Chapter 4: The Rescue Mission
It's a picture-perfect day at the Koigahama Archery Club's practicing field. The sky is blue, the warm sun caresses the athletes in a warm embrace, and what few clouds that are in the sky dare not block the sun. A cool breeze sweeps across the field, throwing off most every arrow that flies toward a target. One archer after another misses their mark, and while most just blow it off, one takes the attack on his practice personally. Kaoru Hatsujo, the senior-most member of the team, is having trouble hitting the mark on the targets, and each time his shot is blown off mark, Kaoru's scowl worsens. The wind is unable to blow his hair all over the place, since he has it tied off behind his head, so it makes due by affecting his aim.
He's not a particularly good-looking man, Kaoru: his face looks like it was lumped together with clay by some ecliptic artist, his eyes are a bit too large, and his body too bulky, like a body builder. Yet, despite this, he is still respected by his underclassmen for having slept with fifty percent of the female students at the school. Lately, however, he has been slowing down, dating a girl in his math class. For the first time, he feels love for a woman. He expresses his love on a daily business, but recently, his girlfriend has been cold and distant to him. She avoids him in the halls, she does not return his calls, nor does she ride home with him after school. It is almost like they aren't in a relationship at all.
Kaoru's arrow whizzes through the air and strikes just an inch from the bull's-eye on the target. He shouts in fury and throws his bow to the ground. The club leader, Kenichi, keeps an eye on Kaoru, just to make sure that he won't do anything dangerous.
"Kaoru, take it easy," says one of the club members. "You'll break the bow!"
"Piss off, you little worm!" howls Kaoru as he passes by the younger member.
"Hey, Kaoru, chill out," the club leader tells him. Kaoru turns around and charges the leader. He slams the young man into the ground and starts punching him repeatedly. Each blow draws blood from the leader's face.
Kaoru howls, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you to death!" as he beats Kenichi to a bloody pulp. It takes four of the other archers to pull Kaoru off the leader, and it takes three more just to restrain him.
The leader spits blood past his lips. "Ka…Kaoru," he groans, "consider yourself…off the team." Two members help him past the fuming Kaoru and over to the school for medical attention. All the remaining members, the guys, let go of Kaoru and he pushes past all his friends and heads off the field. One of his friends, Lee, picks up Kaoru's bow and chases after him.
"Kaoru!" he cries, "Kaoru! You forgot your bow!"
"What the hell do I care?" shouts Kaoru. "I can't fire a damn arrow today! I don't need it!" Still, when Lee catches up to Kaoru, the excommunicated member takes the bow from Lee's hands.
Lee looks down in sadness. "Don't…don't do anything rash," he tells Kaoru.
Kaoru's face lightens up. He smiles as he pats Lee on the shoulder. "Lee," he says, "don't worry about me. Today's just not a good day, that's all." With that, he turns and heads to his car in the parking lot. First, he is going to go to the locker room to change out of his uniform, and then he is going to drive into town and pick up some flowers for his girlfriend. Maybe they will help patch up the relationship that needs fixing.
He is not going to make it into the car without shedding blood…
***
"Everybody, down onto the ground!" shouts Black Cupid. He swings his crossbow around before him, threatening all the patrons of the bank. They all fall, almost in unison, to the white tile floor. With his hostage in his arms, Black Cupid makes his way through the bank, stepping over the hunched over hostages. The other members of the Unlucky Valentines Crew quickly run through the bank, their sights trained on every person inside. Two security guards appear from a back hallway, brandishing pistols, but Black Cupid holds his crossbow to the hostage's head and scowls.
"Shoot at my men, and I kill the girl," he says as he tightens his grip on the weapon in his hands. The police officers hesitantly drop their guns. A couple of Unluckies run over and smash the officers in the back of the head with their crossbows. Suzuna, trapped in Black Cupid's arms, struggles against him, hoping to break free. Try as she might, the man's arm won't budge.
She screams, "Let me go!"
Black Cupid presses his forearm against the girl's neck, causing her to start gagging. The archer leans his head down and hisses into her ear, "You're not getting out of here alive, got it? We're gonna rob this bank, and we're gonna kill everyone inside here, got it? So shut the hell up and quit squirming!" Suzuna's eyes well up with tears, fear building up inside her body.
Does he mean it? Am I really going to die? What's going on???
All these questions run through Suzuna's head, but there is just one that manages to escape past her lips. "Why are you doing this?" she asks through gasps of air.
"You wanna know why I'm doing this?" asks Kaoru venomously. "You wanna know why I'm the Black Cupid?"
