Orochimaru was stolen the night before last." She quickly glanced up at Tatsuya, her voice almost in a panic. "I had it locked in the safe in my room. I know I locked it up!"

The huge sword was normally kept in the family vault, but Erika had been practicing with it all evening and she was tired. So, instead of taking it back to the vault, she had locked it up in her personal safe in her room. She had done this before.

It was a large safe. It had to be in order to fit the sword that was taller than Erika was. That safe weighed about 2000 pounds, too, so it wasn't going to be carted off by anyone. The floor underneath it had to be reinforced in order to hold that massive weight.

Erika knew that the sword was in the safe when she went to sleep, but in the morning the door of the safe was open and the sword was gone.

There was no way she could tell anyone about this. They would assume that she forgot to lock the safe and that's why it had been taken. Just the fact that it was stolen was so shameful that when she realized it was gone, she couldn't put two thoughts together for a good fifteen minutes.

She had discretely gotten some information from a couple of her personal spies, but she realized that she would need help. She couldn't request it from her family, of course. The only person she could trust with this was sitting across from her.

"Of course you didn't leave that safe unlocked. Erika would never do such a careless thing."

His faith in her was quite a relief. She was so lucky to have such a good friend.

"Obviously, this was the work of a master thief. A regular thief would not have been able to get into your family compound, much less break into your safe without you even realizing."

After another moment, he continued.

"I assume that you at least have some idea where the item is located now or you would not have called me. Where is it, and who has it?"

"From my sources I have found that an important item is to be moved from a warehouse to the docks this evening at 8:30. From there it goes on a ship, but the destination is unknown. The people holding it are not known either, but there is a good many of them. At least a dozen, and perhaps twice that number."

Tatsuya was silent again for a moment, thinking.

"The destination isn't really important right now. What is important is that there are two weak points to their plan. Getting the item from the warehouse to the car and from the car to the ship. With so many people involved it would be foolish to try and steal it back while it was still being guarded in the warehouse."

Erika was nodding. She had already thought about that.

"I assume that you plan to retrieve the item when it is being moved from the warehouse since you would not want to wait until the last minute."

Again, Erika was nodding.

"All right. What is it that you would have me do?"

A sigh of relief escaped Erika. He would definitely help.

"I will retrieve Orochimaru myself. I only ask that you watch my back. I will attack them as soon as they leave the warehouse. They will not know what hit them."

Now it was Tatsuya who sighed. Considering that she had lost a precious family heirloom, she had been remarkably calm and clear thinking. Up until now, anyway. During combat, she was a highly trained strategist. Operation planning, on the other hand, was not her strong suit.

"Do you not think that when leaving the warehouse the thieves would be most on guard since they realize that they are vulnerable?"

Erika tried to interject, but Tatsuya spoke over her. "Do not assume that the enemy is not aware of your plans. Your idea of attacking at the point of transfer between the warehouse and the transport is sound, but 'I will attack them' is too vague. We will come up with a more detailed plan today. I hope you are caught up on your homework."

He delivered that last line with a small smile and Erika grinned back at him before staring at her hands again.

They would both be missing school today. He would have to let Miyuki know, of course, but she was okay if his sister was told. She could trust Miyuki too. Though Erika was always prideful about her skills in combat and being able to take care of herself, she was learning that it was okay to ask for help from friends sometimes, but it was a difficult lesson for someone like Erika to absorb.

"Th-thank you for helping me, Tatsuya. I know this is a burden for you, but I will return the favor whenever you need it."

He reached over the table and lifted her chin with his finger so she could see his eyes.

"Of course I will help you. You are my friend. Friends do not barter favors, they are given freely."

If her heart wasn't engaged elsewhere, she could definitely fall in love with this guy again.

The strategy meeting was to be in Tatsuya's apartment. It couldn't be at Erika's since the whole thing was to be a secret from her family. Besides, she could imagine her brothers' reactions. Neither Naotsugu nor Toshikazu would ever let her live it down if she was found to have skipped school to meet up with a man. The thought made her shudder.

To her shock, when she arrived she found not only Tatsuya but also Leo, sitting on the couch and drinking coffee.

Shocked and angry, Erika began to berate her fellow conspirator. "Tatsuya! This was supposed to be- I mean-"

"Relax, Erika. I only told him that you needed help. I did not divulge what the mission is to be. That will be up to you to decide."

"However," he stared at her hard, "In order to do this, we will need a diversion. I cannot create a diversion and at the same time cover your back."

"But, Miyuki could-"

Tatsuya was shaking his head. "Miyuki has a test today that she cannot miss. Leo was the next logical choice."

She could see Leo grimace a little at being considered a second choice to help, but his expression became blank again when he saw her looking.

"I think it was quite admirable that Leo would miss school and come over here just because he was told that you needed help. Don't you agree, Erika?"

Erika glared at Tatsuya's teasing. She knew he was only trying to lighten the atmosphere and at the same time get her to think this through more clearly before deciding. But, still...

"I want to help Erika if I can. Please let me." Leo's solemn plea unnerved her for a moment.

She bent her head as she felt a tear forming. Stupid Tatsuya needed to clean his apartment more often. There was obviously dust in the air.

How did she ever manage to become friends with so many dependable people? The idiots!

"I—I need your help too, Leo". Swallowing hard as she said this, she couldn't manage to bring her head up to meet their eyes. She simply waited. Asking for help was not going to become a habit. This was just an emergency after all. She would put away her pride just this once.

"Just tell me what's going on and we can start our planning, though I'm sure Tatsuya has some ideas; you probably just wanted to barge in and start fighting!"

That brought Erika's head up as she glared at Leo, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. "Oh, is that what you think, you big lummox!"

Both Leo and Tatsuya laughed at this outburst as they saw that Erika was starting to act more like her normal self. They both had learned that it was far easier and more comfortable to deal with an angry Erika than an embarrassed Erika.

For the next 20 minutes, Erika explained to Leo what had happened. For the next couple of hours, they debated ideas, though Leo was correct in saying that Tatsuya already had some things in mind.

They had to prepare for as many scenarios as they could think of.