Author's Note: My school term just started and writing time will be found when I'm not studying, in class, or choosing to crawl out of my room and be social. I'll try to update once a week or so, but I'm making no promises.

The Story So Far: Hunters have begun their attack and already find themselves changing their strategies. Hiruma is slowly beginning to question his heritage and existence.

Hidden

By: Bar-Ohki

Chapter 14: Possibly Revealed

Hiruma had always welcomed football practice, but today he was, for the first time in his life, sincerely grateful for it. Doing something normal on what had otherwise been a chaotic day was a much needed reprieve for the quarterback. Though he made a point to look unaffected by all the events of the day and appear like his usual demonic self, everyone on the team could see that he wasn't going at one hundred percent. No one commented and made a point to believe in Hiruma's lie that he was fine.

"Where's the fucking manager?" Hiruma demanded, glaring pointedly at Sena.

"I don't know." Sena answered truthfully. "I didn't see her at lunch either…."

"Tch." Hiruma frowned and stormed away. The quarterback was still very wound up by the day's events, it made him irritable. Thankfully, Hiruma had enough self-control to not take it out on his teammates if they weren't slacking, or in Sena's case, at fault.

"Hiruma-sempai," Kuroki started, "I think there's a disciplinary meeting today." Normally, Kuroki had no business knowing that piece of information, but he had over heard two of the other people talking about it in the hall, which allowed him to make an attempt to pacify an already extra-volatile Hiruma.

Hiruma nodded once in acknowledgement, recalling Mamori mentioning having to attend said meeting sometime not long after his encounter with the deranged woman. Hiruma then accepted the fact that Mamori would not be present today and continued to lead the rest of practice without any more difficulties.

Kurita was very thankful that the Hunters had decided to make themselves scarce after what had happened earlier. But the lineman found himself not very thankful to be under Hiruma's firry scrutiny.

"Fatty," Hiruma began, sounding extremely ominous, "you and the old man will be staying behind with me today."

"Okay." Kurita faintly wondered exactly what had transpired on the rooftop that day, he hadn't had the chance to talk about with Musashi.

At the end of practice everyone wanted to kill Doburoku for making them wear the masks (Hiruma included), but no one complained and just walked into the locker room without a word. Musashi and Kurita lagged behind, waiting to have a private moment with Hiruma.

"You both know about my stalkers." Hiruma stated, looking at both of his friends expectantly.

"Yes." Kurita admitted quickly.

"And fucking old man here," Hiruma jerked a thumb at Musashi, "told me that you could explain all this shit that's been happening recently."

"I can." Kurita admitted. "After I shower."

"Fine." Hiruma grunted, allowing his friends to go into the locker room and shower. Hiruma didn't join the team, instead he sat down and set out his plans to counter the Ballista. After a few seconds Hiruma threw his pencil across the room, embedding it into the door, having realized that it would be impossible to work on anything football-related while his mind was so wound up.

"Dammit." Hiruma growled in frustration. After taking several deep breaths in a vain attempt to calm himself, Hiruma decided to pull out his computer and make a list of all the strange shit that had happened to him that day.

'It started when that woman showed up.' Hiruma thought as he began to type. '…Why did she come?'

Hiruma stopped and thought about the woman, she had come with the intention of telling him something and began by addressing him as 'her son'. That's when Hiruma began staring at her, because that statement hadn't made a whole lot of sense to him at the time. But it didn't change the fact she had come, intending to tell him something.

'…And being an idiot, I chased her off before she could actually tell me.' Hiruma mentally kicked himself. He hadn't made a mistake like that in a long while. 'Maybe all this stalking shit is finally getting to me.'

Hiruma's fingers frozen suddenly while another thought crossed his mind; he had just written down a physical description of the woman and was staring at it.

'Pointy ears,' self-consciously, Hiruma touched his own, 'fangs,' with his tongue, Hiruma felt around his pointy teeth, 'bleach blond hair,' with a quick jerk Hiruma pulled a hair off his head and held it in his hand to look at.

'Her facial features are similar to mine too.' Hiruma's eyes widened, surprise covering all his features.

"What if she wasn't lying?" Hiruma couldn't help but to mutter out loud. Hearing his own voice echo the words made them more real in his mind. Hiruma shut his eyes and toyed with the idea of assuming the strange woman was his real mother.

'Yuuya resents me because I was born out of some affair he had.' Hiruma thought about all his previous interactions with his father. There had always been an underlying shame and hostility in his father's voice. 'And he wanted to change my appearance so that I'd look less like my mother.'

'That does explain a lot of things….' Hiruma decided it might not have been so far-fetched for the strange woman to be his birth mother. It was almost comforting to see that his birth defects hadn't just come out of nowhere, he'd inherited them.

'But what does this have to do with the fucking purple stalkers?' Hiruma couldn't help but to ponder. It was entirely possible that the woman had nothing to do with them, so Hiruma decided not to press the issue in his mind.

'What the hell is this 'magic' shit the old man was talking about?' Hiruma's eyes narrowed. 'Why does fatty know about it?'

'Fuck! Why the hell do I have stalkers in the first place!?' Hiruma glared at the computer as if the machine was somehow withholding the answers from him. After a few seconds of glaring Hiruma remembered that glaring at an inanimate object wasn't going to get anything done, so he set the computer aside and walked into the locker room.

He needed a shower more than anything else right now.

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I would like to remind you that Hiruma uses the shower to wash away stray thoughts and to unwind (see chapter 4). Please leave a review!