Ch 53
V 1.0
A/N 1 – Contains violence and some bad language; readers discretion advised.
Kanazawa High School
Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Metro Tokyo, Japan
late January, mid afternoon
"I wish you would just tell me what's up, Aki-san. You're starting to make me nervous here. This isn't a plan to get me somewhere alone to have your way with me, is it?" Sarah McDougal was walking down the school hallway, her shadow Nyamo Namo beside and slightly behind her on her left. Classes had ended for the day, and by the time she had packed up her bag and picked it up their classroom and the hall outside of it was almost empty except for her roommate and their taller classmate.
"I save that kind of thing for the love hotel. We don't have to worry about making too much noise that way." Aki Wakirihara was walking on Sarah's right, but as she spoke she stutter-stepped so that she fell slightly back before stepping between the two Hinata girls. "Besides, the two of you are so cute I can't help myself!" Throwing her arms around their necks, Aki pulled the two girls' faces into the sides of her large bust; it only took a moderate amount of struggling for the girls to break free, as they were becoming all too used to their friend's antics. Sarah looked slightly annoyed as she straightened up, while Nyamo had a poker face that would make a killing in Vegas.
"Seriously though, I have a solution for your club problem. I just want to keep it a surprise for now." The taller girl had seen the American blonde reading a book titled Kaguya-hime no Monogatari during their lunch break the other day. Amused by the fact that Sarah was reading what could be called a tenth century version of a science fiction story, Aki asked her about it and was told that since she could not find an extracurricular club to join for the school requirement, she was required to do book reports on various Japanese literature books. Sarah was reading that particular book as it had been suggested to her by her guardian, who had extensive literary knowledge. After waylaying Nyamo in the restroom and getting an idea what her roommate's interests were, Aki was struck by an idea on what could be done about it as Sarah did not seemed to be overly enthused by her assignment. Running her idea past the dusky islander girl she arranged to have the two girls stay behind the next day to carry out her plan.
"Don't make me sic Nyamo on you, you won't like the results," Sarah groused as she straightened her rumpled blouse.
"Is that a threat or encouragement? Because I wouldn't mind rolling around with Nyamo-chan. Aida-kun could even record and make some money from it, especially if there is chocolate pudding or lime jello involved." Aki grinned at Sarah, who twitched at the name of the hentai photogragher. Nyamo twitched slightly as well, but for some reason did not look disturbed by the idea. "By the way, I've told you to call me Aki-chan, otherwise I'm going to think that you don't like me." The taller dark haired girl pouted for a moment before continuing. "Besides, the fact you don't use an honorific with Nyamo-chan doesn't help with those rumors that the two of you are lovers."
"Ah, fuck 'em. Nyamo's my best bud, I'll call her what I want." Sarah was looking ahead while she spoke, so she did not see the faint blush appear on the islander girl's face, but Aki did not miss it. "And don't bring up that dipshit Aida, I'm still pissed the fucker got off as easy as he did." After a review of the images that Su's supercomputer was able to copy off the otaku's laptop, a total of about ten girls were identified as being subjects of nude or semi-nude pictures, Aki being among them.
"Aida-kun didn't exactly get off easy, you know," The taller girl replied. She had not been that upset by the pictures that had been taken of her, mostly because as a teen gravure model she had been the subject of published photos that could be considered more risqué. The pictures taken in the locker room had been of her wearing a strawberry print bra and panties, while some of the photos Aki had stored on her own mobile phone from official photo shoots had her wearing only string bikini bottoms and her large breasts covered only by her hands, some strategically placed object, or sideboob shots. The poses were something that Sarah was not used to either, as gravure magazines usually had the model pose with their legs wide open as a panty shot or bent over with their covered butt and crotch visible; poses like that were usually only seen in the raunchier porn magazines and websites in the U.S. "The money was pretty good, and I didn't have to cut my agent in on it!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Sarah groused again. After going through Aida's image files, the blonde was shocked to find that the dumbfuck actually kept copies of his financial files on the laptop, detailing how much money he charged for pictures of the various girls and even how much he had saved in a bank account. The files had been encrypted of course, but Su's MolMolTech supercomputer had literally laughed at the encryption and broke it with a petrabyte of RAM processing power.
