Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Chapter 10

The room was so big that they almost could not see the other end. The wall was extended to make the room seems round. But even so, that spacious room is filled with many long tubes which contain a green liquid and many organisms in them. Organisms that look exactly like the Kumoto.

"What the hell are these? The Kumoto? They have such bizarre sleeping habits." Okita talks to himself and knocks on one of the glass tubes. The guy inside looks like he's deep asleep and did not respond to the sound at all. Kamui explores the room while Kagura looks around in amazement.

"100…200… 649… God, there are so many of them!"

"Come here for a second," Kamui's voice comes from somewhere in the room. Okita and Kagura follow his voice and found him fiddling with something that resembles a computer. "How do we use one of these again? I knew should've listened to Abuto when he told me that space pirates need to know this kind of thing. Why didn't I listen to him again? Oh, right, because he is Abuto."

"Um… let's see…" Okita presses down on the big red button. The machine made a beeping sound and the monitor comes to life.

"Please input the password."

"A password? What a pain in the ass." Kagura mumbles. She pushes both men out of the way and traces her fingers along the keyboard. "Here, let the Awesome-sama do this."

S-a-d-a-h-a-r-u- Enter.

"Wrong password. You have two more opportunities."

"Are you stupid, China? Why would they even know who or what Sadaharu is?" Okita mocks and knocks her head. Kamui made a 'Tsk' sound as he makes his way to the computer and stepped on Okita's foot on purpose.

"I shall give it a try." Said the orange-head Yato with fierce determination, then he dances his fingers on the keyboard.

O-ki-ta-Sou-go-shall-die-by-my-bare-hands-and-so-shall-other-people-whom-I-detest- Enter.

"Wrong password. You have one more opportunity."

"That can't even be considered a password. It's just the message you wanted to send to me! Don't get your work life and personal life mixed together. It's not cool."

"Eh, then what about you? You want to kill your own boss, for heaven's sake."

"Who wouldn't want to kill their own boss? It's something everybody wanted to do, but I just execute it." Okita sighs. "Now look at what you siblings have done. We only have one more chance left. What are we going to do with this?"

"Sadist, look, there's a Forget you password? button on the screen. What do they take their computer system for, Faceb**k?" Kagura shakes her head while she points at the screen with disgust. Kamui smiles lightly at her tone as he clicks on the button and a message pops up.

Please look under the table.

"…" The three of them stare at each other and bend down to look under the table that holds the computer system together with a blank face.

And sure enough, there is a yellow sticky note with a sentence written on it.

Password to the computer: Kurumi-chan

"OH MY FUCKING LORD!" Kagura swears, her veins pop out visibly. "WHY IN THE HELL WOULD THEY EVEN BOTHER HAVING THE PASSWORD?! IT IS JUST USELESS AND PLAIN ANNOYING!"

"Oh, it's Kurumi-chan again." Okita spits as he types in the password. "I swear to god, this girl just doesn't know when to give up on me. Okay… and we're in. Wait, what kind if an alien language is this?"

"Oh," Kamui let out an I-got-it sound. "This is the ancient Yato letters. I've seen them before in school."

"How come I haven't?" Kagura asks curiously. Okita shakes his head at her while waving his finger in front of Kagura.

"Because you neglected your studies. Be ashamed, China."

Kagura grabs his finger and bend it to the side without even blinking. Okita let out a sound of agony.

"No. It's just because I went to school longer than you did." Kamui said with his eyes are glued to the letters on the screen in the fear of the same fate that might happen to him if he were to turn around and tell his sister to pay attention in school more. His ears picking up the fighting and swearing sounds coming for the two people behind him to make sure that his little sister is not being sexually harassed in anyway. "I found something interesting. This file is called… 'Diary'."

"Ohh, I love peeking into someone's diary. It shows the true nature of that person. Did you know that I saw Hijikata-san's diary once? Based on his diary, it clearly showed that he is a…"

Kagura lifts up her left hand to stop Okita. "I don't want to hear the rest. It is disturbing and disgusting."

