CHAPTER 11 – FLASHBACK CONTINUED
Sorry for the wait! This chapter was quite hard to write. It was actually one chapter, but it became too long, so I had to split it in two parts. This is Part 1.
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DISCLAIMER - I DO NOT OWN DURARARA.
CHAPTER 11 – FLASHBACK CONTINUED
Natasha wrapped her arms around herself, shielding herself from the wind blowing mercilessly. She silently cursed herself for choosing to wear a sleeveless blouse. She glanced up at Shizuo, who in all likelihood had not even felt the wind blowing. She had caught him sneaking glances at her earlier, and was tempted to his look his way as well, but remembered the isolation he'd had to face due to his super strength, and did not want to scare him off. He'd look stoically ahead when she looked at him, and turn his head towards her when he thought she wasn't looking. Natasha found it cute, and tried hard to hide the smile on her face.
Shizuo had a dilemma of thoughts running through his mind. So he'd asked her out for ramen, as per Kasuka's advice, but what now? Had he just asked her for lunch? Or was it a date? Were they dating? He looked towards her, and saw her trying to hide a smile. He felt his ckeeks heat up, and immediately turned away, huffing. There was no way she'd feel that way for him. She was pretty, very pretty, and deserved someone much better than him, someone who could control his temper much better, and wasn't blacklisted by people at first glance. Nevertheless, she seemed to have no qualms in being seen walking next to him. Add to the equation her superhuman abilities, like making things fly. Telekinesis, he reminded himself.
Was she his girlfriend now? Was he supposed to ask her to be one? Or was it understood? How was he supposed to do it? Get down on one knee? He thought, blushing, as he remembered a movie he'd once watched. No, that's for getting married. Arghh, damn it. I should've asked Kasuka for some more advice.
He was so lost in his frantic thoughts that he hadn't noticed that they'd reached the ramen shop. Natasha reached out and tugged at the bottom of his shirt, indicating to him that they'd reached, when he was going further. Shizuo's cheeks warmed at the gesture.
They gave their orders, and went to sit at a table meant for two people. It was a quaint place, and the shop was right on the footpath. But they served good food, and that was good enough for Shizuo.
Good enough for me, he repeated in his head. But obviously not the place for dates! Damn it, I should've asked Kasuka about the good restaurants in town!
But his worries were for naught. Natasha loved the place. Very different from Dublin. I like ramen a lot! It's a lovely place.
She didn't tell him that since she'd been alone for so long, she was fine with any sort of company. Especially with someone who was like her.
Shizuo heaved a sigh of relief, and they had a brief discussion about the weather.
It hadn't escaped Shizuo's knowledge that they hadn't really discussed his super strength and her telekinesis, ever since that first day the met. It was almost like an invisible line they had chosen not to cross. Shizuo had been fine with it in the beginning, but as he got to know her better, he found himself curious to know about her abilities too. Were her abilities dependent on her emotions as well? Did she find it difficult to control sometimes? How many people knew about her abilities? And why did she shift from Dublin to Tokyo so suddenly, in the middle of the school year?
There were a lot of thoughts floating around in his mind, and as he tried to keep a civil conversation with her, his right hand kept pressing down hard on the table, and in his frustration, he didn't even notice. Suddenly, he heard a creak. So did Natasha. When they looked down at his right hand, Shizuo realized that he had dented the table.
"Excuse me," he said gruffly getting up from his seat, "I'll just go to the bathroom," intending to go and splash his face with some water.
"Ah, sure!" said Natasha.
She stared after him as he got up, and walked almost angrily to the washroom. Was it something I said? She wondered.
Little did she know, it was what she hadn't said.
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"Pretty madame, how are you today?"
Natasha was startled out of her reverie by a tall man, slightly on the thinner side. He exuded an aura of confidence and arrogance. That, coupled with his poor attempt at broken English, implied that he fancied himself as a playboy.
Lifting the hat from his head in a smooth manner, he bowed down slightly, and said, "The name is Rokujo Chikage, better known as Rocchi. And you are?"
"N-Natasha Ascott." She said, curtly.