"Well, I didn't ask that, but-"
"Shut up, I'm talkin' here! It all started about six months ago…"
***
Frustrated, Kaoru stomps to the locker room to change out of his sweat-laden t-shirt and sweatpants. When he opens the swinging door, he slams it against the cement wall. He heads to his locker, where his change of clothes is waiting. There is no one in the room, but Kaoru can hear the sound of two people somewhere nearby, probably in the showers, becoming intimate with each other. As Kaoru changes out of his sports gear, the noise reminds him of how he and his girlfriend would lock lips while watching a movie at his home. It makes him feel frustrated and angry, so he goes to put a stop to it.
"Hey," he shouts into the showers, "knock it off!"
"Fuck off!" a guy replies.
Kaoru's eye twitches in indignation and he stomps over to the showers to give a piece of his mind to the two in there. When he reaches the room, he sees one stall is covered by a white curtain. A girl's feet and a guy's feet show from underneath the curtain. Clothes hang over the top of the stall.
"There you are, ya little shit." Kaoru growls and rips the curtain away, but before he punches the man in the shower, he freezes. The girl in the shower is HIS girl. She looks at him with her wide eyes filled with shock. Her half-naked body is glistening with sweat, shivering with fear and anxiety. Her brown hair, damp, falls into her face, framing the look of terror about her. The guy she is with punches Kaoru in the jaw, throwing him back against the tile wall.
The man shouts, "The hell was that for, you son of a bitch?! I was just about to get some!"
Kaoru rises from the ground shakily. He feels weak, sick almost. There is a nagging sensation in his chest. The sensation is like a muscle being torn apart inside of him, and it refuses to be ignored. He watches the guy and his girl collecting their clothes from the stall and the feeling only grows stronger as they move. When the guy starts walking away with his girl, Kaoru looks up at them. All he sees is red. Blood fills his eyes, his fingers start trembling. This is the way he feels when he is out there on the field, competing against the other archers. This is how he feels when he gets into fights at school. It's the feeling he gets when his good-for-nothing father talks to him. He wants to kill them. He needs to kill them.
He WILL kill them.
Before they get very far, Kaoru lunges at the guy and smashes him into the ground. He grabs the man's head and smashes it into the tile floor. Blood mixes with water as the life fluid drains from the man's face. Kaoru does not stop there though. He picks the man up and throws him into the lockers. The girl screams, but Kaoru doesn't hear her; he only hears the blood pumping in his ears. His fists beat down against the man over and over. He breaks the man's nose, he fractures the jaw, he makes blood splatter all over his hands, his face, his clothes. The blood goes everywhere.
Out from the corner of his eye, Kaoru sees his girlfriend. She is screaming and huddled up in the corner. Drenched in blood, caked in sweat, Kaoru gets off the man's body and slowly crosses over to the girl. He passes by his bow, lying against a locker, and he picks it up. Kaoru smiles at the girl, and she knows what's going to happen. He will kill her. Without remorse.
"Shh," Kaoru whispers, "shh-shh, I'm not going to hurt you. Not like that guy, no, no, you're gonna be fine…"
"God, Kaoru, stay back!" she screams. She holds her hands up as a last effort to protect herself from him. He swats her hands away with his bow. Kaoru clicks his tongue in pity.
"Tch…You've been a bad girl, y'know that? I called ya, I talked with ya, I did everything for ya, and this is how ya pay me back?" Kaoru leans in close to her. She can smell the blood on his chest, feel his excited breath blast against her. He slowly reaches down, grabs her by the shoulder, and lifts her off the ground.
He hisses into her ear, "Better go call the police."
She runs towards the door, but doesn't make more than two feet before a string slips around her neck. The girl struggles against the string, trying to break free, but Kaoru knows what he is doing. With the bow looped over her neck and the bowstring draw taught against her neck, the girl has nowhere to run.
Kaoru leans in and whispers, "Do you want to know how I shoot an arrow? It's real easy, like, so easy a little whore like your self could manage it. See, first you have to show the arrow that you are the one in power. You grip it firmly in your hands, like so. Then, when it knows you are in charge, you draw it against the string." He tightens his grip on the string. Blood begins to trickle from the girl's neck. "You want to hold the arrow firmly in place, so that it doesn't fall down or move up. You want it to go right…where…you…want it." The girl's face begins to lose its color. It is now a stream of blood that comes from her neck. "And, when you have it set on the course you want to go…when you're sure and the wind is blowing in your direction…that's when you let go."
The girl's body goes limp. There is no struggle, no fight left. Kaoru releases her from his grasp and releases the string from her throat. She falls to the ground. A pool of blood forms by her neck.
