Love's Redemption: Anger
A sudden crescendo of sound awoke Jake with a start. He opened his eyes, but ended up quickly shutting them against the brightness of the sun shining relentlessly through any orifice in the building it could find. He covered his eyes with his hand and groaned. His head was pounding, as if two pygmies were jumping around inside his skull like children in a playpen. The unyielding piercing sound coming from several cicadas outside did nothing to help his mood.
Craning his neck to look around and see if the other tenants were still sprawled out all over the room, the source of his crippling headache reared its…head. A crushing pain swept through the left side of his neck, causing him to gasp audibly. He had experienced stiff necks in the past, obviously, but this was truly a horse of a different color. He could not move it in either direction without feeling like a knife was stabbed and twisted into it.
It took him several attempts, but he at last managed to rise to his feet. Turning on his heels to look around, he noticed he was the last to wake, alone in the great room. He shuffled gingerly into the dining area, where several of the other tenants, most of them looking just as weary as he, were already sitting.
Su yelled good morning at Jake, who winced in obvious pain. "Su, would you mind keeping it to a dull roar, please? My head is really killing me right now."
"Sorry, Jake. I'm just so excited about showing you my new invention today!"
Jake lowered slowly into his unofficially assigned chair, still trying to rub the pain out of his neck and head. "Oh, crap. I totally forgot about that."
Keitaro asked, "Sleep in a bad position, Jake?"
"More or less. It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Naru chuckled at Jake's response. "I know the feeling. I woke up in all sorts of funny positions after trying to pull all-nighters leading up to exams."
"Where is everyone else?" Jake asked, noticing there was faces unaccounted for.
As if on cue, Mutsumi entered the room with a cheerful good morning and a wave. Her motherly senses triggered when she took one glance in Jake's direction. "What's wrong, Jake?"
Motoko, sitting in repose as she normally did at that time of the morning, replied, "It seems to be a headache caused by a pinched nerve in his neck, Otohime-san."
Quite astute, Motoko, Jake thought.
Mutsumi immediately skittered over to Jake, coming to a stop behind him. She tenderly placed a hand on his shoulder and asked him where it hurt. "Somewhere in the left side of my neck. It's making my head pound like there's a heavy metal concert going on in my brain."
Nodding sagely, Mutsumi placed her other hand on Jake's neck and began to roughly massage it. Jake jumped forward in surprise, causing another wave of pain to shoot through his temple. He cried out in agony, clutching his head with his hands. Mutsumi rubbed his back lovingly. "You can't move around like that," she said with a motherly tone, "you'll just make it worse."
"Sorry, you just startled me is all," Jake replied.
"Just relax and let onee-chan take care of you, alright?" Mutsumi cooed, sending a shiver down Jake's spine. Though whether it was from the implication of her words or the cold stares Jake was receiving at the moment, he had no idea.
Jake closed his eyes, deciding to let Mutsumi try to help. What else was he going to do other than sit there all day in pain? Her touch felt fantastic; her grip was firm, yet somehow gentle. He closed his eyes to ward off the frigid eyes of his counterparts, particularly from that of Motoko. "Have Kitsune and Kentaro left, already?" he asked, trying to deflect some of the table's attention.
"They left early this morning. Had some things to take care of I guess," Keitaro answered. "Why do you ask?"
"No particular reason. I didn't see them when I woke up."
Keitaro watched as Jake visibly relaxed. His shoulders slumped, his jaw dropped, and he closed his eyes again. There was no doubting it now. To the untrained eye, one might have thought Jake was more relaxed due to Mutsumi's ministration. But Keitaro knew better. After all, he did the same thing with Naru all the time before they got together: wondering where she was in certain situations, hoping she wasn't there to see it. He wondered idly if he used to look so ridiculously obvious.
Jake began to lose himself in the relief Mutsumi was providing. His headache seemed manageable at that point if not nonexistent, and he felt more relaxed then he could recall in recent days. Until Mutsumi pressed down hard with her fist onto a particularly painful pressure point, causing him to hiss and grunt in pain.
"Right there?" Mutsumi asked, pressing into the pressure point with a thumb.