"Hey, it was the easiest fifty thousand yen I've made as a model, and it didn't even involve a trip to the casting couch!" Aki laughed, causing Sarah to give her a sidelong glance. She knew her friend was kidding about the couch thing, but she did not think it was all that funny; her time in Roanapur had made her into kind of a prude as a result.
After going through all the files at the end of the school day at a sidewalk cafe, Sarah, Su and Aki talked about what could be done to Aida. Given what they did to the otaku's computer was not strictly legal, there was not many things that they could do. Talking to Miki Sato earlier that day had not helped matters, as the overweight girl was fanatically devoted to her erstwhile boyfriend, even crying when they told her that they planned on exposing his activities. It had only been when Miki started begging for the girls not to hurt 'her Ken-chan' that Sarah turned and walked away in disgust, Aki and Nyamo following behind her.
The American girl had been all for letting the little bastard twist in the wind, but Aki and surprisingly Su had been against that plan. Aki gave the justification that the girls had not really been hurt by Kensuke's activities, and he could make it up to then, while Su's reasoning had been simpler; Miki really was in love with the otaku, and by exposing his activities they would expose her as well, which would make her life at school even more unpleasant than it currently was. Sarah was not happy with this reasoning, but was willing to go along with it.
After some more talking, a plan of action was settled upon. Using a voice modulator program rigged up by Su on an Internet phone call routed through three continents to be untraceable, the American girl called up the otaku on his mobile phone and laid down the law to him, and then gave specific instructions to be carried out by the next day. When Kensuke squawked that he did not have the money to do that, Sarah nodded toward Su, who texted a screenshot of Aida's bank account records to his mobile phone, causing him to moan out loud. When Sarah asked if he need more encouragement, Kensuke brokenly agreed to do as he was told. To make sure that he knew that they were serious, Sarah had Su text a copy of the upskirt photo that Aida had been able to get of the girlfriend of the head of the biggest group of delinquents at school that proved that she was not a great believer of wearing undergarments. Hearing the otaku whimpering, Sarah repeated her instructions briefly then ended the call.
The next day after school nine girls in addition to Sarah, Nyamo, and Aki met in an empty classroom, brought together by Aki's 'suggestion' to meet. Most of the girls there were the ones that Sarah classified as 'snooty bitches', although it also included Class Rep Hikari Horaki. Aki was the one that did most of the talking, since they all knew that most of the girls there did not like Sarah and would hardly believe anything she had to say. After giving a brief explanation of what Aida had been caught doing (while leaving Sarah and Su's names out of it) the other girls present looked ready to kill, while Hikari was warring between fury and mortification.
Telling them that the person responsible was going to make amends, Aki gave the signal to Sarah, who went next door and brought over a visibly scared Kensuke Aida with Miki Sato following behind him, having insisted on coming along with her boyfriend. Pulling him to the front of the classroom, Sarah put him down on his knees with her hand on his shoulder to keep him in place to prevent him from either bolting or fainting. Miki was standing off to the side with Nyamo next to her to keep her from doing something stupid.
Standing next to Aida like some demented game show hostess, Aki gave the rules of the encounter; she would call up each girl by name to stand in front of Aida, who would give a deep forehead-to-the-floor bow and apology. Aki would then hand the girl two envelopes, one with pictures of the girl recovered from the laptop and the other with fifty thousand yen cash, about five hundred dollars American. The girl was not allowed to permanently or visibly seriously injure Kensuke in retribution, and kicks and punches to the body and head were strictly prohibited. This left a couple of loopholes open, ones that the angry girls quickly took advantage of.
The first girl opened the photo envelope and after a quick riffle of the pictures inside responded with a full power open hand slap across Aida's face before storming off. The next two girls responded the same way, at which point Aki helpfully told the following girl to slap the other side of his face to balance it out and not break something, which she enthusiastically did with a back hand pimp slap before leaving.
A couple more girls did the facial slaps, but the last three were the scariest. A demure looking studious but busty girl in glasses (number three on the popular pics list) looked at the pictures, slowly tore them up and shoved them in her skirt pocket, threw the money envelope at Aida and then spat in his face before turning and walking away. The next girl was Kimiko, the girlfriend of the delinquents' boss, and she merely went through the pictures before tucking them and the money in her pocket before walking away, but not before giving a long freezing cold look at Aida. Before she walked out the door Aki called out to her that if Aida was attacked after this they knew who would be the first to blame. Kimiko merely nodded and left the room.
