Warnings: None

Posting this from my phone from a film set, so if it feels uneven, WELL THAT'S PROBABLY WHY LOL. 3 hours of sleep, omg, with no end to the production in sight.


Lucky Child

Chapter 73:

"Old Habits"


Because leaving them open afforded me a constant reminder of the horrific situation in which I had become so regrettably embroiled, I shut my eyes. I grit my teeth. Counted backwards from ten, but every number turned into a swear word. I squeezed my eyes tighter. Saw stars sparking behind black lids, felt blood flood my head until my skull threatened to burst.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—

"Yukimura." Hideki's dry voice scratched against my ears like sandpaper. "What are you doing?"

I forced a smile. "Seeing how many times I can say "fuck" in my head in ten seconds." I paused for the allotted amount of time. Declared: "19."

"That's rather a lot," Kurama observed.

"My rates are impressive."

"Why so nervous?" Hideki asked.

I almost snapped at him, berated him for not seeing the obvious—but Hideki had no way of knowing that he had just signed my damn death warrant. He had no way to know that I, a former copy editor, was about to face off with a former German Navy SEAL, and that I, a present day schoolgirl, was about to go toe to toe with a present day Sailor Scout. A Scout in civilian form, but still. The mismatch between Minato and I was so wild as to be absurd, too utterly and completely farcical as to be believed. Even discounting his status as a Scout, this was a fight I was 100% destined to lose, and probably violently. Minato had more experience than I did by an embarrassingly wide margin. I was a bit bigger than him, with longer arms and legs, but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he could hand my ass to me if he tried.

Simply put, this former copyeditor was outgunned and she knew it—but I couldn't exactly tell Hideki that. Instead I pasted on a smile and brushed my bangs out of my face, hoping I didn't look as vomitus as I felt.

"Oh. You know. Minato and I are just new friends, is all," I said, shrugging. "I don't want either of us taking this fight personally."

At that, Minato's blonde brows pulled together above his luminous blue eyes. My words sounded like an excuse at face value, and they were supposed to be exactly that—but as soon as I spoke them I realized my words ranger truer than expected. I was a creature of pride. So was Minato. I had no intention of throwing the match or going easy on Minato, because if I did, I got the feeling I'd get massacred. I had to give it all I had or else risk getting straight up murdered, but perhaps more pressingly, my friendship with Minato was tenuous at best, budding and new and uncertain. If I somehow managed to do a good job, get the upper hand, would this former soldier take kindly to that? The soldier I knew in my first life had never reacted kindly to being challenged, let alone bested. And would I be able to be trust him again if he broke my femur or something equally horrific? Hopefully being forced to trade blows didn't get in the way of our developing friendship's growth…

But Minato looked less concerned by these worries. His head inclined, lips thinning as he smiled. "I assure you, I will leave emotion out of it."

"Right, right. Of course you will," I said, waving a hand. "But, just so you know—I'm actually sort of a pacifist, right? Like, I would never get violent with a person in an argument or outside the ring or unless they threatened me physically, and—"

Hideki glowered. "You're babbling, Yukimura."

"Yeah, so what, sensei?" I snapped, but before he could make me run sprints for that slight I went right back to babbling, hands raised pleadingly in Minato's direction. "Point being, Minato, I'm sorry in advance for anything I do in the ring, and it's absolutely nothing personal. Right?"

Minato nodded, sharp and stoic. "Of course."

"Good. Good. Great!" My head bobbed so hard I thought it might fall off. "Let's keep it clean and keep it sportsmanlike. I won't insult you by asking you to go easy on me, either." I affected the sunniest, most chipper grin imaginable, though it barely covered the twitch developing in my upper lip. "If we're gonna fight, it's gotta be fair, ya feeling me?"

He opened his mouth to speak, to agree—but then he stopped. His eyes widened. He bit back his words, as well as the edge of his bottom lip. Minato's eyes traveled up and down my face, as if noticing something about me for the first time.

Before I could ask what was wrong, Hideki took one sharp step in our direction.

"Enough talk," he said. "I want to see what this Krav Maga of his looks like."

"Sure," I said, but I held up my fingers and gave them a spirited wiggle. "Though if you'll let me wrap my hands, first?"

Hideki rolled his eyes. "Fine. You get ready too, Minato."

Minto nodded. I gave a salute and said, "Be right back!"

The trouble in Minato's eyes, that look like a foundation unsettled in the wake of a tectonic shift, didn't clear as I skipped off toward my duffel bag by the door, but I put my back to him and tried not to think about it as I fetched a roll of athletic tape and began taping up my fingers and wrists, supporting and reinforcing them for stability, protection, and power. I'd done it a hundred times, holding the tape between forefinger and thumb and then layering the strips of fabric over and under my fingers, around and atop my wrist, over and over again in an unending swirl—but the soothing, repetitive motion only calmed the shake in my hands the barest bit. It did nothing to soothe the tremble building in my legging-clad knees—because no matter how hard I concentrated on the winding pattern of the tape, one thought would not budge from my frantic brain.

I was about to fight a goddamn Navy SEAL!

Well. Technically Minato was something else, the German version of a SEAL, but I hadn't been able to remember the exact spelling of his station well enough to look it up at the library (my faulty recollection of his German title hadn't translated well into Japanese, and goddammit I missed Google). SEALs were Minato's American equivalent, and they were certified badasses. Me, meanwhile? I was a former copyeditor, one who'd had a physical disability and no fighting prowess to speak of.

A tremor made its way up my arm, lodging under my breast, worming into my now erratic breathing. I tucked the last bit of wrapping into place, shut my eyes, and centered myself, conscious corrections coaxing my muscles back into mere neutrality. Start at the top of the head. Relax the scalp. Move into the face. Relax the muscles between my eyes. Neck, shoulders, abdomen…

"Are you all right?"

The voice in my ear scattered my concentration and pulled my muscles taut again, undoing all my hard work in a whispered instant. I flinched and cursed when I found Kurama at my side. He stood in my shadow, green eyes aglow with concern. I swore again.

"Hey. Fine," I said when he repeated the query, though my quavering voice betrayed me. "Nerves."

Kurama looked askance, over at Minato (the boy did stretches on the mat, limbs lithe and limber). "He's fast," Kurama said, studying him, "but you're stronger."

I suppressed a derisive snort. "Think so?"

"Yes." I detected no deceit as he traced the length of my arm with his eyes. "Use your reach to your advantage."

My lips curled. "So I'm the Ezakiya in this fight, huh?"

"Perhaps." He frowned. "Are you really that nervous?"

Pride wanted me to make a joke, shrug the question off with a show of bravado—but Kurama's inquisitive, worried expression slid under my skin like a razor. "Yes," I admitted, chin close to my chest. "I am."

His frown deepened. "He's just a boy."

To everyone in the room but me, that was true. But again, there was so much I couldn't say. I licked my lips, debating how to word my reply. Eventually I looked down at my hands and settled on: "Minato has been studying his form of martial arts for a long time. Most of his life. He's not one to be underestimated." Seemed neutral enough, and accurate in its own way.