"Ouch! Ouch! Yes!" To Jake's horror, instead of moving away from the painful spot, Mutsumi dug into it even deeper, adjusting positions to drive her entire elbow into his left trapezius. Jake had to bite down hard to keep from tearing up
Shinobu waltzed in with the table settings and shrieked at the sight of Mutsumi trying to bury her arm into Jake's shoulder. "Auu, Otohime-sempai is killing Jake!"
Jake tried to laugh out loud, but each motion sent another wave of pain through his shoulder and down his arm.
"It's okay, Shinobu-chan," Keitaro assured the girl, "I'm sure Mutsumi-san knows what she is doing…right?" Keitaro's "reassurance" did nothing to comfort Jake, who felt like his arm was being put through a wood chipper.
Just when Jake felt he was going to pass out from the pain, Mutsumi whispered into Jake's ear, "Alright, now don't move." Without removing her elbow, she shoved her other hand into position underneath her elbow. With a flick of her wrist, Jake felt something in his neck and shoulder pop, and his excruciating pain was instantly lifted.
The onlookers winced in unison at the sound of what they assumed was crunching bone.
"Better?" Mutsumi asked, lightly kneading his neck between her thumbs and forefingers.
Jake moved his shoulder and neck around, noticing there was no pain at all. "Yeah," he said, bewildered. "That was amazing! How did you do that?"
"Well, my mom used to always get these really bad headaches when she woke up in the morning. She always had me rub her neck and shoulders, and if I sat there too long, I would pass out on her. Eventually, I found that there were always knots in the muscles that cause these bad headaches. So I came up with this technique."
"That's awesome!" Su exclaimed. The others nodded in agreement.
Jake squinted slightly. He still felt pain somewhere in his neck, but he couldn't quite tell exactly where it was coming from. He relayed this information to his "therapist". Mutsumi told him to relax his shoulders, then placed her hands on the sides of his head and began rolling it in clockwise circles. After a few moments, she reversed direction to a counter-clockwise motion.
Confident Jake's neck was sufficiently loosened, Mutsumi moved her hands: one to Jake's chin, the other to the crown of his head. With one sharp motion, she twisted Jake's head to the left, and the vertebrae in his neck popped with several sickening cracks. There was a collective gasp followed immediately by the sound of several plates breaking near the door to the kitchen.
Standing over the broken plates was Shinobu, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head, with her hands covering her mouth, completely oblivious to the destruction at her feet. "Otohime-sempai! You killed Jake!" the blue-haired girl squeaked.
The young teenager failed to notice Jake lift his head, exhaling a sigh of extreme relief. A crooked grin was painted onto his face, and his eyes were glazed over, as if he were enraptured by some unearthly bliss.
"Better now?" Mutsumi asked. The question might as well have been rhetorical. Jake nodded stupidly, his face still a countenance of unadulterated pleasure.
"I don't think he's quite come back down to Earth yet, Otohime-san," Motoko said, equally amused and concerned with Jake's current disposition.
Mutsumi giggled. "My mom did the same thing the first time I did that to her. He should come back in a few minutes. Ara ara, Shinobu-chan dropped the plates."
While everyone helped clean up the mess of busted china littering the area of the dining room, Jake sat unmoving. However, as everyone settled back into their seats around him, the side of his mouth began to twitch, and the color slowly returned to his eyes. Everyone stared at him in amusement as he returned to earth.
Jake suddenly gasped, sucking in air as if he had been trapped underwater for several minutes. He panted for a minute as he regained his composure. He stopped once he noticed everyone stared at him like he had a huge spider crawling across his face. "What are you all staring at? What happened? Where am I now?"
Mutsumi laughed softly. "How is your head feeling now, Ja-kun?"
"I feel great, but what did you do to me?"
Mutsumi explained what she had done and the side effect of her unique technique.
"You're amazing, Mutsumi-san," Keitaro praised the Okinawan.
Naru reached out and love tapped Keitaro on the arm. "Why don't you ever compliment me like that?" she grumbled.
