Back at Fraxinus
"What about the time he pinned me against the wall?" Ai asked while blushing a little at the memory.
"That wasn't him, that was Natsumi." Kotori nullified Ai's suspicion of Shidou for the nth time.
"Where was he when Miku was dealt with?" Ai pressed on, trying to find a single shred of truth backing up all the rumors she's spread and the mean things she's said(lol rhymes)about Shidou.
"He was with you the entire time, as Shiori." Kotori responded, getting a little annoyed.
"He cross-dressed!? So gros-" Ai exclaimed. "Cross-dressing!? How do you justify-!?"
"It was the only way he could get close to the male-hating spirit that is Miku." Kotori cut her off without batting an eye.
"But still-" Ai wasn't convinced of the boy's character just yet.
"He threw away his dignity and image to protect the school. Enough said. Any other questions?" Shidou's little sis defended him reasonably while holding in the urge to air drop Ai without a parachute.
"…What ab-" Ai had nothing left up her sleeve, no rumors, no nothing. But, just like her stubborn best friends, she wanted to believe all the things they'd said about the blue-haired boy.
"Denied." Kotori was past her breaking point, Ai didn't seem to notice.
"But I didn't even ask-!"
"I already shot down every possible misunderstanding you've had about my onii-chan." Kotori concluded Shidou successfully defended as a person.
"W-well…" The blonde was beat. She made a mental note to apologize to him for everything the trio's done thus far.
Back to Shidou vs Kurumi!
The inversed teen was now maniacally laughing at the person who attempted to kill him. Shidou threw Kurumi's signature pose, facial expression, and phrase right back at her.
"Ara, ara… Getting cold feet now are we?"
His sword dissipated, and his eyes glowed brighter, causing Kurumi to panic and send a wall of clones in front of her. A purple aura began to envelope the inversed hybrid and two slim blades appeared in his hands. The evil time spirit could sense his reiryoku sky-rocketing.
'I… I have to retreat again!? Easy, Kurumi. You can always come back, as long as you don't tip him off the next time…' The panicking spirit thought. As she summoned a clock to transport herself to a place explored by her earlier in time, Shidou's eyes flashed suddenly and the clock disappeared, along with the clones. Even the time spirit's physical and flying capabilities were shut off.
"*gulp* Ahh, that was good, Kurumi. I'm really lovin' this reiryoku stealing ability…" Shidou seemed to play around with his inversed form, observing its properties and attributes.
'From what I can tell, the spirit weapons I use are changed into an alternative that makes for a completely different battle style, I can absorb extra reiryoku to use to prolong their duration without any physical harm coming to myself, and my basic physical abilities are tripled. This is amazing, but I can't stay in it all the time, or I might lose my sanity…" Shidou was done researching himself for now and decided to deal with the task at hand.
"Kurumi… *hysterical laugh* I'mmmm goinggg to enddddd youuuu~" He mused while licking his blade. Shidou gave an accelerator-like laugh while charging at a speed that Kurumi's human form couldn't react to. In a single flash, she was neatly chopped up limb by limb in a sushi-like manner.
"Dinner, is served~" The inverse laughed out into the sky before switching back.
"*inhale, exhale*" The now-normal teen looked at one of the bodies and cried hysterically.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry I couldn't save you… Why was I given this power if I can't even protect innocent bystanders ignorant to the existence of spirits!?" Shidou screamed out, alone, pained, and saddened… Ai and Kotori were watching this from Fraxinus. The short redhead was gritting her teeth for about 15 seconds before deciding that she couldn't take it anymore and teleporting down there. She appeared next to her brother and wrapped him in a warm hug.
"Onii-chan…"
"K-Kotori.. I failed, I-"
"Shhh… You've done enough, onii-chan…"
Shidou cried into his sister's chest for about 15 minutes. Ai, who had all these misconceptions about the blue-haired teen, was shown this sensitive, loving, and dedicated side to him and was actually heartbroken by how torn down he was. The flashbacks of all the times she gave him a hard time suddenly held more weight and seriousness that she'd ever thought they would, responsibility tearing at her. 'Even though I may never be able to make things right, I can still do my best to help for the future!" Ai thought, before stepping onto the teleporter. In a blinding flash of light, she was next to the close siblings.
"Ano, Shidou-san…" The blonde started nervously. This was harder than how she'd imagined it in her head.
"Sh-Shidou-san!" She raised her voice a little more. The hybrid turned around with surprise, as if he didn't notice her presence by the light emission and conversing.
