"Why do I do this to myself?" Natsuru Senou asked herself aloud, jumping backwards as an orb of electricity quickly slammed into the area she had just been standing in. Flinging a quickly summoned ball of fire at her assailant, Natsuru began to strafe to the right as she became acutely aware of a Schwert users poor attempt at stealthily flanking her from the left.
"Do what to yourself?" Natsuru heard Rika Ueda ask from behind her, spoiling her non-existent element of surprise. Chancing a glance her way, Natsuru replied while leaning back to avoid another electrical attack.
"Oh, you know, letting myself think that I'm going to actually have one of those rare, pretty awesome, nondescript days as a girl, where it lacks both molestation and fighting." Natsuru grumbled, before firing off a charged ball of fire at Rika, catching her off guard. Natsuru grimaced in sympathy as she watched her foe rocket backwards and slam into a tree.
"Rika, stop socializing and capture her already, you're embarrassing us!" Hitomi Minagawa shouted at her from a distance, glaring at her younger compatriot with disdain as Rika tried to collect herself, holding a hand to her spinning head.
Sensing malice behind her, Natsuru jumped forward and launched a ball of fire at the ground behind her, the small explosion propelling her further into the air and away from her flanker. Twisting into the air to see her attacker, Natsuru felt a smirk of satisfaction as the smoke cleared and realized it was Sayaka Nakao, the White Kampfer's second Schwert user.
"Wow, you and soot don't mix." Natsuru commented offhand, but giggling lightly as the sight of Sayaka standing there, stunned and smoking slightly appeared through the smoke. When sudden gunfire rang out from her left, Natsuru panicked and began to hop around on her feet as the rounds landed on the ground around her.
"Um, please sit still. I don't want to kill you by mistake, just incapacitate you." Ryouka Yamakawa asked Natsuru politely, gently holding her MAC-10 against her chest.
"Why don't you just not shoot at me at all!" Natsuru shouted at her angrily, shaking her fist, while taking stock of her situation. It was four-on-one, and while the White Kampfer always had a tendency to seem weak in comparison to her alone, she was fully aware that the team was working with the handicap of ensuring that they didn't kill Natsuru, and spent a lot of their time in fights either tempering their strikes so as to ensure they didn't, or used it attempting to sneak up and capture her.
All for Kaede's awful infatuation with Natsuru in her Kampfer form. Natsuru had, in the past, jokingly toyed with the idea of joining her if she had simply fallen for the male version instead, but the thought had always left a sour taste in her mouth afterward.
While the White's inability to go all out did give her an advantage, if she wasn't careful, there still wouldn't be a second chance, that, she was fairly certain of. Particularly since Natsuru had almost the exact same handicap, considering she had absolutely no desire to kill anyone. What was unfortunate was the single fact that she didn't have the same amount of opportunity to really watch the power of her strikes that often, so that left her usually flinging around nothing more than small fireballs that would trip someone up and singe their clothes or hair.
The strike on Rika just now was a rare reprieve in the middle of battle. Natsuru had been hoping that it would have knocked her out of the running for longer, but she'd noticed recently that she was having issues having finer control over the power of her strikes. She didn't want to risk killing the poor girl, causing her to let the fireball go a little early.
'Where are those three? I swear I fired off an SOS through that stupid app on my phone almost fifteen minutes ago!' Natsuru thought to herself, grumbling as her allies had still not shown up. Focusing once again on the fight before her after Rika's scythe came flying around her in an attempt to snare her, Natsuru jump straight up, preparing another fireball strike towards Rika, when she became acutely aware of a Missing Hitomi, leaving only three of the four in front of her.
Eyes going wide, and attempting to maneuver out of the way of a shadow falling over her, Natsuru only managed to turn a sucker punch to the head from Hitomi into a blow to her cheek, the electrically charged strike wracking her body in an unbelievable amount of pain as she tumbled back towards the ground. In spite of herself, Natsuru screamed out from the agony as every nerve in her body rioted against her. She began to fight against the effects of the strike as best she could, quickly finding that her body had simply begun to refuse her commands. With a final huff, Natsuru collapsed in a heap on the ground, out cold.