While Keitaro attended to the fire he just started, Jake turned his attention back to his savior. "Marry me, Otohime-san, and make me the luckiest man on Earth," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that sarcasm did not translate well to Japanese.
"Really?" Mutsumi asked, clasping her hands together and gazing fondly at Jake.
Jake, oblivious to his mistake, figured Mutsumi was simply playing along with his joke. He nodded dumbly with a toothy grin.
Mutsumi grasped one of Jake's hands, her eyes lighting up like Christmas trees. "You really mean it?"
Without thinking, Jake nodded again. Mutsumi jumped to her feet, pulling Jake to his, and screamed "We're getting married, everyone!"
Naru froze in mid-swing of launching Keitaro through the nearest wall. Keitaro peeked out from under his arms covering his face. Motoko lowered her book with a wide-eyed stare. Su glanced back and forth between Jake and Mutsumi, smiling widely all the while. And Shinobu, who had just reentered the room with more plates, nearly dropped those as well.
"Wait, what?" Jake spluttered, quickly drawing his hand back from Mutsumi.
"We have so much to do! Oh, I'm so excited! When are we getting married? Where will the reception be? Aww, this is…too…" Mutsumi's voice wavered, and she would have collapsed had Jake not caught the falling woman and lowered her gently down into her seat.
Jake began to laugh, but when he looked up to see a sword pointed directly between his eyes, he jumped back, yelping in surprise. "What the hell?"
"You lascivious bastard!" Motoko proclaimed, firmly holding the hilt of her blade with both hands, its business end pointed directly at Jake's throat. "You will pay for tainting this pure woman's heart!"
Jake tried in vain to protest, throwing his hands in front of him, making a timeout sign. "Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. I was just…" he began, but Motoko cut him off.
"SILENCE, you miserable womanizer!" Motoko barked. She strode toward Jake, still holding her blade out towards his throat. Jake backpedaled furiously, knocking over a chair in the process as everyone at the table scattered.
"Motoko-chan, you've got the wrong idea here. I wasn't…"
"A duel, sir," Motoko cut in once more, spitting out the last word in her sentence as if it were something vile. "I challenge you. And you will refer to me as Aoyama-sama from here on, you perverted slime."
Jake was backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively. Su was cheering Motoko on. Shinobu was waving her arms around like a bird, unsure of what to do. Keitaro shook his head. There was no reasoning with Motoko now. Naru sweatdropped. Mutsumi lay in her chair like a slug, snoring softly.
"Or are you afraid to be beaten by a younger, smaller girl?" Motoko asked with a confident smirk.
Something within Jake snapped. Visibly. Keitaro muttered, "Oh no," turning away from the scene. He couldn't stand to watch what was surely coming.
With a menacing glare, Jake accepted the challenge. "You're on."
All of the others cheered, except for Keitaro, who threw his arms up in defeated frustration, and Mutsumi, who still lay in her seat, out cold. Keitaro looked up at the ceiling and whispered "Why me?"
"To the roof!" Su exclaimed. As if shot out of a cannon, the foreigner dashed out to the hallway, followed closely behind by Shinobu. Naru pulled Keitaro out of the room as he whispered a silent prayer to whichever god might listen to his plight. Motoko lowered her blade and motioned Jake toward the door.
"Ladies first," Jake said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Age before beauty," Motoko riposted without skipping a beat.
Jake snorted derisively before cocking an evil grin in Motoko's direction. "Since when did you ever think you were cute?" As he stepped towards the door, he muttered softly enough for only Motoko to hear, "You have no idea who you are fooling with."
"We'll see, gaijin," Motoko replied, following him out of the room.
Several minutes later, Mutsumi finally regained consciousness, blinking several times and gazing quickly about the room. She chuckled, scratching the back of her head. "I wonder if they figured out I was joking?" she asked aloud, though no one was there to hear.
An explosion from above rocked Mutsumi about in her seat. "I did it again didn't I?"
The two opponents squared off on opposite sides of the deck, their fiery stares likely able to bore holes through concrete. Each stood at attention, bowing ever so slightly to each other. It was more to show respect for the art form than to each other.