Kurama nodded, just once. "I see." And he looked to Minato again. "I don't know anything about Krav Maga. But jiu-jitsu is a study of grappling. Avoid being caught." His eyes narrowed, stare intensifying as if he tried to read weaknesses and strengths in the curve of the kid's muscles. I got the sense that's exactly what he was doing, looking for weaknesses, trying to give me an edge in this fight—trying to help me.

But I really, really didn't want to talk about the fight. Anything but the fight would be better.

"What were you and Hideki talking about?" I blurted.

Kurama's attention snapped back to me, brow shooting up like a slash of dark red ink. I tucked my hair behind my ear, unnerved.

"You raised your voice earlier," I said. "It's not like you."

Kurama said nothing, merely looked at me—but then he shut his eyes. Drew in a deep breath. Exhaled long and slow.

"Later," he said.

Before I could dig in, Hideki called my name.

Every step across the warehouse echoed like a funerary bell, but Kurama offered me a smile and walked at my side over to the practice mat. He joined Ezakiya at the edge of the mat as Minato and I stood opposite one another across the red circle, Hideki midway between us with hands deep in his pockets.

I offered Minato a hesitant smile.

He did not return it.

My heart turned a somersault inside my chest.

"I'll explain the rules for the newcomer's benefit," Hideki said, voice devoid of emotion. "If you remain pinned for a ten-count, it's an out. If you're knocked out of the ring, it's an out. And if you say uncle, it's an out, too. First to three typically wins." At that he smirked. "But we'll see how long either of you last, given there aren't any other rules but those."

I breathed deep, weight shifting from foot to foot. "Ready, Minato?"

"Yes." He nodded. "Are you?"

"Of course," I said, brightly—perhaps too brightly, especially considering the hammering beneath my ribs. "Let's do it."

Hideki raised his hand.

"Begin," he said.

And he brought his hand down, fast.

Unlike the fight with Ezakiya, Minato and I had no preconceived notions as to how the other might initiate a fight—and thus we began to circle one another, a slow circuit made around the ring like magnets of the same pole, until Minato decided he'd had enough stalling. He launched across the ring as though springs powered his flight, striking hard and fast with a series of punches and a spinning kick I managed to dodge wholesale, relying on the fluidity of aikido training to avoid contact. We danced backward toward the edge of the ring, and when he aimed a wide punch at my torso I ducked under his arm and spun behind him, backpedaling across the ring to put distance between us once again.

He turned to face me—with a smile on his lips, small and satisfied. Happy he hadn't hit me. Pleased by what he saw. Not truly fighting me, then. Just feeling me out, testing the waters of what I could dodge successfully. Smart way to start, even if it might chip at his energy reserves.

I should probably return the favor.

Minato wasn't one for dodging, I saw when I decided to put my own little test into play and go on the offensive. Rather than lean out of the way of a punch, he deflected it with the flat of his arm, catching a fist and tossing it aside. A waste of energy, if you ask me, but it knocked off the flow of my attack the slightest bit, recovery between strikes delayed thanks to interference in momentum and trajectory. I half expected him to try and get me in a grapple at that close range, given jiu-jitsu's status as a grappling art—but he didn't, and when I put him close to the boundary line he tossed aside my punch and darted behind my back, putting distance between us once again so we could circle like a pair of snarling wolves.

This time, I didn't see the point in dancing around. I didn't wait, didn't let him try to feel out my abilities again. If he wanted a taste, I'd let him have it. I pushed off my back leg with a grunt and flew at him from across the ring, aiming a solid palm-strike at his chest. Not at full speed or power, mind you, even if it was a fast blow, sharp and forceful and direct—direct enough to dodge, perhaps, or deflect if he was so inclined, and it would leave my arm extended if he wanted to put me in a grapple. Not the smartest of moves, necessarily, but one that would certainly get this party started.

Minato looked down. He eyes alit on my hand. They moved, tracing the path of the blow through the air, and at his sides his hands moved. They began to rise, to come up to grab, to deflect, to something.

His face spasmed.

His hands stopped moving.

My blow connected.

Flat palm on unguarded sternum sounded like a beavertail against water, loud and angry and booming in the quiet warehouse. Minato staggered with a grunt and a wheeze, stumbling backward over the red line painted on the mat. He didn't fall, catching his balance with hand on chest, panting—and I just stood there, too, posed with hand outstretched, body in a lunge position, staring wide-eyed as Ezakiya let out a raucous cheer and Hideki called a point in my favor. I barely heard either of them, though.

… why the hell didn't Minato defend?

And why was he smiling, nodding at me like I'd done well, when really he'd just handed me that point?

In fact, he put his hands together and clapped three times. "Good job, Captain," he said, teeth showing between his spread lips. "You did—"

"Don't gimme that bullshit." The words slipped out almost of their own accord; on the sidelines, Ezakiya fell abruptly silent. Minato's eyes widened. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

He put a hand to his chest again, positioning himself once again at the edge of the ring. "Catching my breath," he said, as though it should be obvious.

I glared. "You just stood there and took that."

But he shook his head. "You caught me off guard."

"No, I didn't," I said, and when Minato only shrugged I gnashed me teeth. "You totally saw—"

Apparently Hideki wasn't keen on mid-fight banter, however, because before I could get going, he raised his hand and brought it down. "Fight!"

Minato didn't wait for me to find my footing. He came at me as soon as Hideki's voice stopped ringing in the cavernous room, springs back on his heels as he soared toward me over the mat. If he'd been suffering from stage fright before, freezing up when the going got tough, he'd shaken it off after a nice warmup. He left no space for talking, no time for thinking, coming at me with a furious series of blows that had me dodging and deflecting at top speed, instinct taking over in a desperate fit to keep up with his assault. One particularly keen punch knocked me off-balance, and he followed it up with a spinning leg sweep aimed at my side. I didn't have my feet under me and therefore couldn't dodge, Minto's kick successfully sending me stumbling to the mat. However, the blow didn't actually hurt too much—and not just because Hideki had taught me well how to angle myself, how to aim my own body at strikes and have them make contact in places where I was less weak.

No. The kick didn't hurt for very different reasons—ones I wasn't in control of in the slightest.

I hit the mat on my side, immediately scrambling back up and facing Minato with hands raised to fend off another attack, fully expecting him to take advantage of the opening he'd created and put me in a hold—but he stayed back. He waited for me to regain my footing, hands held almost politely at rest at his sides.

Politely?

"Minato." His name came out of my mouth evenly, almost robotically, as I stared at him across the ring. "What are you doing?"

He put up his fists. "I'm fighting," he said—but that wasn't true. That wasn't true at all. It was just lip service, just a line fed to me to keep me happy, as manufactured as that civil smile adorning his young face.

I knew the truth, though, deep in my gut.

That sweeping kick of his hadn't hurt because I'd softened the blow.

It hadn't hurt because it was just plain soft—and it had absolutely no reason to be.

