Standard disclaimer: It's pretty standard all right!
Chapter 11: Ri-sama February 10thDan wandered relaxed through the school, getting a feel for the place. He had only been at the school for 3 or 4 hours and he already had a letter of challenge. 'I wish school was this interesting when I was young, I would have gone more often!' Dan thought as he watched all the teenagers flirt, play and otherwise enjoy their youth. 'It's good that these kids get to have fun, I wouldn't want anything like what happened to me to happen to them, no one deserves that!' he thought fondly as he watched an amorous pair of boys get pummelled by a halisen. Halisen?
"Dan-kun!" Wu called, attracting the stares of many students.
"Eh, Wu-san, maybe it would be best if you didn't call me that at school," Dan's reply sent even more murmurs rippling through the students watching.
"That's not fair, we do live together!" Wu said, grinning evilly, she knew exactly what the other students would think so she quickly grabbed his arm.
Dan sweat dropped, "I don't you should go around blurting that," he said nervously, trying to shake her off his arm.
"Wu-chan!" another voice started.
"Ah, Meia-chan!" Wu said brightly. Before Wu or Dan could say anything, Meia attached herself to Dan's other arm, more muttering, especially from the girls in the crowd started.
"Don't worry, Dan-kun, I'll save you from Wu-chan!" Meia said causing Dan to sweat drop.
"Ah ha, gotta go!" Dan said, slipping out of their hugs and sprinting down the hallway at top speed to get away.
"Ah, wait!" Both Wu and Meia said at the same time.
"This is your fault!" Wu started.
"Who hugged him in the middle of the corridor?" Meia countered.
"You did!"
"But you did first, I was only counter attacking!"
"That was revenge for the motorbike incident this morning!"
"You lost fair and square!"
The watching students sweat dropped as the argument raged. Su and Sara started selling popcorn to the crowd.
Dan wandered around the school, smoking a cigarette and glancing at his watch to check the time. When it was ten minutes after the time stated in the challenge, Dan headed up to the roof. When he came up through the stairwell he immediately took stoke of the situation. Arissa was tied up and surrounding him were about 20 guys, all clutching weaponry, ranging from bokken to baseball bats and knives. He looked at the guys around him, and then turned his attention to Arissa, lighting up another cigarette.
"Hello Arissa-san," Dan said calmly.
"Dan-kun, please help me!" She screamed.
"How did you get caught anyway? I thought you were at your friends place last night."
"They caught me this morning, when I tried to get on the train!"
The guys surrounding Dan started advancing.
"Which one of you guys is Ri-sama?" Dan asked, glancing around casually. "This is between me and Ri-sama, if you guys leave now, I won't hurt any of you," he said mildly.
The guys laughed before Shinjo spoke up, "Why would we betray our own? As if we are scared of you!"
"Hmm, so this Ri-sama is nothing but a coward who is unwilling to face me in hand to hand combat then? Ah, well, time to this the hard way!" Dan said, slowly drawing his butterfly swords from under his jacket. "So who's first?" he asked swinging his arms around to loosen up his muscles.
The gang members looked at each other, obviously trying to urge someone else to go first, most of them remembered when Dan had pummelled them in the past, and that was when he didn't even have weapons. And now he was armed. Sighing, Shinjo decided to end the stale mate.
"Attack him all at once you idiots!" he yelled, spurring them into action. As one the gang members sprung forward, brandishing their weapons. Dan broke to the left faster than lighting, blocking a descending baseball bat with one sword before viciously chopping his opponent in the throat. Spinning quickly he blocked another two opponents with his swords before spinning them around his opponent's weapons and smashing them on the head. An opponent managed to gash on of Dan's arm with his knife before one of Dan's swords smashed his hand and the other smashed his head. Caught off guard by the savagery of Dan's attacks, the gangers backed off a little.
"It's lucky for you guys that these things are as blunt as hell," Dan said, before leaping forward and bashing down another three gang members before the others could react. Dan waded through the melee, his swords flashing and twirling around him as he effectively and savagely cut his way through his opponents. He took his share of hits, but he was fine as he chopped his last opponent in the throat. He stood, chest heaving trying to regain his breath, before turning towards to where Arissa was bound. Her eyes were wide in shock.