"Ah, is the pretty Natasha waiting for somebody? Or is this seat empty?" saying thus, Rokujo slid into the seat previously occupied by Shizuo. Natasha's first instinct was to raise her eyebrows, and hurriedly tell him off, not wanting Shizuo to create a ruckus. But she realized that they weren't technically on a date, and decided to hold her tongue. Although she was tempted to whack him on the head with the salt shaker. The arrogant, know-it-all attitude pissed her off.
But she contained her emotions, and smiled politely, telling him that no, she wasn't alone, and that she had a friend with her.
"But she isn't here, is she?"
No, she wasn't, and had gone to the bathroom. And her friend was male.
"Your boyfriend?"
Natasha blushed inadvertently, she looked away. Rokujo smiled knowingly, and was about to say something when he felt his shirt collar being pulled up. The next thing he knew, he was up in the air, legs dangling over the chair, being held by the collar by a very pissed off blonde.
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After the incident, when he was considerably calmer, Shizuo would ask himself the reason for his anger. The fact that another guy occupied his seat? What was he, five years old?
Was it because the guy ooozed raw charisma, and knew how to talk to a girl without thinking twice about every spoken word?
Or was he jealous?
He asked himself these questions after he was done throwing Rokujo into the wall of the ramen shop. Natasha did not even have the time to react.
A glance to the right, on the other side of the road, with his trademark smirk, stood Izaya Orihara.
That was when Natasha's eyes widened, and once she put two and two together, she ran across the street towards him.
"Oh my god, man, are you tough!" said Rokujo, his voice slightly nasal due to the heavy blow against the wall. "Was I flirting with your girlfriend? I had no clue about that!"
Shizuo's cheeks became warm. Girlfriend? Were they on a date? Is that how they looked like? And he'd ruined it all by beating up a guy. Great. But wait, it wasn't a date, was it?
Rokujo, meanwhile, kept on rambling, "I'm sorry, I ain't the type to flirt with another man's girl, you know. But she hadn't said anything, so I assumed she wasn't taken. I apologize," he said, with a crooked smile.
Shizuo felt a bit stung, but realised she was obviously not obligated to have said anything of the sort to him. He was about to apologize for throwing him into a wall for no real fault of his, when saw Natasha run across the road, towards a guy sporting an all-knowing smirk.
"Izayaaaaa….." rumbled Shizuo's deep baritone.
"Ah, yes. That's the guy who asked me to go flirt with the pretty red head."
That't it. Izaya was going to die today.
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Natasha sprinted after Izaya, determined to catch him and figure out why in the world did he like taunting her so much. Never before she had been affected so negatively by man, not even Yagiri pharmaceuticals came close to infuriating her as much as Izaya did. Yes, they were interested in her abilities, but they never bothered to hide their intentions – their aim was to experiment on her and make profit. That much was clear.
Izaya's motives, on the hand, were a mystery. He had first seen her push an out-of-control car out of its en route collision with an oil tanker, on the way back from school. Ordinary passerbys did not pay too much attention to her, concerned as they were about the car and its owner who had crashed into a grocery store. She wasn't strong enough to lift the car, and it would have been very suspicious if she did. So that's why she did what she did, push it out of harm's way.
But at the time her telekinetic abilities were not as developed as they were in the present time, and she did need her hands to stabilize the motion of objects. So when she moved her hands in the direction that at the car had been thrown into, Izaya's curiousity was piqued. No way the motion of the car and those of her hands were coincidental. She was someone who could manipulate motions of objects. A telekinetic.
The next day, Izaya confronted her, outright. He left a note in her locker, asking her to come up to the terrace of the building after school, or he would start talking. Natasha, rightly afraid, but determined not to let him see it, marched right up to the terrace, and waited patiently for twenty minutes, after which Izaya showed up.
"Sorry for the delay, Tasha-chan, club activities ran late today," he had said, in a tone indicating the exact opposite. The sneaky bastard had, in all likelihood, enjoyed watching her squirm, until she was close to breaking point. Well, too bad for him, because Natasha had decided she was going to give information as vague as possible, and leave immediately. She wasn't too bothered by him, to be honest. Although the nickname he had for her made her eyebrow twitch in annoyance. Anyhow, even if he did talk, people would consider him delusional and not believe him too much.