My teeth ground together, bone on bone buzzing in my ears. "Fighting?" I repeated. "No, you're fucking not." I spread my hands, opening myself to him. "Stop pulling punches and hit me."

He looked affronted. "I'm not pulling—"

"You hit the strike pads twice as hard as you just hit me, and you know it."

At my claim his features twisted, eyes darkening with a pang of guilt—and although he smoothed the look away within an instant, it was all the admission I needed. I'd caught his kicks earlier, back when I'd worn the strike pads, and they had been a helluva lot meaner than the one he'd only moments ago thrown my way.

So it was true, then.

That horrible, burgeoning suspicion rising hot and fast inside my disbelieving brain—it was fucking true?

My lips curled back over my teeth, and when the English words slipped free of my mouth, they were accented. They were accented the way they only became accented when I was well and truly pissed, a low Texas twang creeping into my voice like a rattlesnake through a cactus briar.

"Aw, hell naw," I spat, and with more ferocity than I think I knew I possessed, I flung myself at Minato's startled face.

I'm utterly and completely proud of the fact that I gave him a run for his money, then, calling on every last ounce of Hideki's training to send Minato in a blind panic of deflected and dodged attacks, grunts of discomfort when my strikes hit home, his eyes huge pools of frantic blue beneath his short blonde hair and I punched, kicked, and slashed my way through his defenses, anger and the sting of wounded pride spurring me forward like a spur to a horse's flank. He did far more defending than he did fighting back, though, even when my hectic assault left me momentarily vulnerable to counterattacks I fucking know he spotted—and that just made my hackles rise higher, his refusal to attack me the way I attacked him more painful than any physical blow he probably could've delivered, and that just made me even more furious. I chased him across the mat, pushing him back and back until his heel slid near the red circle of the sparring ring, but just as I aimed for a strike to his shoulder that would send him spinning over the edge, he dodged under my arm danced away on nimble feet. I was spinning on my heel before he even got away, snatching at the back of his uniform, but he was too fast an evaded my grip by a hair's breadth.

"Get back here, asshole!" I snarled at him, and once more I gave chase—only by the time I pushed him to the boundary of the ring yet again, I had concocted a different plan of attack.

Minato, it seemed, was well and truly set on just defending, on not attacking me even in those moments my guard was at its weakest. I waited until I'd pushed him near the edge yet again, and this time when he dodged away to avoid a ring-out, I didn't give chase. Instead I affected a ragged breath, a wheezing pant as if to signal I was tired, and I intentionally left my back to him for a moment longer than was necessary—for a moment that bled into two, then three, more than enough for him to recognize as an opportunity to shove me over the red line and out of the arena, scoring him a point.

Only the shove never came.

I waited one beat, and then another, and then I turned.

Minato stood in the center of the sparring mat, politely (fucking politely!) waiting for me to face me. He had that military posture, all ramrod spine and hands at his sides, stoic and formal and civil.

It infuriated me. That gentlemanly expression, so neutral and full oh-dear-me, allow-me-to-wait-for-you-to-catch-up patience—it was horrible. My fists balled up, tension and fury vibrating up my arms like a swarm of wasps.

"You sorry son of a—I knew it. I fucking knew it." And I leveled a finger at him. "You're going easy on me! J'accuse!"

Minato held up his hands, but that look of shadowy guilt touched his features again. "No, I'm—"

"I was wide open and you didn't take the shot, Minato," I snapped. "I'm not an idiot."

He pulled back as if stunned. "You were testing me?"

"Yup," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "And you failed. Big fat F, right across your forehead." Before he could debate his failing grade, I marched over to him and threw open my arms, presenting myself to him with a lovely Vanna White flourish. "C'mon, Minato. Look. I'm wide open. Not even trying to defend." I slapped my chest with an open palm. "So hit me. Go one. Do it!"

He drew in a breath. Said: "No."

I stared at him. "What do you mean, no?"

"Just—just no." He looked almost sick, taking a step backward. "I won't do it."

"You won't—you won't hit me? But this is a goddamn fight!" The absurdity of his refusal refused to compute, rattling around inside my head like a loose puzzle piece lost in the innards of a racecar engine, totally out of place and on the verge of shaking loose whatever internal mechanisms holding me so tenuously together. I threw up my hands and scoffed. "This is a fight, dammit! Minato! You're supposed to—"

"Not like this!" he snapped. "I will not hit a defenseless—"

He stopped talking.

To be perfectly honest, if anyone else in the room was talking just then, I couldn't hear them. The world narrowed down to that single slice of existence threaded between Minato and myself, vibrating with a kind of tension I'm not sure I'd ever felt before. His chin tucked to his chest, blue eyes roving across the warehouse in an attempt to look anywhere but at me. I stared at him, wordless, unable to comprehend what he'd been about to say—but when he swallowed, and looked up at the ceiling with a curse, I came back to myself with a jolt.

"You won't hit a what, Minato?" I said. When he didn't reply, merely looked at the floor, I said, "Hit a defenseless what?" And when once more he avoided the question, I pinched the bridge of my nose and muttered. "I don't fucking believe this."

"What is going on out there?" Hideki called from the sidelines, voice rattling with dry impatience.

I didn't reply right away. Too lost in thought, because as far as I could see it, there were only two explanations for Minato's behavior just now—and I wasn't a fan of either of them. The first option was that he was reticent to hit me because he didn't think I could handle it, wasn't a good enough fighter to defend myself and take the pain of what it would feel like if he actually tried to attack me. He'd felt me out earlier, and he'd determined I wasn't worthy of his full strength. But the thing was, I wasn't sure that could be the case. He'd had trouble keeping up with me when I went all out, had housed legit panic in his eyes, made true sounds of pain when I hit. If he'd been leery of hitting me due to a presumed lack of skills at first, surely I'd proven him wrong with my fighting at least to some extent. Surely he should've gotten over his hesitation to fight back at least a little. He knew I was no wilting flower—which left only one option I could see.

And it was the option that made my blood absolutely boil.

I took a deep breath, drew myself up, and looked Minato dead in his bright blue eyes.

"Minato isn't giving me his best because he doesn't want to hit a girl," I deadpanned.

He reacted immediately, teeth bared behind curling lips. "That's not true," he said—but he flinched when he said it, like I'd gotten just the littlest bit too close to the truth, and that was all the confirmation I needed. I tossed my hair and harrumphed.

"So that patronizing look on your face when I scored a ring-out was because you're just so proud of me?" I snarked.

Minato bared his teeth even more. His fists came up. "Defend yourself," he said.

Mine came up, too. "Now we're talking."

Now, look—before you put my head on a pike, I didn't want to think badly of Minato. I didn't want to think of him as the kind of macho-military-man with a misplaced chivalrous streak who treated women like glass, but the evidence here was tough to ignore. And hey, it's totally possible I was being prejudicial after my experience with men in the military (my ex, the one who'd done the opposite of pulling his punches with me when he was mad, had used every last one of his military anecdotes to justify his feelings of masculine superiority)—but I had the sinking suspicion I was right about this, and I wasn't happy about it. And I have never been the kind of woman who lets this kind of thing go unchallenged, even if (and in most cases, especially if) the man being a jerkwaffle is a friend of mine.

