Bloody Roar II: Unwanted Betrayal
Part 2
A mischievous grin was on his face. "Perfect, they're starting to doubt each other. Now, the next step our master requests-"
"-Is to rile it up further with them, rising the suspicion, correct?"
The pleased grin grew wider. "Yes."
"This should be entertaining, don't you think? Although it'd be better if we had it our way…"
"Be patient," he snapped. "You and I will get our fun."
"We'd better. I hate doing the easy, dirty work; you and I deserve more than that."
"Shhh!" the male hissed. "Don't let our master hear you!"
"Whatever, I'm gonna go find my little ingrate of a 'partner'."
He sneered and waved his companion good-bye.
*****
"Where'd he go this time?"
Uriko shrugged in response to her best friend's question, the strap of her heavy backpack cutting into her shoulder. "I don't know, Vegas? We should just leave."
It was two weeks after school had started, and the young student had met her boyfriend on and off during the time. Usually, he'd shown up at the racks, but not lately; Erika was supportive in the beginning, but even her patience was thinning out.
She agreed. "Okay, let's split." They started walking away from Kenji's bike. "Man, you two haven't been keeping in contact, huh?" she asked after a couple moments of silence.
"Nope," her friend stated bluntly.
"Trouble in paradise?"
"…I'm not sure," Uriko replied seriously, a bit of concern in her voice. Her eyes narrowed involuntarily as she thought about the additional, 'cute little messages' she'd received in the last couple of days.
You do not know what you're up against, one of them had said. The other, Resistance is futile…so don't fight it… Again, they had both appeared like Kenji's handwriting.
She stopped. "I should've known this was gonna happen someday."
I…I guess we don't have a strong enough bond between us even with our shared childhood and promise… the girl thought a bit sadly.
Erika glanced at her friend in caring sympathy; neither of the two noticed the shadow behind the girls that was growing bigger as it neared them. Uriko looked around their surroundings as they trudged down the street. She stopped with a frown when she spotted an area nearby her darkening, and seeing that Erika was beside her, she quickly turned her head to peer to her right.
"Oh, it's just Kenji. Hi." Uriko said emotionlessly to the still-standing figure in a dark blue outfit with a white scarf wrapped around his neck and shot a knowing look at Erika.
With a chilling look on his face, Kenji stepped up to the two and swiftly snatched up his girlfriend's school bag, tossing it away. The blue denim backpack flew a few feet away and some of the contents inside spilled out onto the rocky ground. Startled, her eyes widened and she grabbed her best friend's arm, jumping up from their previous spot. Gazing strangely at him, Uriko asked, "What the heck was that for??"
Not answering, he turned his attention on Erika and the girl shrunk back uncomfortably. Starting to get a bad feeling, Uriko opened her mouth to question him further, but before she could say anything, he leapt at Erika and began to beat her in the face. A scream burst out of her mouth as she and Kenji both fell to the floor; her best friend cried out, "Erika!!!"
Recovering from her element of surprise, Uriko dashed at the two and yanked her boyfriend away. She knelt next to Erika and gave her a reassuring hug as well as a shaky, apologetic look. Turning to Kenji, she demanded to know, "Hey! What's the matter with you?!"
Very slowly, he smiled evilly as his eyes took on a frightening shade of ebony black.
"Pay attention to my warnings, because you're too weak to defeat me…" was his reply. He made a few strange twirls with his fingers, and disappeared right before their eyes; a brown log flashed briefly where he was standing and went away as well.
"W-what the hell was that about??" Uriko asked rhetorically, helping her friend stand up. Just then, she thought worriedly, Oh no, what if he's been brainwashed again?
"Damn that stupid, frickin' psycho, Busuzima," she swore under her breath.
"U-Uriko?" Erika said, her voice slightly trembling.
"Oh, Keri…" Uriko murmured as she used her best friend's nickname in reassurance, biting her lip while saying that.
"I-is he crazy?!" Erika blurted out almost hysterically, her fingers shaking as she slowly brushed back the hair drooping in her face caused by the encounter.
Her eyes narrowed into small slits. "No, but he's gonna go bonkers after I'm through with him!"
"I-we should go…now…"
"Are you gonna tell anyone about this?"
"Should I?"
Uriko paused, then placed a hand on her friend's shivering shoulder. "…No. Erika, leave it to me, okay? You can trust me."
"A-alright…"
Oh, he is definitely gonna be confronted about this…I am so gonna hurt him… The fourteen-year-old thought bitterly as she watched Erika slowly walk down her street.
*****
"I don't like my assignment; he's too easy as a suspect." A voice complained with an irritated frown.
"Well…'she' is going to do something, so don't freak," the other person said, throwing out an intense stare.
"You'd better make sure of that…" replied the companion.
"After that…?"
"Assuming they don't destroy themselves, we move in for the kill."
