The two thieves had been unlucky. Wait, no that wasn't quite right. It was just bad timing. If they had committed their crime an hour earlier, they would have been enjoying yet another victory. It's a rule of nature to never steal with a lieutenant shinigami on the premises. But, of course, they didn't know that.
It was a warm, sunny afternoon, three days days into the trip, and Mai was standing in an Italien square. She was enjoying her time, no paperwork, no hollows, there wasn't even any cooking and cleaning to do, since they were staying in a hotel.
Standing beside her were two schoolboys who she had befriended in the past week, her only two friends, Alex and Tom. To her right was a handsome blonde with a slender, attractive face that would have had Rangiku going on for ages. Next to him stood, Tom with his carefree attitude and spiky black hair, that was in a way, cute.
Right now Tom had just offered to buy them ice-cream, and having refused Alex still had to order for them.
"Come on. You can order it for me. When I ask anyone for anything in Italien they just stare at me like I'm mad"
"Don't worry, I'll order it." Offered Mai chuckling " Don't need anyone to call the mental asylum or anything" Shaking her head she walked up to the shop with the two boys and in fluent Italian said " Can I have three granita's, please?"
"School trip?" smiled the shopkeeper as she prepared the ice-creams. "Yeah" replied Mai sifting through the coins Tom had handed her. "Have you visited any of the museums? Palazzo Grassi?" Mai nodded in reply, handing the shopkeeper the money, and grabbing her ice-cream. In fact they had visited it the day before.
She thanked the shopkeeper and exited the shop along with an awestruck Tom and a mystified Alex by her side. "You speak Italian!" stated Tom, jaw hanging open. She laughed, before placing her hand under his chin and gently clasping his mouth closed. "It's rude to stare" she responded, tapping him on the nose, but she winked at him to let him know she was joking. This set all three of them laughing.
Having recovered first, Alex inquired about her knowledge of languages, "So you speak Japanese, French, English and Italian. Any other languages you speak , we should know about. Spare Tom the surprise next time. You don't know his jaw could fall of, he's pretty fragile."
"Turkish, Arabic, Russian, German and Spanish" replied Mai ruffling the awestruck Tom's hair "Now don't get your pea in a twist, Princess" she continued before joining Alex in yet another fit of laughter. Tom finally got the joke and, blushing deeply, aimed a weak punch, which Mai caught in mid-air, still laughing. "That's not funny, guys"
Mai suddenly stopped laughing and grabbed both of his shoulders hard. Staring him in the eyes, she gave him a serious look, which usually scared the hell out of everyone. She could feel him weakening under her hold, and, maintaining eye contact, she whispered, in her most malevolent voice, "I'm a girl"
She let go and treated him to a mischievous grin. A playful smile appeared on Tom's lips as he shouted "You witch. You had me going there. I thought you were planning to murder me" For the third time that afternoon the trio found themselves clutching their painful stomachs, laughing.
When the laughter died down, Mai stood there shaking her head. "Seriously, y-
She was the first to spot it, a motorbike , a 200cc Vespa Granturismo to be more precise, had surged forward on the other side of he square. The two men riding it were dressed in jeans and loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirts. The passenger had on a visored helmet and the driver, sunglasses, obviously to hide their identity.
They steered towards Miss Bedfordshire, as if to run her over, but Mai knew better, and she was right. Just a split second before contact, the motorbike veered away and the passenger professionally snatched the unfortunate teachers handbag. Dammit, if only she could've used flash step. She would've been able to stop them.
There was nothing she could do as she watch them grab their loot and accelerate away. But she could something to stop them getting away. They were now cutting diagonally across the square, heading for where she, Alex and Tom were standing.
A plan started to form at the back of her mind. She couldn't block the way for the driver, not without using her shinigami powers or getting squashed like an insect. That left... She ran towards the fountain , ignoring Alex's "stay back" order and stopped short around a meter ahead of it. She turned around ... her whole plan evaporated when she spotted Alex sprinting purposfully towards one of the stalls, carrying a bucket. The contents of the stall were...
A grin of amusement creeped into her features and she shook her head at the absurdity of his plan. She watched as he scooped bird seed into the bucket and swung around hurling the seed at the Vespa, just as it was about to flash past him.
She had noticed the two hundred or so pigeons gathered in the square earlier, and mentally kicked herself for not coming up with the idea. This was great! She had been outsmarted by a kid barely a twentieth of her age! She watched with enjoyment as the supposedly harmless creatures swooped down, diving at the two men, from all directions.
There was a reason blind people don't drive, and it looked like the driver of te vespa was discovering this the hard way. The bike performed a one eighty turn, so now it was heading back towards...Alex! At the speed it was going, he wouldn't be able to avoid it. This was not good!
Mai cursed silently, as her hand flew automatically inside the pocket of her skirt, producing two extra-sharp darts. Soi-fon had given them to her as a parting gift, when she became fukataicho of squad five. She always carried them with her, they reminded her of the days she spent with Soi-fon taking care of her.
Holding the darts in front of her, she focused, putting her target in her mind
Empty your mind of everything.
The bike was getting closer every millisecond.
Put your target only in your mind and focus. Add a bit of reiatsu to your throw.
Doing it just like Soi-fon taught her, all those decades ago, she lobbed the darts with all the strength and accuracy she could muster, and watched as the darts pierced the tough lining of the front tyre, causing the bike to swerve again, sending it hurtling towards her, at the same speed as before.
As the bike edged closer, her first impulse was to jump out of the way, but she didn't want to flash everyone sight of her underwear. Instead she waited until the Vespa was nearly upon her before gracefully jumping into the air, and tapping lightly of the the drivers head, she landed elegantly, like a ballerina, just as the motorbike went toppling into the fountain.