My friends can, and should, do better. Sorry not sorry.

We fought again, running at each other at top speed, and at first I thought Minato might have gotten over himself and his sudden inability to treat me like an equal—but when he finally did land a blow to my shoulder, it wasn't delivered with nearly the same level of power he'd used on the strike pads. The pain glanced off the edge of my joint, barely sinking in, as if at the last second he'd maybe angled the punch just outside my center mass—and at that spark of disappointing main, I sort of lost it. With a shriek my temper blew its top, a kettle boiling to the point of explosion, and a scream to match tore out of my throat when I grabbed Minato's arm as he threw a punch. His face blurred, mouth a big round O in his shocked face as I twisted my body and hefted him over my shoulder, tossing him to the practice mat on his back with a heavy thud. I followed his trajectory to the floor, crouching on one knee above his head, staring straight into his stunned face with hands planted on either side of his thin neck.

I leveled a finger at his face and said, "You listen here, and you listen good."

Minato—not even winded, I noticed—swallowed.

"You come at me one hundred," I said (although "one hundred" came out "a hunnerd," English thick with the accent of my past life), "or you don't come at me at all. Cause if you don't come at me a hundred, I'll put you on the fucking ground, you understand me?" The finger in his face shook, both with emotion and for emphasis. "I am not second class and I will not tolerate this disrespect. You got that, Minato? Huh?"

He didn't reply. He just lay there, stricken, staring up at me in utter shock. My mouth curled of its own accord.

"Fine. Don't say nothin,'" I said—and I grinned at him. "Just get up and beat my ass… if you even can, that is."

I'm not sure what it was about that particular goad that got to him, but his eyes narrowed almost immediately, a low growl building in his chest as I smirked—and before I could even think to get away, Minato's arm lashed out, hand fisting into the cloth atop my shoulder. Next thing I knew he used me as leverage to pull himself upright, in the same motion spinning up and around behind me, pulling my arm high up over my head and locking it between his shoulder and his neck. I yelped, the stretch of his jiu-jitsu hold pulling at my arm like a torture device; the pain only worsened when he shoved a knee into my back, foot pressing into the back of my knee to keep my pinned very carefully in place. He looped his other arm tight around my throat as the first stayed tight in the fabric of my shirt, exerting just enough force against my windpipe to make breathing horribly difficult, but not impossible.

Even as my eyes watered, my lungs burned, and my back and shoulder screamed to be released, a distant part of my brain recognized this for what it was: a truly impressive show of dexterity, and a testament to Minato's true ability.

Fucking finally.

"That's—more like it!" I said, every word a battle from my tortured lungs. I tugged at the arm around my neck, but it did not budge.

"I don't care that you're a woman!" Minato growled in my ear.

"Good!" I choked out. "Because—most of the villains V faces—ugh!"

I choked, unable to talk for the arm around my throat and that pesky knee in my back, but the mention of V caught Minato's attention. He loosened his grip on me the barest fraction, allowing me to get a deep breath of cold warehouse air that stank of sawdust and sweat—and as he did, my top shifted around my shoulders and chest, loosening just the barest fraction. Minato had more of a grip on it than he did on me.

"What?" Minato said. "What did you say?"

"I said," I said, taking another deep breath, feeling that shift around my shoulders again, "most of the villains you face won't be men."

I couldn't see his face, but his voice held all the uncertainty in the world. "They won't be—" he said, waiting for me to finish the sentence for him.

I did no such thing.

Call it dirty fighting if you want, but I'd take any advantage I could get. I'd distracted Minato just enough for his grip to go slack, so when I flexed his hold on me broke like a wax seal under a hammer (Kurama had been right; I was strong, Minato's youth affording me an edge in the muscles department). He immediately reapplied pressure, of course, but that single moment of freedom had been more than enough for me to reclaim a little wiggle room within his iron grasp. Like a sausage out of casing wrapped far too tight, I slid down and out of my shirt and free of Minato's arms, leaving him grasping the empty shell of my aikido top—but I snagged the end of my sleeve as I went, stripping the garment inside out and wrapping it around his elbow with a swift twist of my wrist. He made a strangled sound of surprise as I shot to my feet, momentum and the slingshot of my shirt carrying him over and up and sending him sprawling onto his back, a horrendous thud preceding a gasp as breath left his lungs in one great burst.

A moment of silence followed, one punctuated by only Minato's ragged breathing. I stood over him in nothing but my leggings and sports bra and dusted my hands, prim as you please, before bending at the waist and carefully extricating my shirt from his tangled limbs.

When I turned around, shrugging into the shirt and grabbing for its dangling belt, I found Kurama, Ezakiya, and Hideki all staring at me quite open mouthed from the sidelines.

My cheeks colored. Words bubbled on my tongue unbidden.

"And may that be a lesson to never underestimate the phrase 'hit like a girl.' Because make no mistake, everyone." I cinched my belt tight. "It's a goddamn compliment."

Minato propped himself up on his elbows, squinting up at me. I smiled and offered him a hand.

He hesitated.

He took it.

"I won't break if you fight me," I said as I hauled him to his feet.

For a second, he looked uncertain—but then something behind his eyes went hard, and at that sight a spike of fear threaded through my gut. He released my hand and stepped back, lips firm under his resolute eyes.

"I know," Minato said.

I banished the fear with a grin. "Good." Turned to Hideki. "Sensei?"

My teacher looked oddly smirky when he raised his hand over his head. "Finally," he muttered, and then his voice pitched loud. "Ready? Begin!"

This time, Minato fought me for real.

There could be no doubt of his ferocity, of his intention to give me his best. I felt that from the moment the fight began. The air turned rigid, adrenaline so thick I could smell it. He came at me as an equal, this time trusting me to keep up, to defend myself, and it took every ounce of my training to not wind up a Keiko-flavored stain on the sparring mat. His punches whistled when they cut the air, the blowback of them slapping against my cheeks and drying out my eyes, kicks slamming into my ribs instead of just glancing off—the way they had when we fought when I wore strike pads. Even as my eyes watered and I idly lamented how many bruises would form before tomorrow, a smile cut my features, one that widened when I managed to duck under a punch and toss my arms around his waist. We went down onto the mat in a tangle, and it was only when I put him in a hold and he reversed it within seconds that I remembered Kurama's warning: Don't let him grapple you.

Well, shit.

I'd been so happy to have a real fight, I'd lost sight of strategy.

But that was OK. Nothing was unsalvageable. I bucked and rolled, locking my legs around Minato's knees and trying to knock him off balance. He stumbled and let go of me, trying to get for a better hold, but I lunged forward with arms outstretched, aiming for his neck—

His arm flew up to block me, elbow rising fast and hard at my face.

Crunch.