The last girl was Hikari; after looking at the pictures she put them in her pocket, dropped the money on the floor and with tears streaming down her face merely said I thought we were friends before walking away. By that point Kensuke was looking more than a little punchy (pun intended) but he looked stricken by his now former childhood friend's words.
Once all the girls were gone, Sarah gave the nod to Nyamo, who had been physically holding Miki back as the various girls struck Aida. Running over to her woozy boyfriend, she dropped to her knees and hugged him, crying all the while. Sarah gestured toward the door and the three remaining girls left the room, but not before Aki picked up the two money packets from the floor. Seeing the look the blonde gave her Aki suggested they could split the money three ways; the look both Sarah and Nyamo gave in response made the taller girl sigh and say that the money would be given to a temple or something.
Before the three left the school however Nyamo finally spoke up. Looking steadily at Sarah, the islander girl said I was keeping a girl from protecting the boy she loved today. That is not going to happen again, her words both a statement and a promise Nyamo then turned and walked down the hall by herself for once, leaving the blonde frozen for a long moment before hurrying after her.
When they had shown up the next day in class Kensuke and Miki were both absent. Concerned that Kimiko did set her boyfriend and his gang after the pair, Sarah asked Hikari about their status. The Class Rep did not look happy to hear his name, but she stated that both Kensuke Aida and Miki Sato had been pulled out of class by their parents for a week at least, and there was talk that he was in the process of transferring to another school. After looking over at Kimiko and seeing that she was looking annoyed for some reason, Sarah mentally shrugged and went back to her studies.
Now she was walking down the hallway with Aki and Nyamo, feeling only slightly exasperated at not knowing their destination. Coming up to a door in a wing of the school she was not familiar with, Sarah noticed there was an artistically hand-lettered sign hanging from the doorknob; Manga Arts Appreciation Club In Session. Aki walked up to the door and opened it, gesturing for Sarah and Nyamo to walk in before following after them. Sitting at a table was a teen boy who looked to be busy drawing in a sketchpad with a pencil, with various loose pieces of paper scattered around him. The teen's head was tilted down focusing on his work in front of him, at least until Aki loudly called out, "Hey Shinji-chan!"
When he looked up, Sarah was struck by how the teen resembled Keitaro with the same dark brown hair and eyes and rectangular glasses. But while her guardian had a slightly weary look on his narrower face most of the time, this guy had a more oval shaped face with a relaxed curious expression evident, his hair longer and messier.
"Hey there Aki-chan." The teen would have said more, but the tall busty girl had walked up to him, tilted his head back and then leaned down to give him a full-blown kiss, one that lasted a full ten seconds and to Sarah's surprise involved tongue, something that most Japanese did not do in public. After the girl broke away the boy continued talking like he had not been interrupted. "I guess you're happy to see me."
"I'm always happy to see you, Shin-chan." Aki purred, rubbing her cheek against his hair before straightening up. "These are the girls I was talking to you about."
"Aki-chan, I keep telling you, you're more than enough woman, you don't need to set up a threesome for me." As Sarah tried not to choke on her own saliva, the boy stood from his chair and gave a half bow. "Hello, my name is Shinji Kazama, Aki-chan's boyfriend. Please excuse her forwardness, she seems to find it amusing." Now that he was standing, Sarah could see that the boy was about her age and slightly shorter than she was, leaving him about half a head shorter than his apparent girlfriend.
"That's not the only part of me you enjoy." Aki ruffled his hair. "And I brought them here for something else, the threesome can happen later…unless Sarah-kun is up for it right now?" She gave the blonde a hopeful look, who returned her look with a raised eyebrow. "Maybe later then. Shin-chan, this is Sarah McDougal and Nyamo Namo." Both girls gave half-bows matching the one that Shinji gave them. "Sarah-kun is having problems finding a club to join, so once I found out what her hobbies are, I thought about having her join your club."
"You want me to join a manga club?" Sarah asked incredulously. She did not mind reading the occasional manga when she was bored, but she was not a full blown comic book geek either.
"Manga arts club." Shinji had a half smile on his face as he spoke. "We are more into the story development and drawing of doujinshi manga than just fandom for established stories and series. I've always had an interest in drawing, and I also have an interest in military aircraft and mecha, so this is the best way to combine the two."
"How did you sell the school on this? No offense, but 'manga arts appreciation' sounds like a total ass-pull," asked the blonde girl.