Their auras of disdain were apparent even to their audience. Naru and Shinobu were seated in their normal positions, while Keitaro stood behind them, looking as nervous as a turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
Su was standing between the two opponents. She raised a hand apprehensively, wondering if she would have the time to retreat before they clashed. She could have sworn she felt heat washing from the two as they stood opposite each other, crashing into the middle where she stood. She wiped the sweat beginning to bead at her forehead with her long-sleeved to be certain she could get out of the way, she took a full step backward. "Ready?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two adversaries.
Motoko assumed a battle ready stance, drawing her shinai towards her body as if pulling on the string of a hunter's bow. Jake followed by stepping into a guarded stance. However, he still held his weapon towards the ground. A stiff, cool sea breeze passed through the area, ruffling Motoko's gi and hair, making her appear even more menacing than before. Jake exhaled slowly, letting all the air empty from his lungs as he waited for the signal.
"GO!" Su yelled, dropping her hand. She jumped backwards immediately, and not a moment too soon, either. Displaying incredible speed, Motoko dashed at Jake, the wind kicked up in her wake spinning Su around like a ballerina as she passed. Jake saw the attack coming it seemed from a mile away and raised his weapon in plenty of time to deflect Motoko's hard overhand cross slash.
Motoko was unfazed by the Jake's nonchalant expression he wore in defending against her first blow. She pressed on, using sharp, strong strikes to try to push Jake backward. He stood strong, however, deflecting each blow with masterful timing.
It was not as if Jake was not impressed with Motoko's skill. In fact, it was quite the contrary. Her attacks were flawless, her form graceful. Each swing of her weapon was aimed at a vital point. She was seeking to end the fight quickly. However, no amount of raw skill could compensate for the lack of strength and speed behind her attacks.
The audience seemed to be strongly in favor of Motoko, since she was pressing offensively. Keitaro paced behind the other girls as they cheered raucously for the kendo-ka, his face painted over with pure, unadulterated doom. He could see with his well-trained eyes that Jake had an obvious advantage over the slower, weaker Shinmeiryu swordswoman.
Keitaro could only pray Jake would come to his senses and not completely destroy Motoko. He once witnessed Jake get into a brawl with a group of five troublemakers who called him a chicken. They called him every name in the book before then, and he did not react until they called him a coward. Keitaro learned from that experience after taking Jake to the emergency room with a broken nose and a concussion that Jake would never stand for someone calling him less than a man, even if it cost him a beat-down.
Motoko became slightly flustered as her futile attacks continued to miss their mark. If she did not know better, she might have thought she was being toyed with, but she could did not detect any superior strength in Jake. Despite that, Jake continued to parry her attacks easily, and had yet to counter. At least, not until he murmured quietly, "Is this all you've got? I guess it's my turn, then."
Motoko's next attack was turned away with a force Jake had not yet shown. Knocked off balance, she desperately tried to pull herself back into a defensive posture. She barely had time to yank her shinai to parry Jake's thrust at her waist. The attack grazed her along her hip as she lacked the strength to completely turn aside the strike.
"Whoa!" Su exclaimed.
"What a counter!" Naru followed.
"What just happened?" Shinobu asked
Motoko winced at the burning pain in her hip as Jake relentlessly beat her backwards, pushing her towards the edge of the patio. The tide had definitely turned, and Motoko frantically needed to retreat from the melee. She waited for a slight opening and leapt over Jake's head, flipping end over end until she landed across from him on the opposite side of the deck.
Panting quietly, trying to hide her exhaustion, Motoko quipped, "You're a lot better than I would have given you credit for. However, I wonder if you have the guts or the skill to defend against my next attack?"
Jake raised his shinai to rest it on his shoulder and smirked at his opponent's question. "I can take anything you can throw at me, little girl." With his off hand, Jake motioned Motoko towards himself, taunting her.
"So be it then. You asked for it," Motoko replied flatly. She held her weapon in front of her and closed her eyes. She focused on gathering her chi into her arms, and air began to swirl around her weapon.
Jake raised an eyebrow. "What the? Hey, that's cheating isn't it?"