A firework of hot, iron-scented pain blossomed across my nose; I was on my feet and reeling in a second, stumbling away from him with a yelp, clutching at my face. "Are you all right?" I heard Minato call after me. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, bouncing from foot to foot as I turned back in his direction. He stared with eyes wide, I saw once I opened my own to grin at him, scrambling to his feet with hands outstretched, mouth parted in horror. Which made no sense because this fight was going great.

"Are you kidding?" I bounced on my heels, shaking out my hands to psyche myself back up. "I'm fantastic. That's what I'm talking about, Minato—you came at me one hundred and it was awesome!" I put up my dukes and threw a mock punch into the empty air. "Now c'mere you little shit, you're totally gonna pay for—"

"Yukimura, stop."

And I did stop, because Hideki's barked command left no room at all for argument—at least not right away. I blinked at him and frowned as he marched toward me across the mat. "What? Why?"

"You need to stop," he repeated.

"Sensei, I'm—" But as I opened my mouth to talk, something trickled across my tongue. I licked my lip, tasting something salty and warm, and then I did it again, and again—and oh. Oh shit. Wait a second. I swiped a thumb across my mouth.

My thumb came away quite bloody.

The blood-faucet that was my nose began leaking in earnest, then, dripping down my chin and onto my gi. I stood there without understanding for a minute, hands raised and idle near my face, and then I looked at my hands and at Hideki and back to my hands again. "Oh. Oh no. Shit shit shit—" I threw back my head, blinking at the lights above. "I'm bleeding!"

"You noticed," Hideki observed. He grabbed my wrist, shoved my hand toward my face. "Apply pressure."

"I am so sorry!" Minato said from somewhere to my right.

I flapped a hand in the direction of his voice and pressed my other hand to my nose, though it hurt like the absolute dickens (emphasis on ick). "Nah, nah, that was amazing, Minato—oh shit, oh shit, it's going down my throat!" I coughed and gagged, blood hacking up to fill my mouth. "Bad news bears, bad news bears!"

Hideki grabbed my head in both hands and pulled it down, face parallel to the floor. "Lean forward with a bloody nose, not back."

And then Kurama was there, hovering at my elbow. "Let me see," he commanded.

Hideki released a low growl, though. "Out of the way."

"Uh. Is she OK?" Ezakiya asked, voice distant and worried.

"I am so sorry!" Minato said again.

"Stop apologizing," I said, words gummy with blood (not to mention I'd stopped being able to breathe through my nose sometime in the previous thirty seconds). Head bowed like this, held still by Hideki's weathered hands, all I could see were the bare feet and shoes gathered around me on the mat, everyone standing in a knot to stare at the bleeding Keiko. Blood hit the mat in tiny droplets, brown against blue plastic. "Minato, I wanted you to hit me and you fucking did and it was great, I loved it." I fought against Hideki's hands to look at him, swirling my free hand around my face with a wink. "Just don't aim for the moneymaker next time. Ouchies."

"You loved it?" Kurama repeated, aghast.

"I loved it," I confirmed. "We scored a victory for feminism today!"

Kurama only sounded more scandalized when he said, "A victory for feminism?"

"Yup." Once again I grinned, though with my bloody teeth I probably looked quite ghoulish. "Equality, yo!"

Hideki didn't let me bask in this glory for long. "You're remarkably chipper for someone bleeding like a stuck pig," he said, utterly unimpressed by my shenanigans.

"Eh, a little blood ain't scary," I said, but as blood once more filled my mouth, I grit my teeth and whimpered, "but please, make it stop?"

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," Hideki said, and I could practically hear his eyes rolling in every syllable.

#

Hideki took me outside under the guise of getting a first aid kit, but in truth he had me sit atop a random shipping crate in the shadow of another warehouse so he could heal me with rei-ki. Thank my lucky stars for his glowing hands. He got the bleeding to stop within moments, light of his power cool and soothing against my flushed skin.

"So how'd I do?" I asked once we settled in, and once he'd healed the worst of the damage. Blood had stopped leaking into my throat, though I sensed I'd develop a wicked stomachache from ingesting so much of my own fluids.

Hideki shrugged. "You didn't totally embarrass me."

That was a compliment, coming from him. I thrust a fist into the air. "Score."

But then he launched into a brutal critique of my fighting that night, and my victory died an abrupt death.

I listened to his critique, of course, but I'll admit with only half an ear. It was the usual stuff, the normal weaknesses we'd been working to combat, though this time he had a lot to say about controlling my emotions in battle and not giving in to anger when it came calling. I was just pleased I'd been able to keep up with Minato at all—though I suspected he was a little out of practice when it came to hand to hand combat. After all, it was preposterous to think I could keep up with a SEAL, even one who hadn't seen combat in 13 years. He'd been doing more fighting as Sailor V than as a civilian, after all. Maybe he'd been exclusively fighting as V. Was he out of practice relying on his non-Sailor-skills? Yeah, I'd be willing to bet he was. That was probably the only reason I'd been able to keep up at all, truth be told, and I'd do well to remember that. He'd bested me by the end of the night and hadn't been giving it his all for the first two thirds of it. It wouldn't do to get a swelled head or overestimate myself based on just this fight. And judging from all Hideki had to say about my performance, I still had an infinite amount to learn.

"—of you."

Hideki stood six inches away with his hands nearly touching my face, but still I somehow missed what he'd said. "Hmm?" I said, trying not to look too guilty.

He glowered. "I said I'm proud of you."

That rendered me mute fore entirely different reasons. "Uh. What?"

More glowering. "Do I really need to say it three times?"

"Oh. Um. No. I heard. And thank you. I just—" I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, shy all of a sudden. "What brought that on?"

Hideki passed the tips of his fingers from right to left, top to bottom, a plus sign across my aching nose. The glare of the silver pouring from his hands obscured his eyes, but still I read the slightest smirk in then.

"You were right. He was underestimating you. And you wouldn't accept that," Hideki said. "Even if he outclassed you, you wouldn't accept anything but his all. You respect yourself enough to demand equal treatment… even if you ended up a bloody mess for your efforts." At that he flicked the tip of my nose, impassive when I yelped. "Don't let that pride get you killed someday, girl."

"I'll try my best," I said, eyes streaming. Shaking off the pain, I rubbed my blood-caked but now mostly pain-free nose and said, "Can I ask you something?"

Hideki lifted a brow and tucked his hands into his pockets.

"What were you and Minamino talking about earlier?"

I thought he might shrug me off and avoid the topic, but instead he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "You, mostly."

"Oh, god." I gave him A Look. "You didn't give him a shovel talk, did you?"

"A what talk?"

I mimed swinging a shovel, then pretended to hold it up and shake it in Hideki's face. "Hurt her and I'll bury your body so deep using this here shovel that they'll never find you!"

Hideki's lips hiked at the corner. "That's about the size of it, actually."