Shinji grinned. "It was a total ass-pull, as you put it. The only club I had the skills or interest to join in was the Arts Club, and they were not enthused with my drawing military subjects. I did not want to join the regular manga club either, all they wanted me to do was draw hentai pictures of their favorite characters." The smile slowly left his face. "Plus, I had just started dating Aki-chan and they wouldn't give me a moment's peace about her. So I read the school regulations for the formation of student clubs and came across something interesting. There is no minimum number of students that need to belong to the club, so long as they have a faculty adviser and can present proof that their activities contribute to their education. So I came up with a proposal for a club and started looking for a faculty adviser for it."
Shinji gestured for everyone to sit, and once everyone was in a chair around the table he continued speaking. "Thanks to some gossip that Aki-chan overheard there was a teacher here at the school that was not an adviser for a club, and the administration was giving him trouble about it, since it was one of their required duties. So I made my proposal to Sensei Ito, he accepted, and here we are," he finished saying.
"Wait, how many people are in this club? And where's Sensei Ito at?" asked Sarah. The three girls and the boy were the only ones in the room; their homeroom teacher was not present.
"Counting Aki-chan and myself? Two people." Shinji smiled again. "Aki-chan is officially my posing model, and I am the artist. And as for Sensei Ito…" The teen tilted his head toward an office door to his side and held a finger to his lips requesting silence. When that happened everyone could hear the faint sounds of snoring coming from the other side of the door. "I show him my drawings every once in a while, he gets credit for being an adviser, and I fulfill my club requirement; everyone wins."
"How does he know that you aren't just screwing around in here while he's taking his nap?" Sarah asked curiously. Nyamo glanced at her friend sharply out of the corner of her eyes at the semi-rude question.
"Because I was told that if we were caught doing something immoral on school grounds that one of us would be expelled and it was not going to be the prize winning student athlete." The two girls saw Aki pout at Shinji's words. "Which means Aki-chan usually drags me out of the school to do things like that." The pout on the taller girl's face turned into a grin.
"Damn right, it's a boy's duty to take care of his girl." Aki reached out and took hold of his hand, intertwining their fingers. Turning toward Sarah, she said, "I figured that you would want to do something besides reading books about the rabbit princess of the moon."
Sarah hesitated for a moment. "I guess. I've never done any real story-telling drawing though, usually I do portraits or landscapes."
"We're not expected to make commercial quality illustrations with full backgrounds Sarah-san. At worst we can make flip book style animations, but a simple story would suffice. In order to do a doujinshi manga story, we would probably storyboard a plot with stick figure people before we would begin the actual art panels. Once that is done the actual drawings would take place." Shinji paused for a moment. "But I am getting ahead of myself. Would you mind showing me some of your work?"
After thinking for a few seconds, Sarah nodded and pulled out her sketchpad from her school bag. Placing the pad on the table, she pushed it over to Shinji, who started flipping through it, Aki peering at it from his side.
"This is very nice Sarah-san. Your technical skills are fairly strong, and your proportions are right on." The young man looked up at the blonde. "You don't do any colorized drawings?"
Sarah shook her head. "I save that for portraits. I usually do pencil and charcoal shading for most of my stuff. When I do color pictures I use colored pencils, and that's a bit of work."
Shinji nodded before looking down at the book and flipping through a few more pictures before coming to a stop. "Well, this is a surprise. I usually don't see mixed subjects like this outside of fantasy art." He opened the pad fully to show the picture he was looking that, the portrait of Keitaro Urashima in traditional garb but firing a handgun at the viewer.
"Oh, he's a cutie! He looks a lot like you Shinji-chan, who is this Sarah-kun?" Aki was now looking closely at the picture.
"It's my guardian and the manager of the dorm I live in, Keitaro Urashima." Sarah was surprised to see Aki's head snap up toward her at those words.
"This is your guardian? I met him once, he didn't look like he does here." The grin on Aki's face was slipping away.
"When did you meet him?" asked Sarah curiously. To her knowledge Hikari Horaki was the only classmate of the Hinata girls that Keitaro had met.
"When you got knocked out during the race a couple weeks ago. He came into the infirmary while you were still unconscious, and boy did he looked pissed. He talked to all of us about what had happened before he went off to the administration offices. He's not someone I would want mad at me." Aki gave a shudder that was not entirely fake.