*****
His hazy brown eyes were seeing red.
And that hadn't occurred in a long time.
As Kenji angrily stalked to his bike from sixth period, his mind was filled with thoughts of pure surprise and anger combined.
I better find her…
Hastily, he retrieved his vehicle and left the school, with two free days of the weekend up ahead. As he furiously pedaled down the path leading toward home, his long black bangs whipped his forehead. A harsh wind picked up and dark clouds gathered above, not enlightening Kenji's violent mood at all. Still, his anger turned transformed into a strange, nagging feeling as the intense male teenager sped past the crowds of students. A mere few moments later, he caught sight of the back of a slim, brown-haired girl walking down the street alone and light maroon started flashing in his eyesight again.
"Hey!!" Kenji yelled out gruffly.
The girl turned around and when she saw who had called to her, she scowled and looked away.
"I know you heard me, Uriko!" He growled in reply and biked up beside her.
Before he could say anything else, she faced him stubbornly as she tightened her hold on the rough strap of her school bag. Holding up her fists and looking at him with determination sketched in her wide brown eyes, she blurted out, "Go away, you've done enough damage. Erika's still shaky after you attacked her!"
"What?!" Kenji braked his bike to a stop, shocked by the accusation. "You're the one that pounced on me yesterday while I was on my way home!"
"Huh?? I was walking my best friend home; what are you talking about, that's pure bullshit!!" she shrieked, surprising the both of them, since she was well-known for her calm temper and rarely swore when talking to him.
"I know it was you yesterday, with your green outfit and long white sleeves!"
"Master Long gave me a blue Chinese outfit; I don't own a green one!" she shot back defiantly.
"Tsk, tsk, how delightful…" a voice from behind the arguing couple commented.
"Then who was that I saw-" Kenji started to yell, but stopped and asked his girlfriend, "…Hey, who was that?"
Uriko was looking in another direction, her warm brown eyes widened in astonishment. Confused, he turned toward where she was looking and was startled by the sight; he instantly jumped off his bike.
Standing in front of the students were two teenagers around their age, but what was shocking was that they looked exactly like them! Uriko wordlessly stared at her double. The resemblance was stunning; the girls had the same body figure, eyes, hair. The only noticeable difference was that Uriko coincidentally wore her royal blue Chinese outfit that day, and her twin's clothes were like hers, only instead, it had a deep shade of green. Plus, the sleeves were shorter. The other brown-haired girl smirked at Uriko's reaction and grinned at her partner, who was carefully inspecting Kenji.
The ninjas looked cautiously at each other, weariness in their eyes; Kenji made sure to keep his body a good distance away. His twin had the same appearance, with the exception of the sleeveless blue shirt and pants that he was wearing, and the breezy white scarf wrapped around his neck. Kenji swore under his breath, cursing the fact that he looked like his twin, since he had on his own yellow outfit; his matching red scarf was in his backpack. The other difference between the two sets of twins was that Uriko and Kenji still had their normal brown eyes, whereas their doubles both had malicious, blood red ones.
Breaking the silence, he and Uriko chorused in unison: "And who the heck are you??"
The opposition laughed a frightening sound that sent a chill down the spines of the couple standing across from them.
"I'm the real Uriko," the female introduced, sneering at the confused fourteen-year-old girl.
"Y-you are not!" Uriko shouted angrily, glaring at her double.
"I will be, after I eliminate you, pathetic 'sister' of mine!" her twin shouted with total confidence in her voice.
Not fully aware of what she'd just said, Uriko yelled back, "Why you-! The closest person I have to a sister isn't you, so keep your mouth shut!"
"And who are you, her lap dog?" Kenji said, looking disgustedly at the other dark-haired boy.
"Oh, don't worry, I didn't take my name after you, wimp," his twin declared. "People refer to me as Bakuryu."
"Nothing but a wannabe," Kenji murmured angrily.
"Copy-cat," Uriko retorted at her fake self while thinking, Hmm, that's kinda ironic, since we probably do both have cat beast forms… "What do you want anyway?"
"For a girl who seems like me, you're not very bright." Came the girl's sardonic reply.
"Shut up!" Kenji defended his girlfriend, briefly forgetting that they had been fighting not too long ago.
"Don't get in the middle of their cat fight; you and I have something to take care of ourselves," Bakuryu informed him, fixing a steely gaze at his opponent.
Uriko looked at him with a frown. "What do you mean 'cat fight'? I'm not fighting a weirdo like her!"
Her twin shrugged. "Oh well, it'd be easier for me to kill you that way."
"Uh…excuse me?" The young couple said together, stepping away from the two creepy teens.
"It's our master's wish, and we willingly intend to oblige." The Uriko twin answered matter-of-factly.
"That is seriously full of shit," Kenji remarked.