"Oh. Well, then." I thought about it, because I hadn't been expecting a yes. I held up two fingers, taking them down one after the other. "One. I'm touched. Two. There was absolutely no need—"

"If you're going to consort with demons despite all my best attempts to warn you off, said demons need to know who they'll answer to if you wind up dead," he said, voice flat like a pancake under a steamroller. It was his turn to give me A Look, this one rather solemn. "I'm not going to chase them away. It's your life. You can make your own choices." And then another of his roguish smirks chased the gravity away. "But I put the fear of god in him, that's for sure."

"Did you?" I said, unconvinced. "He's not easily scared."

"Maybe." Hideki shrugged again. "Maybe not."

"Definitely 'maybe not.' So why'd he yell?"

Hideki shrugged a third time. "Why, indeed."

"… must you be so evasive? It's just that he's not the type to lose his cool, is all."

"Maybe you don't know him very well."

"I doubt that." I studied him, trying to glean clues from his face. "What exactly did you say to him?"

"Hmmph." His hands shoved deeper into his pockets, shoulders hunching in a pronounced slouch. "You wanna know, ask him."

"But he's so evasive and vague and mysterious," I whined. "He'll just evade my questions. You gotta tell me." But when he didn't comply to my wishes, I heaved a dramatic sigh. "You're a spoilsport, you know that?"

Hideki smirked. "That's what senseis are for. Now let's go." And with that, he walked away toward the warehouse—though as I hopped off the shipping crate to follow, he looked at me over his shoulder. Gestured at his nose. "Oh—don't clean up much. Don't want Minato knowing I can heal with my hands."

"Right," I said. Joke was on Hideki, obviously. Minato knew everything already.

Oblivious, Hideki reached for the door. At the last second he thought better of it, though, pulling back his hand. "I think we're done for the night, anyway," he said. "See you next week?"

"Yeah." I bowed. "Thank you, sensei, for abiding both of my guests tonight."

"Harrumph," he said, very eloquently, and without another word he walked off into the December dark.

Because standing outside in the cold was a Bad Idea, and because I hadn't put my coat on earlier for fear of getting it all bloody, I booked it back indoors as soon as Hideki turned the corner around a nearby building and out of sight. Kurama caught my eye as the door swung shut behind me; he sat over by the practice dummies lacing up his shoes, but I shook my head when he started to stand. He settled back into place, watching me carefully as I crossed the warehouse and approached my other guest.

Minato had stashed his stuff by the punching bags; he pretended not to notice when I drew near, though he couldn't ignore me when I pointedly cleared my throat. "Hey. Can we talk?" I said when I caught his eye.

He met my smile with a hesitant one of his own, and an equally hesitant utterance of, "Yes." His eyes flickered to my nose, down to my bloodstained gi, and back up again as we stole off into the corner, away from prying ears and eyes. "I'm sorry, Captain. I didn't mean to—"

"No. I'm sorry."

Minato didn't appear to have been expecting that, because he blinked and fell quite quiet. I rubbed the back of my neck, teeth worrying my lower lip as I pondered how to phrase this.

"I, uh. I got a little heated," I settled on eventually.

"Heated?" Minato said.

"Well, yeah." More neck scratching as I avoided Minato's eyes, gazing at the floor as my cheeks flushed. "I said not to take the match personally, and there I went, taking it personally." I forced a laugh. "Talk about hypocritical, me flinging accusations the way I did. I definitely overreacted."

But Minato didn't laugh with me. Instead his gaze drifted to the floor before slowly climbing back up to my face, lingering on my bloody nose before he met my eyes.

"No," he said, voice low and quiet. "You were right." A regretful smile crossed his mouth. "I was going easy on you, at first."

Frankly, I wasn't sure if I liked being right about that, so I decided to breeze past it. Waving a dismissive hand, I said, "And I overreacted, let my pride—"

"No." The word came out sharp, perhaps sharper than he intended, because he modulated his tone and dropped his speech to nearly a whisper. "I'm not used to fighting women. It's true. The Frogmen of my military unit were just that—all men. And in this life I have only fought gangsters, thugs, Yakuza. More men." He shook his head, short blond hair gleaming in the warehouse's harsh lights. "You told me not to go easy, and I hadn't been planning on it—but then you said you wanted a fair fight. And I didn't think a fight between us could be that, given who I am. Given who you are." At that he spoke in an outright whisper. "My father was a chivalrous man. He taught me to be one, too. It is not a lesson I would soon forget."

That look on his face—that look of defeated nostalgia, eyes downcast and weary, yet full of a damned affection for someone who no longer existed—pulled my heart into knots. We did not easily forget the lessons of our past lives. We did not forget the ingrained habits of the lives we'd lived, even if those habits did not suit us here—because to forget them would be to forget where we came from.

We did not remember our names. To forget where we came from, too, would be too terrible to bear.

"I understand," I said, because I did. "Old habits are hard to break. But on the battlefield, there's not really a place for worrying about where people came from, and who they are today. I don't think I have to tell you that a soldier is a soldier, no matter who they are."

"Of course," he said, with a perfunctory nod. "But you are my friend, or getting there, and I worried about that, too." He didn't linger on that admission, although he did react to it with flushing cheeks. He added before I could get mushy, "And it wasn't just your gender. I worried I outranked you in terms of training."

"Well, duh! You do outrank me," I said. "You were a soldier. I was a proofreader. Our fight was a mismatch made in hell."

"But I should have at least given you a shot before dismissing you, trusted that you could handle yourself—because you're right," Minato said. "I won't always be facing men in this life. Until now it's been Yakuza thugs, but soon…"

I grimaced. So did he. "Soon it'll be Queen Beryl."

Minato nodded. "I wasn't aware I even had this hesitation inside of me. But I do." He eyed my bloody nose. Dryly remarked, "Or I did, rather."

"Need to punch me in the face some more and work through it?" I offered, chipper and bright and cheery.

He paled. "I'd rather not."

"Thanks; I appreciate that." I mock-shoved his shoulder, grinning my ghoulish and bloody grin. "And honestly, man, you do outrank me, if not in training then in… well." Shielding my hand with my torso, I mimed holding it up in the air as I whispered, "Moon prism power!" When Minato snorted, I just beamed. "I was shaking before we started."

His eyes widened. "You were?"

"Like a leaf in a gale. But then I felt like you were babying me and I just got mad."

"The anger didn't do you any disservice. You fought well." A hasty addition took the form of: "And I'm not just saying that to patronize."

I grinned. "You'd better not, or I'll drop your ass to the mat again."

That got him to laugh. "It was a clever move, what you did with your shirt."

"Thank you. My old burlesque buddies would've been proud."

"Burlesque?" He looked intrigued. "I sense a story or two."

"Try a dozen."

"We'll have to get coffee." He sobered quickly. "I'm serious, though. You can fight. But we didn't have a proper matchup, did we, Captain?"

"No," I said. "We did not."

"We will, though. Eventually." A true smile lit his eyes up, the blue of a vast ocean, unfathomable and deep. "And I promise not to hold back."

"And I'll hold you to it," I told him.

But I got the feeling I wouldn't have to, because Minato was the kind of man who would always keep his word—in this life, in the time before, and maybe even in the next.