"You just killed the fun." Okita smirks quietly to himself. His mental state travels back into the moment when he was looking for porn books under Hijikata's futon (so he could use it to blackmail him) only to find something else even more interesting. Kamui turns to look at the two and clicks on the file twice for the letters to appear. He read aloud in the language that the other two could comprehend.

"Year oo, month pp, date xx, 2 days before prom. Yukina dumped me."

"… Who the hell is Yukina?' Kagura asks.

"The girl who dumped whoever wrote this diary." Answered Okita. Kagura gave him a look of 'as if I didn't already know that' while Kamui read the next entry.

"… Kazumi refused to go to prom with me just to show-off to Yukina. This sucks. I want to die."

"I asked my best friend, Takano, to cross-dress and go to prom with me. He said he has a date already. He has a date? He never told me that."

"I wanted to stay home on the prom night, but I wasn't about to show Yukina that my life can't go on without her. I went alone with a bottle of wine as my friend."

"I saw Takano kissing Yukina."

"3 days later, Takano's and Yukina's body were found behind the gym. Apparently, the weapon used to commit the crime was a bottle of wine. Serves them right…"

"Woah, woah. This is getting a bit too personal here." Kagura paused Kamui. What kind of an after dinner drama show is this? The guy killed his ex and his best friend!

"Way to go." Okita claps amusingly. "I like his guts. Though, he must be pretty lame if his girlfriend leaves him for his best friend. My slaves are loyal to me and would never do anything like that."

"Love is blind, love is blind." Kamui let out a long signs. Seeing that the rest of the following years are just a worthless mention of revenge against Takano and Yukina, he skipped the other entries until one caught his eyes.

"Year vv, month tt, date gg. The disease broke out. Half of our population disappear."

"The situation is hopeless. We can't find the cure."

"My dog died."

"My mom died."

"My dad died."

"My ex-girlfriend and my ex-best friend are already dead. By my hands."

"I was the only one who survived the disease. There is no one left on the planet. "

"I discovered a paper on how to build artificial beings while looking for food in the late doctor's office. Might as well give it a try. Being alone is lonely."

"I built the computer system called Kurumi-chan to assist me in this project. I named her after my favourite heroine in the TV show. Should I have named her Yukina-chan instead though? Nah."

"The project is going well. They are exactly like how we were; however, their skin is incredibly hard. They can think, talk, eat, and even have diarrhea. The only thing I can't give them is our sharp senses in battle and our fighting skills. It is something that can only be passed on by true warrior blood. They must experience battles for themselves in order to gain that."

"As luck may have it, I found the perfect planet for this purpose. Earth. I shall let the artificial beings experience the battle here and take over the whole planet in process. Then we'll redeem our reputation as the strongest fighter in the universe… MWUHAHAHA."

"Hmm, so that's the deal here." Okita nods to himself once Kamui is done reading the diary. Even so, he can't help but add; "By the way, the last laughing part you did there was terrible, China2."

"Really? I thought that it sounded quite evil." Kamui said while looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "This is bad. I have to master this laugh for the moment I take over the universe, so I can look like one of those badass guys. Let me try again. MWUHA…"

"Not like that. It is WAHUHA…"

"That sounds very wrong, Earthling. Do you even know what you are talking about? It is more like MUHAHA..."

"HAHA…"

"UWHAHA…"

"GYAHAHA…"

"That's enough! My ear drums can't take this!" Kagura shouts after hearing the terrible laughter from the two most psychopathic guys in the whole anime. Okita bends down and started coughing while Kamui tries the different pitches in his insane laughter.

"AH~ Testing, testing. One, two. AH~"

"Are you trying to laugh or are you auditioning for Uta no pr*nce-sama?!" Kagura asks her brother who touches his neck while lifting his voice with a dead serious face. Okita stops his gagging noises and his head shot up from where he stands.

"I already got into that anime. Even though I'm not the main character, I still get to woo the masochist heroine."

"Not bad at all, Earthling." Kamui said after he found the perfect pitch he was looking for. He'd then smirked. "But did you hear that song, MOVE, I sang yet? It was way more awesome than the ending song of Code: Bre*ker you sang. The girls on YouTube squeal for more."

"Oh yeah?" Okita flips his head to the side. His bang flew in the air. "People said my hair looks like Just*n B*eber."