Now, with the man and his girlfriend dead, and with the blood lust gone, Kaoru feels nothing. He feels numb. The tearing sensation is gone. A lock of hair falls out of place, and he moves it aside.
"Why am I not screaming?" he asks aloud. "I should be freaking out right now. I mean, I killed two people!" He looks around him, at the bloody floor, at his bloody clothes, and he knows why. His heart is broken.
Kaoru quietly changes out of his sports clothes and into his jeans and white tank-top. A bell rings, signifying the end of the hour. He gets up off the bench he is sitting on, and he walks out of the room. Before leaving, he turns around to look at the bodies one last time.
"So, this is what it's like to not have a heart."
***
When Black Cupid finishes telling his story, he glares at Suzuna through his black sunglasses. "That's why I'm doing this, bitch," he growls venomously.
"O…okay…" Suzuna squeaks. "But that…doesn't explain why you're called 'Black Cupid'…" Her words are cut off when Black Cupid squeezes her throat with his muscular arm.
"I just TOLD YOU!" he shouts. "I'm Black Cupid because I shoot arrows and I hate love!" The criminal gestures around to all of his fellow teammates. "And these guys are with me all the way, one hundred percent!"
"Yeah!" one cries out. "Love sucks!"
"Who needs it?!" a second Unlucky howls.
"Not us!" exclaims a third.
Black Cupid's smirk twists into a sadistic grin. "That's right! So, because we're all about the chaos and being bad-ass, we decided we're gonna take over this bank and kill everyone inside! Ain't nothing more bad-ass than that, right?" He cocks his crossbow and aims it at Suzuna's head.
"And as for you, well, you were kissing that wimpy little prick in the park, and I'm all about destroying love, so, y'know, you were in the way. I had to take you out."
Suzuna scowls at him. "That makes no sense," she mumbles.
"Hey, shut up! I am armed and dangerous!"
"Ke-ke-ke-ke! So am I!" says a man at the door of the bank.
Kaoru and the Unluckies look to the glass doors they had barricaded shut and find there are three men standing there, each of them garbed in a strange costume. The one who spoke is a tall man with spiky blonde hair, cloaked in black from head to toe, his eyes covered by a demonic mask. To his right is a giant of a man, almost seven feet tall, who is clad in a monk's robe and wears a red leather helmet on his head. On the demonic man's left is a smaller man who is wearing red and black, and has what looks like a football helmet on his head, his eyes shielded by a green mask.
Kaoru shouts, "The hell?!" How did you freaks get in here?!?"
The man in the black cackles, "We have our ways! Now, give up the girl and we'll let you go unharmed!"
"Never!" Kaoru exclaims. "We're not scared of a bunch of queers running around in tights!"
"Oh-ho-ho! We ARE freaks, I'll give you that," the man in black says, "but we have more power than a little prick like you can ever imagine! Warrior, break some skulls!"
The giant man nods and punches the tile floor of the bank. All the Unluckies standing up fall to the ground from the immense and powerful shockwave. Before they can stand up, the Warrior stomps over to a few of the criminals, picks them up, and holds them all in a headlock with just one arm.
"Please let us down!" one cries.
"We didn't mean nothing by it!" a second howls.
"Don't kill us!" exclaims a third.
The Warrior smiles behind the protection of his leather mask. "Sorry," he says to the Unluckies, "but you're the bad guys. I can't let you go." The criminals in his arm all squirm in a desperate attempt to escape the coming pain, but the man's grip is just too powerful. As the Warrior stands in his spot, taking deep breaths, the Unluckies can feel a surge of energy rising up inside of his body. Suddenly, the man's eyes snap open, revealing bright orange flames. He presses the men closer to his body, squeezing the air from their lungs.
Rearing his head back, the Warrior roars, "FUNNURBA!" He exerts all his gathered power into crushing his foes against his ultra-thick body. The sound of bones breaking fills the still and quiet bank. The Warrior drops the Unluckies a few seconds later. They all land on the floor with a sickening thud.
"You son of a bitch!"
"Get him!"
"Kill the freak!"
Several Unluckies aim their crossbows and fire at the Warrior, but none of their arrows do any damage to the large man. All the shots bounce off his rotund body and fall to the floor harmlessly. While the Unluckies all stand scared, Akumetsu leaps on top of the Warrior's body and pulls out two large machine guns.
"Ke-ke-ke-ke! Die, you lousy, fucking scumbags!" he screams at the criminals with manic glee.