Minato declined my offer of walking him to the train station on the grounds I'd miss my train if I escorted him to his—understandable, though naturally the side of me that worries constantly wondered if he was trying to beat a swift retreat. The smile he shot me over his shoulder, however, assuaged my fears, as did the polite bow he gave to Kurama as we parted.

"It was good to meet you," he said, composure perfectly in place. I admired Minato for that. He could stare the fox demon in the face and not even flinch. "I hope we get a chance to get to know one another next time."

"As do I," Kurama replied, returning the bow. "Kei hasn't mentioned you before. You're quite mysterious."

I flushed, of course, but Minato just laughed. "She's mysterious, herself." But even Minato, cool as he is, knew better than to linger and let Kurama question him. "See you soon, Keiko," he said, and then he was gone.

Kurama and I walked to the station together after that, bundled back up in our coats for the long trek home. If he wanted to interrogate me about Minato (not sure why he would; the tutor angle was perfectly plausible, after all) he refrained, because I pulled a bottle of water from my bag and wetted a handkerchief, blotting blood from my face and neck as best as I was able. When we entered a more populated area of town, I made faces at the few passersby who spotted us, grinning at them and giggling when they gaped and power-walked away from the girl covered in blood. Kurama laughed behind his hand, the trickster in him clearly pleased.

"So," I said when my face felt mostly clean. I shoved the gory handkerchief in my bag. "What did you think of my lessons?"

"Hideki is a capable teacher," he said, reply smooth and instantaneous. "Your skills reflect well of his abilities."

I have him no small degree of side-eye. "Thank you. Though that sounded a little rehearsed."

He ignored me, smile pleasant and bland. "And the maneuver with the shirt—"

My face caught fire; I buried it in my hands to put out the sudden flames. "Oh, god."

"—was clever," he said, a teasing gleam in his eye. "I was impressed."

"Yeah. Well." It took every ounce of my self-control to stare straight ahead and recall my Art of War. "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

"Indeed." He eyed me askance, small smile playing across his lips. "Your fighting reflects your broader personality, by the way."

Not sure if I liked where this was headed, I said, "I don't follow."

"Even fighting, you're helpful," he said. "Nurturing, even."

I flapped my hands by my shoulders, fast and small like a hummingbird. "Ca-caw! The albatross never sleeps." Shoving my hands back in my pockets, I favored Kurama with a scowl. "Don't tell Yusuke. He'd make fun of me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Kurama said. "The aim was to beat Minato, but in the end you helped him overcome a mental block. Even in the midst of battle, your goal was not to hurt, but to help."

"Oh god." My face caught fire again. "You noticed all of that?"

"Difficult not to, though I couldn't hear your reconciliation. It seems you parted on good terms, however."

"We did." I passed a hand over my face, rubbing at the last bits of dried blood in the crevices of my nose until they flaked away. "Honestly, I'm embarrassed. I got so mad at him when he wouldn't just haul off and hit me. I felt silly, getting so heated, but it pissed me off." At that I threw up my hands, hoping my earlier explanation (that Minato had been studying martial arts his whole life) validated everything I needed to get off my chest. "I know he was just worried about hurting me, but I'm not made of glass. I won't break. And he knows that. Or hopefully he learned tonight, at least."

"I don't think you gave him the option of remaining unaware," Kurama said. "You're forceful with your opinions when you have the mind to be."

"That I am." I kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk without really seeing it. "My old mom used to tell me that's why I'd end up alone."

Kurama started. "End up alone?"

"Oh. Uh. Never mind." Subject change, stat. "Tell me. You and Hideki had it out?"

And then it was his turn to be evasive, face trained carefully forward. "You might say that," he murmured.

I rolled my eyes. "I already got the vague and mysterious act from Hideki, so if you could just cut to the chase, that'd be great for me, mmkay?"

The sarcasm didn't make him laugh like I had hoped it would. It just made his eyes go hooded, his steps take on a brisk quality I had to double-time to keep up with. I nearly didn't hear him when he murmured, "As you wish," but I heard him loud and clear when he spoke up clearly, loudly, and dispassionately, as if delivering an address to a crowd. "He threatened my life if I hurt you. I assured him I wouldn't."

The confession, while not surprising, certainly wasn't gratifying. "So why'd you blow up?" I asked. "A threat of death isn't usually enough, I would think."

He shook his head. "I did not appreciate his insinuations. But I assured him—"

"No. The order's wrong."

Kurama stopped walking. I did, too, nerves building in my belly like steam in a kettle. I hadn't meant to interrupt him, but my brain had made a connection and my mouth had wanted the connection known—even if it meant Kurama staring me down like a lion, green eyes incandescent in the light of the streetlamp overhead. Deep breath in, deep breath out, I dug my fingernail into my cuticle and picked at it in the depths of my pocket, out of Kurama's line of critical sight. No sense letting him know how nervous he made me.

"The last thing you said to Hideki was 'enough,'" I said. "You didn't assure him of anything after that. The conversation ended with 'enough.'" I searched his face, his delicate jaw, tracing the lines of the garnet hair framing his pale features. "So what did he say that got to you?"

Kurama measured his tone like a volatile chemical, careful of a reaction. "I don't want to come between you and your teacher."

"I'm a big girl," I reminded him, and I wondered how many dudes I'd have to convince of this tonight; so far we were a solid three for three. Men, am I right? Flexing, trying to make light of it, I said, "I'm not made of glass and I won't break. I can make my own decisions. So just tell me."

He didn't tell me—not right away at least, but Kurama is never one to do something without giving it ample forethought. He stared off into the sky above my head without speaking, lost in thought. We stood there under that streetlamp, its light keeping back the dark but doing nothing or the winter cold, until I had to wrap my arms around myself with a shiver. The motion seemed to break him from his trance; his gaze alit on me, distant but determined.

"I don't belong in this world, or so he claims," Kurama said. Though he spoke with his usual silken intonation, the barest undercurrent of tension, of pain, snagged the words at the edges like thorns. "He insinuated I do not deserve this life I stole, and that I ought to give it up." He paused a beat, shoulders tensing. "He said demons have no place in Human World."

If we had still been walking, I surely would've frozen stiff, and not just at the unintentionally cruel thing Hideki had said to Kurama. Kurama hid it well, his poker face even better than mine, but I knew him and could hear the ragged tenor to his words. I knew what his pauses meant. I hadn't told Hideki everything about Kurama (mostly the he was living as a human and had a human body, through reasons and methods I'd left vague) but he'd managed to touch on some of the insecurities Kurama liked to forget he harbored. And Hideki had thrown them right into his face.

My heart just about broke.

"He's never met a demon like you before," I said, knowing my words didn't have the power to make it better, but trying all the same. "Just the ones he had to round up with the first Detective." I touched Kurama's arm, trying to convey comfort. "I'm sure if he really knew, though…"

He smile, albeit thinly. "Old habits."