"Ai…" He was speechless, Shidou never intended to let any regular person see how weak he truly was inside. He even managed to keep up a strong front while protecting Ai, even though he was struggling not to cry long before he found her.
"Yo-you're not a failure…" Ai started.
"What?" Shidou's expression changed from depression to surprise, as did his sister's.
"You're not a failure. You saved me, despite all the problems I know I've caused you when I was ignorant to this spirit world. A-and if you hadn't taken out that Kurumi girl, she would've just feasted on thousands more when they left the shelters!" Ai was doing her best to continue, despite her own embarrassment.
"You've saved the whole city, and put up with drama at school, both including me. I'm sorry, thank you, Shidou. You're a hero." Ai finished and bowed, her face red as Kotori's hair. This was the very last thing he expected from her. But it helped a lot, and he was grateful for it. He stood up and walked over to her.
"Ai. Thank you. That really means a lot to me." Shidou gave a genuine smile, which was returned by the blonde. There was a comfortable silence until…
"Hoho, getting all lovey-dovey in front of your little sister, onii-chan?" Kotori broke the silence with a tease.
"Wha… N-n-no!"
Ai was too flustered to come up with a good response, and Shidou just whispered in Ai's ear.
"Don't let her get to you, she just wants attention because she felt left out- URGHH!" His words were quickly cut off by a drop-kick to the face from the blushing, short redhead. She couldn't think up any insults or smart remarks to counter his statement(since it was true), so this was the plan she came up with.
"Hmph!" She looked away and folded her arms.
"Oi! What kind of sister just attacks their brother because he understands them!?" Ai couldn't figure out how what Kotori did made any sense.
"It's his fault for understanding!" Kotori fumed.
"What kind of logic is that!? And he saved us all too!" The blonde didn't get it at all…
"Why do you care so much!? Jealous!?" Kotori taunted and stuck her tongue out.
"…This girl…" Ai was borderline gone mad at this point. Her face was red from pure, genuine anger and it took everything she had to contain it, even when she told herself to go easy because Kotori is still a younger girl. Shidou woke up at this moment.
"Urgh, that hurt Kotori… What'd you do that for?" The poor teen rubbed his head where the cement hit and wiped his bloody nose.
"It's because what you said was on poin- ow! That hurt you little..!" Ai was interrupted by the redhead's sharp karate chop again. As soon as the blonde was about to use the martial arts she studied on the short redhead, Shidou jumped in the middle of it.
"Hey hey! We just survived a massacre from the most powerful spirit alive! Shouldn't we be celebrating?" Shidou reasoned. The two bickering girls came to their senses and agreed.
"Kyouhei. Take us back to Fraxinus." Kotori demanded.
"Youkai!"
As the teleporter began to glow brilliantly, Shidou pulled Ai close to him, her head on his chest.
"Wha-!" Once again, she was cut off by the teleportation.
"Kotori, you know that was uncalled for." Shidou scolded. Ai was still pulled in, but the older brother didn't really notice.
"Sh-Shidou-san…" Ai stuttered.
"Look down, and you'll know why I did this." The blue-haired teen stated. Ai looked down, and saw a circle- the teleporter. She was barely on the edge of it. It didn't take long to figure out that Kotori meant for her to be left behind in the bloodied school. Her face turned a dark shade of red and she was about to explode when the boy holding on to her told her to calm down. He whispered:
"Kotori owns this ship and is the top dog among these people. The slightest hostile act towards her, and they'll consider you a threat." He was dead serious. Ai nodded nervously. Shidou noticed the spacequake alert being lifted and panicked.
"Crap! We need to teleport down now, before anyone gets out!" The only way down was by teleportation, use of spirit power to survive the fall, or fraxinus actually lowering down and dropping them off, all of which would've blown their cover if seen by a regular person. "
"Warp them down to my house!" Kotori ordered. In a split second Shidou was down with Ai. A random man saw them and yelled "PDA!" since they were still in the same position.
"Ah, sorry! I forgot!" Shidou apologized while dragging Ai by the hand and running to avoid the other people.
"Don't mention it."
"Ai."
"Hm?"
"Don't tell ANYONE what you've learned today, ever."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're sis made that painfully clear." Ai had a flashback to when Kotori was giving karate chops for ever wrongly answered question to see if the blonde was paying attention when Shidou's little sister was informing her about the spirits. Needless to say she got a good 50 or 60 of them.
"Ai, come on, I'll walk you home." Shidou stated.
"No, it's really fin-"
"Look around you." He interrupted.