"Wait, your guardian is Keitaro Urashima, grandson of Hina, the head of the Urashima clan?" Shinji was looking right at Sarah as he spoke.
"Yeah, is that a problem?" Sarah was getting confused by this line of questioning. She knew why people might be scared of Keitaro if he was visibly angry, but all this emphasis on his Granny and his clan was confusing her.
"Sarah-kun, the Urashima used to own most if not all of Kanagawa Prefecture in the feudal days. Even now they own big chunks of a lot of things. The Urashima aren't to be taken lightly." Aki was looking serious for once.
"Come on, they're not that rich, are they? I live at the Hinata Inn, they don't act like it. Keitaro-san does chores around the Inn for crying out loud." Sarah was surprised at the level of wariness she was seeing in her classmates.
"It's not the money, it's the connections. To quote someone I heard on television, they know people who know people who know people." Sarah could hear the emphasis on the last 'know'. "It does explain a couple things I've heard about you," said Shinji.
"Things? What things?" Sarah was starting to get concerned.
"That your guardian tore strips off the administration for what happened to you in that accident." Aki was the one to answer. "That he is the reason Sensei Wada stopped trying to recruit you for the choral club. That you now have the same 'hands-off' status as Kaolla Su."
"What?" The blonde was surprised to hear that.
"As long as no one gets hurt and the buildings don't get blown up Su-chan doesn't face major punishment for her little experiments. Your guardian made it clear that he wasn't happy about what was happening to you here in school." Aki said in a serious voice. "I've heard said that the admin staff had a talk with Kimi-chan and her little gang to lay off on you, that's why they stopped messing with you; that and you not taking their BS laying down. Short of you starting some major crap they probably won't mess with you again."
"What about what we did with Aida the other day?" asked Sarah. By the time Kensuke had been let go his face was starting to look like a plum, it was so black and blue from all the slaps.
"What, you think Aida-kun is going to put in a complaint? No, he'll transfer out of this school and that will be the end of it. Everyone probably knows that you were behind what happened to him and that's going to add to your rep." Aki replied.
"Why would they think I was behind it? You were the one that was doing all the talking," protested the blonde.
"Most of the girls there know I don't give a damn about them except for Horaki-san and Fujita-san." Aoi Fujita had been the bespectacled girl that had spat on Kensuke. "Nyamo-chan probably would have just kicked the crap out of Aida-kun if she had caught him red handed. That only leaves you as the person that set that up," Aki finished saying.
While the two girls had been talking, Shinji had started flipping through the sketch book again. Coming to the last few pages, they heard him give a sound of surprise, drawing everyone's attention toward him. "Sarah-san, are you a fan of the Halo video games?"
"Not really, why do you ask?" Sarah was confused by the question.
"Because this scene looks kind of familiar." Shinji turned the pad around so Sarah could see it right side up. On the page was a drawing of a dark haired male from the waist up wearing what looked to be combat armor, firing a vehicle mounted belt fed machine gun. The aspect of the drawing was at an angle and from behind the figure so his face was not visible, but the heavy weapon was obvious, as well as the muzzle blast as it was fired. What made this drawing noteworthy was that it was partially colorized; instead of just the blacks and grays of her other sketches, the muzzle blast was colored orange/yellow and there were red streaks coming down the back of the man's armor. "This kind of looks like the gunners on the back of the Warthog attack trucks in the Halo games."
"I reckon so. Never really played the game myself." Sarah's voice flattened out slightly, causing Aki to look at her curiously.
Shinji flipped the page toward the next drawing. "However, this is not something you see in the game." The sketch showed the muzzle blast of the machine gun and beyond it at a distance was an open-backed truck that was apparently being targeted. Visible in the back of the truck were slightly indistinct human figures, figures that were obviously being blown apart with limbs and colorized blood flying.
Sarah gave an abrupt single shoulder shrug. "Don't watch war movies after eating leftover Chinese food, you get funky dreams." This time it was Nyamo who eyed her, since she knew that her roommate was not one for war movies.
"And then there are these…" There were some partially colorized head and shoulder portraits; one was of a frowning man with icy blue eyes, dark stubble hair and beard, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips; the next of an older man wearing a ball cap with a colorized Union Jack flag patch on it, his face also with a stubble beard but with a smiling expression; and the final picture of someone that looked like Keitaro Urashima, only his head was bowed slightly with his eyes closed as though he was resting for a moment. One could see how tired he felt from his expression and pose, and this picture had the red streaks as well, only they were coming down his face, including two that looked very much like blood tears.
