When You Meet Your Match

Chapter Two

When Mayumi woke up, the sun was beating down on the tent, and she heard people outside, talking and laughing. By the sound of it, she was certain that all of them were men, and to her horror, she thought that some of them sounded drunk.

She was about to stand up when she noticed her wound. It had bandages on it. Clean white bandages, wrapped around her leg. Someone had the decency in this mountain to clean her wound for her. This time she wondered. How long had she been asleep? Who were the people outside this tent?

She looked around. Her money bag was still there and beside it her knife and other weapons. She grabbed these and wrapped it around her other, uninjured leg and took a deep breath. SHe ran her hand through her hair once and walked out of the tent.

The effect was immediate. The men stopped talking and all turned to look at her, more curiously that she would have hoped. Some have smirks on their faces, other only looked curious and others, to her horror, was looking at her up and down, and eyeing her leg, that was quite seen because of the slit in her clothes.

"Er..." she started, "I need to see who's in charge here." she said, sounding braver than she really felt.

"I'm In charge here," cried a voice behind her. She turned around and saw, well, another man, a smirk in his face, his fangs showing, and her orange hair reflecting the sun. "You need to see me?"

"Yes," she said, and gulped. "Who are you?"

"Ha,"the guy said, "I should be asking you that question."

"I just want to know your name," she retaliated, arms crossed across her chest.

"I'll tell you my name," he said, "if you tell me yours first. After all, you're the one in our turf, and you're not even a guest."

"Fine," she said, not wanting to get into an argument with the leader of what looked like a bunch of bandits. "My name is Mayumi."

"Mayumi what?"

"Mayumi." she said, "That's it, just Mayumi."

The boy raised an eyebrow.

"What's your name?"

"My friends call me Genrou." he said, "but you can call me Tasuki."

"Fine, whatever." said Mayumi then looked at her leg. "Who cleaned my wounds?"

"Oh, that would be Enri right there." said Tasuki, looking behind her and pointing at a boy. Mayumi turned and looked at the boy, who was grinning proudly.

Mayumi smiled in his direction. "Thank you very much."

Enri's grin grew even more broad. "You know, you can thank me better in the tent..."

Several of his companions laughed, and Mayumi's smile was wiped off from her face to be replaced by a scowl and a glare. She wanted to take one of her knives and stick it to the guy's chest, but she didn't want to be killed by the rest of them.

"That's enough," cried another voice. Mayumi turned and the speaker was next to Tasuki. "Is that any way to treat a lady?"

The boy had a nice smile with blue hair and a scar in his left cheek. He smiled warmly at Mayumi. "I'm Kouji." he said, "Tasuki and I found you at the lake."

"Oh," she said, not sure whether this guy was being genuinely being friendly or not, "Right."

"What?" said Kouji, pouting a little, "No thank you?"

"If you want me to go to your tent as well then you might as well keel over and die," she said bluntly, her arms once again across her chest. It would be best if she didn't let her guard down.

"Is that any way to speak to your rescuers?" said Tasuki, frowning.

"I never asked any of you to save me.," said Mayumi, "And I don't see what you did in any of this. A doctor cleaned my wounds. Kouji found me, and what about you? What's your contribution?"

"I let you in here!" cried Tasuki, looking angry, "If it weren't for me, you'd still be by the lake dying! Believe me I have no intention with getting involved with you whatsoever! I hate girls!"

"Some leader you are," said Mayumi. "If you don't want to have anything to do with me, then why did you let Kouji here take me to here and have me healed?"

"He didn't say that, I did!"

"Ah," said Mayumi looking triumphant, "so you do care."

"I - I -" Tasuki stuttered as he looked at Kouji who had an amused smile in his face. "Well, if it weren't for me then you'd be dead by now!"

Mayumi stayed silent.

"So this is the thanks I get for saving your life? You act all high and mighty like some princess ready to tread in here like you own the place! I don't think so! I am the leader, and what I say goes! If you think that you can just take over here like some wannabe bandit that you are, then you have another thing coming!"

Tasuki stalked over leaving a fiery rage behind him. Mayumi saw a great fire at a distance and wondered if that was coming from Tasuki.

However, Mayumi was smirking. "Strange," she said, "I didn't hear him say I couldn't stay..."

Tasuki must have heard. "God I hate women!"