"Stop right there. You are endangering this anime!" Kagura speaks up when the two show no signs of stopping their bluffs. "I know I brought up this whole trolling thing, but you are really digging our grave here."

"Relax," Okita said while leaning his back against the computer system and yawns. "I know that you and Danna had already ruined it. I'm just adding rubbish in the garbage pile, that's all."

"Earthling, step away from the computer for a second. I think you had just pressed some weird button here." Kamui commented when he notices that Okita's hand is on this one particular suspicious looking button. The prince of Sadist stops leaning on the table and together, the three of them look at the weird letters that are appearing in the screen very quickly like a virus.

"Oh, crap. What should we do?" Okita asks when the letters show no signs of stopping. "I think we broke it."

"We?" Kagura and Kamui step away from Okita Immediately like he is some sort of germ. "Excuse me, but did I just hear the word 'we'? Because I'm pretty sure it was you who pressed that button, Earthling."

"I hate to admit it, but he's right." Kagura adds while shaking her head. "You did this all by yourself."

"Wait, like what. So you guys are ganging up on me and ditching me together? So much for our friendship." Okita said to the two siblings, even though he had already known that there was no friendship between the three of them from the start. Not when all three of them have to sleep with their eyes wide open when they are together.

"Just fix it and let's tell Gin-chan and everybody else about it." Kagura takes out the Mayo-talkie. "Hey, you two useless groups, we found something pretty interesting here. Once you are done with whatever you are doing, head to the control room. Over."

"Ah, I can't do this anymore!" Okita gives up once he'd pressed every buttons there are on the keyboard. "China2, you fix it."

"Eh, why should I do it?" Kamui asks lazily with his grin on his face. He is now feeling sky high because of his rival's uselessness. "I really can't see any solid reason to do so."

"Reasons are the last thing a psychopath like you need. You are the only one who can read this, so just do it."

While the three of them are busy arguing about who should fix the computer system, a big shadow casts upon them very quietly and almost undetectably. Kamui who'd sensed it first react immediately by round-house kicking the owner of that shadow in the gut.

To his surprise, the guy just flinched. He responds by taking a hold of Kamui's leg and throws him across the room, crashing into the wall. Okita and Kagura dodge to the sides.

"Tsk." Kagura whips around and aims her parasol at the place where her enemy is supposed to be, only to find that no one is there.

"China girl, above!" Okita shouts. Kagura rolls out of her previous position before a fatal attack could hit her. She was relieved for a second… only a second, until she can feel a hand grabbing onto her shoulder and crushes her to the floor.

"Guh…" Kagura let out a sound of frustration. Her head is spinning and her eyes are unable to focus. Her legs become active and she sweeps it across the floor, hoping to trip her enemy. Just who the hell is this guy? He is different than the other Kumoto we had fought.

"You are probably surprised." Came the voice from somewhere above Kagura. Kamui climbs his way out of the hole in the wall while Okita stares at their enemy who had put the distance between them. Kagura got up to her feet and recognizes the guy's face right away.

"You are… the leader of those pigs we saw in the meeting room!"

"Ah, I'm impressed to see that you are alive. It is always a bonus when your opponents are tough." The leader said in a mockery tone. He throws his cloak to the side, exposing his muscles and tanned skin. His smile somewhat resembling Kamui's smile in the homicidal mode as he introduces himself. "The name is Hotsuma, the true blood single survivor of Kumoto clan!"

...

"So it was you…" Okita points at him with a deadpanned face. "Who built the annoying bitch, Kurumi-chan?!"


* Suzumura Kenichi, the seiyuu of Okita, is also the seiyuu of Masato Hijirikawa from an anime called Uta no prince-sama. This anime is pretty much about a girl surrounded by guys who can sing like gods.

** Hino Satoshi is Kamui's seiyuu. He sang a song called MOVE, which literally made me spill blood on the computer screen. His voice is so fucking hot!

*** The ending of anime Code: Breaker (Shiroi Karasu) was sung by Suzumura Kenichi, Okita's seiyuu. That song was awesome too.

Yaho~ hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thank you for your supports as always + please comments and review! ^_^