She sighed with relief, just as the stall owners started applauding and laughing. Alex was heading towards her, disbelief etched into his face. He was carrying Miss Bedfordshire's bag. He stopped dead in his tracks and a look of horror appeared on his face.
All sound came to a sudden silence, and mystified Mai spun around to find that the driver of the Vespa had somehow untangled himself, and he stood now, pistol in his hand, pointing it straight at ...her! From just about a meter away from her, he had a clear shot. There was going to be no running away or any sort of move to get her out of this situation.
Her mouth dried up, her heart was pounding hard in her chest and in the heat of the moment, she forgot that she was already dead, a bullet wouldn't make much of a difference.
"Now, anybody move and this girl is dead meat" announced the would-be thief in slightly accented English, stepping out of the fountain, gun still aimed at her heart. Then some idiot decided it was the best time to scream. Everyone watched in dread, as the hand clasped around the trigger and pulled.
In those two dreadful seconds she realized two things. The man aiming a gun at her was a total and utter idiot. The gun he was holding was set to safety. She noticed this just a second before he did, but that was all the time she needed.
With surprising speed and force she kicked the gun out of his hand. It flew in the air and skid out of reach. The poor man stood no chance as Mai kicked him in the guts then threw a spinning hook kick, which caught him in the jaw. His head whipped back sharply and he tumbled, unconscious, back in the fountain.
This time the whole square exploded in cheers, even the pigeons seemed relieved. A crowd formed around her, ignoring the two seriously late officers that were arresting, the two men in the fountain.
Mai sheepishly rubbed the back of her head, she wasn't used to so much attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Alex handing the bag back to the teacher , before muttering a few words. Then she couldn't see him anymore, because of the crowd, gathered around her, that somehow decided it was a okay to start interrogating her.
Suddenly, Alex burst through the crowd and did the last thing she expected him to. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug and muttered in her ear, "I'm glad you're alright", followed by a sigh of relief.
She returned the friendly gesture, before bursting into a fit of giggles of relief. "Me too" she replied. They broke apart as the teachers came towards them to ensure thier safety. Tom appeared out of nowhere, and asked" Do i get a hug too?"
This set the whole crowd laughing. Mai muttered a quick "Of course", and, laughing and shaking her head, gave him a quick hug.
A few minutes later, everyone having got over the initial shock, the crowd dispersed, still chatting about the incident. Thanks to her amazing stunt, Mai was approached by pretty much everybody in the class. Girls trying to befriend her and boys attempting to gain her attention.
After not having gained much success, they finally left her alone and she was able to go back to talking to her friends. "That was amazing" cried Tom for the hundreth and something time that day causing Mai's blush to grow two shades darker.
"You didn't tell me you did martial arts" commented Alex, changing the subject, having noticed Mai's discomfort. She jumped at the change of subject, glad to have something else to talk about.
"Well, I've done Teakwando, Kung fu and I was training in Karate before I moved from Japan" she answered, careful not to sound suspicious. It was true that she had trained in all three martial arts when she was under Soi-fons hand, decades ago. She still practiced in her spare time and sometimes sparred with Soi-fon, even though she was nowhere as good.
"So you don't train anymore?" "Well..." She racked her brain trying to think of an excuse, "I couldn't find a club, where I moved to" Getting bored of listening to his friends talking, Tom decided to join the conversation. "Alex does Karate, and since you go to the same school, you probably live close together too, right? So why don't join Karate with Alex?"
The two of them turned to look at him, clearly taken aback by his sudden burst of intelligence. "Looks like you've got some brains behind that thick skull of yours" commented Alex, flashing him a smile to show he was joking. " That's a great suggestion, Tom" said Mai, making him beam. It would be a great idea to hone her skills, while getting to spend more time with her new friend.
"Just make sure you don't get too close, I might accidentally kick you in the face or something" warned Mai, giggling to herself at the image of Alex in a karate suit, covered with blood. "Yeah, like that would ever happen" He huffed back, then catching the look on Mai's face he started laughing. Not getting the joke, but still not wanting to be left out, Tom joined his friends in yet another surge of uncontrollable laughter.
Mai finished washing her hands, following her third trip to the bathroom in the last was certainly something she had eaten but, between breakfast, lunch and the ice-creams from earlier , she was finding it hard to tell what. There probably was something wrong with her gigai, since it was very unusual for a gigai to react this way to human food, although she suspected that this was just her foul luck.
Bending down closer to the sink, she splashed her face with refreshing, cold water. The heat outside certainly hadn't done her growing fever any favors. She rinsed her mouth out, getting rid of the taste of vomit.
Looking into the mirror, Mai found herself thinking back the day's events. Something was wrong somewhere, but what? And the feeling of being watched, kept following her. First at the museum the day before, then that morning right before the bike incident.
She found herself replaying her conversation with the shopkeeper
"School trip?" How had he known that they were on a school trip, since they weren't wearing their school uniform?
"Have you visited any of the museums? Palazzo Grassi?" How had he known what museum they had visited? Venice is a country of cathedrals and museums, out of all of them, why had he mentioned that one specifically. Thinking about it now, it sounded a bit as if he was teasing her, that he knew something she didn't.
Then there was the gun the theif had been holding. She had noticed a tiny image of a scorpion etched on the side, a detail which she had dismissed as irrelevent, up until now. She was certain that she had caught sight of an exact of replica of it on a bracelet the shopkeeper was wearing and ...where else?...a..boat...Right outside! Just about a few minutes earlier!
She whipped out her phone and launched google chrome. Tapping her foot impatiently she typed in Scorpion, Venice...