Keitaro, aware of what Motoko was doing, grabbed Shinobu and Su, pulling them away from the range of the coming blast of energy. The wind surrounding Motoko's shinai increased in speed and force until it appeared she wielded a tempest in her hands.
Motoko snapped her eyes open, and the wind dissipated instantly. In its place was an azure aura that shimmered and pulsated around the weapon in her hands. "Shinmeiryu ougi," she incanted, stepping backward with her right leg and raising her weapon over her head.
"This is it," Su squealed.
"It's all over now," Shinobu added.
"ZANGANKEN," Motoko roared, swinging her weapon downward as hard as she could while mentally releasing the chi stored in her weapon. The volley of raw energy rocketed towards Jake, who dumbly stood in its path in shock and awe.
The instant before the Rock Cutting Blade was upon him, Jake snapped back into focus and realized his predicament. Unable to dodge the attack, he raised his shinai parallel to the ground and used his offhand to brace it against the oncoming blast. The ensuing explosion rocked the deck underneath everyone's feet and a cloud of dust and smoke billowed around Jake, shielding him from everyone's view.
"He's boned," Naru concluded. Su and Shinobu nodded, while Keitaro wiped sweat from his brow, silently hoping Naru was right.
Motoko stood out of her fighting stance, certain of her victory. Shinobu approached Motoko first and, glancing in the direction of the smoke cloud, asked, "You didn't hurt him too bad, did you Motoko-sempai?"
Motoko harrumphed in response. "It's his own fault for standing there like an idiot. He deserves whatever pain he is in right now."
Su glanced in Jake's direction and did a double take when she saw his silhouette appear from the slowly dissipating cloud. "Amazing! He's still standing!"
"Wha?" Motoko asked, whirling around to see for herself. She could only gasp in surprise, sure that her eyes were lying to her.
Jake stood still as stone, his weapon still raised in a defensive position. He was breathing heavily, with beads of sweat rolling down his brow. His arms were bruised and burnt, and the hand used to brace his weapon against the force of the attack was bleeding from a decent sized cut in its palm. A pair of skid marks from Jake's black-soled sneakers extended three feet across the well-polished wooden floor to where Jake currently stood on the precipice of falling into the river below the inn.
"What was that?" Jake asked, his voice booming with rage. He released his stance and walked through the dispersing cloud. "I just told you I would take anything you could throw at me. Did you think you could win with just that?" He approached Motoko, whirling his shinai around in his uninjured hand. "You had best stand back, Shinobu. This fight is far from over."
When the blue-haired teen complied with his request, Jake lunged towards Motoko, restarting the fight.
Kitsune hummed a random tune as she climbed the long stairway to Hinata Sou carrying a large brown bag containing several bottles of liquor that clanged together with each step she took. Her quiet, cheery mood was broken by the echoing sound of an artillery-type explosion coming from the roof area of the inn. "Poor Keitaro," she mused aloud, continuing on her way up the never-ending stone steps. "That Motoko sure doesn't pull any punches."
As she reached the top of the stairs, Kitsune noticed the smoke and dust rising from the source of the explosion, but she could not see the combat taking place from her vantage point. "I wonder if it's over already." As she got closer, however, she began to hear the sounds of sparring weapons slapping together and the accompanying voices of combat.
Kitsune broke into a run, holding the bag of liquor as steady as possible as to keep the bottles from breaking inside the bag. "Damn it. I'm missing it," she cursed. Reaching the front door, she steadied the bag on one knee as she used the other to throw the portal open. As she entered the common area, Mutsumi stumbled through the door from the dining room.
"Ara, Kitsune-san! Welcome back!" Mutsumi greeted her elder, bowing politely.
"Ah, the Turtle Lady!" Kitsune replied, kicking the door shut behind her with one foot.
"Why aren't you on the roof with the others? You're gonna miss Keitaro getting his ass whooped again."
"I don't think it is Keitaro this time," Mutsumi replied with a nervous laugh, scratching idly at her cheek with her index finger.
"Huh?"
"Well," Mutsumi began, poking her fingers together and trying desperately to keep her entire face from coloring over, "to make a long story short I sort of made a pretty bad joke about Jake and myself."