"Don't worry about me, I've had worse," he said unbinding her and turning towards the stairwell. His arm flashed as he blocked the descending katana with one of his swords behind his back, "Ri-sama!" he said before leaping away from Arissa and landing on top of the stairwells building.
"You knew?" she snarled, holding her katana at the ready.
"Yeah, since about 2 weeks ago," he said casually spinning his butterfly swords in tight arks.
"Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you tell Motoko-senpai?" she demanded.
"Because then Motoko-san would have been angry with you," Dan said simply.
"As if I care!" Arissa replied hotly.
"Exactly," Dan said, "Because you care!"
Arissa shook her head, "Shut up! I hate you! I hate everyone! Why did you help me?" she yelled.
"Because I've been there," he said, "I've been there, hated everyone and everything when I first came to Japan. I was an empty husk, unfeeling, nothing more than robot. I don't want that to happen to you."
"You don't understand anything!" Arissa screamed, before leaping forward and slicing Dan's arm. He made no move to block as the blade cut into his flesh. Blood spurted from the wound, but Dan didn't even flinch.
"You hate males, because your father was abusive when you were younger," Dan said, as Arissa cut into his stomach. Again, he did nothing to stop the blade.
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" she screamed, slicing again, this time missing Dan completely.
"After one night, you crept into the dojo and stole your father's sword and fled. He chased after you, you drew his sword, he slept and he fell upon it. You skewered his heart. But it wasn't your fault," he continued, unmoving as Arissa cut around and in him with her katana.
"Why...do you know all this?" Arissa asked collapsing in a heap, energy spent.
"After I found out that you were this Ri-sama, I decided to find out why, and so I asked a couple of friends, called in a couple of favours and bingo! Found out everything," he explained.
Arissa looked up, and saw the deep cuts that were covering Dan. Blood was pouring out and pooling at his feet.
"Did I do all that?" she asked, shocked at the sight.
"Yeah," he said casually, although he was starting to get a little woozy.
"Why didn't you stop me?"
"Cause you needed to work out all your anger, and I'm probably the one best suited for it. I've gone through exactly the same thing, although I have to admit, I had it a lot worse." Arissa looked up at him, as he lowered himself with a grunt of pain.
"How? Why?"
"When I first came to Japan I was fleeing the triads in China. I decided to hide in the Shinjuko area, cause no one official goes there, and even the yakuza go around. So I figured I'd be safe there. Due to reasons that I won't discuss I fell in with a really bad gang called 'Black Lightning'. Cause I'm really good at fighting, I was soon basically a hitman for the gang leader, silencing his opponents and other gang leaders so that he could absorb their gangs without a fight. I didn't care if I lived or died, I had nothing to live for, but didn't want to commit suicide. That all continued until one day I saw a kid walking across the street. He was about to get hit by a truck, but I managed to get him before the truck hit him. He and his sister, Raiji gave me a place to live and a family."
"So you were saved by your new family?"
"Basically, and you have the other residents at Hinata."
"But none of them like me!" Arissa exclaimed, "They call me stuff like Ms Frigid and Ice Queen behind my back!"
"That's because you're not open enough. If you try and make friends and relax a little, you will make friends." Dan said, each word becoming softer than the next. "You're actually quite beautiful, and you should have no...prob.l.em.s...if...you...try...to...smi...le..." he trailed off, slumping over.
"Dan-kun? Dan-kun?" Arissa called, gently shaking him. "DAN-KUN!" she screamed.
Dan woke up hours later in the hospital. Arissa was sitting by his bed. As he groaned slightly, she turned and looked at him a smile appearing on her lips.
"Dan-kun, you're okay?" she asked.
"I've felt a lot better, but I'm not dead, so I don't have any complaints," he said groaning as he pulled himself up into a sitting position. "You're smiling," he noted, with a gentle smile of his own.
"Yeah, I decided to try out your theory for a while," Arissa said brightly. Dan was caught unaware by the total transformation she had undergone. "But if it doesn't work, I'm going to go back to how I was! And I still hate you!" she said heatedly. Dan sweat dropped.