"Too much?" Sarah was looking at Shinji with her head slightly tilted, a curious yet challenging expression on her face.
"No, not really. You normally don't see drawings like that. The closest I've see of that are pictures done by war veterans." Shinji closed the sketch pad and pulled over another booklet that was sitting to the side. Opening the booklet, Sarah saw a drawing of what looked to be an Imperial Japanese Navy Zero fighter plane in a banking turn so that the top of the fuselage and wings were visible. "This is the kind of art I usually do, but it's not very popular I'm afraid. People tend to be of two minds about the war, either they are pacifist and think I am some kind of warmonger, or they are militants and think that Japan should rearm again and want to use my art to promote that." Shinji started flipping pages and Sarah could see an American USN Corsair fighter with the bent gull wings, a drawing with a red tri-wing plane with German Iron Crosses on the fuselage and wings dogfighting a biplane with British insignia, some Gundam mecha, a series of drawings of a F-14 fighter plane with red and white kite insignia transforming into a black and white robot with a skull and crossbones on its chest plate, and finally a single horned demonic purple cyborg robot. "What I do enjoy drawing is dogfight scenes, and modern fighters don't really do that anymore, they fire missiles at long distance and dodge out of the way of the return fire."
Sarah looked up at the teen across from her and had a flash of insight. "You want to be a pilot, don't you?" she asked softly.
Shinji smiled slightly. "Yes, but these keep me from doing so." He tapped his eyeglasses with an index finger. "I could become a civilian pilot I suppose, but it wouldn't be the same."
While the two were talking, Aki had pulled over another sketch book and had been flipping through it. At her soft 'ahh' of discovery the others turned toward her. "Hey Shin-chan, I thought that face was familiar. Take a look at this." Spinning the book around she pushed it toward the two teens. The colored full-length drawing was of a bareheaded man in samurai armor, holding two long swords in a low ready position. Everything in the figure's pose and expression screamed 'I am going to kick your ass' but what was most surprising was the man's face; he looked just like Keitaro Urashima minus the glasses.
"What the hell?" Sarah was surprised to see her guardian's face on the drawing, since presumably Shinji did not know him personally.
"Oh, that picture. That's my version of a rather famous drawing done by Miyamoto Musashi, the famous swordsman. Musashi was famous for not being defeated in his many duels, but he said there was one man that could have killed him during the Sengoku Wars. The man was more concerned with protecting his friend than killing and let him go, supposedly he fought against a half dozen men at once and defeated them all. At the end of his life Musashi said that he owed that man a debt for showing him that no matter how good one thinks he is, there is someone out there that can defeat you, and for inspiring him to develop his dual sword style, the Niten Ichi Ryu." While he was talking, Shinji brought out a tattered soft-cover book with the title The Book of Five Rings on the cover. Flipping through the pages, he found what he was looking for and turned the book around to show Sarah. An older version of the drawing was on the page with the face matching what was in Shinji's own drawing, but what drew the girl's eye was the title of the picture – the Demon of the Forest.
Closing the book after she passed it back to him, Shinji set it to the side and looked at Sarah. "From what I can see you are a fairly good artist Sarah-san, and I think I would enjoy working with you. So would you be interested in joining my humble club?"
It did not take long for Sarah to come to a decision; nodding her head in a bow she then extended her hand across the table. "You've got yourself another artist, Shinji-san." The teen smiled as he took her hand and shook it
"Yatta! You know what this means Shin-chan! Time to celebrate!" Aki grabbed her boyfriend by the shoulders and slammed him face first into her chest. Even as Sarah shook her head, she could hear Shinji mumble "Please excuse my girlfriend, she's a little too enthusiastic about this." Pulling his head up, he looked Aki in the eyes and firmly stated "Not here, not now."
"Okay! Later at the love hotel then!" Aki then orally assaulted her boyfriend as Sarah merely sighed and Nyamo looked at them in some curiosity, apparently making mental notes.
Kanazawa High School
hallway
mid afternoon
Shinobu Maehara was running late, something she disliked doing.