"Akumetsu!" shouts the Warrior, "I thought you weren't going to kill any of them!"
"I'm not," the devilish man cackles, "I'm just going to make them feel a new kind of hurt!"
With that, he begins firing his machine guns, spraying forth red lights from the weapons. All the Unluckies are hit as Akumetsu leaps into the air and spins around. Every time one is hit with a bullet, a red light explodes on his chest and throws him back several feet. Many of the Unluckies near the entrance of the bank are thrown through the glass windows of the entrance. Miraculously, none of the hostages are hit by the shots.
"That's new. What's that?" asks the Warrior.
"It's a special weapon called the 'Devil Fire'," Akumetsu explains. "It only affects those whose hearts have been turned to evil."
"Good thing no one else has them, right?"
"Can it, fat-ass." Akumetsu looks over at Eyeshield 21 and smirks, displaying his hellish fangs to all in the room. "It's all up to you, fucking eyeshield," he says with a glare. "Kill him dead. Don't hold back. Let that fucker have it." Eyeshield 21 nods back to the devil man and then vanishes before everyone's eyes. Whereas most everybody in the room believes him to have vanished like a ghost, Akumetsu knows perfectly well where the speedster has gone to. Or not. After all, does that bushy-haired emo boy really have such a good control on his powers?
Black Cupid starts glancing around frantically. "Wh-Where the fuck did he just go?!?" he screams in fear. Suddenly, a red and black blur dashes by him and Eyeshield 21 reappears at his side.
"Sorry," he says to the girl in Black Cupid's arms. "I ran a little too far. Don't worry; I'll have you out in a second." He disappears from vision again and then, an instant later, Suzuna is no longer in Cupid's grasp any longer.
"What the f---"
Before the full sentence leaves Kaoru's mouth, his body freezes in place, mouth agape, for time itself has been stopped by Eyeshield 21.
***
The masked hero runs, with Suzuna in his arms, all the way into the park where they just were not twenty minutes ago. While sprinting along the ground, the speedster notes that everyone else seems not to be moving at all. They all appear frozen in place, wherever they might be.
I'll have to ask Hiruma about that when this is all said and done.
He runs over to a bench in the park, near the frozen pond, and places Suzuna down onto wooden seat. The girl with indigo hair blinks a few times and looks around at her surroundings.
"What…" she asks cautiously, "What just happened?"
"I saved you, Suzuna," says Eyeshield 21. "You're safe here."
"Wait, how do you know my name?"
The hero removes his helmet from his head, letting out his messy brown hair. Right away, Suzuna knows who he is.
"S…Sena?! Is that really you?!?"
Sena smiles sadly. "Yeah, it's…it's me."
"How long have you been-"
"Like this? Not long," he answers.
"Oh." Suzuna looks around at the frozen world around her and asks, "Did you do this?"
"Yeah," Sena replies. "I think it's a part of this super-speed thing."
"So, you can run really fast?"
"Basically. But I think I can do so much more with this. Watch!"
Sena sits down next to her and wraps Suzuna in his arms. The slight girl lets out a yelp of surprise, but then returns the hug. While the two are embraced, warmth spreads between the two of them. Sena is concentrating as hard as he can, trying to make his molecules vibrate quickly enough to produce heat, but not so much that Suzuna will get hurt.
"Wow," Suzuna softly coos, "you're all warm and…toasty."
"Heh, I guess so." The two let go of each other, but their eyes stay locked. Out of the corner of his eye, Sena can see people beginning to move at a snail's pace. He knows that he needs to get back to the bank.
Suzuna touches Sena's shoulder and says, "Hey, get back there. They need you."
"You sure? I can try to keep time-"
"No, you need to get back there. C'mon, you're a hero!" As Sena rises from the bench and slides his helmet back on, Suzuna reaches out and tugs on his arm. Her face carries a look of worry. Her eyes are wide with anxiousness, her mouth is turned down in a frown.
"Be safe," she tells Eyeshield 21.
"I'll be back in a flash," he says to the girl in lavender. He disappears in a burst of crimson lightning, leaving her on the bench by herself. Before even a second has passed, he reappears in front of her. He smiles awkwardly then leans down and gives Suzuna a quick kiss on the lips. When she looks back at Eyeshield 21, she can tell that he is blushing underneath the helmet.
"I just, y'know, figured that would be the cool, superhero thing to do. Later!" He sprints off again, leaving Suzuna flushed and bewildered.
Suzuna looks back in the direction of the bank, then folds her hands and decides to wait patiently on the bench for Sena's return. A minute passes, and she stands up. "To hell with waiting! I'm not gonna miss this for the world!" As time begins slowly falling back into its normal speed, Suzuna skates off back to the bank to watch the end of the fight.