In a smooth move, one which Natasha would not have been able to decipher had she not been a mutant, he flicked out a knife and ran towards, aiming to harm. Her survival instincts kicked in, and she held out her arms, controlling Izaya's arm movements. Izaya's face lit up, and he pulled his arms back, smiling widely. Natasha frowned at his actions, but did not lower her guard.
"So my suspicions were indeed correct, you aren't the normal human you pretend to be."
"What do you intend to do with these suspicions of yours?" she asked, her voice emitting false bravado.
"Nothing, really." He shrugged. "But the fact that you're strong enough the divert a car from its course. That's a really interesting piece of information." Smirking, he added, "But I do wonder what Yagiri Pharmaceuticals intends to do with these suspicions-turned-facts of mine."
Natasha's blood ran cold. The company knew that she was a telekinetic, and she did provide them with demonstrations from time to when she did show them her abilities, she would downplay them tremendously. She down purposely shake the glass when she lifted, and displayed false weakness when she got tired of their demands. But if they realised she was actually stronger than she let on, things would get dodgier with them.
They said they were trying to find a cure for the mutant gene, and her mother was only too glad to help. According to her, her mutations were a curse, and she would be better off without them. Natasha, however, wasn't sure of her own opinions on them.
But she what she did know, was that she did not approve of their conniving methods to lure her mother into giving her up for experimentation.
She extracted the knife from Izaya's hand and levitated it against the latter's throat, and such that it was in contact with his skin. Not enough pressure to draw blood, but enough to do so if he pressed any more of her buttons.
"Do you intend to tell them?"
"What if I did? Would you kill me?"
She raised her eyebrows, but did not comment on that, opting to continue holding the knife steadily against Izaya's throat. It gave her something solid to focus on, and reinstated the belief in her that her family should be safe, no matter what price the offender had to pay.
"I haven't decided on that."
Izaya smiled sadistically. "An ordinary human would be reduced to pitiful state of tears by now, begging to keep the secret. You, even by human standards, surpass my expectations. You intrigue me."
Natasha did not dignify his observation with a comment, nor did she alter her determined expression.
Izaya sighed at the lack of response, and continued," Tasha-chan, to be perfectly honest, I haven't yet decided on my course of action. You pique my interest like no other, by natural, and by supernatural standards. But," he narrowed his eyes and said, "I do not intend to talk so soon, I can assure you of that."
Saying thus, he took advantage of the spilt second Natasha had released the pressure on his neck, and leapt gracefully of the building, onto the water tanker, the oncoming truck, and finally the road. He waved at her, and skipped his way home.
Natasha shook her head. She had no clue what to do with the guy. But she hoped she had been able to get the message across. Cause my family any harm and you will rue the day you were born.
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As Natasha chased him down the alley, she cursed herself for letting down her guard near him. She ran after him, but Izaya was faster. Not to mention Izaya had started training in parkour and was gracefully leaping over signboards and parked cars. Natasha was tempted to simply lift those obstacles and throw them aside (sans the cars, she wasn't enough to lift them unfortunately) but understood that they were in public and restrained herself, going after him the old-fashioned way.
Shizuo however was less subtle. He'd yelled "IZAYAAAA!" three times by now, and was throwing whichever inanimate object was unlucky enough to come before him. Natasha was trying to avoid them, but it was difficult to levitate and chase Izaya at the same time. She understood that Shizuo was not in his right frame of mind, and that when he finally did come to his senses, he would regret his actions, but for now, she really needed to talk to Izaya.
Suddenly Izaya ran into an alley which exited onto the main road and leapt over a truck. Natasha stopped just in time from being run over, but Shizuo, who'd now caught upto them, wasn't nearly as lucky. He ran headfirst onto the road, holding a car which had been parked on the side of the street, over his head.
And tossed it onto the busy road in rage.
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Aaaand that's part one. Part one should come out in some time.
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