Chapter 3: Just Pull The Fucking Trigger Already
A/N: So this relationship is going to look super rushed for a while, but there's a very good reason for that. It will be mostly explained by the late middle of the story, and fully explained by the epilogue. I have all the plans in the world, but it's killing me because I can't talk about any of it… Just stick with it, and I'll drop the first big-ass bombshell in the next chapter when I cover Sanageyama's battle with Ryuko. Sound good? Good.
Another couple of weeks passed before anything interesting happened, leaving Ryuko and I thankful for small favors. We were still fighting off the various club presidents, and things were almost boring after the twelfth or thirteenth straight day of absurd fighting. As for my relationship with the volatile girl, it had grown quite a bit stronger, and there were only a few secrets I kept from her – mainly about my personal feelings on some matters, I had no desire to get beaten up.
It was a day like any other when both the weirdest and most serious battle to date occurred. Ryuko, Mako, and I were eating our lunches out on some rusted chains that were still used for whatever reason when the roof of the building behind us exploded in a flurry of dust. Turning around, I made to look up at the darned thing to find quite the battle taking place, but shrugged it off as something inconsequential before brushing the crumbs off Kurai and standing.
"Ready to leave?" I asked. "It seems Mako's been kidnapped again while we weren't looking, and by the trail of fake organs on the ground it'll have been the biology club. You want to take this one?" At this point, we had been taking turns decimating our enemies. Small fry like a two-star wasn't going to bother us too much, even though the two-star was often surrounded by one-stars.
"Yeah, I probably should. Wait for me by the entrance?" I nodded and waved her off with a kiss on the cheek. "I'll be sure to beat your record, too. Hmph, I still can't believe that you wiped the floor with the Cleaning Club in seven seconds."
Laughing at my girlfriend's playful indignation, I flipped her a three-fingered wave and strode away towards the entrance in question, not bothering to look back. I knew she was long gone by the time I put down my hand. "I have a bad feeling about this, Rou. It feels like something's going to happen, something that neither of us like."
"Kurai, you have a bad feeling about a lot, but you're probably right in this case. It's been too quiet recently, feels like there should be more action in this story. I'll keep an eye out, and if Ryuko flies through any walls then I'll let you take over."
"Sounds good to me, Rou. And you may want to look across to that wall, your girl seems to have just come hurtling through it in a spray of needles." Startled, I spun on my foot just in time to see a bleeding Ryuko come flying through the side of a building, landing midway between me and the destroyed wall. I growled as a figure stepped through behind her, generating quite the cloud of dust.
"Alright then. Looks like we have a real fight on our hands this time. Kurai, I'll hold off on transforming for now, I want to hold all my cards close to my chest on this one." Unsheathing my swords and letting their auras flare, I stalked up to Ryuko. She appeared to be pinned to the ground with sewing needles, and I grimaced when I tried to pull her up. This wasn't going to happen easily.
"Step back from the Kamui user, kid," a deep voice sounded across the field, and I looked up to find a heavily muscled man in a combat vest, pants, and boots striding towards me, dual-wielding guns that looked similar to sewing machines. This one was going to pay for what he had done, and I fully activated my blades, crossing them and admiring the way the auras swirled about each other.
"Not a chance of that, man," I responded, spitting to the right of us, "There's no way I'll be letting you get away with attacking my girlfriend like that." Despite my bravado, I had the distinct feeling I wouldn't be able to stop the man without triggering Kurai. Sneering, I reluctantly pulled the pin from my glove.
As always, the transformation was accompanied by a flurry of motion about my body as Kurai fed off my blood, contorting and releasing some of the power he gained to twist about me. Once I finished, I held back the usual yell announcing what had happened and chanced a glance back to Ryuko, who was staring at me with wide eyes, shaking her head.
I let my sneer soften and winked at her before turning around to face the mysterious figure. "I suppose you know what my wearing this means, and from your attire I'm going to hazard a guess you're from the organization in Osaka, right?" The man's expression turned into that of disbelief, and I grinned. "I know I might not be able to beat you here, especially with Ryuko as she is, but know this, buddy: If you insist on coming after us, you probably won't survive the fight."
"Pretty words, kid," The man laughed darkly, "But let me tell you two things: One, I hate being interrupted when I'm working. Two, I'm already coming after you, Kamui user." With that, he made to aim at me with his guns, and I brought my swords to bear, the light of their auras casting shadows on my body that shouldn't be there.
"Good luck. My swords are singing – singing for your blood – and they won't stop until you've been drained. Normally I'd restrain them, stuff the sound into my body, but you've threatened the only constant in this life of mine. Well, really both the constants in my life, though I only hope for the second one to stay." I hoped Ryuko heard me and understood what I was trying to stay, and I readied myself, opening my mind slightly to the sounds coming from the crossed blades.