Normally, club activities did not last more than an hour after the end of the regular school day, but the blunette had been delayed waiting for the muffins she had made to finish baking. It did not help that most of the members of the Cooking Club had been hanging around to mooch the finished product. Shinobu had taken that into account when she had made the dough, so even after everyone had gotten one of the large muffins she still had enough left over to bring home to give to the residents for desert. As much as they sometimes protested that they need to watch their weight, the older girls of the Hinata-sou never said no to one to one of the young cook's blueberry muffins.
Right now Shinobu was walking quickly down the hallway, juggling a cardboard box containing the muffins, her book bag, and her winter coat. If she hurried, she would be able to catch the scheduled tram home and still be able to have dinner completed on time.
Just as she was turning the corner to go down the stairwell, someone gave her a hard shove on the shoulder. With a strangled yelp, Shinobu fell backwards on her butt with the box going in one direction and her bag and coat in the other.
"Watch where you're going, ya little shit." Three girls around her age came around the corner. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, the blunette recognized the girls as Junko Himura, Eri Maki and Ami Nakano, three of the biggest bullies in the school. While they could not dominate most of the other students they would not hesitate to push around the younger and more timid teens among them. Junko was probably the worst of the lot, especially since she was still angry about being thrown off the track team after deliberately tripping Sarah in a race resulting in her being injured.
Pushing herself back, Shinobu was starting to stand back up when Junko suddenly kicked her ankle, causing her to fall back down with a short shriek of pain. "I didn't give you permission to get back up, you dog turd. You stay on the floor like the piece of shit you are."
Tears of pain and fear streaming down her face, Shinobu watched as Emi picked up her book bag and upended it, the contents spilling out on the floor, while Ami stomped down on the pastry box, smashing its contents.
"You think you're hot shit just because you live at that fancy dorm on the hill, doncha? Little Miss Goody Two Shoes with the good grades and the fancy cooking, making everyone look bad." Junko stepped closer to her, while Shinobu started to frantically crawl backwards on the floor. "Guess what, that kendo bitch ain't here to protect you anymore, so I'm going to fix you up but good." Backed up against the hallway wall, Shinobu could only cringe back as the redhead stepped up close to her and wound up her leg for a full power kick.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!" The enraged shout in English caused everyone to freeze in place, only for the redheaded girl to be slammed into by a fifty kilogram blonde missile, knocking her away from Shinobu and across the hall into the wall.
"YOU FUCKING CUNT, YOU'RE HURTING SHINOBU!?" Sarah McDougal's face was so red it looked like it had a bad sunburn, only a few centimeters away from a suddenly wide eyed and pale Junko Himura. The blonde girl's blue eyes were almost glowing in fury, her left hand clenched on the other girl's jumper. "I'M GOING TO FUCK YOU UP!"
As Sarah's right hand started to pull back for a punch, another girl suddenly slammed into them, only this one grabbed the blonde's fist and held it back with all her strength. "Sarah, no! Don't do it, you'll hurt her!" Nyamo Namo was struggling to keep her friend from attacking the bully, and slowly losing.
"I WANT TO FUCKING HURT HER!" Sarah had almost pulled free when Junko was suddenly pulled away from her and thrown down the hallway into the two other frozen girls, knocking them all down.
"Get the hell out of here, you stupid bitches! We can't hold her for long!" Aki Wakirihara had now slammed into Sarah from behind and pulled her and Nyamo into a bear hug, the two girls barely able to hold onto the furiously thrashing blonde. "RUN, NOW!" Scrambling the three bullies took off down the stairs and out of the building while the two girls held onto their friend as her struggling slowed and finally came to a halt, all three teens panting and breathing heavily. It was not until the remaining girl came up and hugged them all that Sarah went still.
"Sempai, I was so scared! I was so scared! Thank you thank you thankyouthankyou…" The younger girl started sobbing as she wrapped her arms around the neck of the blonde, the other girls gradually letting go of her once they were sure that Sarah wasn't going to go tearing after the bullies.
Standing rigid for a long moment, slowly Sarah's arms came up to wrap around the waist of the crying girl as her face was pressed into her neck and shoulder. "It's over, Shinobu-chan. It's all over." She thought about how lucky the younger girl was. If it had not been for the blonde hearing a cry of pain echoing through the empty halls when she and Nyamo had been leaving the clubroom she would not have taken off at a run toward the sound. But seeing that redheaded bitch about to kick a fallen Shinobu had caused a fury she had never felt before to come roaring out of her.