"What're you tal-…" Ai looked around to see that they were in a dark alley, surrounded by motels and one strip club down the street before rapidly nodding.
"It's settled then. Lead the way."
"Okay." Her voice was shaky and she was clinging onto him so that predators would think they were together.
"Hey girl, why be with that scrawny loser when you can have a real man like me~" A steroid junkie flexed his bulging bicepts.
"Yaada!" Ai refused.
"Oh, playin' hard to get, I like that~ It won't get you anywhere around here, though." He grabbed her wrist and attempted to pull her, despite the fact that she was struggling.
"Let me go!"
"Oh come on, don't be like that sweetheart~"
"SHIDOUU!" The blonde screamed in panic. He grabbed the stranger's arm, and squeezed it hard enough to where cracks were audible.
"What the hell!?" The man struggled but to no avail.
"She's with me. Got it?" He tightened his grip, causing the gym rat to nearly scream.
"Got it! Now f**cking LET GO!" He now knew what it felt to be the helpless one, and Shidou decided that was enough, so he let the man go. The stranger went full sprint in the opposite direction.
"Why'd you wait so long to help me!?" Ai fumed.
"You're completely unaware of your surroundings."
"AM NOT!"
"Is that why you didn't evacuate with the others? Or that you didn't notice the teleporter range? Or that I needed to point out the place we were in when you denied my offer to walk you home?
"Nrgh…" Ai had no defense.
"I had to let this experience be upsetting so that something dangerous doesn't happen to you again in the future. That's twice that your lack of awareness almost got you killed." Shidou stated with a protective aura similar to that of when he saved her from Kurumi.
"Well I'm sorry for being so unaware…" The blonde looked down, she knew he was just worried about her.
"Don't worry about it. I won't let it get that far again, ok?" He put a hand on her shoulder reassuringly.
"Yeah…" Ai responded, a little bit less glum.
"Not to interrupt your little lovers' quarrel-"
"WHAT!?" Shidou once again had to calm Ai down. 'That redhead irritates me so much.' She thought.
Onii-chan, you know you're not supposed to be using your spirit strength against humans."
"But I didn't."
"Yeah you did. No way you're that strong."
"Oh really?" Shidou took off his shirt to show a perfectly toned, ripped body. He took a picture of himself and sent it to his sister. Immediately he heard a squirting sound.
"…Kotori?"
"I-I'm ok, onii-chan… N-nothing to worry about…"
"If you say so…?" Shidou decided that he had to protect Ai right now and hung up.
"Let's go, Ai." The girl was still tugging his shirt while looking at all the place and people with fear and disgust. When he talked, she looked at him and got a nosebleed immediately.
"Ai!" He crouched down to help her up.
"I-I'm alright…" The blonde stated as she stumbled back up.
"I swear, I'm missing something…" Shidou thought as he put his shirt back on. After 45 minutes, they arrived at Ai's house and parted ways.
"See ya tomorrow." Shidou said
"How do you know? Ai remembered all the corpses at the school.
"Uh, school?" The teen didn't understand what Ai was getting at.
"But that school should be closed now, right?
"No, a lot of students and all the teachers managed to get away safely. Too bad not all of them…" Shidou stated, his eyes starting to look glossy.
"Shidou-kun…"
"…What did you just call me?
"What do you mean?"
"You just called me Shidou-kun." Shidou didn't expect her to call him that for months to come. Ai didn't notice until he pointed it out. She started to blush.
"Well… I…" There was no excuse.
"It's fine, it's fine…" Shidou wanted to stop her from embarrassing herself any further, or else he wouldn't have been able to contain his laughter.
"I can call you that?"
"Sure, unless you still hate me after today?" He teased.
"Mouu, I said I was sorry about that…" Ai pouted, causing the blue-haired teen to chuckle.
"Yeah, you're right. Sorry. I'll be going now." It was getting late.
"See ya." The blonde waved to her new friend.
"Bye." Shidou waved and then jumped from building to building, taking advantage of the darkness so that his face and figure would never be seen clearly. Ai smiled at the sight, and then went into deep thought. "He's carrying so much weight on his shoulders, he's so amazing… I can't imagine how much frustration our trio has caused him." Ai recalled back to all the times that the trio stopped and harassed him when he looked like he was in a desperate rush. Soon, she checked her watch.
"TWELVE FIFTY!? Chikusho!" Ai ran into her bed room to get as much sleep as she could. It wasn't till she hit the sheets that Ai realized how tired she really was. "A lot's happened today, huh… Shidou-kun…"
Darkness.