"Tsumugu, stop this at once!" Mikisugi's voice broke through the cloud before things got bloody, and I frowned in disappointment. Looking back, I saw that he had subdued Ryuko with a jab to one of her pressure points – from her stiff posture, I figured she wouldn't be aware of anything until it was jabbed again.
When the teacher broke into the line of sight between the man and me, I saw that he wasn't too happy. "We need to talk. Now. Meet me at the usual place in fifteen minutes, I'm going to have to clean up your damned mess." Ah. He was using the cover of the cloud to obscure how he knew the man. Then again, the only one other than myself with the mental faculties to understand was Sen, and he was busy trying to get Ryuko to wake up.
"Mikisugi!" I stopped him before he could leave, glaring lightly at him. "I hope you understand that if that… man… cannot stop himself from assaulting Ryuko, then I will be forced to act." Stiffly, my teacher nodded once and turned to walk away, once more taking up a relaxed, almost lazy stance after the dust had at last settled.
"Hey! You forgot to fix my girlfriend! Hey! Mikisugi, you aren't going to make me try and find the spot to jab, are you?!" I called after him, having realized that Ryuko was still on the ground, unmoving. Unfortunately for me, he was already long gone, leaving me with the loathsome task of jabbing random spots until she woke up. I sighed; this was going to take quite a while.
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"Did you really have to spend so long waking me up?! It shouldn't have taken you any time at all, but no, you just have to go and prod me for half an hour. And then – AND THEN – we just had to go home, just like that?! I've had to piss since this morning, and then all that bullshit went down, and I still have to piss!" I sighed. Ryuko had been yelling at me for the past hour about my actions earlier in the afternoon.
"Look, you're right, maybe I should've been a bit faster, and yes, I was afraid that you would wake up and break my nose for being close to you, and that's stupid, I know, but it doesn't change the past. And we've been here for an hour, if you had to piss why didn't you go when we got back?!" I really couldn't see her logic, though I suppose that was a by-product of being male.
"I wanted to yell at you, alright?! That guy was powerful, and I don't even think you could beat him, Rou! And now he knows you have a Kamui, so he'll be after you as well. Fuck, you really shouldn't have done that, but you're right. I need to piss, and you better not have moved when I get back, or there'll be hell to pay. Got it?" I nodded solemnly and crossed my arms, leaning back against the nearest wall leisurely.
After Ryuko left our shared living space, Mako snuck in and stood in front of me, peering up into my face with a cute little look of annoyance. "You made Ryuko angry and worried! She was scared for you and you just went and blew it with all your cockiness and stuff!" I sighed again, rubbing the back of my head wearily.
"Mako, I know, and I'm sorry about that, but if she thinks for one moment that I was just going to sit there and watch as she and Sen were killed, she's got another thing coming. I don't care how dangerous that asshole is, I sure as fuck wasn't going to let him take the one person that cares about me more than anyone away. I tried to get her out of there, I really did, but she wasn't going to budge with all those pins and needles in her. Fuck me… Mako, I think I might be falling in love with her! And I've known her scarcely a month! What the fuck…" I trailed off after my rant, and noticed two things almost at once.
First: Mako had a supreme look of satisfaction on her face. Second: Ryuko was in the doorway, where I hadn't noticed her, and the comical shape her mouth was making would have been amusing – and completely adorable – in any other circumstance. Well… shit, I thought, my mind completely blank except for my inner realization. I'm so fucked. So caught up in my panic, I hardly noticed Ryuko open her mouth to speak, opting instead for the safe route out the window and as far away from the house as I could run. I needed to calm down and think about things. I needed to go to the ocean.
An hour of mindless movement later, I found myself sitting in a culvert that overlooked the sea. Kurai was silent; he knew I needed to be alone for this. Once I calmed down sufficiently – well, as sufficiently as I was going to get – I thought about what I had said. Am I really? I hardly know what love is. Hell, I didn't know I had even been in contact with any humans until less than a month ago! I'm so fucking confused, and I have no idea what I'm doing. Fuck me, and I ran away from her too. Now I'm really in trouble.
"Let's go out on a limb here and say I'm falling for the girl I just met, who I also knew from before… which is confusing in and of itself. I don't have any idea what this crazy feeling is, but that alone means I'm right, right? Ah fuck, this is so messed up. What am I supposed to do, Kurai, I probably just fucked everything right up before it started. I don't even like pears!"
"Well," my Kamui replied, and I could tell he seemed kind of nervous. "You could always ask her. She's standing right behind you, after all… and she doesn't look angry at you." Shocked and afraid, I stood and made to spin around, but found myself enveloped in arms that didn't look like they were going to be moving anytime soon. For a moment I kept trying to escape, only to learn every time I so much as twitched away the arms would grow tighter.