"Finally! I can't believe it took this long to take down this annoying bitch!" Hitomi celebrated, pumping her fists in the air as they buzzed with electricity. "I knew getting that cell jammer was worth it!"
"I'm glad we finally won and all, but couldn't it have happened before she ruined my hair!" Sayaka shrieked, finally having a moment to get a look at herself in a mirror. Rika began to giggle at the sight of her teammate, prompting Sayaka to slap Rika upside the head in retaliation.
Ryouka ignored her teammates antics and went to check on Natsuru. Kneeling down, she rolled Natsuru onto her side and began examining her.
"Oh my... she really is pretty, when you can get a closer look. I can see why Sakura-sama calls her beautiful..." Ryouka spoke aloud to no one in particular. Nervously casting a furtive glance towards Natsuru's chest, she was suddenly very aware of the fact that it had no movement in the slightest. "Oh...no... OH NO!"
"What? What is it?" Hitomi asked from beside Sayaka, who was holding up Rika from her shirt collar. Ryouka stood up waving her arms and panicking.
"Natsuru isn't breathing! I think we killed her!" Ryouka suddenly shrieked, causing everyone to adopt an expression of sheer unadulterated horror. This was, however, short lived, as what was clearly a zombie Natsuru reached out and grabbed hold of Ryouka's left ankle.
"Gotcha!" Natsuru said with a strained voice and a wink, yanking back on Ryouka's foot as she hopped up and began to spin in circles, her unwilling passenger screaming in fear. After a few turns, Natsuru let Ryouka fly, watching as her enemy plowed into the rest of the White Kampfers. Natsuru stumbled a bit, still having been injured by the electricity Hitomi had cast through her.
Collecting herself, Natsuru fled in the general direction of her home, ignoring the curses and screaming coming from her enemies.
'That should not have worked. How on Earth did that work?' Natsuru thought to herself, flabbergasted at the White Kampfer's ability to stuff up fights that by all rights they should be winning. Handicap or no, it was getting a bit ridiculous.
'Not that I mind. If they were any better with their jobs, I'd be stuck as a girl and glued to Sakura's side' Natsuru deadpanned with a mental shrug. Continuing her sprint away from the battle, Natsuru began to feel the tolls it had taken on her body, as she began to feel sore and stiff everywhere. 'Hitomi really did a number on me... I can't afford to make mistakes like that, especially since I hardly landed a scratch on any of them, save Rika.' Natsuru admonished herself, ducking down an alleyway and finding a dark corner behind a dumpster to hide behind as she fought to get her breathing under control.
As she waited, it didn't take long for the four White Kampfers to come sprinting down the alleyway, hearing their panting as they came to a stop, looking around as they tried to see which way Natsuru had taken off. Only a moment later, they had given up
"Fuck! God damn it, she got away! That...fucking...little...! ARGH!" Hitomi cursed loudly, punching the dumpster separating Natsuru and herself, causing Natsuru to flinch. When nothing could be heard beyond the other girls' panting, Natsuru began to panic, thinking she was caught. When Sayaka began speaking, Natsuru felt he stomach clench tightly, and bile rise up her throat.
"Sakura is not going to be happy about this particular failure in the slightest, I fear..."
"W-well, at least Senou is still alive, right? So we don't have to fear for our lives...?" Ryouka offered nervously. Natsuru could almost hear her twiddling her thumbs. Rika began to whine, instead of accepting the mixed blessing.
"This is so annoying! Why can't Senou just accept that Sakura is doing this for her own good and transition already? She's already infinitely more popular as a girl according to my Big Sister!" Rika audibly pouted. Natsuru cringed.
'Transition? No thanks. No offense to those that do, but I like having my little Natsuru.'
"Not to mention, based on what she was wearing tonight, Natsuru has been getting bolder. I don't like her, like... at all. But she looked really cute tonight." Hitomi admitted, causing a heat to begin creeping across Natsuru's face.