She exclaims to the sluggish world, "My first kiss was with a superherooooooo!!!"
***
"---uck?!?"
Black Cupid is punched hard in the face, just as time unfreezes. Eyeshield 21 is standing right before him, a gloved fist extended right where Black Cupid was just standing. The villainous archer flies right through the room and crashes into the marble wall. He collapses in pain, but was picked back up by his assailant.
"I should kill you," the hero growls into Black Cupid's face, "but I won't. That'd just make me scum like you." He raises his fist into the air, aimed for Kaoru's head, but pauses when the villain tries to talk.
"Wh-wh-what the hell are you!?" he squeals in fear.
"I'm Eyeshield 21," says the masked man, "and you're about to be killed."
The last thing Black Cupid remembered before blacking out was the gloved fist flying at his face at over 200 miles per hour.
***
Outside the bank, in the unfrozen world, amidst the crowd of onlookers, police officers and news reporters, two young college students were watching the scene to the best of their advantage. One was dressed in a gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, covering his dark blonde hair, dark sunglasses, jeans, and white sneakers. The other is wearing basically the same outfit, except his hood is pulled down. A dark blue hat covers his black hair, while his stern eyes are left uncovered.
"Man oh man!" exclaims the tall one with the sunglasses. "This is so cool! We're getting to see actual superheroes fighting each other!"
"Yes, it is most impressive," the shorter one with stern eyes grunts, "but they do not seem so 'super' to me."
"Huh? What do you mean, Shin?"
"I mean, Sakuraba, that there are others like them. What makes them so super?"
"Lighten up, will you?"
At that time, Mamori Anezaki passes by the bank, coming back from the grocery store, having just picked up some ingredients for that evening's dinner. She sees the crowd and wonders aloud, "What's going on?" She gets her answer in the form of a devilish laugh.
"Ke-ke-ke-KE!" Akumetsu howls with laughter. "For the first time ever, the day is saved, thanks to the DEVIL BAT ACTION SQUAD!"
Mamori pushes her way to the front of the crowd, just as Akumestu, the Warrior, and Eyeshield 21 are making the crowd part. She moves towards them and Akumetsu brushes right by her. She feels a twinge run up her arm and she turns to look at Akumetsu. The girl feels like she knows him from somewhere, but she cannot place the man's identity.
What a basket case! She says in her mind. What's the deal with the costumes?
***
An hour later, after taking Suzuna back to her dormitory room and explaining how he had acquired his super-speed, Sena was back in the Devil's Lair, seated at a stone table with twelve chairs. The Warrior is to his left, filling up his gigantic chair, while Akumetsu is seated directly across from him. All three of the students have removed their masks.
"So, fucking bush-head," says Hiruma, "do you still reject my invitation?"
"It's okay if you say no, Sena," Kurita tells him. "You don't need to worry about it."
Sena pauses to form his thoughts and then sighs. "After telling Suzuna about what happened, she thought it would be really incredible if we were to form a superhero team. I'm all for it, but under one condition: we are NOT going to force any more powers onto anyone, understand???"
Kurita glances back and forth between Sena and Hiruma and wonders if Hiruma will really accept this. The devilish young man chortles with laughter.
"Kid, you've got guts. Deal." He extends a hand to Sena, saying, "Welcome to the team." Just as Sena grabs his hand to shake it, he feels a prick in the palm of his own hand. He glances down and finds a drop of blood forming in his palm.
"What did you just do?!" he asks Hiruma, bewildered.
"I just stuck a tracker in ya, so I can find you at anytime, fucking bush-head!"
"WHAAAAAT?!?"
***
And so, the three heroes stood around the magnificent stone table, each garbed in their battle uniform. The evil-slaying Akumetsu, the super-fast Eyeshield 21, and the humongous Warrior, all stood there, their hands extended out into the center of the table. After their long and tiring battle with the Unlucky Valentine's Crew, the three are glad to be back in their secret headquarters. They have come to the realization that the world needs their help, and that, when they work together, there is not a single opponent that can match them.
"We make a pretty good team," says Eyeshield 21 to the other two. "I think the team is a perfect idea!"
"Yeah, let's do this!" Akumetsu cackles.
"Yes! Onward to victory!" the Warrior exclaims.
All three throw their hands on the table upward and shout, "DEVIL BAT ACTION SQUAD, UNITE!"
***
NEXT TIME: ENTER THE WHITE KNIGHT AND THE INVISIBLE MAN!!!