Kitsune blinked, still at a loss. Mutsumi continued, "I said something like we were getting married before I passed out, I think."
"WHAT?" Kitsune spluttered, nearly loosening her grip on her bag. Fumbling and tripping her way to the table in the middle of the room, she finally set the bag down.
"I'm just guessing here, but I suppose Motoko didn't really get the joke," Mutsumi said, clutching at her head, trying to get a grasp on the situation in which she was directly responsible.
Kitsune placed a hand on her chin in an inquisitive gesture. "It stands to reason, knowing how serious she is about things…so does that mean Jake is the one up there fighting with Motoko?"
Mutsumi nodded her head in shame.
"I'm not missing this for the world!" Kitsune squealed in delight. "Let's go!" She grabbed Mutsumi by the wrist and dashed up the stairs, dragging her longhaired counterpart along, willing or not.
Motoko hastily backpedaled from Jake's furious attack, unable to focus on anything other than defense. The force of Jake's blows, much more powerful than before, was causing her to lose feeling in her hands, and her shoulders were burning from trying to keep up with the furious pace. She began to panic, realizing her defeat was near. "How is he so strong? Is Seta such a great teacher that merely training with him makes one this powerful?"
There was little time for Motoko to ponder over her questions as she was forced to duck underneath a thrust aimed directly at her head. Her defense melted away like ice under the summer sun, leaving her wide open to any number of attacks. However, it seemed to her that Jake either did not see the openings, or was simply not taking advantage of them. She felt his shinai pass through her porous defense several times, only to stop just short of striking her flesh. Several of the attacks passed right by her face, leaving Motoko bewildered as to how the fight continued to drag along.
Over the din of the cheering girls, Keitaro wondered aloud, "What the hell are you doing, Jake?" He could see that Jake had Motoko badly beaten, and he could snatch his victory whenever he pleased. There was no way he was accidentally missing with his attacks. They were more like precision warning strikes, like firing a warning shot over a ship's bow.
Kitsune and Mutsumi finally arrived on the roof, panting heavily from the exertion. They immediately noticed Jake and Motoko locked in fierce combat, and it seemed Jake had his opponent on her heels. "Oh good. It's not over yet," Kitsune said cheerfully as Mutsumi joined the other girls, clapping along and cheering on the two fighters.
Kitsune saw Keitaro watching the combat intently, and moved next to him. "Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it looks like he's winning," Kitsune said matter-of-factly.
Keitaro jumped sideways in surprise. "Ah, Kitsune-san. Where did you come from?" He was so intently focused on the match he failed to notice the woman standing directly beside him.
"The stairs, of course. I just got back from the store."
"Oh, okay then."
"You looked like you were in your own little world there for a moment. You taking notes?"
"What do you mean, Kitsune-san?"
"I mean to beat Motoko. Whatever Jake is doing seems to be working."
Keitaro silently groaned, feeling the Devil add yet another weight to the lie lying across his shoulders. "Yeah, I guess so."
Kitsune decided to leave Keitaro to his melancholy mood. She wanted a closer look at the fight, anyhow. She nudged Naru, motioning for her to scoot over so she could sit. "Su-chan! Any action on this fight?"
"Sorry," Su replied mock-sagely, "the betting table is now closed on this duel."
Kitsune snapped her fingers. "Darn it. Oh well, I have a better idea, anyway." An impish grin crossed the woman's face.
Jake continued to pummel Motoko with a flurry of strikes and slashes that he knew she could not keep up with. He had just begun to break a sweat while she labored for air, her face drenched in sweat…and tears.
"You've got to promise me…"
"She's only happy when she's practicing kendo…"
"She's a great girl once you get past her defense mechanisms…"
Seeing the tears streaking down Motoko's face, Jake suddenly wondered what the hell he was doing. The malice and fury inside him weakened, thus decreasing the force of his strikes. He loosened himself to match a speed Motoko could keep up with until he could devise a way to lose to her smoothly.