"Right, how long was I out?"
"One and a half days, I was starting to get worried!" she said, 'Wow, he's in great shape!' a corner of her mind noted.
Dan smiled, "Did you use my real name when you brought me in?" he asked.
"No I used my father's name," she said.
"Good girl," he said smiling warmly, before getting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Could you turn around for a minute? I need to get changed."
"Sure," she said, before turning her back. 'I'll sneak a peek! If I want to lock horns with Wu-san and Meia-san, I have to make sure he's worth it!' Arissa thought before looking over her shoulder at Dan. To her disappointment he had already pulled on his pants, but she gasped when she saw his back.
"Ah," he said turning quickly, "You shouldn't have to see that."
"Where...where did you get all of those?" she said, running her hand along the scars that criss-crossed his back. His entire upper body, including his arms, was covered with scars of all shapes. Some were obviously knife wounds, and he also had one or two gunshot scars that Arissa could recognise. She noticed a large cross-shaped scar over his heart.
Dan pulled on his shirt, covering his upper body. "Those are the price you pay for walking the path I did," he said sadly.
"Where did you get that cross-shaped scar? That looks like a surgical scar!"
"Please don't ask me, you wouldn't like the answers," Dan insisted sadly. "Anyway, more importantly, I need to get out of here before they feed me any hospital food!" he said brightly.
"What? But the doctor said you should be bed-ridden for at least a week!"
"Pah, I won't get healthy eating that 'food' they give patients here. I need you to go out and tell the nurse that I'm sleeping, I'll sneak out the window and meet you on the ground, okay?" Dan said heading towards the window.
"But Dan-kun, we're on the fifth story!" she yelled as Dan climbed out the window and disappeared from her view. Smiling slightly, she headed towards the door, intent on carrying out Dan's orders.
Arissa and Dan walked back to school, talking about nothing in particular. They stopped at a Ramen stand, and Dan at a remarkable seven helpings before Arissa got bored and dragged him of.
"Ahh, nothing like some good food to replace all of that blood!" he said cheerily.
"There's something that's been bothering me..." Arissa started.
"What is it? You can talk to me about anything! I am after all your teacher and your landlord!"
"Why don't you want the others to know about you? I mean when I found out your Shinjuko name and sent all those guys after you, you sent Wu-san away. Why?"
Dan looked in the distance, "Although it probably wouldn't change anyone's mind about me, how would they react?"
Arissa thought about it for a while, "I don't know," she admitted softly.
"Would they hate me? How would everything change?" Dan was silent for a while, before continuing, "I don't want to run that risk, if they want to find out, I'd tell them, but it's best that they don't know."
Arissa nodded, "I can't imagine how they would react if they found out that I was the one sending all those guys to attack you, or that I was the one running that gang at school. You won't tell them, will you?" Arissa demanded, turning towards Dan.
"Of course I won't, then you could tell them about me!"
"So basically we blackmail each other to be quiet?"
"Why not? Although that is an ugly way of putting it!" Dan said cheerily. "Besides, then I wouldn't see your smiling face anymore, and that would be a shame!"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are you this nice to me? I almost killed you!"
"Hate can kill someone. So love must be able to save them, right?"
'The look in his eyes when he said that, he must want to believe that with all his soul. Can I ever find something to believe in as much as Dan-kun believes that?' Arissa thought.
"Dan-kun?"
"Yes what is it?"
"Can you give me something to believe in?"
"How about..." Dan was silent for a while, "There is always a tomorrow, no matter what we've done, all we have to do is look for the light."
"Thank you," Arissa said; starting to cry, "I may just find something to believe in with you..." Dan hugged her as she let her tears fall.
"Shh..."
Butterfly swords: Blade length: 14 inches, Blade width: 3 inches, Overall length: 19 inches, Weight: 1.5 kilo. Most often used in pair, a Chinese dagger style weapon has a machete like blade
Well, even Dan can get hurt...tune in next time. Sorry for the crappy ending, but this chapter was kinda rushed. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and see you next time!
P.S: reviews would not be turned away, in fact they would be rather welcome –grinds teeth-