Kenji dear…you've really been hanging around Yugo too long… Uriko thought toward his profanity, managing a quiet chuckle.
"What're you snickering for, girl?" Bakuryu questioned menacingly.
"I'm surprised that you two are so…brainless, following orders like that." She said, ignoring his question. "Who's your master, that pervert Busuzima?"
Kenji glanced at his girlfriend in admiration her for standing up to their enemies. She happened to look his way and caught his eye, then gave him a shaky smile.
"Silence! That's none of your business!" Uriko's twin seethed and immediately charged at her. When she was only a few inches away, the red-eyed female jumped slightly off the ground and thrusted her fist foreword, knocking her enemy forcefully in her jaw. Wincing, Uriko fell onto the floor, her backpack faintly protecting her back from the rocky ground.
"Uriko!!" Kenji cried out worriedly, and started running to her side. Unfortunately, he didn't notice that his own opponent had launched his own attack. He performed his "Smoke Bomb" tech, appeared right in front of Kenji, and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. The villain lifted the black-haired boy up into the air, and smirked as he prevented him from getting to Uriko. "Going somewhere?"
Thankfully recovering quickly, his girlfriend flung her backpack away as she leapt up into a standing position. Deciding to try out one of the new moves she had learned over the summer, Uriko ran headfirst into her twin, knocking the feeble girl into ground. As she stumbled to get up, the sophomore student grabbed her arm and swung her around multiple times, then flung her onto the lawn in front of a nearby residence's house.
Meanwhile, Kenji was still suspended in the air, and he didn't like it. He clutched Bakuryu's shoulders with both hands and threw him over his head, at the same time both freeing himself and injuring his enemy. Furious that he'd escaped, the blue-clothed teenager darted at his double and tried to kick him in the face. Back-flipping away, Kenji unknowingly hopped onto the top of a car and jumped off after his opponent followed.
Several yards away, Uriko hung back, one fist raised in front of her face and the other hanging behind her head, knees slightly bent in her fighting stance. As soon as her clone stood up she gritted her teeth, awaiting the first move. The fake Uriko rushed at her and very briefly paused in front of the girl. She quickly reared her arms back, and then pushed them foreword while yelling, "Fire!"
Red sparks began shooting out from the palm of her hands and soon, a heated blast engulfed Uriko. The shocked girl let out a scream of pain as she was thrown back, and her skin burned. Her heartless twin followed the fiery tech by lifting the young student up and smirking at her.
"Pathetic!" the girl spat at Uriko and punched her hard and squarely in the face. Whispering a hoarse, "K-Kenji…" as she was viciously slammed into a stiff metal pole, her head and back connecting especially hard with it. Uttering a choked gasp for breath, an injured Uriko collapsed to the floor, and blood began leaking out from her bruised mouth.
All of a sudden noticing a lot of movement and hearing a voice very faintly call out his name, Kenji jerked his head toward the direction of the sound. Upon spotting his girlfriend laying still on the ground in her condition and the slight trail of blood appearing on the street, his eyes widened and he screamed in a deafening tone of voice, "Uriko!!!" When she didn't move or even twitch, he sprinted to her, vaguely noticing the opposition's attempts of trying to stop him. All he could concentrate on was her unconscious figure; after all, she had saved him twice before, and now it was his turn to repay the debt.
When he reached her, Kenji carefully hugged her unmoving body to his, cradling her as gently as he could, uncaring of his own wounds, or the fact that her blood was beginning to stain his yellow clothing. His shaky hand went to her wrist to feel for a pulse; Uriko had a faint one, and the male ninja could also tell that she wasn't breathing very comfortably by the way she was wheezing. Her pleasant face had gone white, almost as pale as her sleeves and her body felt very limp, eerily appearing death-like.
He trembled violently in fear of the severity of her injuries as his eyes filled with water and tears of sorrow and anguish trickled down from them, cooling his burned cheeks. Ignoring his tears, Kenji slowly stood, clutching his girlfriend in his strong arms with one hand supporting her head and the other holding her slender legs up.
Before doing his "Smoke Bomb" move to transport them away, Kenji glared at the fake Uriko, pure hatred burning in his narrowed brown eyes. "I'll kill you for doing this." he threatened as he, the unconscious girl, and their belongings lying on the street vanished.
*****
"Dammit!! We didn't finish them off!" An upset Bakuryu swore later, grinding his sneakered foot into a nearby stack of cartons.
"Speak for yourself!" The fake Uriko retorted snottily. "If you had taken care of your assignment, then the girl would've had no chance of surviving!"
"She wouldn't have, if you'd beat her up brutally enough!"
Growling fiercely, she screeched, "Just drop it! When's the next time we're gonna encounter them?!"
"Anytime they show their faces…" her partner replied, a menacing look in his maroon colored pupils.
*****