An eternity passed in silence before either of us spoke, and when we did it was both of us. "I'm sorry." I squeezed her hand to let her know I would be going first. "Sorry for scaring you, but I just couldn't do nothing. I was angry and scared too that someone could smack you down like that, and I wanted him gone so badly, so I almost got myself in a worse situation. So sorry. And about what I said…"
"You're an asshole," Ryuko interrupted me, and I winced as her arms drew yet tighter around me. Even so, I could almost feel the blush on her face. "But I think I might be falling for you too. And sorry for yelling at you. I didn't realize." My eyes widened as comically as her mouth had earlier, and without further debate I spun in her arms – somehow, and I still don't know how with how tight they were around me – facing her at once.
"Yeah, I'm an asshole and a bastard and whatever else. But what was that you said about cliffs and splattering sounds?" My analogy mad me chuckle slightly, though the girl holding me looked at me like I was crazy before she shook it off.
"I said I think I'm falling for you too, Isa. Now shut your whore mouth and kiss me already."
I grinned. "But Ryuko, yours is the only mouth my own has touched. How, then, can it be a whore? Especially since you're not paying it anything." Ryuko growled and moved a hand up to the back of my head, forcing me into it as she usually had to. Not that I was complaining about it; she was pretty persuasive after all. She had a sly tongue.
"So," I drawled after we separated. "If that's what you're going to pay me, you'd better have more coming, because I might just consider being your exclusive whore mouth." Her grin was all I needed to respond in kind, and we turned back into the city to head home.
"Hmph. Only if you initiate it for once," she smirked at me, obviously thinking it was clever of her, but I only leaned close to her as we walked.
"Normally I'd love to, but what if I like it when you dominate things like that?" I laughed as her eyes snapped forward and a blush grew on her cheeks again. No matter how much she looked like a badass to other people, she was still seventeen, and I still knew how to make her react like that.
"Well do you?" she said after a few more minutes, causing me to respond identically to her despite myself. She sounded so curious I couldn't help it.
I sniffed. "Of course I do, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It feels way too good for me to just give that up on your whim like that, though I suppose I can attack you once to see if that's any better." If I was good at anything when I was embarrassed, it was rambling and feeling self-conscious at the same time.
"No, that's alright. If you tried it, I think I might punch you." I almost tripped as we walked at how nonchalantly she said that. This time, though, it was Ryuko's turn to sigh. "What's happening between the two of us, Rou? Why is it that we feel this way after knowing each other for so short a time? It feels so real, but I'm afraid of what it could mean…" Glancing at my girlfriend saw her with a pensive look.
Smiling softly, I just pulled her close. "Well, I for one am done worrying about the past and future. We'll figure it out, and we'll deal with that when it comes for us to do so. For now, let's focus on the present, alright? We're probably going to have to fight that guy again tomorrow, so we need to be good. Are we good?" Ryuko stared at me incredulously.
"Do you really need a reminder that we're good? After the five minutes we just spent making sure we were 'good?'" I laughed and shook my head slightly.
"Not really, I just wanted an excuse to kiss you," I replied cheekily, and Ryuko rolled her eyes before tackling me to the ground with a wide grin.
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Fuck, fuck, fuck, where is she, where is she, where is she? I thought frantically as I dug through the rubble that surrounded me. I need to find her. I need to find her. Fuck, this is really bad. Unfortunately for my continued mental health, I had bigger problems as a furious Nonon Jakuzure stalked towards me.
"Where's your girlfriend and that hunk of meat, Isa?" she screeched at me, and I frowned harder than I already was.
"Who do you think I'm looking for, woman?! Fuck, I'm so worried, and right after all that shit about love last night too. I knew it was a bad idea, I just couldn't keep my damned mouth shut until I was sure of it, and now I've jinxed us and now she's gone and I don't know where she is and –" I was cut off by a slap to the face.
"If she's still alive, Isa, she sure as hell isn't going to be in here with us. I don't know about half of what you were just saying, but you might want to check off school grounds. Even I can tell you'll tear this place apart if you keep looking for her, and Lady Satsuki doesn't want to deal with any more construction than she has to." Shocked with the girl's helpfulness, I pulled her into a deep hug and let my thanks be known before sprinting out of the school. Now that I had been pulled to my senses, I had a pretty good idea where she had gone.
It had all started that morning. Ryuko had found the man I knew was called Tsumugu leaning against the wall just inside the school, smoking a cigarette idly. As I was beside her, I immediately aligned myself next to her for support, but was instantly taken down by a trap the foul man had lain before my arrival.