Feeling the other girl stop trembling, Sarah realized that it was not just her dorm mate that was shaking. "Oh shit, I don't feel so good…" Her legs wobbly and feeling weak, the blonde started sagging down to the floor dragging the younger blunette with her before the other two girls held them upright.
"Looks like an adrenaline crash," Aki said after eyeballing her friend. She had seen it happen after track meets, so she was familiar with the effects and signs, especially the pale sweating complexion and tremors. "Shinji-chan," the taller girl directed her attention to her boyfriend who had finally caught up with them and was standing there wide-eyed. "Grab all of our stuff and what on the floor and lock it up in the clubroom. Shinobu-chan and Sarah-kun are in no condition to ride the tram home. Nyamo-chan, do you guys have enough money to take a cab?"
The dusky girl hesitated for a moment. "We have enough." Even if they didn't, all Nyamo had to do was to say that the Urashima would foot the bill, and most local cabbies would give them a ride.
"Ok, let's get everything together and get going, Sarah-kun needs to crash bad." Throwing an arm over her shoulder, Aki held onto the exhausted blonde and looked over at the younger girl. "Can you walk on your own Shinobu-chan?"
Shinobu took a couple steps and flinched but was able to stay upright. "For a little while, yes." Her ankle hurt like the blazes but could support her weight.
"Let's go then. Shin-chan I'm going with them, I'll call you later." Aki started hauling Sarah toward the stairs, Shinobu limping after them, Nyamo bringing up the rear.
A/N 2 – Another month, another chapter…this one only two or four weeks late, depending on how you look at it. No Keitaro in this chapter, but you will be seeing more in the next one, which will deal with the fallout of the assault on Shinobu.
I'm sure some of you are thinking, 'You bastard, you hurt Shinobu!' I'm sorry that I had to do it, but bullies in Real Life do not attack people who fight back, they go after people who look weak. Unfortunately that is Shinobu, since she is the most non-aggressive person in this story; I had real problems writing that part of the chapter. Some others are probably thinking 'If the bullies know that Shinobu lives at the Hinata-sou with Sarah, why are they trying to hurt her?' The answer is that bullies are usually not that smart and/or logical; they hurt people to get emotional gratification from their pain and fear. In the bullies case all they know is that bully-repellent Motoko is no longer protecting someone they would naturally target. Even if Kimiko's gang was warned off on messing with Sarah there are some that would not make the logical connection that this also applies to Shinobu, especially when they see her alone in an empty school hallway. Remember, criminally minded people are not logical the way other people are, they are doing these acts to fulfill their own desires and to hell with everyone else. That being said, those bullies are going to have a really bad day in the next chapter.
I was going to have Motoko make an appearance in this chapter, but I decided not to; the former kendo girl is too busy in her new life, and it would be a little too convenient to have her show up for the rescue. I do promise that I will write a chapter at the end of this arc showing what she has been up to, and she will be more involved in the final part of the story, after the end of the Escaping Roanapur arc.
Shinji Kazama is a canon character from the anime series Full Metal Panic!, and not from Neon Genesis Evangelion, where the main character is named Shinji Ikari. I did leave a shout out in the form of a drawing of the Giant Purple People Eater, otherwise known as Eva Unit 01, as well as the inclusion of the VF-1S Valkyrie 'Skull One' fighter flown by Roy Fokker and Rick Hunter in Robotech – Macross Saga, the series that introduced me to Japanese anime when I was just in middle school.
There will be more time with Keitaro and Sarah next chapter, and after that we will see Keitaro do a demonstration with Haruka and Kanako of the Urashima-ryu fighting styles, both armed and unarmed.
Winner of the last chapter's Most Unusual Place Reading My Story is Venezuela (their economy is about to collapse and they are reading my story there?!), with the Runner Up being Argentina (there is a restaurant here in LA I go to when I can afford it that makes excellent bife de chorizo – Argentine-style strip steak) .
Double thanks (because I forgot to do it last time *dope-slaps self*) to my beta readers AZ MII and PCH, and my FFN beta WalkerofDarkness for going over this chapter.
As of 0000 PDT 22Aug16 this story has approximately 310K words, 746K Views, 838 Reviews, 61 C2 Listings, 1327 Favorite Listings, and 1218 Story Alerts. Thanks to everyone for reading. *gives victory sign*