Motoko, fighting against the burning sensation in her eyes, noticed Jake was slowing down, his attacks no longer striking her shinai with such a terrible force that each clash caused her hands to ache down to their bones. Subconsciously, she tapped into her innate ability to sense chi patterns. Jake's aura faded from the fiery red of hatred and loathing to the cool azure of friendship and love. "What?" Motoko asked aloud.
"I keep my promises," Jake confessed, slowing down even further, allowing Motoko enough headway to launch a counterattack.
"Check it out!" Su exclaimed. "Motoko is making a comeback!"
"Huh?" Keitaro muttered, glancing back at the melee once again. Motoko was pushing Jake backward. It was obvious to him, but not the others, that Jake must have allowed this to happen. A smile crossed over his face, and he knew that he was going to owe Jake for throwing the fight.
Trying to make it look good, Jake traded attacks with Motoko for a few moments, pushing her back then allowing her to counter. He began to find the idea of sparring with the Shinmeiryu heiress enjoyable, noticing her attacks became more crisp as she gained in confidence.
The moment of truth came when Kitsune belted out of nowhere, "Jake, if you win I'll let you grope me!"
The crowd fell silent, Jake's focus…broken. He stupidly removed his vision from the fight, gawking at Kitsune, as did everyone else. Except for one person. Motoko rushed in and rapped Jake's hands with her weapon, knocking the shinai out of his grip. She then spun around, lashing at the side of his head, hitting him hard across the ear. Her shinai made a horrible thwacking sound as it connected with its target.
The audience winced and made a collective "ooh" sound. Jake stumbled to the side from the force of the blow, but remained standing, stumbling about as everyone watched him as still as stone. He wobbled about as the fluid in his inner ear splashed about like a wave pool at a water park, sending his equilibrium into chaos.
"My bad," Kitsune said, but the damage had already been done.
Jake's head felt like a bomb exploded inside of it. He looked at Motoko, who was staring back at him in bewilderment, and saw three images of the swordswoman in front of him. "Whoa, cool," he said, sounding like he had just finished off a bowl of hashish.
Everyone stood fast as Jake continued to wobble around. "Mercy, Aoyama-sama. I yield. I think I'm going to go ahead and sit down now." He then promptly tipped forward and landed face first on the floor with a healthy thud.
Everyone remained still for a moment, staring blankly at Jake's prone form. Eventually, all eyes made their way to Motoko, who feigned a smile back in their direction. "Um, oops?"
Kitsune stood first and shuffled over towards Jake, putting a hand on his back to make sure he was still breathing at the very least. "Are you all going to just stand there like a bunch of imbeciles, or are you going to help me get him back inside?"
Kitsune's demand for help snapped the others back to reality. Motoko, feeling a little guilty for smashing Jake's face in, helped Kitsune turn Jake over as the rest rushed to his side. There were gasps all around as they immediately noticed a welt forming on the side of his head, and his pupils swirled around like two vortices.
"Geez, Motoko-chan, did you really have to hit him as hard as you could?" Naru asked.
"It was reflex. Gomen nasai, Naru-sempai," Motoko apologized, bowing her head in shame.
"Don't apologize to me! He's the one with the cracked skull."
"But I didn't expect him to drop his guard like that."
"Never mind all that for now. Just help me get him up and inside," Kitsune barked. She might have apologized as well, considering she was also partially at fault. But there were more important matters to attend to at the moment. There would be plenty of time to do that later.
"I'll get the first aid kit," Shinobu offered, dashing off down the steps.
"Here's a chance to try out my medical diagnosis and treatment machine," Su noted, her face beaming brightly. "I'll go get it and meet you downstairs!" She skipped off after Shinobu.
Naru and Keitaro picked Jake up from his sides while Kitsune braced his head with her hands. Motoko stood there with a blank expression, dumbfounded and feeling helpless as her friends carted Jake away. After they made their way carefully down the stairs back into the inn, Motoko glanced down at she shinai in her hand, noticing a small drop of blood on the weapon where it struck Jake's head.
"What have I done?" Motoko asked herself. She dropped the practice weapon in disgust, the reinforced bamboo stick clanging against the wooden floor.
A/N: Finally caught up. Time to write some new content for this story now. Again, thanks to Lunar Knite for beta-reading for me. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, everyone.