Unconscious, I was in the rubble of what used to be the ground for at least a half hour, and in that time the two fighters had destroyed half the school. Even worse, I learned from Mako that most of the damage had been caused by a hurtling Ryuko, and that she had almost lost Sen to the guy. Once I had woken up, I made to move towards the latest cloud of dust only to find a massive pile of rocks and destroyed wall.
No, I had thought, denying what was then obvious to me. I just couldn't believe that Ryuko had been defeated so soundly, just like that. I had begun to sift through the mess, lifting rocks bigger than me like it was nothing, blinded by a panicked rage. Every time I saw a hand sticking out of the ground, I tried to reveal it, and every time it was only a one-star student that got caught in the crossfire. It was here that Nonon found me.
"She had better fucking be at Mikisugi's," I growled, drawn out of my thoughts by the sight of the ratty apartment building in the distance. "If she isn't, I'm going to rip the fucker in half, damn the consequences." Storming up the stairs once I reached the slum, I didn't bother knocking on his door, instead slamming my body straight through it.
Inside, I found Tsumugu and Mikisugi quietly discussing something or other, and I sneered in rage at the nervous look on their faces at the sight of me. Ignoring the teacher, I grasped the other man by the throat and shoved him against the wall. "Where is she?!" I roared, spittle flying into his face. "I swear on my fucking life, on all five fucking months of clear memory I have, that if you've touched her or Sen then you'll be dead before the sun goes down tonight. Do you hear me? Dead!"
There was a whooshing in my ears and I twitched before falling to the floor, putting my head in my hands. Sensing how powerful the fire had become, it seemed Kurai had forcibly stopped me in my tracks to stop me from getting too out of control. "What the fuck?" I asked him. "How the hell did you learn to do that?!"
"I just remembered how to do so, Rou. And you might want to look behind you before you get too forward." Turning slowly, my eyes widened at the sight of a sleeping Ryuko on the couch. I didn't know how I hadn't woken her up, but I couldn't bring myself to care as I crawled over to her, climbing up the couch to sit next to her face.
"Sorry I couldn't be there, Ryuko. I should have seen it coming, but I was caught in the trap anyway, and I almost lost you." I knew she couldn't hear me, but I leaned in next to her ear anyway. "You know, I was so scared, but you just look so peaceful. And you know what? I might've said some stuff last night about falling for you, but I think I already did. Ryuko Matoi, I think I fell in love with you. Fuck, this is crazy."
Much to my shock, a cheeky smile appeared on my girlfriend's face, and she cracked open her eyes at me. "You're an asshole, Rou. Go apologize to those fucks for scaring them so I can do it myself once I get up, and we'll talk about this later, where there aren't any perverted teachers." Smiling, I nodded and kissed her cheek once before standing and moving to the other occupants of the room.
"Tsumugu, you really need to understand that there's more to Ryuko and Sen, Kurai and me, than meets the eye. You can't hear their voices but we can, and there's nothing we can do about that. I really would dislike killing you, but if it must be done then it must be done, and I won't hesitate to do so with or without my Kamui."
"That's not what I'm here to say, though. That's part of it, but I would like to apologize for choking you out just now. I was blinded by my fury and fear, and I took it out on you. Coming over here, I just got angrier and angrier, and not even Kurai could stop me. So sorry for that." My eyes, while still filled with determination to carry out my earlier threat, held a softness that wasn't there before.
"I accept your apology and your threat with open arms, Isa. Whether we fight for or against each other the next time we meet, I'll treasure the battle that ensues." I supposed that was as good as I was going to get under the circumstances, and held out a hand to shake. As if wary of any violence I could wreak, Tsumugu reached towards me, and that was that. I did squeeze a bit harder than was strictly necessary, but he deserved it.
"Wait a minute. You, Mohawk Man, you know Mikisugi? Just who the hell are you guys?! And don't think you're off the hook either, Isa. How is it that all of you three are so chummy?" It seemed that Ryuko had finally connected the dots, though Tsumugu had taken our momentary lapse in focus to escape from what was sure to be an explosion of pure Matoi anger.
"W-Well, you see Ryuko, I'm not really 'chummy' so to speak with them, I just… ah, fuck it, you wouldn't believe me if I swore my undying loyalty to the cause. So, dear teacher, ready to get beaten to within an inch of your life with me?"
"An inch? No, for this we'll be delving to within a centimeter of your lives, you morons!" I winced. This wasn't going to be fun, and I slightly regretted not revealing this little fact to Ryuko the previous night. At least I was better off than Mikisugi; not only was my pain tolerance higher than his, I was closer to the frustrated girl than he was.
A/N: Not my best work, and certainly not a very clean ending, but it was filler mostly. The big shit doesn't go down till next update.