'Leave me alone! I have a reputation to keep for my Kampfer form you know! I can't go around looking like a hobo!' Natsuru screamed in her mind, covering her face with her hands due to embarrassment.
"My, my! I guess she really is getting comfortable in that skin of hers. Really makes one wonder if she's begun to refer to herself as a girl..." Sayaka trailed off, the four girls humming in thought.
'Wow, back up there! Being comfortable in this form doesn't mean I'm questioning ANYTHING! What is with these girls?' Natsuru quietly sighed in Exasperation. The four of them were silent for a while, getting to the point of it being awkward, when they were surprised by a cellphone ringing.
"Uh-oh..." Natsuru heard Hitomi whisper nervously, before hearing a beep come from the phone.
"Soooo, what's the news? Where's Natsuru? Put her on~!" Natsuru heard Kaede Sakura's upbeat voice from the phone.
'She must be on video chat. I suppose that makes sense.' Natsuru pondered, almost wanting to peek out to catch a glimpse of her beloved Kaede, but doing so would practically be suicide, so she stayed put.
"Well, you see, f-funny s-story-" Hitomi had begun to dig a grave for the four of them, being cut off by the darker side of Kaede that made Natsuru shiver.
"Are you about to lie? You'd better not be." Kaede boomed out darkly, the aura of doom transmitting easily over the phone and reaching even Natsuru. She almost felt sorry enough for the four of them to surrender. Almost.
"N-no, no! You see, Natsuru never showed up! We thought we saw her initially, but it was a freshman dressing up like her to try an emulate her look!" Hitomi lied through her teeth. Natsuru felt all the heat in her body get sucked out as an aura of pure fear permeated the very stone and cement around them all. The rats in the dumpster had begun to flee in terror.
"...Hitomi?" Kaede asked her subordinate, the menacing aura intensifying with every syllable.
"...Y-y-yes?" Hitomi asked quietly, as Natsuru could hear the girls shaking on the other side of the dumpster.
"I'm upset now, this just ruined my night! I really wanted to watch the premier of the Entrails Animals cartoon with her, I even went out of my way to sneak that premium bento store's pamphlet into her desk to lure her out there!" Kaede cried out, clearly closer to a normal personality, but... at least the atmosphere in the alleyway went back to normal.
'So that's where that came from... she's obviously been watching me, I love convenience store bentos.' Natsuru grumbled, feeling like an idiot. 'Should have known better, this won't be happening again.'
"Oh, I'm sorry Kaede... we can keep looking for her if you want? Or did you want us to come over to cheer you up? We could make it a slumber party, if you did." Hitomi offered, the relief in her voice palpable. Natsuru felt a tug at her heartstrings when she could hear sniffling from the phone.
"...Yes, come over please." Kaede replied weakly, before full on crying could be heard.
"Oh, Kaede, shh, it's okay, it'll be okay!" Hitomi shouted at the phone, attempting to console her upset leader.
"B-but what if Natsuru doesn't actually like me? What if I'm wrong? Uwah, is this what unrequited love feels like?" Kaede began to bawl. Natsuru quivered in place.
'It's not though! I promise! I just don't want to be something I'm not to get your attention!'
"Now, that's not true, Kaede, and you know it! Natsuru feels the same way, we just have to show her that she is meant to be a girl, and that she is hanging out with the wrong crowd!" Hitomi admonished her boss, Natsuru picking up on how strongly Hitomi felt about that, and couldn't help but scoff quietly.
"R-really? You think so?" Kaede asked with a sniffle. Natsuru didn't hear anything, so she imagined that Hitomi and the other were simply nodding.
"Hey, tell you what, I know what will cheer you up! I got some pictures of Natsuru today during gym class! They were playing dodge-ball, and while I got a few snaps showing her in action! She really knows how to handle those balls!" Hitomi told her friend, while Natsuru's face exploded into a beat red color.