"Old habits," I agreed. Something told me it was best not to linger on this subject. I shook myself and asked, "So, the blowup? Is that was caused it?"

"No." At that he looked almost annoyed. "He said I should stop pretending to be what I am not—for your sake."

"Mine?" I pulled back with a scowl. "What's that even mean?"

Kurama hesitated. I thought he might divert, tell me to go ask Hideki or something, but instead he sighed. Squared his feet and faced me. Seemed to debate something, and then make a grim decision.

"Kei," Kurama said. "Are we friends?"

The sheer absurdity of the statement rendered me momentarily mute, but I detected no trickery in Kurama's face—just sincerity, incongruous as it felt. "What the hell kind of question is that?" I said when I found my voice again.

"An honest one," he said. "So tell me: Are we friends?"

"Well, what the hell do you think? Of course we're friends." I huffed and turned away, hands balling into fists inside my pockets. "Pretty damn good ones, too, hence my extreme consternation."

"I see." Kurama looked pleased with himself, although the look dissolved into solemnity again when he breathed deeply. His next words were delivered with that same clipped tone he'd used before, a speech he'd been rehearsing in his head for hours: "Hideki thinks I am using you to have what he calls the 'full human experience.' His exact words were that I am using my pretty face to lure in a young girl with a soft heart." At that he eyed me up and down, the barest flicker of amusement lightening his expression. "He knows about your caring nature, your compulsion to care for others, as well as I do."

I thought about it. Realized with mounting horror what was going on. "Aw, man," I lamented. "He thinks I'm trying to mother the emo demon, doesn't he?"

The amusement flickered more brightly. "That's one way of putting it. In any case, he thinks I want to experience all humanity has to offer—including young love." And at that he outright chuckled, concealing his mouth behind his hand—but he had that gleam in his eye, that traitorously playful sparkle that said he expected me to blush atomic again. "He thinks I'm trying to seduce you."

"Gee." I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at the light overhead, internally gleeful I wasn't playing into his hand. "I wonder where he got that idea."

Kurama blinked, hand dropping. "Beg pardon?"

"Kuroko, the former Detective, had the same suspicion." A heavy roll of my eyes conveyed just how annoying this was. "Either you're too pretty for your own good, or they've been colluding."

Kurama regarded the light above, too. "I don't know which I find more disconcerting."

"Me neither." I passed my hand through my hair with a sigh. "So. Aside from the seduction accusation, what else did he say?"

He shrugged. "More of the same. He thinks if I decide said human experience is not for me, I will cast you aside with no regard to your feelings like so much unwanted garbage. That is why he wishes I would abandon my charade, as he calls it. He does not want to see you hurt."

"Hmmph. That's sweet of him."

At that he looked rather shocked. "Sweet?"

I shrugged, that time. "He's looking out for me. It's annoying, sure, but… sweet." Although I had to give the absent Hideki a look of disdain, too. "But as I've said a hundred times tonight, I don't need to be babied. I told him so when he was healing me. If you meet again, I'd like to think he'll play nicer. But we'll see."

Kurama didn't seem all that concerned about Hideki's treatment of him, however. "You don't think I'm using you?" he said instead, surprised.

I frowned. "Why the hell would I think that?"

"I just—" He paused. Thought about it. Admitted: "I was worried you might believe him."

It was almost comical, the look of open concern he wore, but I tried not to laugh at him. Something told me his pride wouldn't react kindly, and we'd had enough prideful reacts for one night. I just shook my head and snorted. "Seriously, Kurama?"

One red brow shot up.

"You let me meet your mother."

I didn't need to explain the importance of that, and what it meant, to Kurama. He knew full well what that introduction had implied, even if Hideki did not. Still, Kurama didn't reply to my simple reasoning right away. He threaded his hand through his hair, strands tangling around his long, dexterous fingers and against his palm like spidersilk.

"Yes," he said, voice soft and low. "I suppose I did."

I smiled. "Then that's all the proof I need."

And it was.

Hideki, and anyone else who questioned my relationships with the demons whom I'd come to call my friends, would just have to take my word for it.


NOTES:

I love Minato. Recently it occurred to me that he stressed needing to protect the Scouts in earlier chapters, rather than fight alongside them as comrades. That influenced this chapter. Part of his initial reluctance to become friends with Kag and Kei might have been because he first saw them as more people he would need to care for, which would be exhausting, hence his initial resistance before they proved themselves useful with their knowledge of Sailor Moon. I imagine he came from a very traditional, old-world household with rather strict gender roles, and his time in the military reinforced that—or rather, just made it so he never really had to give fighting women much thought, and this is the first he's really had to wrestle with the idea. Pun intended.

Minato has very distant parents in this life who didn't dictate how he was raised or force him to be something he wasn't. He was born in this life and was like, "I don't care what character's body I was born in, I am who I am and that's who I'm going to be." Documents updated, name updated to Minato, BOOM, he's living his best life from the start. His old-life chivalrous streak would remain intact, given this. I hope I handled this believably and w/ sensitivity. If I didn't, then let me know, because I think you probably know me well enough to know by now that I'd want to fix it. At least I hope that's how I come across, haaaaa. XD

About NQK in the fight scene: If I thought he was going easy on me because I'm a girl, I'd FLIP OUT. It's something I'm sensitive to. So much for keeping emotion out of the fight, indeed. My raging feminist pride would make an issue out of this, LOL.

I'm getting last week's fraud handled, but Friday night as I was writing I got an alert on my phone that someone tried and failed to gain access to my online banking account (they had the password and username but not access to a security item). Someone appears to be trying to hack that account. This so close on the heels of the fraud has me a complete nervous wreck. I feel like I'm under attack with no way to defend myself. It's suuuuuuuuuper not cool.

As of this exact moment I'm on a film set. Wrote a script Saturday night from 7 PM to 3 AM, filming it now, have to turn it in Sunday. Functioning on 3 hours of sleep. Nothing short of a miracle I got this done, but here we are. I literally wrote the final line today between takes on the set. MANY THANKS to all those who left comments last week, because y'all really did help me stay sane during my financial crisis: Selias, Nozomi Higurashi, xenocanaan, Dark Rose Charm, heeeter, C. S. Stars, SunShark, Blaze1662001, MissIdeophobia, MetroNeko, Flen99, Laina Inverse, 431101134, EdenMae, KannaKyomu, AshBlade, candyrocks13, chibi-no-baka, Guest Starring As, shen0, Tamisin, WaYaADisi1, Yakiitori, DiCuore Alissa, Kirie Mitsuru, Kaiya Azure, Anya Kristen, Marian, Kasey Kay 17, Pelawen Night, yofa, Renee Sarah, zubhanwc3, Sweetfoxgirl13, OnlyThymeWillTell, StrawberryHuggles, VixenVariety, Vixeona, smilesy, read a rainbow, xIsntItFunnyx, NinjaKitty8020, BlueberryChiffon, Konohamaya Uzumaki, Tay, RedPanda923 and 8 guests!

Back to the film. I'm script supervisor. SO TIRED.