'Ph-phrasing, damn you! You're making me sound like a pervert!' Natsuru pleaded silently, feeling light-headed at the innuendo, while she heard Kaede giggling. 'At least Kaede got a laugh out of it.'
"...Okay then... can you be here in fifteen minutes? I suppose I could just record it on the DVR if it's going to take you longer, but..." Kaede answered happily, though still sniffling a bit.
"Definitely! Make some popcorn for us! You know how Rika loves to hoard it!" Hitomi finished happily, ending the call.
"Oh my god, I thought she wasn't going to buy it, I thought we were goners!" Rika shouted, as the rest of the girls released the breath they seemed to have been holding.
"Yeah, well... I just wish Natsuru knew how lucky she is... Kaede hasn't had those kinds of feelings for anyone before." Hitomi lamented. "She's being a huge bitch for toying with Kaede like this."
"Oh stop it, Hitomi, we know you secretly want a piece of Natsuru's pie just like Sakura~" Sayaka teased her friend, Natsuru hearing feet stomping on pavement.
"I-I do not! I-I wanna s-stomp her face into the dirt before we bring her to Kaede! She's a bitch!" Hitomi sputtered out, as Natsuru sat and blinked in surprise.
'Hitomi has a crush on the female me, too? Jeez, that's news...'
As Natsuru sat in the darkness of her hiding spot, which had gotten considerably darker since she had gotten there, she could hear the four girls moving on, three of them teasing Hitomi as they ran off to make their timing with Kaede.
With a sigh of relief, Natsuru sat up, noticing just how stiff and sore she had gotten. Cracking her back, with a 'pop!' and a groan of pleasure, Natsuru continued on, heading in the direction of her home, which would take her a bit of time to get to.
Passing by a convenience store, she felt her stomach growl upon laying eyes on the bentos neatly lined up inside. Sighing sadly, she continued on.
"No supper tonight, too, I guess... spent all my dinner money on that premium food." Natsuru whined quietly, remembering the heartbreak she felt at the memory of the expensive bento spilling all over the ground when Hitomi started attacking her in that park from earlier.
In actuality, Natsuru had been having budget issues almost ever since she became a Kampfer. The added drain of extra clothes and bikinis, as well as extra hygiene products for when she was a girl had begun to severely eat into her monthly stipend her parents were sending her. If it wasn't for the fact that she was only feeding one mouth, she felt like she was spending close to what having another person live with her would be.
Actually, scratch that. With needing to constantly buy new clothes because the White Kampfers kept ruining her clothes, or her classmates running into her on the weekends, and that one drunk creep that kept following and flirting with her two weeks ago before vomiting all over her shirt and jeans as he was being arrested...
Yeah, she had to be spending more than two people's worth of expenses. This double life was getting pricey. Might be time to get a part-time job again to balance the books... but not at that cafe. While Natsuru had her reservations about the place from the word 'go', Shizuku had ruined that place with her...antics. The memory resurfacing causing blood to rush to Natsuru's face.
As she continued down the street, she had become aware of a gash on her left arm, due to the warmth of the blood leaking out onto it. Taking a look, Natsuru quickly became aware of the state of her shirt, battered and scuffed with a few small tears and singes from Hitomi's electricity arcing through her earlier. Anger filled Natsuru, as she began looking at his pants, and found them in a similar condition.
"Damn it, this was expensive, guys! It was also my favorite!" Natsuru lamented, mentally adding a new outfit to her already strained budget, which had ceased screaming for mercy by now.
'I guess I'll try to replace it with the same shirt and pants, I really did like it... I felt cute in it.' Natsuru absentmindedly thought at she went, only to stop mid-stride as she remembered Hitomi saying almost as much a little while ago. Pondering this for a moment, Natsuru grumbled as she continued her long walk home.
"Geh, I guess the clothes can wait for now, I have a few outfits left." Natsuru quietly announced to herself, her mind wandering to the hot shower waiting for her at home, and the aloe vera she could spread over her aching cheek to sooth the electrical burn as it healed.